TELUS International (CDA) (TIXT) Risk Factors

The market for the services we offer is very competitive. We expect competition to intensify and increase from a number of our existing competitors, including professional services companies that offer consulting services, information technology companies with digital capabilities, and traditional contact center and business process outsourcing (BPO) companies that are expanding their capabilities to offer higher-margin and higher-growth services. In addition, the continued expansion of the services we offer and the markets we operate in will result in new and different competitors, many of which may have significantly greater local market recognition than we do, as well as increased competition with existing competitors who are also expanding their services to cover digital capabilities. Many of these existing and new competitors have differing or greater financial, geographic, human and other resources, greater technological expertise, longer operating histories and more established relationships in the verticals that we currently serve or may expand to serve in the future. In addition, some of our competitors may enter into strategic or commercial relationships among themselves or with larger, more established companies in order to increase their ability to address client needs or enter into similar arrangements with potential clients. We also face competition from service providers that operate in countries where we do not have delivery locations because our clients may, to diversify geographic risk and for other reasons, seek to reduce their dependence on any one country by shifting work to another country in which we do not operate. All of these factors present challenges for us in retaining and growing our business. From time to time, our clients who currently use our services may determine that they can provide these services in-house. As a result, we face the competitive pressure to continually offer our services in a manner that will be viewed by our clients as better and more cost-effective than what they could provide themselves. Our inability to compete successfully could result in increased client turnover, revenue loss, pressures on recruitment and retention of team members, service price reductions and increased marketing and promotional expenses, or reduced operating margins which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial performance, financial condition and cash flows.

Certain of our existing and potential clients may know us primarily for our customer experience services. Our ability to realize our digital-first strategy and increase revenue across our core verticals depends on our ability to solution, sell and deliver our digital services. If we are not successful in establishing our digital brand and marketing our expanded service offerings to clients, our ability to shift our existing clients into more profitable digital services and attract new clients to these service offerings may be limited, which may adversely affect our growth prospects and anticipated business volumes and financial performance.

Our ability to continue to expand the nature, scope and complexity of our engagements depends on our ability to attract new or existing clients to an expanded collection of service offerings. For complex projects, we are more likely to compete with large, well-established international firms, many of which have greater resources and market reputation than we do. To compete for these projects, we will likely incur increased sales and marketing costs and will need to maintain close relationships with our clients and have a thorough understanding of their operations. Our success will depend upon a number of factors, including our ability to establish such relationships, form and retain a team with the necessary skills and meet our client needs at the necessary scale in the required timeframes. For example, if a new program requires us to hire a large number of team members with specific skills in a specific geography, we could face challenges in implementing the program on a client's desired timetable or at all. Our failure to deliver services that meet the requirements specified by our clients could result in termination of client contracts, which could result in us being liable to our clients for significant penalties or damages and negatively impact our reputation. More complex projects may involve multiple engagements or stages, and there is a risk that a client may choose not to retain us for later stages or may cancel or delay additional planned engagements, which may be the more profitable portions of the overall planned engagement. Such cancellations or delays make it difficult to plan for project resource requirements and inaccuracies in such resource planning and allocation may have a material adverse impact on our financial performance, financial condition and cash flows.

Our success depends in part on certain methodologies, practices, tools and technical expertise. We engage in designing, developing, implementing and maintaining applications and other proprietary materials. In order to protect our rights in these various materials, we may seek protection under trade secret, patent, copyright and trademark laws. We also generally enter into confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements with our clients and potential clients, and third-party vendors, and seek to limit access to and distribution of our proprietary information. For our team members and independent contractors, we require confidentiality and proprietary information agreements. These measures may not prevent misappropriation or infringement of our intellectual property or proprietary information and a resulting loss of competitive advantage. Additionally, we may not be successful in obtaining or maintaining trademarks for which we have applied. We may be unable to protect our intellectual property and proprietary technology or brand effectively, which may allow competitors to duplicate our technology and products and may adversely affect our ability to compete with them. Given our international operations, the laws, rules, regulations and treaties in effect in the jurisdictions in which we operate, the contractual and other protective measures we take may not be adequate to protect us from misappropriation or unauthorized use of our intellectual property, or from the risk that such laws could change. To the extent that we do not protect our intellectual property effectively, other parties, including former team members, with knowledge of our intellectual property may leave and seek to exploit our intellectual property for their own or others' advantage. We may not be able to detect unauthorized use and take appropriate steps to enforce our rights, and any such steps may not be successful. Infringement by others of our intellectual property, including the costs of enforcing our intellectual property rights, may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial performance, financial condition and cash flows. In addition, competitors or others may allege that our systems, processes, marketing, data usage or technologies infringe on their intellectual property rights. Non-practicing entities may also bring baseless, but nonetheless costly to defend, infringement claims. We could be required to indemnify our clients, particularly in the case of larger projects and clients, if they are sued by a third party for intellectual property infringement arising from materials that we have provided to the clients in connection with our services and deliverables. We may not be successful in defending against such intellectual property claims, regardless of whether a successful defense can be established, or in obtaining licenses or an agreement to resolve any intellectual property disputes. Given the complex, rapidly changing and competitive technological and business environment in which we operate, and the potential risks and uncertainties of intellectual property-related litigation, we cannot provide assurances that a future assertion of an infringement claim against us or our clients will not cause us to alter our business practices, lose significant revenues, incur significant license, royalty or technology development expenses, or pay significant monetary damages or legal fees and costs. Any such claim for intellectual property infringement may have a material adverse effect on our business, reputation, financial performance, financial condition and cash flows.

Our network infrastructure is vulnerable to rapidly evolving cyber-attacks, and our user data and corporate systems and security measures may be breached due to the actions of outside parties (including malicious cyberattacks), team member or vendor error, malfeasance, internal bad actors, a combination of these, or otherwise. A breach may allow an unauthorized party to obtain access to or exfiltrate our data or our users' or clients' data. Additionally, outside parties may attempt to fraudulently induce team members, suppliers, users or clients to install malicious software, disclose sensitive information or access credentials, or take other actions that may provide access to our data or our users' or clients' data. Because modern networking and computing environments are increasing in complexity and techniques used to obtain unauthorized access, disable or degrade service or sabotage systems change frequently, increase in sophistication over time or may be designed to remain dormant until a predetermined event and often are not recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques, implement adequate preventative measures, or timely detect a compromise. If an actual or perceived breach of our security occurs (or a breach of a client's security that can be attributed to our fault or is perceived to be our fault), the market perception of the effectiveness of our security measures could be harmed and we could lose clients. Security breaches also expose us to a risk of loss of this information, class action or other litigation brought both by clients and by individuals whose information was compromised, remediation costs, increased costs for security measures, loss of revenue, damage to our reputation, and potential liability. While we believe our team members undergo appropriate training with respect to cybersecurity and privacy, if any person, including any of our team members, negligently disregards or unintentionally or intentionally breaches controls or procedures with which we are responsible for complying with respect to such data or otherwise mismanages or misappropriates that data, or if unauthorized access to or disclosure of data in our possession or control occurs, we could be subject to significant liability to our clients or our clients' customers for breaching contractual confidentiality and security provisions or for permitting access to personal information subject to privacy laws, as well as liability and penalties in connection with any violation of applicable privacy laws or criminal prosecution. Unauthorized disclosure of sensitive or confidential client or team member data, whether through breach of computer systems, systems failure, team member or vendor error or negligence, fraud or misappropriation, or otherwise, could damage our reputation and cause us to lose clients and result in liability to individuals whose information was compromised. Similarly, unauthorized access to or through our information systems and networks or those we develop or manage for our clients, whether by our team members or third parties, could result in negative publicity, damage to our reputation, loss of clients or business, class action or other litigation, costly regulatory investigations and other potential liability. In addition, certain third parties to whom we outsource certain of our services or functions, or with whom we interface, store our information assets or our clients' confidential information, as well as those third parties' providers, are also subject to the risks outlined above. Although we generally require our vendors to hold sufficient liability insurance and provide indemnification for any liability resulting from the vendor's breach of the services agreement, a breach or attack affecting these third parties, any delays in our awareness of the occurrence of such breach or attack, or our any third parties' inability to promptly remedy such a breach or attack, could also harm our reputation, business, financial performance, financial condition and cash flows, and could subject us to liability for damages to our clients and their customers. As part of our due diligence efforts, we require our suppliers to complete privacy and security assessments and we endeavor to include provisions in our contracts requiring compliance with IT security and privacy and data protection best practices and provisions granting us the right to audit compliance with these requirements. These efforts to ensure third parties have robust cybersecurity and privacy capabilities may not be sufficient to adequately protect our Company and its assets. Further, failure to select third parties that have robust cybersecurity and privacy capabilities may also jeopardize our ability to attract new clients, who may factor their assessment of risks of retaining us to include the risks posed by such third parties. Cyber-attacks penetrating the network security of our data centers or any unauthorized disclosure or access to confidential information and data of our clients or their end customers could also have a negative impact on our reputation and client confidence, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial performance, financial condition and cash flows.

Our growth, profitability and the diversity of our revenue sources depend on our ability to develop and adopt new technologies to expand our existing offerings, proactively identify new revenue streams and improve cost efficiencies in our operations, all while meeting rapidly evolving client expectations. Recent and rapid developments with respect to and the popularization and commercialization of AI have created additional pressures on our business with respect to both the need to develop AI-related offerings to meet customer expectations and remain competitive and to integrate AI into our business processes and tools in order to create cost efficiencies. Although we are focused on maintaining and enhancing the range of our offerings, we may not be successful in anticipating or responding to our clients' expectations and the integration of our technology solutions into our offerings may not achieve the intended enhancements or cost reductions in our operations. New services and technologies offered by our competitors may make our service offerings uncompetitive, which may reduce our clients' interest in our offerings and our ability to attract new clients. This may increasingly become a challenge for us with respect to revenue derived from our customer experience (CX) business, which may be negatively impacted by the introduction of AI capabilities into our marketplace. Our failure to innovate, maintain technological advantages or respond effectively and timely to changes in technology could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial performance, financial condition and cash flows.

Certain global conditions which are outside our control, such as economic and geopolitical conditions, acts of violence or war, natural disasters or extreme weather events and global pandemics or epidemics, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and its variants and the related response measures, could have an adverse effect on our clients' businesses. These conditions have created, and may continue to create, volatility, uncertainty and economic disruption. These impacts may be particularly impactful for us given that we have operations in 32 countries as of December 31, 2023, and we service clients across multiple geographic regions. The global economy is in a period of uncertainty with respect to inflation, higher interest rates and slower economic growth. Some regions may experience a recessionary period and we cannot predict how long such conditions may last or what their ultimate impact may be on our business. Global economic conditions are impacting our business and may adversely affect our liquidity and financial condition, and the liquidity and financial condition of our clients, increase the cost of borrowing and cause credit to become more limited, limit our ability to access financing or increase our cost of financing to meet liquidity needs or fund acquisitions, and affect the ability of our clients to use credit to purchase our services or to make timely payments to us, all of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, financial performance and cash flows. Changes in the general level of economic activity, such as decreases in business and consumer spending, have resulted and could increasingly in the future result in pricing pressure on our services and a decrease or delay in demand for the products and services that our clients provide to their customers, and in turn, our clients' demand for our own services. In addition, because the majority of our costs are fixed in the short-term, we have and may in the future experience a delay in our ability to adjust our cost structure in response to lower client demand. Global macroeconomic pressures have resulted and could continue to result in certain of our clients aggressively cutting their costs, which could result in reductions and delays in demand for our services, as well as delays in converting opportunities into spend commitments, all of which could reduce our revenues and profitability. We cannot predict the ultimate duration or scale of the current or any future demand reductions, delays and reduced growth from new clients, or the ultimate impact of these factors on our business. Continuing reduction or delay in demand from existing or potential clients could continue to reduce our revenue and profitability and factor into our decisions on workforce management. Acts of violence or war may adversely affect worldwide financial markets and could potentially lead to, or exacerbate, an economic recession, which could adversely affect our business, financial performance, financial condition and cash flows. These events could negatively affect our clients' levels of business activity and precipitate sudden significant changes in regional and global economic conditions and cycles. These events also pose significant risks to our team members and to our delivery locations and operations around the world. We generally do not have insurance for losses and interruptions caused by terrorist attacks, military conflicts and wars. Any such event could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial performance, financial condition and cash flows. In particular, in February 2022, Russia, aided by Belarus, commenced military operations in Ukraine, which are still continuing. A conflict in the Middle East, which began in October 2023, is also continuing. In response to the conflict in Ukraine, a number of countries, including the United States, Canada and other NATO countries, have imposed significant sanctions against Russia and Belarus, and a number of individuals and enterprises in both countries. The conflict in the Ukraine has caused migration and other demographic effects. Similar negative impacts for both our and our clients' businesses could arise as a result of the armed conflict in the Middle East. Prolonged conflicts and the resultant negative impacts have, and may in the future, result in increased political uncertainties and volatility in the global economy, which has, and may in the future, affect businesses around the world, including our clients and us as a result. The scope, intensity, duration and outcome of the conflicts is uncertain. If the conflicts and the sanctions intensify, this may adversely impact our clients and their demand for our services, which may have a material adverse impact on our results of operations. Additionally, although we do not operate in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine or Israel, we have operations and team members in neighboring countries and any escalation of these conflicts could adversely impact our operations and team members in these countries, which could materially impact our ability to deliver services to our clients, and may have a material effect on our results of operations. There is also no certainty that these current conflicts will not draw military or other intervention from additional countries, which could lead to much larger conflicts and/or additional sanctions, which could further negatively impact the global economy. In addition, we cannot predict the impact that an escalation of these conflicts may have on our clients and their financial conditions. Any material adverse effect on our clients, including due to these conflicts, could adversely impact us. Further, the risk of cybersecurity incidents has increased in connection with these ongoing conflicts. It is possible that these attacks could have collateral effects on critical communications infrastructure and financial institutions globally, which could adversely affect our operations and could increase the frequency and severity of cyber-based attacks against our information technology systems. The proliferation of malware from these conflicts into systems unrelated to the conflict, or cyberattacks against companies based in countries that have instituted sanctions, such as the United States, could also adversely affect our results of operations. To the extent the current these conflicts adversely affects our business, it may also have the effect of heightening many other risks disclosed in this Annual Report. Additionally, our operations may continue to be disrupted by variants arising from the COVID-19 pandemic or other pandemics and related response measures, particularly if new viral variants cause infection rates to increase, requiring the imposition of quarantine or other response measures. Our ability to continue operations effectively during an epidemic or pandemic, or other outbreak of disease, is dependent on a number of factors, such as the continued availability of high-quality internet bandwidth, an uninterrupted supply of electricity, the sustainability of social infrastructure to enable our team members who are working remotely to continue delivering services, and on otherwise adequate conditions for remote-working, many of which may be outside of our control. In addition, the effects of a pandemic have previously caused and may in the future cause our clients, particularly those in impacted industries, to defer decision making, delay planned work, reduce volumes or seek to terminate current agreements with us, which could adversely affect our business and financial condition. To the extent an epidemic, pandemic, or other outbreak of disease adversely affects our business, financial condition, financial performance and cash flows, it may also have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described in this "Risk Factors" section.

We are a global business with a substantial majority of our physical assets and operations located outside Canada and the United States. In addition, an important component of our growth strategy is our continuing international expansion, including in Europe and Asia-Pacific. We continuously evaluate additional locations outside of our current operating geographies in which to invest in delivery locations, in order to maintain an appropriate cost structure for our client programs. Due to the international nature of our business, we are exposed to various risks of international operations, including: adverse trade policies or trade barriers; inflation, hyperinflation and adverse economic effects resulting from governmental attempts to control inflation, such as the imposition of wage and price controls and higher interest rates; difficulties in enforcing agreements or judgments and collecting receivables in foreign jurisdictions; exchange controls or other currency restrictions and limitations on the movement of funds, such as on the remittance of dividends by subsidiaries; foreign currency fluctuations; inadequate infrastructure and logistics challenges; sovereign risk and the risk of government intervention, including through expropriation, or regulation of the economy; unexpected changes in regulatory regimes; challenges in maintaining an effective internal control environment with operations in multiple international locations, including language and cultural differences, expertise in international locations and multiple financial information systems; concerns relating to the protection and security of our personnel and assets; international trade and political disputes; and labor disruptions, civil unrest, political instability, wars or other armed conflict. These risks may be especially significant if we expand into less developed countries that have less political, social or economic stability and more vulnerable infrastructure and legal systems. These risks may impede our strategy by limiting the countries and regions in which we are able to expand. The impacts of these risks may also only materialize after we have begun preparations and made investments to provide services in this new country or region. The exposure to these risks may adversely affect our ability to repatriate cash or require us to incur additional and/or unanticipated costs to mitigate the impact of these risks on our business. Additionally, there continues to be a great deal of uncertainty regarding U.S. and global trade policies for companies with multinational operations like ours, and trade policies may change in a manner that disrupts our operations or otherwise negatively affects our business, financial condition and results of operations. As we continue to operate our business globally, our success will depend, in part, on the nature and extent of any such changes and how well we are able to anticipate, respond to and effectively manage any such changes. International trade and political disputes can also adversely affect the operations of multinational corporations like ours by limiting or disrupting trade and business activity between countries or regions. For example, we may be required to limit or halt operations, terminate client relationships or forego profitable client opportunities in countries which may, in the future, be subject to sanctions or other restrictions on business activity by corporations such as ours, by U.S., European or Canadian legislation, executive order or otherwise. Some of our clients have been targeted by and may, in the future, be subject to such sanctions. Additionally, failure to resolve the trade dispute between the countries may also lead to unexpected operating difficulties in certain countries, including enhanced regulatory scrutiny, greater difficulty transferring funds or negative currency impacts. All the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial performance, financial condition and prospects.

Our delivery locations and our data and voice communications, including in Africa, Central America, China, Europe, India, North America and the Philippines, in particular, may be damaged or disrupted as a result of natural disasters or extreme weather events, including those resulting from or exacerbated by climate change, such as earthquakes, floods, volcano eruptions, heavy rains, winter storms, tsunamis and cyclones; epidemics or pandemics, or other outbreaks of disease; technical disruptions and infrastructure breakdowns including damage to, or interruption of, electrical grids, transportation systems, communication systems or telecommunication cables; issues with information technology systems and networks, including computer glitches, software vulnerabilities and electronic viruses or other malicious code; accidents and other events such as fires, floods, failures of fire suppression and detection, heating, ventilation or air conditioning systems or other events, such as protests, riots, labor unrest, security threats and terrorist attacks. Any of these events may lead to the disruption of information systems and telecommunication services for sustained periods and may create delays and inefficiencies in providing services to clients and potentially result in closure of our sites. They may also make it difficult or impossible for team members to provide our services. Damage or destruction that interrupts our provision of services could adversely affect our reputation, our relationships with our clients, our leadership team's ability to administer and supervise our business or may cause us to incur substantial additional expenditures to repair or replace damaged equipment or sites. We may also be liable to our clients for disruption in service resulting from such damage or destruction. Our resiliency and disaster recovery plans may not be adequate to provide continuity and reliability of service during disruptions or reduce the duration and impact of service outages sufficiently or at all. While we currently have commercial liability insurance, our insurance coverage may be insufficient or may not provide coverage at all for certain events. Furthermore, we may be unable to secure such insurance coverage at premiums acceptable to us in the future, or such insurance may become unavailable. Prolonged disruption of our services could also entitle our clients to terminate their contracts with us or require us to pay penalties or damages to our clients. Any of the above factors may materially adversely affect our business, financial performance, financial condition and cash flows.

Our primary operating currency is the U.S. dollar, but we also generate revenue and incur expenses in other currencies, including the European euro, the Philippine peso and the Canadian dollar. As we expand our operations to new countries, our exposure to currency fluctuations will increase. Fluctuations in currency exchange rates between the U.S. dollar and other currencies we transact in may adversely impact our financial results and cash flows. Our financial performance could be adversely affected over time by certain movements in exchange rates, particularly if currencies in which we incur expenses appreciate against the U.S. dollar or if the currencies in which we receive revenues depreciate against the U.S. dollar. Although we take steps to hedge a portion of our foreign currency exposures, a portion remains unhedged and there is no assurance that our hedging strategy will be successful or that the hedging markets will have sufficient liquidity or depth for us to implement our strategy in a cost-effective manner. In addition, in some countries such as China, we are subject to legal restrictions on hedging activities, as well as convertibility of currencies, which could limit our ability to use cash generated in one country to invest in another and could limit our ability to hedge our exposures. Finally, our hedging policies only provide near term protection from exchange rate fluctuations. If currencies in which we incur expenses appreciate against the U.S. dollar, we may have to consider additional means of maintaining profitability, including by increasing pricing or reducing costs, which may or may not be achievable.