We are a leading provider of voice recognition and natural language understanding
solutions. We work with companies around the world, from banks and hospitals
to airlines, telecommunications carriers, and automotive manufacturers and suppliers,
who use our solutions and technologies to create better experiences for their
customers and their users by enhancing the users interaction, increasing productivity
and customer satisfaction. We offer our customers high accuracy in automated
speech recognition, capabilities for natural language understanding("NLU"),
dialog and information management, biometric speaker authentication, text-to-speech,
optical character recognition ("OCR") capabilities, and domain knowledge,
along with professional services and implementation support. In addition, our
solutions increasingly utilize our innovations in artificial intelligence ("AI"),
including cognitive sciences and machine learning to create smarter, more natural
experiences with technology. Using advanced analytics and algorithms, our technologies
create personalized experiences and transform the way people interact with information
and the technology around them. We market and sell our solutions and technologies
around the world directly through a dedicated sales force, through our e-commerce
website, and also through a global network of resellers, including system integrators,
independent software vendors, value-added resellers, distributors, hardware
vendors, and telecommunications carriers.
We are a global organization steeped in research and development. We have 2,000
language scientists, developers, and engineers dedicated to continually refining
our technologies and advancing our portfolio to better meet our customers’
diverse and changing needs. We have more than 60 international operating locations
and a sales presence in more than 79 countries. We were incorporated under the
laws of the State of Delaware in 1992 and our corporate headquarters is located
in Burlington, Massachusetts, with international headquarter in Dublin, Ireland.
We have large addressable vertical markets, and we focus on growth by providing
industry-leading, value-add solutions for our customers and partners through
a broad set of flexible technologies, solutions, and service offerings available
directly and through our channel capabilities. The key elements of our strategy
include:
Maintain global leadership in all of our major markets and solutions areas.
We have historically targeted markets where we benefit from strong technology,
sales and vertical market differentiation. Today, we enjoy a prominent position
in the markets we serve, where we are considered one of the leading providers
of voice recognition and NLU. We invest considerable time and resources to ensure
we maintain this position through customer satisfaction, technology leadership,
deep domain experience and market specialization.
Maintain depth in technology, intellectual property and innovation portfolio.
We have built a world-class portfolio of intellectual property, technologies,
applications and solutions through both internal development and acquisitions.
We expect to continue to pursue opportunities to expand our assets, geographic
presence, distribution network and customer base through acquisitions of other
businesses and technologies. We continue to strengthen our core technologies
in voice and language, and expand our offerings through research and innovations
in AI, including cognitive computing and machine learning.
Continue to expand our extensive network of global operations, distribution
and services networks. We market and sell our solutions and technologies directly
through a dedicated sales force, through our e-commerce website and also through
a global network of resellers, including system integrators, independent software
vendors, value-added resellers, distributors, hardware vendors, and telecommunications
carriers. In addition, we continue to expand our presence within our markets,
such as mobile operators in our Mobile segment, ambulatory markets in our Healthcare
segment and new customer services channels in our Enterprise segment, and we
have expanded initiatives in geographic markets such as China, Latin America
and Southeast Asia.
Continue to expand hosting and transaction-based offerings. We continue to be
focused on increasing our hosting and transaction-based offerings. Our hosting
revenues are generated through on-demand models that typically have multi-year
terms with pricing based on volume of usage, number of transactions, number
of seats or number of devices. This pricing structure allows customers to use
our products at a lower initial cost when compared to the sale of a perpetual
license. This will enable us to deliver applications that our customers use,
and pay for, on a recurring basis, providing us with the opportunity to enjoy
the benefits of recurring revenue streams.
Maintain significant presence and customer preference in our markets. We specialize
in creating large, enterprise-class solutions that are used by many of the world’s
largest companies. By combining our core technology, professional services,
local presence and deep domain experience, we are able to deliver these customized
offerings for our customers and partners. We have established a trusted position
in numerous markets and today work with a majority of the Fortune 100 companies.
Strengthen financial profile with improvement in revenue, earnings per share,
margin, and cash flow. We are focused on improving our financial performance,
by further executing upon identified strategic initiatives, further evolving
our business toward recurring revenue models, all of which are positioning us
for increased future revenue and profitability growth.
We are organized into four segments: Healthcare, Mobile, Enterprise, and Imaging.
See Note 19 to the consolidated financial statements for additional information
about our reportable segments. We offer our solutions and technologies to our
customers in a variety of ways, including hosted cloud-based solutions, perpetual
licenses, implementation and custom solution development services and maintenance
and support. Our product revenues include embedded original equipment manufacturer
("OEM") royalties, traditional perpetual licensing, term-based licensing
and consumer sales. Our hosting, royalty, term license and maintenance and support
revenues are recurring in nature as our customers use our products on an ongoing
basis to handle their needs in medical transcription, medical coding and compliance,
enterprise customer service and mobile connected services. Our professional
services offer a visible revenue stream, as we have a backlog of assignments
that take time to complete.