Vistaprint 2012 Annual Report Download - page 23

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• our inexperience in marketing and selling our products and services within an unfamiliar culture;
• our failure to properly understand and develop graphic design content and product formats appropriate
for local tastes;
• disruptions caused by political and social instability that may occur in some countries;
• corrupt business practices, such as bribery, that may be common in some countries;
• difficulty expatriating our earnings from some countries;
• disruptions or cessation of important components of our international supply chain;
• the challenge of complying with disparate laws in multiple countries;
• restrictions imposed by local labor practices and laws on our business and operations; and
• failure of local laws to provide a sufficient degree of protection against infringement of our intellectual
property.
To manage our operations and anticipated growth, we must continue to refine our operational, financial, and
management controls, human resource policies, reporting systems, and procedures in the locations in which we
operate. If we are unable to implement improvements to our management information and control systems in an
efficient or timely manner or if we discover deficiencies in our existing systems and controls, then our ability to
provide a high-quality customer experience could be harmed, which would damage our reputation and brands and
substantially harm our business and results of operations.
Acquisitions may be disruptive to our business.
Our business and customer base have been built primarily through organic growth, and while individuals on
our Supervisory Board and management team have experience making acquisitions in their professional
experience outside of Vistaprint, we have limited experience making acquisitions as a company. A component of our
strategy is to selectively pursue acquisitions of businesses, technologies or services, and accordingly we completed
the acquisitions of Albumprinter in October 2011 and Webs in December 2011. Integrating newly acquired
businesses, technologies and services is complex, expensive, time consuming and subject to many risks, including
the following:
• We may not be able to retain customers and key employees of the acquired businesses, and we and
the acquired businesses may not be able to cross sell products and services to each other's customers.
• In some cases, our acquisitions are dilutive for a period of time, leading to reduced earnings.
• An acquisition may fail to achieve our goals and expectations for the acquired business because we fail
to integrate the acquired business, technologies or services effectively, the integration is more
expensive or takes more time than we anticipated, or the acquired business does not perform as well
as we expected.
• Acquisitions can result in large write-offs including impairments of goodwill and intangible assets,
assumptions of contingent or unanticipated liabilities, or increased tax costs.
In addition, to finance our recent acquisitions, we borrowed additional amounts under our credit facility, and
we may need to raise additional funds for any future acquisitions. Financing may not be available on terms that are
favorable to us, or at all, and can cause dilution to our shareholders or subject us to covenants restricting the
activities we may undertake. The time and expense associated with finding suitable and compatible businesses,
technologies or services to acquire could also disrupt our ongoing business and divert our management's attention.
Form 10-K