Comtech Telecommunications Corp (CMTL) 2023 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Welcome to Comtech's Fiscal Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, Thursday, March 9, 2023.

歡迎來到 Comtech 的 2023 財年第二季度收益電話會議。提醒一下，本次會議將於 2023 年 3 月 9 日星期四進行錄製。

I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Robert Samuels of Comtech. Please go ahead, sir.

我現在想將會議轉交給 Comtech 的 Robert Samuels 先生。請繼續，先生。

Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for taking the time to dial-in today. I'm Rob Samuels, Comtech's Head of Investor Relations. Welcome to Comtech Telecommunications Corp.'s conference call for the second quarter of fiscal year 2023.

大家下午好，感謝您今天抽出時間撥入。我是 Rob Samuels，Comtech 的投資者關係主管。歡迎來到 Comtech Telecommunications Corp. 的 2023 財年第二季度電話會議。

Today, I'm here with Comtech Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ken Peterman. We're also joined by Mike Bondi, our CFO. Before we get started today, I'll also say that both myself and Ken are always available to answer questions our investors may have, so please get in touch if you want to organize a meeting to talk about the Company, our results, or our strategy. We also have a detailed discussion of the quarter in our shareholder letter available on our website and we have also been working to communicate directly about our business and our market between quarters in our blog, Comtech Signals.

今天，我和 Comtech 董事長、總裁兼首席執行官 Ken Peterman 一起來到這裡。我們的首席財務官 Mike Bondi 也加入了我們的行列。在我們開始今天之前，我還要說我和 Ken 隨時可以回答我們投資者可能提出的問題，所以如果您想組織一次會議來討論公司、我們的業績或我們的情況，請與我們聯繫戰略。我們還在我們網站上的股東信中對本季度進行了詳細討論，我們也一直致力於在我們的博客 Comtech Signals 中直接溝通我們的業務和季度之間的市場。

Finally, let me remind you of the Company's Safe Harbor language. Certain information presented in this call will include, but not be limited to, information relating to the future performance and financial condition of the Company, the Company's plans, objectives, and business outlook, and the plans, objectives and business outlook of the Company's management. The Company's assumptions regarding such performance, business outlook, and plans are forward-looking in nature and involve significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from such forward-looking information. Any forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by cautionary statements contained in the Company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

最後，讓我提醒您公司的安全港語言。本次電話會議中提供的某些信息將包括但不限於與公司未來業績和財務狀況、公司計劃、目標和業務前景以及公司管理層的計劃、目標和業務前景有關的信息.公司對此類業績、業務前景和計劃的假設具有前瞻性，涉及重大風險和不確定性。實際結果可能與此類前瞻性信息存在重大差異。任何前瞻性陳述都完全符合公司證券交易委員會備案文件中包含的警示性陳述。

Now, I am pleased to introduce the President and Chief Executive Officer of Comtech, Ken Peterman. Ken?

現在，我很高興地介紹 Comtech 的總裁兼首席執行官 Ken Peterman。肯？

Hello everyone and thanks for joining us today. You may recall that in my first letter to you as Comtech CEO, I spoke to the enormous potential I saw at the Company, our talented people, our innovative spirit, our history of technology leadership, and the opportunity to bring Comtech and our customers into a new era of communications convergence, bridging the digital divide, connecting the unconnected and democratizing access to information in ways that leaves no one behind. More recently, I shared my sense of urgency in driving transformational changes to assimilate our individual businesses together into two segments, improve our operational performance, and deliver the value created by this transformation to you, our shareholders.

大家好，感謝今天加入我們。您可能還記得，在我作為 Comtech 首席執行官給您的第一封信中，我談到了我在公司看到的巨大潛力、我們的人才、我們的創新精神、我們技術領先的歷史，以及將 Comtech 和我們的客戶帶入一個通信融合的新時代，彌合數字鴻溝，連接未連接的人，並以不讓任何人掉隊的方式使信息訪問民主化。最近，我分享了推動轉型變革的緊迫感，將我們的各個業務合併為兩個部分，提高我們的運營績效，並將這一轉型創造的價值傳遞給您，我們的股東。

Today, I can report that over the course of these past six months, the team has fully committed to rapidly implementing these transformational changes into our new strategy and culture what we call One Comtech. I'm going to talk a little more about what that means for our company and our investors today, but I don't want to bury the headline, which is simply this. It's working. This operational and cultural transformation has taken root and is delivering results and our financial performance is a direct result of these changes.

今天，我可以報告說，在過去的六個月中，該團隊已完全致力於將這些轉型變革快速實施到我們稱為 One Comtech 的新戰略和文化中。今天我要多談談這對我們公司和我們的投資者意味著什麼，但我不想掩蓋標題，這就是這個。它的工作。這種運營和文化轉型已經紮根並正在取得成果，我們的財務業績是這些變化的直接結果。

Now Mike is going to speak to our performance in detail, but I am pleased to report that during our second quarter, we recorded revenue of $133.7 million, marking our fifth sequential quarter of net sales growth. Our EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA was $11.3 million or 8.5% of sales, representing strong year-over-year growth as well as a sequential increase over Q1 of fiscal 2023. Our bookings of $167.5 million represented a book to bill ratio of 1.25 times and our funded backlog of $702 million is now at a level that we have not seen since July of 2019.

現在邁克將詳細介紹我們的業績，但我很高興地報告，在第二季度，我們錄得收入 1.337 億美元，這是我們連續第五個季度實現淨銷售額增長。我們的 EBITDA 調整後 EBITDA 為 1130 萬美元，佔銷售額的 8.5%，同比增長強勁，與 2023 財年第一季度相比環比增長。我們的預訂量為 1.675 億美元，訂單出貨比為 1.25 倍，我們的7.02 億美元的資金積壓現在處於 2019 年 7 月以來的最高水平。

While I'm pleased with these results, my leadership team and I remain laser-focused on the potential for Comtech to further expand margins and deliver not just top-line growth, but grow profitably. We are fully committed to unleashing the yet untapped potential of One Comtech to continually improve performance and enhance shareholder value. Our One Comtech financial priorities are clear; grow revenues, increase margins and reduce leverage in investments in working capital. In a challenging operating environment, achieving these goals will give Comtech more optionality when it comes to investing in our people, our technology leadership, and our future.

雖然我對這些結果感到滿意，但我和我的領導團隊仍然專注於 Comtech 進一步擴大利潤率的潛力，不僅實現收入增長，而且實現盈利增長。我們完全致力於釋放 One Comtech 尚未開發的潛力，以不斷提高業績和提高股東價值。我們的 One Comtech 財務重點很明確；增加收入，增加利潤並降低營運資本投資的槓桿作用。在充滿挑戰的運營環境中，實現這些目標將使 Comtech 在投資於我們的員工、我們的技術領導地位和我們的未來時擁有更多選擇權。

The assimilation of our siloed businesses into two segments has provided clarity in the opportunities to manage costs, streamline operations, improve efficiency and accelerate decision making by eliminating management layers and other redundancies, resulting in a reduction in our workforce. And we understand these decisions impact the lives people respect and we care deeply about and are never easy. Nonetheless, these steps are critical to accelerating our anticipated growth and realizing our One Comtech vision.

將我們孤立的業務合併為兩個部分，通過消除管理層和其他冗餘，明確了管理成本、簡化運營、提高效率和加快決策制定的機會，從而減少了我們的員工隊伍。我們理解這些決定會影響人們尊重和我們深切關心的生活，而且絕非易事。儘管如此，這些步驟對於加速我們的預期增長和實現我們的 One Comtech 願景至關重要。

We are improving our internal collaboration, implementing best practices across the enterprise, engaging more effectively with our customers and identifying new market growth opportunities. With this enhanced insight, clarity and operational discipline, we can make more informed decisions about how to allocate the resources we have and put Comtech in the best possible competitive position.

我們正在改善我們的內部協作，在整個企業實施最佳實踐，更有效地與我們的客戶互動，並發現新的市場增長機會。憑藉這種增強的洞察力、清晰度和運營紀律，我們可以就如何分配我們擁有的資源並使 Comtech 處於最佳競爭地位做出更明智的決策。

Let me explain further how our transformation to One Comtech creates a sustainable competitive advantage for us. By controlling what we can in a complex operating environment, we can focus our resources to continually drive technology innovation, deliver enhanced customer value, attract and retain the best people and exploit the enormous opportunity created by the ever evolving transformation of our global communications infrastructure and the continually expanding appetite for always on connectivity.

讓我進一步解釋我們向 One Comtech 的轉型如何為我們創造可持續的競爭優勢。通過在復雜的運營環境中控制我們的能力，我們可以集中資源不斷推動技術創新，提供更高的客戶價值，吸引和留住最優秀的人才，並利用我們全球通信基礎設施和對始終在線連接的不斷增長的需求。

Finally, we are encouraged by the progress that we have made related to our One Comtech transformation, our launch of EVOKE, which is our innovation foundry and our emerging growth opportunities, the Board together with management adjusted the Company's capital allocation plans and determined to forego a common stock dividend, thereby increasing our financial flexibility.

最後，我們對我們在 One Comtech 轉型方面取得的進展、我們推出創新鑄造廠 EVOKE 和我們新興的增長機會感到鼓舞，董事會與管理層一起調整了公司的資本配置計劃，並決心放棄普通股股息，從而增加我們的財務靈活性。

Before I talk a little more about what you can expect from us going forward, let me turn the call over to our CFO, Mike Bondi, so he can walk through our performance this quarter. Mike?

在我更多地談論你對我們未來的期望之前，讓我把電話轉給我們的首席財務官 Mike Bondi，這樣他就可以了解我們本季度的表現。麥克風？

Thanks, Ken. For Q2 fiscal 2023, we recorded $133.7 million of consolidated net sales, of which $80.4 million were recorded in our Satellite and Space Communication segment and $53.3 million were recorded in our Terrestrial and Wireless Networks segment. Our second quarter net sales represented a 2% sequential increase over last quarter, and as Ken mentioned, our fifth consecutive quarterly increase. Compared to the year ago quarter, our Q2 fiscal 2023 net sales increased $13.3 million or 11%, reflecting higher net sales in both of our segments.

謝謝，肯。在 2023 財年第二季度，我們錄得 1.337 億美元的合併淨銷售額，其中 8040 萬美元記錄在我們的衛星和空間通信部門，5330 萬美元記錄在我們的地面和無線網絡部門。我們第二季度的淨銷售額比上一季度環比增長 2%，正如 Ken 所說，這是我們連續第五個季度增長。與去年同期相比，我們 2023 財年第二季度的淨銷售額增加了 1330 萬美元或 11%，反映出我們兩個部門的淨銷售額均有所增加。

Our consolidated gross profit percentage for Q2 fiscal 2023 was 34.3% as compared to 35.7% and 38.1% for Q1 fiscal 2023, and Q2 fiscal 2022, respectively. Our gross profit for Q2 fiscal 2023 primarily reflects an increase in net sales and overall product mix changes. For example, in Q2 fiscal 2023 as compared to the prior year quarter, more of our consolidated net sales we recorded in our Satellite and Space communication segment, which historically achieved a lower gross profit percentage than the solution sold by our terrestrial and wireless network segment, which generally includes more software based and recurring revenues. Also, our Q1 fiscal 2023 gross profit percentage benefited from increased sales of our next generation Troposcatter solutions during that period in support of the Ukrainian government.

我們 2023 財年第二季度的綜合毛利率為 34.3%，而 2023 財年第一季度和 2022 財年第二季度分別為 35.7% 和 38.1%。我們 2023 財年第二季度的毛利潤主要反映了淨銷售額的增長和整體產品組合的變化。例如，在 2023 財年第二季度，與去年同期相比，我們在衛星和空間通信部門記錄的綜合淨銷售額更多，這在歷史上實現的毛利率低於我們的地面和無線網絡部門銷售的解決方案，通常包括更多基於軟件的經常性收入。此外，我們的 2023 財年第一季度毛利率得益於我們下一代 Troposcatter 解決方案在此期間為支持烏克蘭政府而增加的銷售額。

As explained in more detail and reconciled in our Form 10-Q filed earlier today, we utilize a non-GAAP measure that we referred to as adjusted EBITDA. Q2 fiscal 2023 adjusted EBITDA was $11.3 million or 8.5% of consolidated net sales as compared to $9.8 million or 8.1% in Q2 fiscal 2022. The increase both in dollars and as a percentage of sales is primarily attributable to the increase in Q2 fiscal 2023 net sales was offset in part by a lower gross profit percentage. Q2 fiscal 2023 adjusted EBITDA exceeded our expectations for the quarter and represented a sequential increase from Q1 fiscal 2023, all while simultaneously investing in our One Comtech transformation.

正如我們在今天早些時候提交的 10-Q 表格中更詳細地解釋和協調的那樣，我們使用了我們稱為調整後 EBITDA 的非 GAAP 衡量標準。 2023 財年第二季度調整後的 EBITDA 為 1130 萬美元，佔合併淨銷售額的 8.5%，而 2022 財年第二季度為 980 萬美元，佔銷售額的 8.1%。美元和占銷售額百分比的增長主要歸因於 2023 財年第二季度淨銷售額的增長銷售額被較低的毛利率部分抵消。 2023 財年第二季度調整後的 EBITDA 超出了我們對該季度的預期，與 2023 財年第一季度相比環比增長，同時投資於我們的 One Comtech 轉型。

As Ken previously mentioned, bookings during the quarter totaled $167.5 million, representing a 62.7% year-over-year increase, and a quarterly book-to-bill ratio of 1.25 times. Our current revenue visibility is approximately $1.1 billion and is equal to the sum of our $702 million of funded backlog plus the total unfunded value of certain multi-year contracts that we have received and from which we expect future orders. Overall, our consolidated Q2 net sales and adjusted EBITDA were in line with or better than guidance provided last quarter, and we are pleased to have increased our funded backlog from October 2022, particularly in light of an economic environment that continues to be challenging.

正如 Ken 之前提到的，本季度的預訂總額為 1.675 億美元，同比增長 62.7%，季度訂單出貨比為 1.25 倍。我們目前的收入可見度約為 11 億美元，等於我們 7.02 億美元的資金積壓加上我們已收到的某些多年期合同的總未資金價值的總和，我們預計未來會從中獲得訂單。總體而言，我們的第二季度綜合淨銷售額和調整後的 EBITDA 符合或優於上一季度提供的指導，我們很高興從 2022 年 10 月開始增加資金積壓，特別是考慮到經濟環境仍然充滿挑戰。

Ken?

肯？

Thanks Mike. I'm going to finish up shortly and get to everyone's questions. But before I do, I want to talk a little bit more about where we are right now and what you can expect from us all in the context of guidance for next quarter.

謝謝邁克。我將很快結束並回答每個人的問題。但在我這樣做之前，我想多談談我們現在所處的位置，以及在下一季度的指導背景下你對我們所有人的期望。

As I said earlier, we are intensely focused on improving our operational performance and managing our costs, so that we can accelerate our growth. And it's working. Thanks to the success of our work so far, we believe that we will realize operational efficiencies that improve our margin profile, while simultaneously funding investments in innovation and accelerating growth. Practically speaking, while we anticipate some variability from time to time as we move through this important transformational change, for Q3 fiscal 2023, we expect to achieve sequential consolidated revenue growth in the range of 1% to 3% with consolidated adjusted EBITDA margins in the range of 8.5% to 10%.

正如我之前所說，我們非常專注於提高我們的運營績效和管理我們的成本，以便我們能夠加速我們的增長。它正在工作。由於迄今為止我們工作的成功，我們相信我們將實現運營效率，從而提高我們的利潤率，同時為創新投資和加速增長提供資金。實際上，雖然我們預計在經歷這一重要的轉型變革時會不時出現一些變化，但對於 2023 財年第三季度，我們預計將實現 1% 至 3% 的連續綜合收入增長，綜合調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率在範圍為 8.5% 至 10%。

A clear example of the investments made possible by our One Comtech initiatives is the recent launch of EVOKE, our innovation foundry. EVOKE extends the One Comtech philosophy to our customers, our partners and suppliers, by bringing them together in a structure designed to foster collaboration and accelerate innovation in global connectivity infrastructures. Not only will EVOKE enhance our existing technology and service offerings, we believe it will also allow us to pioneer entirely new ideas and opportunities, with the benefit of combining multiple perspectives, different industry backgrounds, and diverse areas of expertise.

我們的 One Comtech 計劃使投資成為可能的一個明顯例子是我們最近推出的創新鑄造廠 EVOKE。 EVOKE 將 One Comtech 理念擴展到我們的客戶、我們的合作夥伴和供應商，將他們聚集在一個旨在促進協作和加速全球連接基礎設施創新的結構中。 EVOKE 不僅會增強我們現有的技術和服務產品，我們相信它還將使我們能夠開拓全新的想法和機會，並結合多種觀點、不同的行業背景和不同的專業領域。

Our first publicly announced partnership speaks directly to the spirit of innovation. We're working on what we call Smart Operations with Seattle based tech pioneer, Sirqul. Using Comtech expertise and connectivity and real time location tracking, Smart Operations applications are anticipated to allow enterprises the ability to leverage the real time data provided by Internet of Things devices, to develop actionable business and operations insight, and instantly respond to changing environmental and market dynamic. This has vast implications for everything from retail, and office space management to agriculture, heavy industry, advanced manufacturing, logistics, education, defense and more, on a global scale. You can expect to see Comtech foster new and expanded relationships across multiple sectors, as well as with leading universities around the world to ensure we are always at the cutting-edge of the emerging technologies needed to continually innovate and create customer value.

我們首次公開宣布的合作夥伴關係直接體現了創新精神。我們正在與總部位於西雅圖的技術先驅 Sirqul 合作進行所謂的智能運營。使用 Comtech 的專業知識和連接以及實時位置跟踪，智能運營應用程序有望讓企業能夠利用物聯網設備提供的實時數據，開發可操作的業務和運營洞察力，並立即響應不斷變化的環境和市場動態的。這在全球範圍內對從零售和辦公空間管理到農業、重工業、先進製造、物流、教育、國防等方方面面都有著巨大的影響。您可以期待看到 Comtech 在多個領域以及與世界一流大學建立新的和擴展的關係，以確保我們始終處於不斷創新和創造客戶價值所需的新興技術的前沿。

Before I take your questions, let me close by saying that this is an exciting time for Comtech because I believe the opportunities ahead of us are expanding dramatically. Our commitment is to continue to grow, drive improved profitability, enhance long-term shareholder value, by continually striving to be the most innovative, collaborative and customer focused company in our current and future global markets.

在我回答你的問題之前，讓我結束時說，這對 Comtech 來說是一個激動人心的時刻，因為我相信擺在我們面前的機會正在急劇擴大。我們的承諾是通過不斷努力成為我們當前和未來全球市場中最具創新性、協作性和以客戶為中心的公司，繼續發展，提高盈利能力，提高長期股東價值。

Finally, we'd love to invite everyone to meet with us and learn more at our Investor Day, which we will be hosting on Wednesday, June 21, at our state-of-the-art facility in Chandler, Arizona. Please reach out to Rob for a formal invitation. I think we're going to have a great time and learn a lot from each other.

最後，我們很樂意邀請大家在我們將於 6 月 21 日星期三在我們位於亞利桑那州錢德勒的最先進設施舉辦的投資者日與我們會面並了解更多信息。請聯繫 Rob 以獲得正式邀請。我認為我們會度過一段美好的時光，並從彼此身上學到很多東西。

With that, let's get to questions.

有了這個，讓我們開始提問。

(Operator Instructions) And we'll go first to Joe Gomes with NOBLE Capital.

（操作員說明）我們將首先與 NOBLE Capital 一起去找喬·戈麥斯。

I wanted to start out on the gross margin. I mean, you could give us a little more color. You talked about it's down because of the increase of revenues as a whole from the Satellite business. How big is the delta between the Satellite and Terrestrial businesses? So if we do see, satellite continued to outpace growth, that's where I feel we can kind of figure out where those gross margins may be going?

我想從毛利率開始。我的意思是，你可以給我們多一點顏色。你談到它下降是因為衛星業務的整體收入增加。衛星和地面業務之間的差異有多大？因此，如果我們確實看到，衛星繼續超過增長，那我覺得我們可以弄清楚這些毛利率可能會走向何方？

In terms of the gross margins that we don't disclose each of the segments, but I would always offer this when looking at terrestrial and wireless, that is software based. There is recurring revenues in that revenue mix and the software that we have is developed on the 911 side of the house in terms of location based services. It's also cutting-edge technologies that we're creating. So we're getting a premium for the work that we do. So there's more of a solution there that we are selling.

就毛利率而言，我們沒有披露每個細分市場，但在查看基於軟件的地面和無線時，我總是會提供這一點。在這種收入組合中有經常性收入，我們擁有的軟件是在基於位置的服務方面在房子的 911 端開發的。這也是我們正在創造的尖端技術。因此，我們所做的工作得到了溢價。因此，我們正在銷售更多的解決方案。

In terms of the gross margin on the Satellite and Space side, that's more akin to modems and amplifiers and other things that we are selling from a product perspective. But as we are looking forward, trying to move up the tier in terms of what we are providing and not just think of it as a box or a particular product, but more as a service that we could offer to the customer. I think we will start to see a convergence of the gross margins in those two segments and then probably exceed what we are doing today in terms of historical run rates for the margin in Satellite and Space.

就衛星和空間方面的毛利率而言，這更類似於調製解調器和放大器以及我們從產品角度銷售的其他產品。但正如我們所期待的那樣，試圖在我們提供的產品方面提升層次，而不僅僅是將其視為一個盒子或特定產品，而是更多地作為我們可以為客戶提供的服務。我認為我們將開始看到這兩個部分的毛利率趨於一致，然後可能會超過我們今天在衛星和空間利潤率的歷史運行率方面所做的事情。

So I think the story here is, it's one of the change in mix within Terrestrial and Wireless last year, we did have more LBS software sales in there. That has transited to now more NG 911 sales in the current period as returning on PSAPs within our 911 deployment. So there is a mix change going on there. At the same time, we also had seen some increase in the first half for Satellite and Space with the COMET that we had sold off to the Ukrainian government in support of their efforts there. So we did have a good dose of product go out in Q1 and some of it in Q2, but the bulk of it was in Q1. So when you are looking at Satellite and Space in terms of their EBITDA profile, you could see the impact from quarter-to-quarter sequentially.

所以我認為這裡的故事是，這是去年地面和無線內部組合的變化之一，我們確實有更多的 LBS 軟件銷售。隨著我們 911 部署中 PSAP 的回歸，這已經轉變為當前期間更多的 NG 911 銷售。所以那裡正在進行混合變化。與此同時，我們還看到上半年衛星和太空業務有所增長，我們將 COMET 賣給了烏克蘭政府以支持他們在那裡的努力。因此，我們確實在第一季度推出了大量產品，在第二季度推出了一些產品，但其中大部分是在第一季度推出的。因此，當您根據 EBITDA 概況查看 Satellite 和 Space 時，您可以看到每個季度的影響。

In terms of -- you mentioned PSAPs and where are we in terms of the numbers of those that are going live year over the first two quarters of the year?

就您提到的 PSAP 而言，我們在今年前兩個季度上線的數量方面處於什麼位置？

In terms of specific numbers, I think I would focus in on a large customer like Pennsylvania and South Carolina and Arizona. I think they are making good progress, getting out of the deployment phase of those contracts and turning on certain regions within each of the states. In terms of a specific number of PSAPs, I'm not going to be able to quantify that for you today. But it is growing each period that we are reporting. They are making good progress on those deployments, and get on schedule and moving into more of that recurring revenue phase that we like, because the more recurring revenue that you bring on, you have those fixed costs that were put in place on day one. And so we will see a better leverage model on the margin side.

就具體數字而言，我認為我會關注像賓夕法尼亞州、南卡羅來納州和亞利桑那州這樣的大客戶。我認為他們取得了良好的進展，走出了這些合同的部署階段，並在每個州的某些地區開啟了工作。就特定數量的 PSAP 而言，我今天無法為您量化。但它在我們報告的每個時期都在增長。他們在這些部署上取得了良好的進展，並按計劃進入了我們喜歡的更多經常性收入階段，因為你帶來的經常性收入越多，你就有了在第一天就投入的固定成本。因此，我們將在保證金方面看到更好的槓桿模型。

Okay. And Ken, you talked about a lot of the initiatives and a lot of the potential there. But as we are looking forward, what are some of the near-term milestones that you are looking at to judge the success of the One Comtech program?

好的。肯，你談到了很多舉措和那裡的很多潛力。但正如我們所期待的那樣，您正在尋找哪些近期里程碑來判斷 One Comtech 計劃的成功？

Sure, Joe. Of course, in the short-term, as we assimilate our individual businesses into two segments, we are identifying redundancy, streamlining operations, we are able to perform more agilely as a business and actually we have better clarity, wherein we can make more informed decisions collectively and collaboratively on how to operate the business. We are able to speak to the supply chain in an amplified voice. So we are able to increase efficiency. That's why you are seeing us increase the adjusted EBITDA guidance as we move into Q3.

當然，喬。當然，在短期內，當我們將我們的各個業務分為兩個部分時，我們正在識別冗餘、簡化操作，我們能夠作為一個業務更敏捷地執行，實際上我們有更好的清晰度，我們可以讓更多的信息共同決定如何經營企業。我們能夠以放大的聲音與供應鏈對話。所以我們能夠提高效率。這就是為什麼您看到我們在進入第三季度時增加調整後的 EBITDA 指導。

Now with respect to EVOKE and our innovation foundry, it has two purposes that have immediate value. The first thing is that, we are bringing our various technologies together from across the enterprise. And you can think of those as a toolbox or as building blocks. So we are able to then collectively bring those building blocks together, compound their individual value in terms of technology leadership and then create value for Comtech's customers that is more comprehensive. So we can move up into subsystems systems and even services. And by putting those building blocks together, we're able to demonstrate or quantify or calculate what our value proposition is in a comprehensive level to a customer. So for example, instead of talking about technology advantage of a modem or an amplifier, in DBs or in technical jargon, we're able to quantify that value proposition to a customer in terms of, for example, additional subscribers that might be supported on a satellite channel, in order to raise the revenue that given satellite channel can produce for that operator. Because we compound of technology advantage of our modem, with our amplifier, with our antenna with the other equipments that we have. That dialogue is ongoing and we're very encouraged by the feedback we're getting by some of our customers in terms of the excitement over that potential value creation.

現在關於 EVOKE 和我們的創新鑄造廠，它有兩個具有直接價值的目的。首先，我們正在將整個企業的各種技術整合在一起。您可以將它們視為工具箱或構建塊。因此，我們能夠將這些構建塊集中在一起，在技術領先方面複合它們的個人價值，然後為 Comtech 的客戶創造更全面的價值。所以我們可以向上移動到子系統系統甚至服務。通過將這些構建塊放在一起，我們能夠向客戶展示或量化或計算我們在綜合層面上的價值主張。因此，例如，我們不用在 DB 或技術術語中談論調製解調器或放大器的技術優勢，而是能夠根據可能支持的額外用戶來量化對客戶的價值主張。衛星頻道，以增加給定衛星頻道可以為該運營商產生的收入。因為我們將調製解調器、放大器、天線和我們擁有的其他設備的技術優勢結合在一起。這種對話正在進行中，我們從一些客戶那裡得到的反饋中對潛在價值創造的興奮感到非常鼓舞。

So the milestones I would forecast over the next two quarters is that we will develop and are developed and have developed what we first call concepts, we move those to what we call minimally viable products, or MVPs, that help the customer conceptualize the value proposition and to quantify it with us in a customer currency. We then would move to a pilot, where the customer is excited, put some skin in the game, and funds us to run a pilot where they can quantify and prove out the value creation that we forecast.

因此，我預測未來兩個季度的里程碑是，我們將開發和開發我們首先稱之為概念的東西，我們將這些轉移到我們稱之為最小可行產品或 MVP 的地方，幫助客戶概念化價值主張並與我們一起以客戶貨幣對其進行量化。然後我們將轉向試點，客戶對此感到興奮，參與其中，並資助我們運行試點，他們可以量化並證明我們預測的價值創造。

And then finally, the customer would say this is exciting, let's go live, I want to add value creation to come to me as quickly as possible. And I can tell you that while we've not made any announcements yet, we actually have MVPs that are created. We have a couple of those have gotten great customer excitement. And we're moving into the pilots where we'll see some small contracts awards to move forward in the near future. So as we move toward our Investor Day in June, and then into our fourth quarter, you're going to hear news about that those milestones are in place, the team is managing to that. And like I say, I'm pleased with the performance we're seeing so far.

最後，客戶會說這很令人興奮，讓我們開始吧，我想盡快增加價值創造來找我。我可以告訴你，雖然我們還沒有發布任何公告，但我們實際上已經創建了 MVP。我們有幾個讓客戶興奮不已。我們正在進入試點，我們將在不久的將來看到一些小合同的授予。因此，當我們邁向 6 月的投資者日，然後進入第四季度時，您會聽到有關這些里程碑已經到位的消息，團隊正在努力做到這一點。就像我說的，我對我們目前看到的表現感到滿意。

And we'll move next to Greg Burns with Sidoti.

我們將和 Sidoti 一起搬到 Greg Burns 旁邊。

In terms of dividend usually, you see a company cut the dividend as a defensive measure, but it seems like your business is recovering some from about a year ago. And so, can you just talk about the thought process behind eliminating the dividend and where you're going to reallocate that capital? Is it going to go towards paying down the debt?

通常在股息方面，您會看到一家公司削減股息作為一種防禦措施，但您的業務似乎比大約一年前有所恢復。那麼，你能談談取消股息背後的思考過程以及你打算在哪裡重新分配這些資本嗎？它會用於償還債務嗎？

I'll respond to that from a philosophy level. Our responsibility, of course is to deploy capital where we will get the highest return and create the greatest value. In fact, that's what a responsible board and CEO does. And when we see a better use of capital, then as responsible stewards of that capital, we should invest it accordingly. Our vision and our strategy, given our expanding opportunity set, which I described in response to Joe Gomes question a few minutes ago, we have the ability to really compound capital if we invest it appropriately. So we're now informed and excited to some extent about the progress we've made in the future we see. So we're choosing to be responsible stewards and implement the strategies that we believe is most appropriate.

我將從哲學層面對此做出回應。我們的責任，當然是把資本配置在我們能獲得最高回報和創造最大價值的地方。事實上，這就是一個負責任的董事會和 CEO 所做的。當我們看到更好地利用資本時，作為該資本的負責任的管理者，我們應該相應地進行投資。我們的願景和戰略，鑑於我們不斷擴大的機會集，我在幾分鐘前回答 Joe Gomes 的問題時描述了這一點，如果我們適當地投資，我們有能力真正複合資本。因此，我們現在在某種程度上了解我們在未來所取得的進展並感到興奮。因此，我們選擇成為負責任的管家，並實施我們認為最合適的策略。

Okay. And then in terms of the EBITDA margin guidance, the improvements that you're projecting there. How much of that is mid versus the benefits you're seeing from One Comtech and that range that we're looking at range up to 10%, what are the puts and takes that might take you to the top end of that range?

好的。然後就 EBITDA 利潤率指導而言，您在那裡預測的改進。與您從 One Comtech 看到的好處相比，其中有多少是中等的，我們正在研究的範圍高達 10%，哪些看跌期權和看跌期權可能會讓您達到該範圍的頂端？

In terms of the margin profile for the next two quarters, as we're thinking about Q3, we certainly are being mindful of still, an economic environment that's challenging. But at the same time, as Ken mentioned, we're very excited about the progress we're making with EVOKE and other initiatives. We just announced today, some other actions that we're taking. And I think when we look at the puts and takes, I think we definitely move forward in executing on the initiatives today, trying to secure that higher end, but I think we still have some work to do, we still have investments that we're making. The things that we announced today in terms of our workforce, that's just one element, we still have systems that we're implementing and processes that we're streamlining, that's going to take some time.

就未來兩個季度的利潤率而言，當我們考慮第三季度時，我們當然會注意到仍然充滿挑戰的經濟環境。但與此同時，正如 Ken 所提到的，我們對我們在 EVOKE 和其他計劃方面取得的進展感到非常興奮。我們今天剛剛宣布了我們正在採取的其他一些行動。而且我認為，當我們審視買賣雙方時，我認為我們今天肯定會在執行這些舉措方面取得進展，努力確保更高的目標，但我認為我們還有一些工作要做，我們仍然有投資，我們'重新製作。我們今天就我們的員工隊伍宣布的事情，這只是一個要素，我們仍然有我們正在實施的系統和我們正在簡化的流程，這需要一些時間。

So as we think about puts and takes, certainly we have a nice book of business, if you will, with over $700 million of funded backlog now, which is a nice accomplishment for the Company going back several years, we haven't been at that level. So it's a function of us executing on that backlog, pursuing these new endeavors with EVOKE, very excited to see these emerging growth opportunities. As we're thinking of ourselves now as more of a growth story, I think we're trying to invest appropriately to capture that growth and move the Company forward into the next chapter.

因此，當我們考慮看跌期權時，當然我們有一本不錯的業務書，如果你願意的話，現在有超過 7 億美元的資金積壓，這對公司來說是幾年前的一個很好的成就，我們還沒有那個水平。因此，這是我們執行積壓工作的一個功能，與 EVOKE 一起追求這些新的努力，非常高興看到這些新興的增長機會。由於我們現在更多地認為自己是一個成長故事，我認為我們正在努力進行適當投資以抓住這種增長並推動公司進入下一章。

Okay. And I guess you're getting a little bit maybe more visibility on some of the One Comtech initiatives. So do you have like a target or is there anything you would quantify for us in terms of maybe where that margin might go or do you have a target range that you're shooting for over the next couple of years?

好的。而且我猜你對一些 One Comtech 計劃的了解可能會更多一些。那麼，您是否有一個目標，或者您是否可以根據利潤率可能達到的水平為我們量化，或者您是否有未來幾年要拍攝的目標範圍？

Yeah. So in the re-segmenting of our business and assimilating our business units, we've moved the common tools, common platform so that our business is running holistically now and moving toward the same set of practice, okay. And in fact we've restructured leadership teams, centralized functional areas of responsibility, like contracts, operations, supply chain management, and that streamlined operations. It's improving performance, eliminating redundancy and enhancing collaboration. And then so internally, we have established a set of key performance indicators, metrics and milestones that we are working in managing to on a weekly and monthly basis. And so, we're hitting those and that's what's giving us the insight and confidence to forecast the improved adjusted EBITDA margin that you alluded to. And that's why we're seeing 8.5% to 10% adjusted EBITDA as we move into the third quarter.

是的。因此，在重新細分我們的業務和吸收我們的業務部門時，我們已經移動了通用工具、通用平台，這樣我們的業務現在就可以整體運行，並朝著同一套實踐邁進，好吧。事實上，我們重組了領導團隊，集中了職責職能領域，如合同、運營、供應鏈管理，並簡化了運營。它正在提高性能、消除冗餘並增強協作。然後在內部，我們已經建立了一套關鍵績效指標、指標和里程碑，我們正在努力每周和每月管理一次。因此，我們正在實現這些目標，這讓我們有洞察力和信心來預測您提到的調整後 EBITDA 利潤率的改善。這就是為什麼我們在進入第三季度時看到 8.5% 到 10% 的調整後 EBITDA。

Now, we do believe that we're on a path to get back to our historical EBITDA levels, which pre-COVID were in the 14% range. So we're excited about the ability to get to there. And then, as we look at EVOKE and the initiatives that we see there, many of those are going to be software systems and services solutions, where the business models are traditionally profit margins that are more favorable than the equipment sales. So we are looking forward in the future to going north of that.

現在，我們確實相信我們正在回到我們的歷史 EBITDA 水平的道路上，該水平在 COVID 之前處於 14% 的範圍內。所以我們很高興能夠到達那裡。然後，當我們查看 EVOKE 和我們在那裡看到的計劃時，其中許多將是軟件系統和服務解決方案，其中的商業模式傳統上是比設備銷售更有利的利潤率。因此，我們期待著在未來向北發展。

And we will take our next question from Asiya Merchant with Citigroup.

我們將接受花旗集團 Asiya Merchant 的下一個問題。

So just in your guidance, should we expect kind of both segments to do around the same or are you guys still expecting terrestrial there to be a little bit more tempered? And the same thing on margins as well, like should we expect any one segment margin mix shift or otherwise to do better?

因此，在您的指導下，我們是否應該期望這兩個細分市場的表現大致相同，還是你們仍然期望地面細分市場會更加溫和一些？利潤率也是如此，比如我們是否應該期望任何一個細分市場的利潤率組合發生變化或以其他方式做得更好？

The way we are thinking about Q3 certainly on the top-line is 1% to 3% and you could see what the Terrestrial and Wireless business has been doing. We did book some orders a quarter or so ago that are still yet to ramp-up. And as we continue to turn on those PSAPs, I would say, you would continue to see that growth each quarter.

我們考慮第三季度收入的方式肯定是 1% 到 3%，你可以看到地面和無線業務一直在做什麼。我們確實在大約一個季度前預訂了一些訂單，但這些訂單仍未增加。隨著我們繼續開啟這些 PSAP，我會說，你會繼續看到每個季度的增長。

In terms of Satellite and Space, I think in terms of the opportunities that we have just secured, we just announced and we will have some more details in the press release soon to come, but we just won a multi-million dollar contract that we are very excited about. For us, it's a greenfield, it's a new relationship with the new customer, at a size we haven't seen before or at least for a long time. And that we believe will give us some nice uplift for the second half of the year. And so with an opportunity like that and some others, I think we will see probably good growth in the Satellite and Space business. But at the same time, we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves and we will go only one quarter out at this juncture with the 1% to 3% in total and consolidated.

在衛星和太空方面，我認為就我們剛剛獲得的機會而言，我們剛剛宣布，我們將在即將發布的新聞稿中提供更多細節，但我們剛剛贏得了一份價值數百萬美元的合同很興奮。對我們來說，這是一片綠地，是與新客戶的新關係，其規模是我們以前或至少很長時間以來從未見過的。我們相信這會給我們下半年帶來一些不錯的提升。因此，有了這樣的機會和其他一些機會，我認為我們可能會看到衛星和太空業務的良好增長。但與此同時，我們不想超越自己太遠，此時我們將只用四分之一，總共 1% 到 3% 並進行整合。

I was just going to say that we have identified some of our more entrepreneurially oriented growth minded leaders and those are the ones that are strategizing with us regarding EVOKE, our innovation foundry and they are beginning to conceptualize these more comprehensive up-tiered value propositions and using the EVOKE venue as a technology incubator and innovation foundry for the integration of other key ingredients, such as blockchain, cloud computing, AI, machine learning, and other things that we can implement on private networks to serve customers and create customer value. You know that we announced Sirqul as our first publicly announced a technology partner. And so those opportunities hold we think enormous promise for us.

我只是想說，我們已經確定了一些更具創業精神的增長型領導者，他們正在與我們一起制定關於 EVOKE 的戰略，我們的創新鑄造廠，他們開始概念化這些更全面的高端價值主張和將EVOKE會場作為技術孵化器和創新鑄造廠，整合其他關鍵要素，如區塊鏈、雲計算、人工智能、機器學習等我們可以在私有網絡上實現的東西，為客戶服務，創造客戶價值。你知道我們宣布 Sirqul 作為我們第一個公開宣布的技術合作夥伴。因此，我們認為這些機會對我們來說是巨大的希望。

And then, just, somebody earlier asked the question about the dividend, before going to dividend this quarter and maybe perhaps even next quarter from what I understand from the press release, but what exactly is the cash outlay that is involved in this relationship with EVOKE? How much from the cash flow are you planning to put into this that resulted in foregoing the dividend? Is it comparable to the dividend amount? Is it substantially more, just trying to get some clarity on that?

然後，有人早些時候問了關於股息的問題，根據我從新聞稿中了解到的情況，在本季度甚至下個季度派發股息之前，但與 EVOKE 的這種關係所涉及的現金支出到底是多少？您計劃從現金流中投入多少導致放棄股息？是否與分紅金額相當？它是否更多，只是想弄清楚這一點？

I'll tell you that, our technology leadership across the enterprise in what were our individual businesses and are now aggregated into these two segments, our technology leadership is astounding. And it's broad and comprehensive, it touches all different points of the terrestrial and wireless and location based services domain. So frankly, when we pull that together, it just takes a little salt and pepper sprinkled on that in order to create a blended solution that offers significant customer value. So as we launched EVOKE, engaged with our critical strategic technology partners, we've established a advisory group that involves third parties that are experts in these domains and understand some of the military and commercial problems that need to be solved, we don't find that we need to invest very much. And we also believe are finding that it's an extremely accelerated timeline, in terms of weeks to develop a minimally viable product that we can demonstrate to a customer and then work with them to envision how they can put that aggregated capability to work for them.

我會告訴你，我們在整個企業中的技術領先地位，我們的各個業務現在匯總到這兩個部分，我們的技術領先地位是驚人的。它廣泛而全面，涉及地面和無線以及基於位置的服務領域的所有不同點。所以坦率地說，當我們把它們放在一起時，只需要撒一點鹽和胡椒粉就可以創建一個提供顯著客戶價值的混合解決方案。因此，當我們推出 EVOKE 時，與我們的關鍵戰略技術合作夥伴合作，我們建立了一個諮詢小組，其中包括這些領域的專家第三方，了解一些需要解決的軍事和商業問題，我們不發現我們非常需要投入。我們還相信，我們發現這是一個極其加速的時間表，以數週的時間來開發我們可以向客戶展示的最低限度可行的產品，然後與他們合作，設想他們如何將這種聚合能力用於他們。

So from our perspective, we're bringing mature technologies forward, and we're just integrating them together in new ways. Our technology partners enable us to bring the tour companion technologies and integrate them rapidly. So we're now looking at long-term, high cost development cycles. We're much more agile and moving much more quickly than that.

因此，從我們的角度來看，我們正在推動成熟的技術向前發展，我們只是以新的方式將它們整合在一起。我們的技術合作夥伴使我們能夠帶來旅遊伴侶技術并快速整合它們。所以我們現在正在考慮長期的、高成本的開發週期。我們比那更敏捷，行動也更快。

I'll talk to you guys after the call. It's a little bit of a head scratcher why the dividend exists for investment and all that significant.

我會在通話後與你們交談。有點令人頭疼的是，為什麼存在投資紅利以及所有這些重要的紅利。

I think, Asiya, in terms of the financial flexibility that we get out of that easily $30 million in cash that we can redeploy into our initiatives to accelerate the things that we're doing. We see growth ahead of us. And the sooner we get through the transformation, the sooner we can tap into that growth. And when we look back at interest rates being where they are, and getting more rhetoric about more rate hikes. When you start to think about it, you know, with interest on top of it, and where our leverage is and where our leverage is going into the next two or three quarters with the step downs on the facility, this just gives us the flexibility for us to move faster on these initiatives.

我認為，Asiya，就我們從 3000 萬美元現金中輕鬆獲得的財務靈活性而言，我們可以將這些現金重新部署到我們的計劃中，以加速我們正在做的事情。我們看到增長在我們面前。我們越早完成轉型，我們就能越早利用這種增長。當我們回顧利率時，會看到更多有關加息的言論。當你開始考慮它時，你知道，最重要的是，我們的槓桿在哪裡，我們的槓桿將在接下來的兩三個季度中隨著設施的減少而進入哪裡，這只會給我們帶來靈活性使我們能夠更快地實施這些舉措。

I don't want to leave it with the impression that we're moving the money from the dividend to fund EVOKE. EVOKE is not consuming anything like that. We're preserving that cash so that we're better able to apply it and accelerate our penetration in new markets, our ability to create customer value. After we get a customer that says yes, I want this, we want to be poised and ready to go. It's to preserve that flexibility so that we can capitalize on the growth opportunities we see.

我不想給人留下這樣的印象，即我們正在將資金從股息轉移到為 EVOKE 提供資金。 EVOKE 不會消耗任何類似的東西。我們正在保留現金，以便我們能夠更好地應用它並加速我們在新市場的滲透，我們創造客戶價值的能力。在我們得到一個說是的客戶之後，我想要這個，我們想要準備好出發。這是為了保持這種靈活性，以便我們可以利用我們看到的增長機會。

And we'll move next to George Notter with Jefferies.

我們將與 Jefferies 一起搬到 George Notter 旁邊。

I guess, I was just curious about the revolver. Looks like you grew the revolver about $90 million sequentially. I haven't seen the cash flow statement yet, but there's definitely some cash burn here. I guess, in that context, I certainly understand the move with the dividend. Could you tell me what the cost is on the revolver right now? I believe that's floating rate. I'm just kind of wondering where that is?

我想，我只是對左輪手槍感到好奇。看起來你連續增加了大約 9000 萬美元的左輪手槍。我還沒有看到現金流量表，但這里肯定有一些現金消耗。我想，在這種情況下，我當然理解股息的變化。你能告訴我現在這把左輪手槍的價格是多少嗎？我相信那是浮動利率。我只是想知道那是哪裡？

Yeah, there's two metrics, I'll quote one is with the amortization of the deferred financing costs. That's roughly 8.8%. And if you strip the non cash portion of it the cash borrowing rate is about 8.4% right now.

是的，有兩個指標，我會引用一個是遞延融資成本的攤銷。這大約是 8.8%。如果你去掉其中的非現金部分，現在的現金借款利率約為 8.4%。

And then I mean, have you guys thought about trying to do something on the cap structure here, I mean try to get some more permanent financing in? Anything that you guys are kind of needling on that is worth chatting about right now, any options that you guys see here?

然後我的意思是，你們有沒有想過在這裡嘗試在上限結構上做點什麼，我的意思是嘗試獲得一些更永久的融資？你們現在有什麼值得討論的問題，你們在這裡看到的任何選項？

Without getting too specific about our internal plan, I would say we're not sitting idle. Everything that we're doing is coordinated to our plans. We are focused on the growth and to be ready to move faster, we will need to address our facility back in November. When we sign that it was a two year extension but the reality is, you'll be negotiating pretty soon. So with that in mind, and seeing our trajectory going in the right direction, and hopefully the market starts to ease up a little bit. But we would certainly be mindful that we're not out of the woods in that regard. We're going to try to time that appropriately so that we're ready for the next stage of growth to address some new initiatives from Ken. But we are not sitting idle, we are putting thought into that as well on top of these One Comtech transformational type initiatives.

無需太具體說明我們的內部計劃，我想說我們並沒有閒著。我們所做的一切都與我們的計劃相協調。我們專注於增長並準備好更快地行動，我們需要在 11 月解決我們的設施問題。當我們簽下兩年延期協議時，但事實是，你們很快就會進行談判。因此，考慮到這一點，並看到我們的軌跡朝著正確的方向發展，希望市場開始有所緩和。但我們肯定會注意到，在這方面我們並沒有走出困境。我們將嘗試適當地安排時間，以便我們為下一階段的增長做好準備，以應對 Ken 的一些新舉措。但我們並沒有閒著，我們也在考慮這些 One Comtech 轉型類型的舉措。

And then if you think about just the cost structure of the Company, and then you guys mentioned earlier, there were some headcount reductions and I know you guys are consolidating some ERP systems. I know there's a bunch of heavy-lifting there. But can you talk about what that translates into, in terms of improved cost structure? Is there a target on annual savings that you guys are looking at or anything you can give us in terms of that benefit?

然後，如果你只考慮公司的成本結構，然後你們前面提到的，有一些裁員，我知道你們正在整合一些 ERP 系統。我知道那裡有很多繁重的工作。但是你能談談這意味著什麼，在改進的成本結構方面？是否有你們正在考慮的年度儲蓄目標，或者你們可以為我們提供的任何好處？

Well, we've clearly set internal targets. We've clearly are managing to those key performance indicators. Michael will give you a little bit insight.

好吧，我們已經明確設定了內部目標。我們顯然正在管理這些關鍵績效指標。邁克爾會給你一點洞察力。

Sure. We didn't put a specific percentage or number of heads in the disclosures. We're trying to be mindful that we're still making investments in our business, but to give you some context, we figured you guys would ask, you would point to 2020 when we had reduced our workforce, at that time, it was about 10%. And so the reduction that we're talking about here today is not as large as that. It was a meaningful action that we took to move a (inaudible) seeing it in the EBITDA contribution in our guidance. That's how we think about it for right now. Certainly, when you think about Q3 versus Q4, the actions that we're talking about, we're undertaking them now. So I would say you're not going to see a full quarter's benefit of them. So in Q4, you would see likely the full magnitude of that action, plus the other things that we're looking at, like you said, ERP systems, looking at our facilities, and just streamlining our processes and getting improved efficiencies. And Ken is mentioning, we also will be moved into our channels facility in the upcoming weeks. So that will also be behind us. It's nice to see a chapter closing, we can move forward, all in one building.

當然。我們沒有在披露中給出具體的百分比或正面人數。我們正在努力注意我們仍在對我們的業務進行投資，但是為了給您一些背景信息，我們想你們會問，您會指出我們裁員的 2020 年，當時，它是約 10%。因此，我們今天在這裡談論的減少並沒有那麼大。這是一項有意義的行動，我們採取了一項有意義的行動來推動（聽不清）在我們的指導中的 EBITDA 貢獻中看到它。這就是我們現在的想法。當然，當你考慮第三季度和第四季度時，我們正在談論的行動，我們現在正在實施。所以我會說你不會看到他們的整個季度的好處。因此，在第四季度，您可能會看到該行動的全部規模，以及我們正在研究的其他事情，就像您說的，ERP 系統，研究我們的設施，並簡化我們的流程並提高效率。肯提到，我們也將在接下來的幾週內搬進我們的渠道設施。所以這也將在我們身後。很高興看到一個章節結束，我們可以在一棟大樓裡繼續前進。

And we'll take our next question from Chris Sakai with IDR Research.

我們將接受來自 IDR Research 的 Chris Sakai 的下一個問題。

It's Singular Research. Just had a question on the supply chain. How are you seeing it? How are lead times there?

這是奇異研究。剛剛有一個關於供應鏈的問題。你怎麼看？那裡的交貨時間如何？

In terms of supply chain, I think, we have determined that right now the part shortages don't seem to be the problem. Lead times certainly still seem to be long. We are mindful of that. We do have a lot of backlog. So, we are looking at that backlog and making sure we are placing those purchase orders timely, that part of the reason why you see the use of cash. As we are building backlog above the $700 million level, you also have to support that with inventory procurement and also receivables. So from a supply chain perspective, I don't think we're out of the woods yet. I think Maria would also agree with me on that. I think we still have things to keep an eye on, but I think it's getting better, but we are not fully behind that.

在供應鏈方面，我認為，我們已經確定現在零件短缺似乎不是問題所在。交貨時間顯然仍然很長。我們注意到這一點。我們確實有很多積壓。因此，我們正在查看積壓訂單並確保我們及時下達這些採購訂單，這就是您看到使用現金的部分原因。由於我們正在積壓超過 7 億美元的水平，您還必須通過庫存採購和應收賬款來支持這一點。所以從供應鏈的角度來看，我認為我們還沒有走出困境。我想 Maria 也會同意我的看法。我認為我們仍然需要關註一些事情，但我認為情況正在好轉，但我們並沒有完全支持它。

I'll say too. I think it's getting better when we look at our core business, because we are learning how to manage that. We are able to speak with an amplified voice now across all the businesses. But in addition to that, when we think of the up-tiered business in systems and services, those supply chain questions are still a little bit open, as we move into some of those new markets that we are excited about. So that's why we say we are still a little cautious. We may see some variability from time-to-time because we are stretching into some things that are different than what we have traditionally done.

我也會說當我們審視我們的核心業務時，我認為它正在變得更好，因為我們正在學習如何管理它。現在，我們能夠在所有業務中大聲疾呼。但除此之外，當我們考慮系統和服務中的上層業務時，隨著我們進入一些令我們興奮的新市場，這些供應鏈問題仍然有點開放。所以這就是為什麼我們說我們仍然有點謹慎。我們可能會不時看到一些變化，因為我們正在延伸到一些與我們傳統所做的不同的事情。

And then can you talk about your recent VSAT orders from the US government? Do you expect more and how much more?

然後你能談談你最近從美國政府獲得的 VSAT 訂單嗎？您期望更多嗎？期望更多嗎？

Chris, in terms of the VSAT, this is a contract we have had with the army for quite some time. And we always say, with the army they have a very unpredictable funding schedule and sometimes they don't always know exactly what they are doing. And sometimes orders will show up where we thought it'd be a little bit later in the quarter and maybe it shows up earlier and vice versa. So I think in our disclosures today, we talk about the variability from time-to-time. The lease-out equipment that we have sold here or will be selling and shipping shortly, it's a function of that, it's things that sometimes are just hard to predict, but we have the contract vehicle. The army, we have a good relationship with them over the years. And yeah, we would expect to see some more to come, but nothing to put a specific dollar amount on.

克里斯，就 VSAT 而言，這是我們與軍隊簽訂了相當長一段時間的合同。我們總是說，軍隊的資金計劃非常難以預測，有時他們並不總是確切地知道自己在做什麼。有時訂單會出現在我們認為會在本季度晚些時候出現的地方，也許它會出現得更早，反之亦然。所以我認為在我們今天的披露中，我們不時談論可變性。我們在這裡出售或即將出售和運輸的租賃設備，這是一個功能，有時很難預測，但我們有合同工具。軍隊，這些年來我們和他們的關係很好。是的，我們希望看到更多，但沒有具體的金額。

Yeah. And I'll just chip in, because we are aggressively working that. Our technology is state-of-the-art in things like Troposcatter as well as the VSAT terminals. You saw the President's budget come out today and it's trending upward. In addition to this, we are approaching fiscal year end for the government and sometimes with our contract vehicles that are in place, they sweep-up funds that didn't get spent on something else and we benefit from that. So while we are not forecasting that right now, we are aggressively working to take advantage of those kinds of opportunities.

是的。我會插話，因為我們正在積極努力。我們的技術在 Troposcatter 和 VSAT 終端等方面是最先進的。你看到總統的預算今天出來了，它呈上升趨勢。除此之外，我們正接近政府的財政年度結束，有時我們的合同工具已經到位，他們清理了沒有花在其他事情上的資金，我們從中受益。因此，雖然我們現在沒有預測到這一點，但我們正在積極努力利用這些機會。

And can you talk about how orders are coming in from the Ukrainian government? Are they continuing on the same pace as before or tapering off. Can you shed some light there?

你能談談烏克蘭政府是如何下達訂單的嗎？他們是繼續以與以前相同的速度發展還是逐漸放緩。你能在那裡闡明一下嗎？

I don't feel comfortable speaking to that directly at this time. But I'll tell you that, as we have said before, there is no better marketing testimony in the world than folks that are in the fight with a sophisticated pure adversary, and the equipment that they're buying from us works in that tough environment. And so we anticipate that that puts us in a very strong position.

我現在不想直接和那個人說話。但我要告訴你，正如我們之前所說，世界上沒有比那些正在與復雜的純粹對手作戰的人更好的營銷證據，他們從我們這裡購買的設備在如此艱難的環境中工作環境。因此，我們預計這將使我們處於非常有利的地位。

And it does appear there are no further questions at this time. I would now I'd like to turn it back to Robert Samuels for any closing remarks.

現在看來確實沒有其他問題了。現在我想把它轉回給 Robert Samuels 以聽取任何結束語。

Thanks, operator. And thanks, Ken and Mike, and everyone for dialing in today. As Ken said, there are additional details about our strategy and performance available in our investor letter and SEC filings and we'll provide ongoing insights in our Signals blog. And as a reminder, we intend to be as responsive as we can with investors going forward. So for anyone with questions, please reach out to me directly and let's connect. This concludes our second quarter call. We thank you all for your continued support.

謝謝，運營商。感謝 Ken 和 Mike，以及今天撥入的所有人。正如 Ken 所說，我們的投資者信函和 SEC 文件中提供了有關我們戰略和績效的更多詳細信息，我們將在我們的 Signals 博客中提供持續的見解。提醒一下，我們打算對未來的投資者做出盡可能快的回應。因此，對於任何有疑問的人，請直接與我聯繫，讓我們聯繫。我們的第二季度電話會議到此結束。我們感謝大家一直以來的支持。

This does conclude today's program. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time. Have a wonderful evening.

今天的節目到此結束。感謝您的參與。您可以隨時斷開連接。祝你度過一個美好的夜晚。