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Technology: Top Risks for Tech Companies in 2009
BDO Seidman examined the top 100 public high technology company 10-K reports to try to uncover the most common risks identified.
Here is their list of the top 20 concerns of these companies and how the individual risks have changed since last year. Higher in the rankings this year are concerns about the general state of the US economy and gyrations that might occur in the stock market.
Concerns about regulatory compliance have dropped from second ranked last year to 9th this year.
| 2008 Rank | ||||||||
| 1. | Competition and consolidation in technology sector | 97% | 1 | |||||
| 2. | Failure to develop or market new products/services | 91% | 5 | |||||
| 3. | Risks associated with international operations | 90% | 4 | |||||
| 4. | Management of current and future M&A or divestitures | 86% | 3 | |||||
| 5. | Intellectual property infringement | 86% | 6 | |||||
| 6. | U.S. general economic conditions | 85% | 7 | |||||
| 7. | Cyclical revenue (and subsequent fluctuating stock price) | 83% | 11 | |||||
| 8. | Inability to attract or retain personnel, incl. management | 82% | 8 | |||||
| 9. | Changes to Federal, State and Local regulations, incl. tax | 81% | 2 | |||||
| 10. | U.S. and foreign supplier/vendor concerns | 78% | 13 | |||||
| 11. | Legal proceedings | 68% | 10 | |||||
| 12. | Predicting customer demand | 62% | 15 | |||||
| 13. | Accounting, internal controls and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance | 62% | 19 | |||||
| 14. | Natural disasters, war, conflicts and terrorist attacks | 60% | Not ranked | |||||
| 15. | Product liability, quality and safety issues | 58% | 12 | |||||
| 16. | Disruption of distribution of products/services | 52% | Not ranked | |||||
| 17. | Pressures on pricing, margins and cost cutting | 51% | 9 | |||||
| 18. | Indebtedness | 50% | 20 | |||||
| 19. | Inability to acquire capital or financing | 42% | 14 | |||||
| 20. | Inability to maintain operational infrastructure and systems | 41% | Not ranked |
