Zimmer Biomet Holdings Inc.: 10-K Risk Factor Changes

We are converting substantial portions of our U.S. sales force from independent distributors and sales representatives to our employees in a multi-year initiative. We are also increasing product category specialization and focus across our U.S. sales force, which may lead to disruptions for our sales personnel. We may not successfully execute or manage this transformation and transition, which could materially and adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. These transformative actions present significant operational, legal, financial and cultural challenges and require effective planning and execution across recruiting, onboarding, training, systems integration, compensation, compliance and management. We could experience operational disruptions, increased costs and reduced sales, and we may lose key sales personnel, including high-performing distributors, sales leaders and sales representatives, to competitors if they decline employment with us or depart following the transition. Any such departures could lead to loss of customer relationships, sales coverage gaps, diminished sales effectiveness and lower net sales. Even if we are able to retain key personnel, we expect to experience disruption to our U.S. sales force as roles, territories, product category sales coverage, compensation structures, incentive plans, reporting lines, systems and processes change, which could reduce morale, productivity and continuity in customer engagement, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. Additionally, competitors are attempting, and may continue to attempt, to recruit our sales personnel (whether independent or employed) and target our customer relationships during and after the transition. The magnitude and duration of these impacts are uncertain and may be exacerbated by macroeconomic conditions, competition or other factors. We are additionally making certain changes to our sales force and go-to-market models in certain other countries in an effort to optimize our commercial strategies and improve our performance on a consistent basis in those markets. We are separately tailoring the nature, timing and scale of the changes to the requirements of individual markets, and do not expect the changes to be uniform. Throughout the transition to this new model in certain emerging markets, we expect revenue performance to be inconsistent as we negotiate with the displaced distributors, execute initial stocking orders with the new platform distributors and allow the platform distributors to coordinate with their sub-distributor network. Each market’s transformation efforts present significant operational, legal, financial and cultural challenges and risks that are similar to those found in our above-described U.S. sales force transformation efforts, which risks may be magnified by the complexity of implementing different changes across multiple markets in parallel. The change in go-to-market strategy, outcome of existing litigation and the potential for additional litigation could have a material adverse impact on our financial results in the impacted markets.