ROK, §1A diff (2015 → 2016)

Item 1A. Risk Factors In the ordinary course of our business, we face various strategic, operating, compliance and financial risks. These risks could have an impact on our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flows. Our most significant risks are set forth below and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Our Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) process seeks to identify and address significant risks. Our ERM process uses the integrated risk framework in Internal Control - Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO) to assess, manage, and monitor risks. We believe that risk-taking is an inherent aspect of the pursuit of our growth and performance strategy. Our goal is to manage risks prudently rather than avoiding risks. We can mitigate risks and their impact on the Company only to a limited extent. A team of senior executives prioritizes identified risks and assigns an executive to address each major identified risk area and lead action plans to manage risks. Our Board of Directors provides oversight of the ERM process and reviews significant identified risks. The Audit Committee of the Board of Directors also reviews significant financial risk exposures and the steps management has taken to monitor and manage them. Our other Board committees also play a role in risk management, as set forth in their respective charters. Our goal is to proactively manage risks in a structured approach in conjunction with strategic planning, with the intent to preserve and enhance shareowner value. However, the risks set forth below and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and other risks and uncertainties could cause our results to vary materially from recent results or from our anticipated future results and could adversely affect us. Adverse changes in business or industry conditions and volatility and disruption of the capital and credit markets may result in decreases in our sales and profitability. We are subject to macroeconomic cycles and when recessions occur, we may experience reduced orders, payment delays, supply chain disruptions or other factors as a result of the economic challenges faced by our customers, prospective customers and suppliers. Demand for our products is sensitive to changes in levels of industrial production and the financial performance of major industries that we serve. As economic activity slows, credit markets tighten, or sovereign debt concerns linger, companies tend to reduce their levels of capital spending, which could result in decreased demand for our products. Our ability to access the credit markets, and the related costs of these borrowings, is affected by the strength of our credit rating and current market conditions. If our access to credit, including the commercial paper market, is adversely affected by a change in market conditions or otherwise, our cost of borrowings may increase or our ability to fund operations may be reduced. A substantial portion of our sales are to customers outside the U.S. and we are subject to the risks of doing business in many countries. We do business in more than 80 countries around the world. Approximately 45 percent of our sales in 2015 were to customers outside the U.S. In addition, many of our manufacturing operations, suppliers and employees are located in many places around the world. The future success of our business depends in large part on growth in our sales in non-U.S. markets. Our global operations are subject to numerous financial, legal and operating risks, such as political and economic instability; prevalence of corruption in certain countries; enforcement of contract and intellectual property rights and compliance with existing and future laws, regulations and policies, including those related to tariffs, investments, taxation, trade controls, product content and performance, employment and repatriation of earnings. In addition, we are affected by changes in foreign currency exchange rates, inflation rates and interest rates. New legislative and regulatory actions could adversely affect our business. Legislative and regulatory action may be taken in the various countries and other jurisdictions where we operate that may affect our business activities in these countries or may otherwise increase our costs to do business. For example, we are increasingly required to comply with various environmental and other material, product, certification, labeling and customer requirements. These requirements could increase our costs and could potentially have an adverse effect on our ability to ship our products into certain jurisdictions. Our customers may also be required to comply with such legislative and regulatory requirements. Changes in these requirements could impact demand for our products, solutions and services. An inability to respond to changes in customer preferences could result in decreased demand for our products. Our success depends in part on our ability to anticipate and offer products that appeal to the changing needs and preferences of our customers in the various markets we serve. Developing new products requires high levels of innovation, and the development process is often lengthy and costly. If we are not able to anticipate, identify, develop and market products that respond to changes in customer preferences, demand for our products could decline. Failures or security breaches of our products or information technology systems could have an adverse effect on our business. We rely heavily on information technology (IT) both in our products, solutions and services for customers and in our enterprise IT infrastructure in order to achieve our business objectives. Government agencies and security experts have warned about growing risks of hackers, cyber-criminals, malicious insiders and other actors targeting every type of IT system including industrial control systems such as those we sell and service and corporate enterprise IT systems. These actors may engage in fraud, theft of confidential or proprietary information and sabotage. Our portfolio of hardware and software products, solutions and services and our enterprise IT systems may be vulnerable to damage or intrusion from a variety of attacks including computer viruses, worms or other malicious software programs. These attacks pose a risk to the security of the products, systems and networks of our customers, suppliers and third-party service providers, as well to the confidentiality of our information and the integrity and availability of our data. While we attempt to mitigate these risks through controls, due diligence, training, surveillance and other measures, we remain vulnerable to information security threats. Despite the precautions we take, an intrusion or infection of software, hardware or a system that we sold or serviced could result in the disruption of our customers’ business, loss of proprietary or confidential information, or injuries to people or property. Similarly, an attack on our enterprise IT system could result in theft or disclosure of trade secrets or other intellectual property or a breach of confidential customer or employee information. Any such events could have an adverse impact on sales, harm our reputation and cause us to incur legal liability and increased costs to address such events and related security concerns. As the threats evolve and become more potent, we may incur additional costs to secure the products, solutions and services that we sell, as well as our data and infrastructure of networks and devices. There are inherent risks in our solutions and services businesses. Risks inherent in the sale of solutions and services include assuming greater responsibility for successfully delivering projects that meet a particular customer specification, including defining and controlling contract scope, efficiently executing projects and managing the performance and quality of our subcontractors and suppliers. If we are unable to manage and mitigate these risks, we could incur cost overruns, liabilities and other losses that would adversely affect our results of operations. Our industry is highly competitive. We face strong competition in all of our market segments in several significant respects. We compete based on breadth and scope of our product portfolio and solution and service offerings, technology differentiation, product performance, quality of our products, solutions and services, knowledge of integrated systems and applications that address our customers’ business challenges, pricing, delivery and customer service. The relative importance of these factors differs across the markets and product areas that we serve. We seek to maintain acceptable pricing levels by continually developing advanced technologies for new products and product enhancements and offering complete solutions for our customers’ business problems. If we fail to keep pace with technological changes or to provide high quality products, solutions and services, we may experience price erosion and correspondingly lower sales and margins. We expect the level of competition to remain high in the future, which could limit our ability to maintain or increase our market share or profitability. We face the potential harms of natural disasters, pandemics, acts of war, terrorism, international conflicts or other disruptions to our operations. Natural disasters, pandemics, acts or threats of war or terrorism, international conflicts, political instability and the actions taken by governments could cause damage to or disrupt our business operations, our suppliers or our customers, and could create economic instability. Although it is not possible to predict such events or their consequences, these events could decrease demand for our products or make it difficult or impossible for us to deliver products. Intellectual property infringement claims of others and the inability to protect our intellectual property rights could harm our business and our customers. Others may assert intellectual property infringement claims against us or our customers. We frequently provide a limited intellectual property indemnity in connection with our terms and conditions of sale to our customers and in other types of contracts with third parties. Indemnification payments and legal expenses to defend claims could be costly. In addition, we own the rights to many patents, trademarks, brand names and trade names that are important to our business. The inability to enforce our intellectual property rights may have an adverse effect on our results of operations. Expenses related to enforcing our intellectual property rights could be significant. Claims from taxing authorities could have an adverse effect on our income tax expense and financial position. We conduct business in many countries, which requires us to interpret the income tax laws and rulings in each of those taxing jurisdictions. Due to the ambiguity of tax laws among those jurisdictions as well as the uncertainty of how underlying facts may be construed, our estimates of income tax liabilities may differ from actual payments or assessments. We must successfully defend any claims from taxing authorities to avoid an adverse effect on our operating results and financial position. Our business success depends on attracting and retaining highly qualified personnel. Our success depends in part on the efforts and abilities of our management team and key employees. Their skills, experience and industry knowledge significantly benefit our operations and performance. Competition for highly qualified management and technical personnel is particularly intense in emerging markets. The failure to attract and retain members of our management team and key employees could have a negative effect on our business, operating results and financial condition. Increasing employee benefit costs could have a negative effect on our operating results and financial condition. One important aspect of attracting and retaining qualified personnel is continuing to offer competitive employee retirement and health care benefits. The expenses we record for our pension and other postretirement benefit pension plans depend on factors such as changes in market interest rates, the value of plan assets, mortality assumptions and health care trend rates. Significant unfavorable changes in these factors would increase our expenses. Expenses related to employer-funded health care benefits depend on health care cost inflation. An inability to control costs related to employee and retiree benefits could negatively impact our operating results and financial condition. Potential liabilities and costs from litigation (including asbestos claims and environmental remediation) could reduce our profitability. Various lawsuits, claims and proceedings have been or may be asserted against us relating to the conduct of our business, including those pertaining to the safety and security of the products, solutions and services we sell, employment, contract matters and environmental remediation. We have been named as a defendant in lawsuits alleging personal injury as a result of exposure to asbestos that was used in certain of our products many years ago. Our products may also be used in hazardous industrial activities, which could result in product liability claims. The uncertainties of litigation (including asbestos claims) and the uncertainties related to the collection of insurance coverage make it difficult to predict the ultimate resolution. Our operations are subject to regulation by various environmental regulatory authorities concerned with the impact of the environment on human health, the limitation and control of emissions and discharges into the air, ground and waters, the quality of air and bodies of water, and the handling, use and disposal of specified substances. Environmental laws and regulations can be complex and may change. Our financial responsibility to clean up contaminated property or for natural resource damages may extend to previously owned or used properties, waterways and properties owned by unrelated companies or individuals, as well as properties that we currently own and use, regardless of whether the contamination is attributable to prior owners. We have been named as a potentially responsible party at cleanup sites and may be so named in the future, and the costs associated with these current and future sites may be significant. We have, from time to time, divested certain of our businesses. In connection with these divestitures, certain lawsuits, claims and proceedings may be instituted or asserted against us related to the period that we owned the businesses, either because we agreed to retain certain liabilities related to these periods or because such liabilities fall upon us by operation of law. In some instances, the divested business has assumed the liabilities; however, it is possible that we might be responsible to satisfy those liabilities if the divested business is unable to do so. A disruption to our distribution channel could reduce our sales. In the United States and Canada, approximately 90 percent of our sales are through distributors. In certain other countries, the majority of our sales are also through a limited number of distributors. While we maintain the right to appoint new distributors, any unplanned disruption to our existing distribution channel could adversely affect our sales. A disruption could result from the sale of a distributor to a competitor, financial instability of a distributor, or other events. We rely on suppliers to provide equipment, components and services, which creates certain risks and uncertainties that may adversely affect our business. Our business requires that we buy equipment, components and services including finished products, which may include electronic components and commodities such as copper, aluminum and steel. Our reliance on suppliers involves certain risks, including: • poor quality or an insecure supply chain, which could adversely affect the reliability and reputation of our products; • changes in the cost of these purchases due to inflation, exchange rates, commodity market volatility or other factors; • intellectual property risks such as ownership of rights or alleged infringement by suppliers; • information security risks associated with providing confidential information to suppliers; and • shortages of components, commodities or other materials, which could adversely affect our manufacturing efficiencies and ability to make timely delivery. Any of these uncertainties could adversely affect our profitability and ability to compete. We also maintain several single-source supplier relationships, because either alternative sources are not available or the relationship is advantageous due to performance, quality, support, delivery, capacity or price considerations. Unavailability or delivery delays of single-source components or products could adversely affect our ability to ship the related products in a timely manner. The effect of unavailability or delivery delays would be more severe if associated with our higher volume and more profitable products. Even where substitute sources of supply are available, qualifying the alternate suppliers and establishing reliable supplies could cost more or could result in delays and a loss of sales. We rely on strategic partners to expand our capabilities and to provide more complete automation solutions for our customers, which creates certain risks and uncertainties that may adversely affect our business. We have relationships with industry-leading strategic partners that provide complementary technology, expertise and thought leadership to enable us to enhance automation solutions for our customers. If we fail to maintain or manage relationships with these third-party partner companies effectively, or these partners are unable or unwilling to perform as expected, our ability to execute our business strategy could be negatively affected. Our competitiveness depends on successfully executing our globalization and cost productivity initiatives. Our globalization strategy includes localization of our products, solutions and services to be closer to our customers and identified growth opportunities. Localization of our products, solutions and services includes expanding our capabilities, including supply chain and sourcing activities, product design, manufacturing, engineering, marketing and sales and support. These activities expose us to risks, including those related to political and economic uncertainties, transportation delays, labor market disruptions and challenges to protect our intellectual property. In addition, we continue to invest in initiatives to reduce our cost structure. The failure to achieve our objectives on these initiatives could have an adverse effect on our operating results and financial condition. Risks associated with acquisitions could have an adverse effect on us. We have acquired, and will continue to acquire, businesses in an effort to enhance shareowner value. Acquisitions involve risks and uncertainties, including: • difficulties in integrating the acquired business, retaining the acquired business’ customers and achieving the expected benefits of the acquisition, such as sales increases, access to technologies, cost savings and increases in geographic or product presence, in the desired time frames; • loss of key employees of the acquired business; • difficulties implementing and maintaining consistent standards, controls, procedures, policies and information systems; and • diversion of management’s attention from other business concerns. Future acquisitions could result in debt, dilution, liabilities, increased interest expense, restructuring charges and amortization expenses related to intangible assets. Item 1B.