WidePoint Corporation (NYSE American:WYY), the leading provider of Trusted Mobility Management (TM2) specializing in Identity Management (IdM), Telecommunications Lifecycle Management, and Digital Billing & Analytics solutions, has acquired IT Authorities (ITA), a globally ranked Managed Service Provider (MSP), Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP), and Cloud Services Provider (CSP).

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IT Authorities Overview

Based in Tampa, Florida, ITA is an award-winning provider of comprehensive information technology (IT) as a service offerings, including cybersecurity, cloud, network operations, and professional services. Since 2002, ITA has been transforming organizations through technology, applying IT strategy and innovation to meet the needs of small and mid-sized enterprises. The company's growing customer base spans 110 clients across a range of industries throughout North America.

ITA has received the prestigious Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Company in America award seven times and has been recognized as one of the "Best Places to Work/Best Companies to Work For" more than 10 times. ITA consistently ranks among the Top 500 MSPs in the World by Channel Futures.

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Acquisition Summary and Rationale

- WidePoint's expertise in delivering ITaaS solutions to existing and prospective customers.

- Expands WidePoint's footprint and presence in the bourgeoning commercial enterprise sector, especially with small and mid-sized businesses.

- Provides meaningful cross-sell opportunities, including layering on WidePoint's Identity Management solution on top of ITA's managed cybersecurity offerings.

- Offers significant upsell opportunities to sell WidePoint's Identity Management (IdMaaS) offering to ITA's customer base.

- Acquisition is expected to be accretive to WidePoint's operating results, excluding customary acquisition-related expenses.

Under the terms of the agreement, WidePoint acquired substantially all the assets of ITA. Additional details of the acquisition, including transaction terms and consideration will be filed on Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available here.

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Management Commentary

"After a meticulous screening period, we found the ideal company in ITA because it adds accretive value across all facets of our business," said Jin Kang, WidePoint CEO. "With the rapidly growing managed services, cloud, and cybersecurity markets poised for explosive growth, ITA significantly strengthens our footprint within each growth market. From a sales standpoint, the acquisition offers a multitude of cross-sell and upsell synergies within IT operations, Identity Management, partnerships with Microsoft and more that we can leverage by offering our combined customer base an even more robust portfolio of services and solutions. In addition to benefitting from ITA's high margin, recurring, managed services revenue, we are able to immediately tap into their expanding commercial SMB customer base with our enhanced offerings.

"We have already begun collaborating on sales opportunities with ITA, which we believe will translate to executed deals in the coming months. In conjunction with the immediate financial and sales benefits we're already seeing, our joint capabilities increase our value proposition in the market and correspondingly increases our chances of winning larger deals and contracts going forward. Additionally, ITA brings a very strong company culture and customer service, as proven by the plethora of corporate awards they've won, which is something that is overlooked and being phased out nowadays by technology companies within the professional services space. Overall, the accretive acquisition provides WidePoint with a more robust set of capabilities and technical synergies that will enable us to capture more market share in the bourgeoning managed services, cloud, and cybersecurity markets."

Jason Caras, Co-founder and CEO of IT Authorities, added: "As IT managed services, cloud, security and professional services are more relevant than ever before, it is absolutely pivotal to have a reliable partner to ensure the viability of these capabilities. We deliberately sought out a partner that shared our passion for service leadership in addition to a partner with a compelling slate of complementary IT services that would make us the preeminent powerhouse. I am confident that WidePoint's acquisition of IT Authorities and our combined offering of synergistic technologies, human capital, culture, and incremental customer base will help us deliver even greater value to customers in this growing market."

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Financial Outlook

For 2021, ITA management expects to report annualized revenue of approximately $10 million and adjusted EBITDA of approximately $1.5 million.

Transaction Advisors

Foley and Lardner LLP acted as legal advisor to WidePoint. Hyde Park Capital acted as financial advisor to ITA.

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Acquisition Conference Call Information

WidePoint management will host the conference call to discuss the acquisition. Management's prepared remarks will be followed by a question-and-answer period.

Toll Free: 888-506-0062

International: 973-528-0011

Entry Code: 592810

Please call the conference telephone number 5-10 minutes prior to the start time. An operator will register your name and organization. If you have any difficulty connecting with the conference call, please contact Gateway Investor Relations at (949) 574-3860.

The conference call will be broadcast live and available for replay here and via the investor relations section of the company's website.

A replay of the conference call will be available after 2:00 p.m. Eastern time on the same day through October 18, 2021.

Toll Free: 877-481-4010

International: 919-882-2331

Replay Passcode: 43064

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About the IT Authorities (ITA)

IT Authorities is an award-winning, globally ranked Managed Services Provider (MSP), Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP), and Cloud Services Provider (CSP) in operation since 2006. Headquartered in Tampa, Florida, IT Authorities serves clients in a wide range of industries across North America. For more information, visit itauthorities.com.

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About WidePoint

WidePoint Corporation (NYSE American:WYY) is a leading provider of Trusted Mobility Management (TM2) solutions, including Identity Management (IdM), secure Mobility Managed Services (MMS), Telecom Lifecycle Management, and Digital Billing & Analytics. For more information, visit widepoint.com.

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Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements concerning our business, operations and financial performance and condition as well as our plans, objectives and expectations for our business operations and financial performance and condition that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical fact included herein are forward-looking statements. You can identify these statements by words such as "aim," "anticipate," "assume," "believe," "could," "due," "estimate," "expect," "goal," "intend," "may," "objective," "plan," "potential," "positioned," "predict," "should," "target," "will," "would" and other similar expressions that are predictions of or indicate future events and future trends. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about our business and the industry in which we operate and our management's beliefs and assumptions. These statements are not guarantees of future performance or development and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that are in some cases beyond our control. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those that we expected, including, the ability to achieve expected benefits from the acquisition of ITA, including but not limited to the ability to achieve the financial outlook included herein, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business and operations; our ability to successfully execute our strategy; our ability to sustain profitability and positive cash flows; our ability to gain market acceptance for our products; our ability to win new contracts, execute contract extensions and expansion of services of existing contracts; our ability to compete with companies that have greater resources than us; our ability to penetrate the commercial sector to expand our business; our ability to retain key personnel; and the risk factors set forth in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020 filed with the SEC on March 24, 2021. The forward-looking statements included herein are made only as of the date hereof. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as otherwise required by law.

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Non-GAAP Financial Measures

WidePoint uses adjusted EBITDA as supplemental non-GAAP measure of performance. WidePoint defines EBITDA as net income excluding (i) interest expense, (ii) provision for or benefit from income taxes and (iii) depreciation and amortization. Adjusted EBITDA excludes certain amounts included in EBITDA. WidePoint is not providing a quantitative reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA in reliance on the "unreasonable efforts" exception for forward-looking non-GAAP measures set forth in SEC rules because certain financial information, the probable significance of which cannot be determined, is not available and cannot be reasonably estimated without unreasonable effort and expense. In this regard, WidePoint does not provide a reconciliation of forward-looking adjusted EBITDA (non-GAAP) to GAAP net income, due to the inherent difficulty in forecasting and quantifying certain amounts that are necessary for such reconciliation. Because certain deductions for non-GAAP exclusions used to calculate projected net income may vary significantly based on actual events, WidePoint is not able to forecast on a GAAP basis with reasonable certainty all deductions needed in order to provide a GAAP calculation of projected net income at this time. The amounts of these deductions may be material and, therefore, could result in projected GAAP net income being materially less than is indicated by estimated adjusted EBITDA (non-GAAP).

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Investor Relations:

Gateway Investor Relations

Matt Glover or John Yi

949-574-3860

WYY@gatewayir.com

SOURCE: WidePoint Corporation

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The leading B2B telecoms analyst firm Omnisperience and digital bill communications and analytics specialists Soft-ex have announced recent research, which has found 84% of communications service providers (CSPs) are planning to invest in more effective customer communications in the next 12-24 months.

Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, CSPs played a vital role in keeping both enterprises and households connected. But as life begins to normalise, they are now focused on what comes next.

“CSPs have spent billions transforming their operations, but the key piece of the puzzle – digital billing communications – has been overlooked despite bills being one of the most important touchpoints with customers,” says Soft-ex’s SVP Marketing & Business Development, Grainne Magfhloinn.  75% of respondents to Omnisperience’s research admitted that customers had to resort to contacting overworked call centres because they didn’t understand their current bills.

Now as we enter the hybrid working era, the good news is that CSPs are committed to doing better -telling Omnisperience that COVID-19 has not slowed down their transformations. In fact, 75% said it has speeded up digitalisation efforts, with 84% revealing they intend to invest in more effective interactive communication of charges.

“When customers call about their bills, it often turns out the bill is correct but the customer doesn’t understand it,” reveals Teresa Cottam of Omnisperience. The result is a negative loop of frustrated customers, higher customer care costs and unhappy customer service staff – which had led to high employee churn rates in call centres. Lack of investment in this area has made it hard for CSPs to provide the type of digital experience and level of customer care they aspire to.

But this situation is set to change, because CSPs are well aware of what’s at stake, meaning that in the next period of adaption:

·       84% will invest in improving digital bill communications

·       92% intend to improve or add analytical and reporting capabilities

·       75% will introduce self-service bills

·       83% will improve the look and feel of their bills.

This is great news for customers, CSPs and their staff, according to Cottam. “Better bill communications is the foundation of successful digital service provision and healthy customer relationships. It creates a virtuous circle of happier customers, lower support costs and more fulfilled staff who spend less time fire-fighting and more time being creative and enhancing the experience,” she says.

Magfhloinn agrees: “CSPs have known they need to fix this for a long time, but they’ve had so much to do that it kept slipping off their to-do list. Now they’re facing huge and continual changes in their commercial relationships and they know they cannot delay improving their digital bill communications any longer”.

“A lean approach to Digital Transformation advocates focusing on where the customer perceives the most value,” adds Cottam. “As CSPs shift from a customer acquisition mindset to one of retention, digital bill communication becomes vital to building a healthy, engaging dialogue with customers. Our research shows that this is driving investment in this area, enabling CSPs to transform customer experiences and deliver the experiences their customers expect.”

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Check out the new article published in UC Today featuring Soft-ex's Ian Lindsay and Microsoft specialist Michael Hesjak explaining the importance of Voice Analytics in the world of Hybrid Work.

Businesses’ increasing use of UC platforms as a result of hybrid work has created an increased requirement for granularity when it comes to all aspects of the call journey, for both carriers and customers. There are two categories of solutions that should be used alongside one another: Data Management solutions and Voice Analytics solutions.

How do Voice Analytics complement Data Management to provide comprehensive self-serve analytics?

Voice: More Than Just Data

“The market is starting to realize that voice optimization has its own very unique requirements. Voice analytics should provide you with two key parameters, namely customer experience and bandwidth management,” notes Lindsay. “So it’s not just data – it’s a very personal experience: a human being talking to a human being.”  

In fact, voice is an essential part of the general customer experience, which has become crucial in the post-pandemic world.

“As a customer, if you were dealing with any major enterprise and they’ve migrated to Teams and you couldn’t connect with them – you wouldn’t do business with them ever again. This is why when it comes to voice, unlike data, it is essential that when it’s delivered, it’s delivered well”  

Filling in The Gaps

If you’re a Microsoft Team’s user, there is a standard set of analytics available to you, but it’s not enough to get a full picture of what’s going on across your network. This means that you have to effectively manage the call flow from cradle to grave, including the vital information from SBCs connecting you to the outside world.  

According to Hesjak, this is especially important to larger corporations that must be extra-careful when it comes to optimizing their networks.  

“Understanding how voice is delivered and managed is a key thing for a lot of these organizations,” Hesjak says. “And companies like Soft-ex, providing these voice analytics, are a core element of that; because a lot of carriers don’t know how to put this architecture together themselves.”  

The fact that Microsoft only provide the licenses has caused the emergence of a new market segment bundling SIP minutes, SBCs and a management wrap.  

“We’re seeing many new suppliers moving into that new marketplace,” says Lindsay.  

Paying Only for What You Use

At the back end of this new market are companies like Soft-ex, delivering sight of the voice aspect of things. With organizations starting to come back into the office, this becomes exceptionally significant.

“We deliver analytics which assists today’s enterprise to optimize their tariff plans,” shares Lindsay.

“We can also actually show how many of those SIP channels are busy, peak utilization and how many concurrent calls are being handled”

“One of the key questions I ask clients is: what is your utilization? Because that’s how you size the voice channels into that organization,” explains Hesjak.

Currently, carriers are charging customers according to a minimum commitment on a voice channel; but in fact, they have no way of knowing what the customer’s actual capacity is. This can all become much more efficient once a carrier has the right tools, allowing them an understanding of what’s going on in the organizations they’re serving.

“The goal is to make this a lot easier to maintain; a lot more automated in the way we provision these channels into these organizations,” says Hesjek. “

Lindsay concludes that “by delivering these powerful voice analytics, a much more efficient voice experience is achieved.”

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