EGHT 8X8 Inc

Risks

• Risks Related to our Business and Industry
• We have a history of losses, have incurred significant negative cash flows in the past, and anticipate continuing losses in the future. As such, we may not be able to achieve or maintain profitability in the future.
• Our future operating results, including our future revenues, expenditures, losses and profits, may vary substantially from period to period and may be difficult to predict. As a result, we may fail to meet or to exceed the expectations of market analysts or investors, which could negatively impact our stock price.
• COVID-19 and any economic difficulty it triggers could significantly harm our business.
• We experience customer churn that adversely impacts our revenues and requires us to spend money to maintain our existing customer base. If we experience further increases in customer churn in the future, our revenue growth will be further adversely impacted and our customer retention costs may increase.
• Our success depends on our ability to acquire new customers, and to retain and sell additional services to our existing customers.
• Intense competition for new customers and retaining existing customers (including pricing pressure) in the markets in which we compete may prevent us from increasing or sustaining our revenue growth, or achieving and maintaining profitability, which could materially harm our business.
• Our success in the cloud communications market depends in part on our ability to expand and enhance our marketing and sales capabilities, and to develop and maintain effective channels for the sale of our services. If we are not successful in these efforts, we may not be able to increase our revenue in future periods at the rate we predict, or at all.
• Our future revenue growth depends on our ability to hire, develop, and retain our direct sales force as well as our internal channel sales and marketing teams.
• Failure to grow and manage our network of indirect sales channels partners could materially and adversely impact our revenues in the future.
• As we increase sales to enterprise customers, our sales process has become more complex and resource-intensive, our average sales cycle has become longer, and we have more difficulty predicting when sales will be completed.
• If the emerging market for cloud communications services does not continue to grow, our future business could be harmed.
• The market for cloud software solutions is subject to rapid technological change, and we depend on new product and service introductions in order to maintain and grow our business.
• We may have difficulty attracting or retaining senior management and other personnel with the industry experience and technical skills necessary to support our growth.
• Workforce reductions may not be effective in reducing our operating costs, might have unintended consequences, and could negatively impact our business.
• Taxing authorities may successfully assert that we should have collected or in the future should collect sales and use, value added, or similar taxes, including where similar services from competitors may not be subject to the same obligations to collect taxes from customers, and we could be subject to liability with respect to past or future sales, which could adversely affect our business.
• Our ability to use our net operating losses or research tax credits to offset future taxable income may be subject to certain limitations.
• Risks Related to our Products and Operations
• If we are unable to migrate our customers to our newer X Series suite of services in a timely and efficient manner, we may experience higher customer churn rates, which will adversely impact our revenues and require us to spend more money to acquire and grow our revenue.
• If our platform or services experience significant or repeated disruptions, outages or failures due to defects, bugs, vulnerabilities or similar software problems, or if we fail to determine the cause of any disruption or failure and correct it promptly, we could lose customers, become subject to service performance or warranty claims or incur significant costs, reducing our revenues and adversely affecting our operating results.
• Our physical infrastructure is concentrated in a few facilities and any failure in our physical infrastructure or service outages could lead to significant costs and/or disruptions and could reduce our revenue, harm our business reputation and have a material adverse effect on our financial results.
• Because our long-term growth strategy involves continued expansion outside the United States, our business will be susceptible to risks associated with international operations.
• We face risks related to acquisitions now (such as our acquisition of Wavecell Pte. Ltd. in fiscal 2020) and in the future that may divert our management's attention, result in dilution to our stockholders and consume resources that are necessary to sustain and grow our existing business.
• Vulnerabilities to security breaches, cyber intrusions and other malicious acts could adversely impact our business.
• Depending on the evolving nature of cyber threats, we may have to significantly increase our investment in maintaining the security of our networks and data, be exposed to significant liability in the event of a cyber breach, or potentially increase the price of our services, and our profitability may be adversely impacted.
• We could be liable for breaches of security on our website, fraudulent activities by our users, or the failure of third-party vendors to deliver credit card transaction processing services.
• If we do not or cannot maintain the compatibility of our communications and collaboration software with third-party applications and mobile platforms that our customers use in their businesses, our revenue could decline.
• Failure of our back-end information technology systems to function properly could result in significant business disruption.
• We depend on third-party vendors for IP phones and certain software endpoints, and any delay or interruption in supply by these vendors would result in delayed or reduced shipments to our customers and may harm our business.
• Difficulty executing local number porting requests could negatively impact our business.
• Natural disasters, war, terrorist attacks, global pandemics or malicious conduct, among other unforeseen events, could adversely impact our operations, could degrade or impede our ability to offer services, and may negatively impact our financial condition, revenues and costs going forward.
• If we fail to establish and maintain proper and effective internal control over financial reporting, our operating results and our ability to operate our business could be harmed.
• Changes in financial accounting standards or practices may cause adverse, unexpected financial reporting fluctuations and affect our reported operating results.
• Risks Related to Regulatory Matters
• Failure to comply with laws and contractual obligations related to data privacy and protection could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.
• Our products and services must comply with industry standards, FCC regulations, state, local, country-specific and international regulations, and changes may require us to modify existing services, potentially increase our costs or prices we charge customers, and otherwise harm our business.
• If we are not able to meet new requirements to auto-locate E-911 calls, we could be exposed to significant liability or suffer competitive harm.
• Failure of our solutions to comply with outbound dialing regulations could harm our business.
• Efforts to address robo-calling and caller ID spoofing could cause us competitive harm.
• Risks Related to Intellectual Property
• Our infringement of a third party's proprietary technology could disrupt our business.
• Inability to protect our proprietary technology would disrupt our business.
• Our inability to use software licensed from third parties, or our use of open source software under license terms that interfere with our proprietary rights, could disrupt our business.
• Risks Related to our Debt, our Stock, and our Charter
• We may not be able to secure financing on favorable terms, or at all, to meet our future capital needs.
• Servicing our debt, including the paying down of principal, requires the use of cash, and we may not have sufficient cash flow from our business to pay down our substantial debt.
• We may not have the ability to raise the funds necessary to settle conversions of the notes in cash or to repurchase the notes upon a fundamental change, and our future debt may contain limitations on our ability to pay cash upon conversion or repurchase of the notes.
• The conditional conversion feature of the notes, if triggered, may adversely affect our financial condition and operating results.
• The accounting method for convertible debt securities that may be settled in cash, such as the notes, could have a material effect on our reported financial results.
• The capped call transactions entered into in connection with our sale of notes may affect the market value of our common stock.
• Future sales of our common stock or equity-linked securities in the public market could lower the market price of our common stock.
• If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, or if they change their recommendations regarding our stock adversely, our stock price and trading volume could be negatively impacted.
• Certain provisions in our charter documents and Delaware law could discourage takeover attempts.