Ken Ehrman
Analyst · Griffin Securities. Your line is now open
Good afternoon. Welcome to ID Systems' 2nd Quarter 2015 conference call. My name is Ken Ehrman, ID Systems' President and CEO. Before we begin the call, I'd like to provide ID Systems' Safe Harbor statement that includes cautions regarding forward-looking statements made during this call. During the call, there will be forward-looking statements made regarding future events including ID Systems' future financial performance. All statements are in present and historical facts which include any statements regarding the Company's plans for future operations, anticipated future financial position, anticipated results of operation, business strategy, competitive position, company's expectation regarding opportunities for growth, demand for the company's product offering and other industry trends are considered forward-looking statements. Such statements include but are not limited to the company's financial expectations for the remainder of 2015 and beyond. All such forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond the company's control. The company's actual results, performance or achievements may differ materially from those projected or assumed by any forward-looking statements. Fact is that it could cause actual results to differ materially, could include amongst others, SEC filings, overall economic and business conditions, demand for our products and services, competitor facts, emergence of new technologies and the company's cash position. We do not intend and undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances. Joining me for today's call is our CFO, Ned Mavrommatis and our Chief Operating Officer, Norm Ellis. Following their remarks, we will open the call up for questions. I would like to remind everyone that the call is recorded and made available for replay via link on the website. After the market close, we issued our results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2015 in a press release, a copy of which is available in the investors' section of our website. The second quarter reflected both the progress we are making in our strategic transition as well as the challenges we are committed to solving. While our TAM and rental car businesses were in line with expectations, the sales and deployment of our new VAC 4 VMS product were significantly lower than expected. During the rollout of the VAC 4 with early adopters, we learned that we needed to make adjustments to the hardware and the firmware to meet the diverse requirements. As I will describe in detail later, we have made changes during the quarter to our sales approach and channel strategy so we can scale efficiently, focus on larger opportunities and rely on our channel partners to more efficiently serve the lower volume market. While these necessary changes resulted in a near-term shortfall of unit sales, this renewed focus is intended to deliver higher sales at a higher gross margin with the smaller but targeted sales and marketing team. Furthermore, to meet these challenges and ensure our customers realize the return on investment of our VMS system with much fewer obstacles than in the past, we made the strategic decision to invest the time and engineering required in our product and processes, so that significantly fewer resources will be needed in the future to effectively install, utilize and benefit from our system. During the quarter, our engineers, program managers, performance engineers and sales team were largely dedicated to this effort, working closely with the customers of the original VAC 4 shipments to address their varying needs. We have grown to nearly 270 named VMS accounts, many of which will be now more efficiently served by our channel partners, thereby curtailing our internal resource requirements. To illustrate this, in Q1 only 6 VMS customers out of approximately a 100 provided more than $100,000 of revenue. In Q2, only 10 customers out of roughly 130 provided more than $100,000 of revenue. As a result, we will focus exclusively on customers and prospects with a clear path to more than 150 units. Smaller customers will be serviced by our channel partners, Raymond and Toyota. This change should allow us to both reduce costs and at the same time provide even better support to customers with the highest growth potential, ultimately dramatically increasing our revenue per employee. I am as confident as ever that we have a great product with a proven return on investment and there is no reason we should not be profitable. Additionally, now that we’ve completed the I.D. Systems 2.0 initiatives, it’s time to get a return on our investments. Accordingly, we are reducing our headcount by more than 20% across each department and at all levels of the company. Specifically, we have reduced 26 full time employees and eliminated all outside consultants. In addition, management bonuses have not been paid in 2015 and will only be paid upon achieving both revenue and earnings targets. We are completely committed to ensuring the success of I.D. Systems 2.0, it’s time to start achieving the return on our investment, our customers, employees, shareholders including myself, expect and deserve. I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Ned Mavrommatis, who will take us through the financial details for the quarter and then Norm Ellis, our Chief Operating Officer will provide an update on the customer front.