Company: BHE
Filing Date: 2025-02-24
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000950170-25-025644
Chunk: 34

Company: BENCHMARK ELECTRONICS INC
Filing Date: 2025-02-24
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 34
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 thereby adversely affecting our results of operations due to inefficient use of manufacturing capacity, increasing inventory balances and potential write-downs or write-offs of obsolete or unsold inventory. On other occasions, our customers have required rapid increases in production, which has placed an excessive burden on our resources. Such customer order fluctuations and deferrals have had a material adverse effect on us in the past and may again in the future. 

A business downturn resulting from any of these external factors could result in restructuring and other charges, write-downs or write-offs of obsolete or unsold inventory and a deterioration in our gross profit, each of which could have a material adverse effect on our operating income.

Winning business is subject to lengthy, competitive bid selection processes that often require us to incur significant expense, from which we may ultimately generate no revenue.

Our business is dependent on us winning competitive bid selection processes. These selection processes are typically lengthy and may require us to dedicate significant development expenditures and scarce engineering resources in pursuit of a single customer opportunity. Failure to obtain a particular design win may prevent us from obtaining design wins in subsequent generations of a particular product. This could result in lost revenue and could weaken our position in future competitive bid selection processes.

Our customers may cancel their orders, change production quantities, delay production or change their sourcing strategies.

The degree of success or failure of our customers’ products in the market also affects our business. On occasion, customers require rapid increases in production, which can stress our resources and reduce operating margins. In addition, because many of our costs and operating expenses are relatively fixed, a reduction in customer demand can harm our gross profits and operating results.

EMS providers must provide increasingly rapid product turnaround for their customers. We generally do not obtain firm, long-term purchase commitments from our customers, and we continue to experience reduced lead-times in customer orders. Customers may cancel their orders, change production quantities, delay production or change their sourcing strategy for a number of reasons. Cancellations, reductions, delays or changes in the sourcing strategy by a significant customer or by a group of customers could negatively impact our operating income.

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In addition, we make significant decisions, including determining the levels of business that we will seek and accept, production schedules, component procurement commitments, personnel needs, capital expenditures and other resource requirements, based on our estimate of customer requirements. The short-term nature of our customers’ commitments and the possibility of rapid changes in demand for their products impede our ability to accurately estimate the future requirements of those customers. This could result in manufacturing inefficiencies and