Specialist
Former Director at Syniverse Holdings Inc
Agenda
- Syniverse's operating environment – mobile roaming volumes across geographies and impact from the novel coronavirus pandemic
- Enterprise segment outlook – growth drivers for push alerts, two-factor authentication (2FA) messaging
- Cost structure analysis – fixed vs variable
- Outlook for 2020 and beyond – downside scenarios
Questions
1.
How should we segment Syniverse’s business model, and how has it evolved? You mentioned the legacy business it is pivoting away from.
2.
Can you outline the key trends or drivers impacting the overall operating environment, distinguishing those that were pre-coronavirus pandemic?
3.
How are you contextualising the negative financial impacts of this environment across Syniverse’s segments? A few segments will likely react differently in line with mobile roaming traffic. How tepid a revenue environment are you forecasting, at least until some social of the distancing guidelines are lifted? Will some segments cease to be a revenue stream, while others may experience a more muted decline?
4.
Can you outline the significance of Syniverse’s legacy mobile roaming-driven base? Are those accelerated declines likely to offset any near-term tailwinds from the communication increases you referenced?
5.
What are your thoughts on carrier adoption of RCS [Rich Communication Services] and what that means for Syniverse? Could that cannibalistic rather than additive for that P2P [peer-to-peer] business opportunity?
6.
Can you highlight the competitor sets across the product offerings Syniverse is trying to drive growth in? Where does the company compete most and least effectively?
7.
Will Syniverse’s UC [unified communications] largely be its Communication Gateway platform, and who will be the target customer for that CPaaS [communications-platform-as-a-service] product? To what extent is it increasingly competing directly against players such as Twilio? Why might they not be competing as much as one might originally assume?
8.
What do you think are Syniverse’s top three priorities around shoring up demand for the Communication Gateway platform and making this a much more significant revenue stream? Will it be getting those deployment times to industry standard, or even best-in-class, or getting more omnichannel and not just SMS- driven? Will it come from shoring up some of those verticals that are hard to tap into? How confident are you in this becoming a meaningful growth driver for the overall business?
9.
Is the revenue model for Syniverse’s Communication Gateway product similar to a Twilio, in that it is consumption-based pricing?
10.
Do you think Syniverse’s Communication Gateway platform will be margin accretive relative to the legacy roaming side? Obviously, that is high-margin business as well – how should we evaluate the impact it will have if it grows successfully as a revenue base?
11.
Would you expect Syniverse to move away from its Vibes investment opportunity given integration was never executed? Generally speaking, do you expect Syniverse to continue to pursue further M&A or partnerships?
12.
Do you have any additional commentary on Syniverse’s positioning? What would you pinpoint as the biggest threats or opportunities the company is exposed to? You brought up management – are there any slight strategic tweaks that you think the team would benefit from?
13.
A few of Syniverse’s product subsegments seem to be a focus for driving growth. Can you offer a product overview for its IPX [Internetwork Packet Exchange] network, and outline the main commercial use cases?
14.
What do you think will be key to Syniverse’s success driving that 5G messaging and achieving traction as opposed to just the legacy LTE [Long-Term Evolution] roaming side?
15.
When do you think we could expect any 5G top-line tailwinds for Syniverse? Is that largely reliant on nationwide deployment?
16.
Can you outline the unit economics of products in Syniverse’s EIS [Enterprise and Intelligence Solutions] segment?
17.
To what extent is the messaging layer a commodity market? Obviously, you mentioned monetising is reliant on the per-messaging rate. Is that experiencing significant YoY declines?
18.
Why do you think customers would be interested in Syniverse’s professional services opportunities, through which the company is attempting to maintain its pricing?
19.
Over what time frame do you expect Syniverse’s growth opportunities to more than offset the legacy declines for it to become overall top-line positive?
20.
How should we evaluate Syniverse’s cost model? Obviously, there is a tepid demand environment across many different industries. How would you say Syniverse’s costs relate to revenue falling? How much do you think is fixed vs variable?
21.
Do you think Syniverse’s CAPEX investments into growth products will be more growth vs maintenance? It seems to me that maintenance could potentially be held off on temporarily, at least until demand returns.
22.
How long-lasting do you think Syniverse’s carrier partnerships are? Obviously, there was a renewal with T- Mobile most recently. How should we evaluate whether this was the last real cycle relating to some of the interconnect-type businesses? Are there ways that Syniverse can further leverage the relationship there?
23.
Is there any risk of customer concentration within Syniverse’s overall base? Have switching costs decreased, and how is that impacting your expectations around renewal rates?
24.
Could you envisage a trend of large customers insourcing, as relates to what you discussed happening last year? How unique do you think that is, given the scale of some of Syniverse’s customer relationships?
25.
You alluded to potential industry consolidation – how could this relate to Syniverse? Where could it acquire to bolster its position? Are there any strategics that you could foresee acquiring Syniverse in its entirety vs in parts?
26.
Who would you highlight as the most likely acquirer of Syniverse, given some of the likely early integration challenges or just being a strategic fit?
27.
Would you foresee a Twilio being interested in just Syniverse’s CPaaS product? Is that even separable from the legacy base, or is a large driver of a competitive advantage in that legacy base?
28.
How do you expect the landscape to evolve for Syniverse over the next few quarters or even the next year? What KPIs could be the most useful to track its progress as it tries to reinvigorate the top line overall?
29.
Can we conclude with your overall assessment of Syniverse, its customer perception and any key areas you think it should be focusing on?
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