The filing mentions that the company continues to focus on scaling and integrating recent acquisitions, providing growth opportunities across solution offerings. This indicates a strategic focus on leveraging acquisitions for future growth.

During the first quarter of 2024, the Company committed to additional actions under the 2022 Productivity Plan which will bring the total expected cost of the Programs to approximately $130 million. The Programs are expected to impact over 9% of our global employee base and are estimated to result in annualized net cost savings of approximately $120 million, primarily within Operating expenses.

In the second quarter of 2023, our advanced location technology solutions business, which is primarily comprised of RFID devices and RTLS offerings, moved from our EVM segment into our AIT segment contemporaneous with a change in our organizational structure and management of the business.

The filing indicates that the company has been partially mitigating the financial impacts of operating headwinds through a combination of cost management actions and targeted list price increases. This demonstrates proactive management in response to market conditions.

Throughout 2023, we also experienced an overall improvement in both component part availability and costs of transportation, which enabled us to better meet customer demand as compared to the prior year.

This commitment directly shapes our approach to fostering a culture of inclusion and diversity to drive innovation and enables employees to reach their potential.

The Company is vulnerable to the potential difficulties associated with the increase in the complexity of our business. We have expanded operations and customer offerings over the last several years both organically and through acquisitions. This has caused increased complexities in the business.

To be successful, we must adapt to rapidly changing technological and application needs by continually improving our products and solutions, as well as introducing new products, solutions, and services, to address user demands.

Risks associated with operations, sales, and purchases include: Fluctuating foreign currency rates could restrict sales, increase costs of purchasing, and affect collection of receivables outside of the U.S.

Competitors may be able to respond more quickly to new or emerging technology and changes in customer requirements. The markets that we serve are rapidly evolving and highly competitive.

We believe the size and scope of our operations, including market leadership, product and solution development investment, portfolio breadth, and global distribution, give us advantages over our competitors.

We believe we compete effectively with respect to these factors.

As compared to the prior year, Gross margin was significantly higher in our AIT segment, while Gross margin in our EVM segment was modestly lower. Both segments, particularly AIT, benefited from lower premium freight and component part costs compared to the prior year, and were negatively impacted by volume deleveraging, particularly EVM.

While maintaining our strong balance sheet, we intend to continue to improve profitability and cash flow generation through operational execution and increased productivity derived from continuous business process improvement, supply chain resiliency, cost management, and focus on working capital efficiency.

Excluding the $372 million settlement charge in the prior year, Operating expenses would have been 29.8% of Net sales. The increase as a percentage of Net sales over the prior year reflects the impact of expense deleveraging.

The Company devotes significant resources to developing innovative solutions for our target markets and ensuring that our products, solutions, and services maintain high levels of reliability and provide value to end-users.

Research and development expenditures for the years ended 2023, 2022 and 2021 were $519 million, $570 million and $567 million, or 11.3%, 9.9% and 10.1% of Net sales, respectively.

As of December 31, 2023, the Company owned approximately 1,800 trademark registrations and trademark applications, and approximately 6,800 patents and patent applications, worldwide.

We repurchased $52 million of common shares in the current year compared to $751 million in the prior year.

We also expect to spend approximately $80 million to $90 million on capital expenditures in 2024.

In addition to the expected cash requirements described above, the Company may use cash to fund strategic acquisitions, investments, or repurchase common stock under its share repurchase program.

Initiatives within these priorities are advanced by our cross-functional Sustainability Council, with executive sponsorship and board oversight.

We also focus on waste reduction, circular economy product innovation with certified refurbished devices, eco-packaging and sustainable product design.

We intend to continue participating in such indices into 2024 to inform the choices we make on inclusive policies and practices.

The use of wireless voice, data, and video communications systems requires radio spectrum, which is regulated by government agencies throughout the world.

The need for companies to improve productivity and implement their strategies, as well as the secular trends around IoT, cloud computing, automation, and mobility, are some of the factors that are creating growth opportunities for established and new competitors.

On March 5, 2022, we suspended our business operations in Russia. While this suspension has not had, and is not expected to have, a material impact on our operating results, it is not possible to predict the broader or long-term consequences of the war between Russia and Ukraine.