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Once a year, publicly traded companies issue a comprehensive report of their business, called a 10-K. A component mandated in the 10-K is the ‘Risk Factors’ section, where companies disclose any major potential risks that they may face. This dashboard highlights all major changes and additions in new 10K reports, allowing investors to quickly identify new potential risks and opportunities.

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Risk Factors - ROK

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Item 1A. Risk Factors for more information.

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Item 1. Business

General

Rockwell Automation, Inc. (Rockwell Automation or the Company) is the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation. We understand and simplify our customers’ complex production challenges and deliver the most valued solutions that combine technology and industry expertise. As a result, we make our customers more resilient, agile, and sustainable, creating more ways to win. See Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations (MD&A) for additional information on our business and long-term strategy.

The Company continues the business founded as the Allen-Bradley Company in 1903. The privately-owned Allen-Bradley Company was a leading North American manufacturer of industrial automation equipment when the former Rockwell International Corporation (RIC) purchased it in 1985.

The Company was incorporated in Delaware in connection with a tax-free reorganization completed on December 6, 1996, pursuant to which we divested our former aerospace and defense businesses (the A&D Business) to The Boeing Company (Boeing). In the reorganization, RIC contributed all of its businesses, other than the A&D Business, to the Company and distributed all capital stock of the Company to RIC’s shareowners. Boeing then acquired RIC.

As used herein, the terms “we”, “us”, “our”, “Rockwell Automation”, or the “Company” include wholly-owned and controlled majority-owned subsidiaries and predecessors unless the context indicates otherwise. Information included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K refers to our continuing businesses unless otherwise indicated.

Whenever an Item of this Annual Report on Form 10-K refers to information in our Proxy Statement for our Annual Meeting of Shareowners to be held on February 10, 2026 (the Proxy Statement), or to information under specific captions in Item 7. MD&A, or in Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data (the Consolidated Financial Statements), the information is incorporated in that Item by reference. All date references to years and quarters refer to our fiscal year and quarters, unless otherwise stated.

Operating Segments

We have three operating segments: Intelligent Devices, Software & Control, and Lifecycle Services. The Intelligent Devices segment includes drives, motion, advanced material handling, safety, sensing, industrial components, and configured-to-order products. The Software & Control segment includes control and visualization software and hardware, digital twin, simulation and information software, and network and security infrastructure. The Lifecycle Services segment includes digital consulting, professional services including engineered-to-order solutions, recurring services including cybersecurity, safety, remote monitoring, and asset management, and the Sensia joint venture.

Our operating segments share common sales, supply chain, and functional support organizations and conduct business globally. Major markets served by all segments consist of discrete end markets (e.g., Automotive including Electric Vehicle and Battery, Semiconductor, and e-Commerce & Warehouse Automation), hybrid end markets (e.g., Food & Beverage, Life Sciences, and Tire), and process end markets (e.g., Energy, Mining, and Chemicals). See Note 20 in the Consolidated Financial Statements for additional information on our operating segments.

Geographic Information

We do business in more than 100 countries around the world. The largest sales outside the United States on a country of destination basis are in Canada, China, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Mexico. See Item 1A. Risk Factors for a discussion of risks associated with our global operations.

Competition

Our competitors range from large, diversified corporations that may also have business interests outside of industrial automation to smaller companies that offer a limited portfolio of industrial automation products, solutions, and services. Factors that influence our competitive position include the breadth and performance of our product, solution and services portfolio, technology differentiation, industry and application expertise, installed base, partner ecosystem, global presence and price. Major competitors include Siemens AG, ABB Ltd, Schneider Electric SA, Emerson Electric Co., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Honeywell International Inc., and Dassault Systemes.

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Distribution

See Item 7. MD&A for information on our market access strategy, including distributor concentrations.

Employees

See Item 7. MD&A for information on our employees, including information related to attracting, developing, and retaining highly qualified employees.

Raw Materials

We purchase a wide range of equipment, components, finished products, and materials used in our business. The raw materials essential to the manufacture of our products generally are available at competitive prices. We have a broad base of suppliers and subcontractors. We depend upon the ability of our suppliers and subcontractors to meet performance and quality specifications and delivery schedules. See Item 1A. Risk Factors for a discussion of risks associated with our reliance on third-party suppliers.

Backlog

See Item 7. MD&A for information on our order backlog.

Environmental Protection Requirements

Information about the effect of compliance with environmental protection requirements and resolution of environmental claims is contained in Note 17 in the Consolidated Financial Statements. See Item 1A. Risk Factors for a discussion of risks associated with liabilities and costs related to environmental remediation.

Patents, Licenses, and Trademarks

We own or license numerous patents and patent applications related to our hardware and software products, solutions, and services. While in the aggregate our patents and licenses are important in the operation of our business, we do not believe that loss or termination of any one of them would materially affect our business or financial condition. We have received various claims of patent infringement and requests for patent indemnification. We believe that none of these claims or requests will have a material adverse effect on our financial condition. See Item 1A. Risk Factors for a discussion of risks associated with our intellectual property.

The Company’s name and its registered trademark “Rockwell Automation®” and other trademarks such as “Allen-Bradley®”, “A-B®”, “PlantPAx® Process Automation System™”, and “Connected Enterprise®” are important to all of our business segments. In addition, we own other important trademarks that we use, such as “ControlLogix®” and “CompactLogix®” for our control systems, “PowerFlex®” for our AC drives, “FactoryTalk®”, “Plex Systems®”, and “Fiix®” for our software and cloud offerings, “Clearpath®” and “Otto®” for our mobile robots, and “Verve®” for our asset inventory system and vulnerability management solution.

Seasonality

Our business segments are not subject to significant seasonality. However, the calendarization of our results can vary and may be affected by the seasonal spending patterns of our customers due to their annual budgeting processes and their working schedules.

Available Information

We maintain a website at https://www.rockwellautomation.com. Our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to such reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Exchange Act), as well as our annual reports to shareowners and Section 16 reports on Forms 3, 4, and 5, are available free of charge on this site through the “Investors” link as soon as reasonably practicable after we file or furnish these reports with the SEC. All reports we file with the SEC are also available free of charge via EDGAR through the SEC’s website at https://www.sec.gov. Our Guidelines on Corporate Governance and charters for our Board committees are also available on our website. The information contained on and linked from our website is not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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Item 1A. Risk Factors

In the ordinary course of our business, we face various strategic, operating, compliance, cybersecurity, and financial risks. These risks could have an impact on our business, financial condition, operating results, and cash flows. Our most significant risks are set forth below and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Our Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) process seeks to identify and address significant risks. Our ERM process assesses, manages, and monitors risks consistent with the integrated risk framework in the Enterprise Risk Management - Integrated Framework (2017) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO). We believe that risk-taking is an inherent aspect of the pursuit of our strategy. Our goal is to manage risks prudently rather than avoid risks. We can mitigate risks and their impact on the Company only to a limited extent.

A team of senior executives prioritizes identified risks and assigns an executive to address each major identified risk area and lead action plans to manage risks. Our Board of Directors provides oversight of the ERM process and reviews significant identified risks. The Audit Committee of the Board of Directors also reviews significant financial risk exposures, and the steps management has taken to monitor and manage them. Our other Board committees also play a role in risk management, as set forth in their respective charters.

Our goal is to proactively manage risks using a structured approach in conjunction with strategic planning, with the intent to preserve and enhance shareowner value. However, the risks set forth below and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and other risks and uncertainties could adversely affect us and cause our results to vary materially from recent results or from our anticipated future results.

Industry and Economic Risks

Adverse changes in macroeconomic or industry conditions may result in decreases in our sales and profitability.

We are subject to macroeconomic cycles and when recessions occur, we may experience reduced, canceled or delayed orders, payment delays or defaults, supply chain disruptions, or other adverse events as a result of the economic challenges faced by our customers, prospective customers, and suppliers. As our distributor partners and customers work to manage working capital and inventory levels, we may experience volatility in orders.

Demand for our hardware and software products, solutions, and services is sensitive to changes in levels of production and the financial performance of major industries that we serve. As economic activity slows, credit markets tighten, or sovereign debt concerns arise, companies tend to reduce their levels of capital spending, which could result in decreased demand for our hardware and software products, solutions, and services.

As a global company operating in over 100 countries, we face risks related to foreign currency markets. A strengthening U.S. Dollar (USD) may adversely impact our sales and profitability related to business we do outside the U.S. Economic, political, regulatory, and compliance risks, particularly in emerging markets, can restrict our ability to exchange, transact, or pay dividends with foreign currencies we hold. See Item 7A for additional information about foreign currency risks.

We conduct significant operations outside the United States and hold derivative instruments that we designate as hedges of certain net investment positions in our foreign subsidiaries. While these instruments are intended to mitigate the impact of exchange rate volatility, our hedging strategies may not be effective. Foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations could result in gains or losses on the derivative instruments that are not fully offset by corresponding changes in the value of our foreign net investments. In addition, the use of hedge accounting is subject to complex accounting requirements, and the inability to qualify for or maintain hedge accounting treatment could result in increased volatility in our reported earnings. Furthermore, counterparties to our derivative contracts could default on their obligations, exposing us to potential losses. Any of these events could adversely affect our financial condition, results of operations, and cash flows.

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Our profitability and market competitiveness may be adversely impacted by changes in trade policies, including tariffs or other factors.

Changes in trade policies, including the imposition of new tariffs or increases in existing tariffs between the United States, Mexico, Canada, China or other countries, or reactionary measures including retaliatory tariffs, legal challenges, or currency manipulation, could adversely affect our cost structure and profitability. If tariffs on imported materials, components, or finished goods increase, our manufacturing and supply chain costs may rise. Furthermore, changes to trade policies, retaliatory measures, or prolonged uncertainty in trade relationships could result in supply chain disruptions, delayed shipments, or increased operational complexity, adversely affecting our business and financial results. While we take steps to mitigate or avoid these increased costs and disruptions, our ability to do so may be limited by operational and supply chain constraints, especially in the short term. In addition, our ability to recover cost increases and maintain profitability levels through price adjustments may be limited by competitive pressures, customer acceptance, and contractual limitations.

Our business depends on the movement of people and goods around the world. Natural disasters (including but not limited to those as a result of climate change), pandemics, acts or threats of war or terrorism, international conflicts, power outages, fires, explosions, equipment failures, sabotage, political instability, and the actions taken by governments could cause damage to or disrupt our business operations, our distribution network, our suppliers or our customers, and could create economic instability. Disruptions to our information technology (IT) infrastructure from system failures, shutdowns, power outages, telecommunication or utility failures, and other events, including disruptions at third-party IT and other service providers, could also interfere with or disrupt our operations. Although it is not possible to predict such events or their consequences, these events could decrease demand for our hardware and software products, solutions, or services, increase our costs, or make it difficult or impossible for us to deliver products, solutions, or services.

Our industry is highly competitive.

We face strong competition in all of our market segments in several significant respects. We compete based on breadth and scope of our hardware and software product portfolio and solution and service offerings, technology differentiation, the domain expertise of our employees and partners, product performance, quality of our hardware and software products, solutions, and services, knowledge of integrated systems and applications that address our customers’ business challenges, pricing, delivery, and customer service. The relative importance of these factors differs across the geographic markets and product areas that we serve and across our market segments. If we fail to achieve our objectives we may lose business or experience price erosion and correspondingly lower sales and margins. We expect the level of competition to remain high in the future, which could limit our ability to maintain or increase our market share or profitability.

Volatility and disruption of the capital and credit markets may result in increased costs to maintain our capital structure.

Our ability to access the credit markets and the costs of borrowing are affected by the strength of our credit rating and current market conditions. If our access to credit, including the commercial paper market, is adversely affected by a change in market conditions or otherwise, our cost of borrowings may increase or our ability to fund operations may be reduced.

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Business and Operational Risks

We rely on suppliers to provide equipment, components, and services.

Our reliance on suppliers involves certain risks, including:

•shortages of components, commodities, or other materials, which could adversely affect our manufacturing efficiencies and ability to make timely delivery of our products, solutions, and services;

•changes in the cost of these purchases due to inflation, exchange rate fluctuations, taxes, tariffs, commodity market volatility, or other factors that affect our suppliers;

•poor quality or an insecure supply chain, which could adversely affect the reliability and reputation of our hardware and software products, solutions, and services;

•embargoes, sanctions, and other trade restrictions that may affect our ability to purchase components, commodities, or other materials, including rare earth minerals, from various suppliers; and

•intellectual property risks such as challenges to ownership of rights or alleged infringement by suppliers.

Any of these uncertainties could adversely affect our profitability and ability to compete. We also maintain several single-source supplier relationships because either alternative sources are not available, or the relationship is advantageous due to performance, quality, support, delivery, capacity, or price considerations. Unavailability of, or delivery delays for, single-source components or products could adversely affect our ability to ship the related products in a timely manner. The effect of unavailability or delivery delays would be more severe if associated with our higher volume and more profitable products. Even where substitute sources of supply are available, qualifying alternative suppliers and establishing reliable supplies could cost more or result in delays and a loss of sales.

Despite the implementation of security measures, our systems are vulnerable to unauthorized access by nation states, hackers, cyber-criminals, malicious insiders, and other actors who may engage in fraud, theft of confidential or proprietary information, or sabotage. Our systems could be compromised by malware (including ransomware), cyber-attacks, and other events, ranging from widespread, non-targeted, global cyber threats to targeted advanced persistent threats. Given our commercial product offerings can be used in critical infrastructure and critical manufacturing, these threats could indicate increased risk for our commercial product offerings, manufacturing, and IT infrastructure.

The current cyber threat environment indicates increased risk for all companies, including those in industrial automation and information technology, and the adoption of AI has resulted in more sophisticated attacks, increasing our risk exposure. Like other global companies, we have experienced cyber threats and incidents, although none have been material or had a material adverse effect on our business or financial condition. Our information security efforts include programs designed to address security governance, compliance, risk management, secure development and engineering, data protection, insider risk, third-party risk, security awareness, access management, incident response, and security operations in support of enterprise security and product security. Any significant security incidents could have an adverse impact on sales, harm our reputation, and cause us to incur legal liability and increased costs to address such events and related security concerns.

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Product and Services Security

Our hardware and software products, services and solutions are used by our customers in applications that may be subject to information theft, tampering, sabotage, or cyber-attacks. Careless or malicious actors could cause a customer’s process to be disrupted or could cause equipment to operate in an improper manner, resulting in harm to people or property. To a significant extent, the security of our customers’ systems depends on how those systems are designed, installed, protected, configured, updated, and monitored, and much of this is typically outside our control. Past global cyber-attacks have also been perpetuated by compromising software updates in widely used software products, posing the risk that vulnerabilities or malicious content could be inserted into our products. We have designed a Secure Development Lifecycle Program that incorporates appropriate security activities into the necessary development and support practices for our commercial product offerings. The Secure Development Lifecycle Program is audited annually by third-party firms. Our Third-Party Risk Program manages risk posed by our suppliers used in the development of our commercial product offerings.

Enterprise Security

Our business uses technology resources across a dispersed, global basis for a variety of functions including development, engineering, manufacturing, sales, accounting and financial reporting, and human resources. Our vendors, partners, employees, and customers have access to, and share, information across multiple locations via various digital technologies. In addition, we rely on partners and vendors, including cloud providers, for a wide range of products and outsourced activities as part of our internal IT infrastructure and our commercial product offerings. Secure connectivity is important to these ongoing operations. Also, our partners and vendors frequently have access to our confidential information as well as confidential information about our customers, employees, and others. We design our security architecture to reduce the risk that a compromise of our partners’ infrastructure, for example a cloud platform, could lead to a compromise of our internal systems or customer networks. In addition, our Third-Party Risk Program manages risk posed by our suppliers that have access to our confidential information, systems, or network, but this risk cannot be eliminated and vulnerabilities at third parties could result in unknown risk exposure to our business and information.

Artificial Intelligence

As we broaden the application of AI across product development, manufacturing, customer operations, and enterprise operations, we face evolving risks related to safety, data governance, regulatory compliance, intellectual property, and ethical use. Integrating AI into our offerings and internal processes may lead to unintended consequences, including biased outputs, inaccurate decision-making, and increased vulnerability to adversarial attacks, that could significantly impact our business, reputation, and financial results.

An inability to successfully execute cost productivity and margin expansion initiatives could negatively impact our business and financial results.

Financial results depend on the successful execution of our business operating plans, including current and future cost productivity and margin expansion initiatives. We continuously pursue alignment of costs with business and economic conditions. Productivity projects include savings in the areas of product cost, indirect cost, administrative costs, purchased services, logistics, manufacturing workflows, make or buy decisions in manufacturing, product portfolio and price optimization. Our ongoing productivity initiatives target both cost reduction and improved asset utilization. Charges for workforce reduction and facility rationalization may be required in order to efficiently execute our productivity programs. There is a risk that these initiatives will not result in the projected savings that we anticipate and could negatively impact our business and financial results.

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Our business success depends on attracting, developing, and retaining highly qualified employees.

Our success depends on the efforts and abilities of our leadership team and employees across the Company. The skills, experience, and industry knowledge of our employees significantly benefit our operations and performance. The market for employees and leaders with certain skills and experiences is very competitive, and difficulty attracting, developing, and retaining members of our leadership team and key employees could have a negative effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition. Maintaining a positive and inclusive culture and work environment, offering attractive compensation, benefits, and development opportunities, and effectively implementing processes and technology that enable our employees to work effectively and efficiently are important to our ability to attract and retain employees.

We sell to customers around the world and are subject to the risks of doing business in many countries.

We do business in more than 100 countries around the world. In addition, our manufacturing operations, suppliers, and employees are located in many places around the world. The future success of our business depends on growth in our sales in global markets. Our global operations are subject to numerous financial, legal, and operating risks, such as political and economic instability; prevalence of corruption in certain countries; enforcement of contract and intellectual property rights; and compliance with existing and future laws, regulations, and policies, including those related to exports, imports, tariffs, embargoes and other trade restrictions, investments, taxation, product content and performance, employment, and repatriation of earnings. In addition, we are affected by changes in foreign currency exchange rates, inflation rates, and interest rates. The occurrence or consequences of these risks may make it more difficult to operate our business and may increase our costs, which could decrease our profitability and have an adverse effect on our financial condition.

An inability to respond to changes in customer preferences could result in decreased demand for our products.

Our success depends in part on our ability to anticipate and offer hardware and software products and services that appeal to the changing needs and preferences of our customers in the various markets we serve. Developing new hardware and software products and service offerings requires high levels of innovation, and the development process is often lengthy and costly.

There are inherent risks in our solutions and services businesses.

Risks inherent in the sale of solutions and services include assuming greater responsibility for successfully delivering projects that meet a particular customer specification, including defining and controlling contract scope, efficiently executing projects, and managing the performance and quality of our subcontractors and suppliers. If we are unable to manage and mitigate these risks, we could incur cost overruns, liabilities, and other losses that would adversely affect our results of operations.

We rely on our distribution channel for a substantial portion of our sales.

In North America, a large percentage of our sales are through distributors. In certain other countries, the majority of our sales are also through a limited number of distributors. We depend on the capabilities and competencies of our distributors to sell our hardware and software products, solutions, and services and deliver value to our customers. Disruptions to our existing distribution channel or the failure of distributors to maintain and develop the appropriate capabilities to sell our hardware and software products, solutions, and services could adversely affect our sales. A disruption could result from the sale of a distributor to a competitor, financial instability of a distributor, or other events.

Intellectual property infringement claims of others and the inability to protect our intellectual property rights could harm our business and our customers.

Others may assert intellectual property infringement claims against us or our customers. We frequently provide a limited intellectual property indemnity in connection with our terms and conditions of sale to our customers and in other types of contracts with third parties. Indemnification payments and legal expenses to defend claims could be costly.

In addition, we own the rights to many patents, trademarks, brand names, and trade names that are important to our business. The inability to secure or enforce our intellectual property rights may have an adverse effect on our results of operations. Unauthorized resellers and counterfeiters of Company-branded products of inferior quality or that may otherwise be materially different from genuine goods sold by the Company and its authorized distributors may harm the goodwill and reputation of the Company and could adversely affect our results of operations.

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Increasing employee benefit costs and funding requirements could have a negative effect on our operating results and financial condition.

One important aspect of attracting and retaining qualified personnel is continuing to offer competitive employee retirement and health care benefits. Significant unfavorable changes in these factors would increase our expenses and funding requirements. Expenses and funding requirements related to employer-funded healthcare benefits depend on laws and regulations, which could change, as well as healthcare cost inflation. An inability to control costs and funding requirements related to employee and retiree benefits could negatively impact our operating results and financial condition.

Strategic Transactions and Investments Risks

Significant investments in the business may not achieve intended returns and could adversely affect our financial performance.

We plan to invest over $2 billion over the next five years in manufacturing facilities, digital infrastructure, and talent to support market share growth, operational resilience, and margin expansion. These investments are intended to complement our productivity initiatives and enable long-term global growth. However, there is no assurance that these investments will yield the anticipated benefits. Risks include delays in implementation, cost overruns, supply chain disruptions, and challenges in integrating automation and technologies into our business and manufacturing operations. Additionally, if market conditions change or expected efficiencies do not materialize, the return on these investments may be lower than projected. Furthermore, due to global economic factors or company profitability targets, we may invest at a slower pace than planned, which could impact our ability to achieve desired outcomes. Failure to realize the expected outcomes could negatively impact our operating results and financial condition.

Failure to identify, manage, complete, and integrate strategic transactions may adversely affect our business or we may not achieve the expected benefits of these transactions.

As part of our strategy, we pursue strategic transactions, including acquisitions, joint ventures, investments, and other business opportunities and purchases of technology from third parties. In order to be successful, we must identify attractive transaction opportunities, effectively complete the transaction, and manage post-closing matters, such as integration of the acquired business or technology (including related personnel) and cooperation with our joint venture and other strategic partners. We may not be able to identify, or complete beneficial transaction opportunities given the intense competition for them. Completing these transactions requires favorable environments and we may encounter difficulties in obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals in both domestic and foreign jurisdictions. Even if we successfully identify and complete such transactions, we may not achieve the expected benefits of such transactions and we may not be able to successfully address risks and uncertainties inherent in such transactions, including:

•difficulties in integrating the purchased or new operations, technologies, products or services, retaining customers, and achieving the expected benefits of the transaction, such as sales increases, access to technologies, cost savings, and increases in geographic or product presence, in the desired time frames;

•loss of key employees or difficulties integrating personnel;

•legal and compliance issues;

•unknown or undisclosed and unmitigated cybersecurity risks to purchased systems, products, and services;

•difficulties implementing and maintaining consistent standards, financial systems, internal and other controls, procedures, policies, and information processes and systems;

•difficulties maintaining relationships with our joint venture and other strategic partners (including as a result of such joint venture and other strategic partners having differing business objectives) and managing disputes with such joint venture and other strategic partners that may arise in connection with our relationships with them; and

•difficulties in yielding the desired strategic or financial benefit from venture capital investments, including as a result of being a minority investor.

Strategic transactions and technology investments could result in debt, dilution, liabilities, increased interest expense, restructuring charges, and impairment and amortization expenses related to goodwill and identifiable intangible assets.

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Legal, Tax, and Regulatory Risks

New governmental actions and regulations could adversely affect our business.

In October 2021, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and G20 Finance Ministers reached an agreement, known as Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Pillar Two, that, among other things, ensures that income earned in each jurisdiction that qualifying multinational enterprises operate in is subject to a minimum corporate income tax rate of at least 15 percent. Certain countries have enacted the Pillar Two framework, including Singapore, which is expected to result in the greatest impact to the Company. Enactment of this regulation in its current form would generally apply to the Company beginning in fiscal year 2026, resulting in an increase in our effective tax rate as well as in the amount of global corporate income tax paid.

We are increasingly required to comply with various environmental and other material, product, certification, and labeling laws and regulations (including the emerging European Union Eco-design for Sustainable Products Regulation). Our customers may also be required to comply with such legislative and regulatory requirements. These requirements could increase our costs and could potentially have an adverse effect on our ability to do business in certain jurisdictions. Changes in these requirements could impact demand for our hardware and software products, solutions, and services.

Failure to comply with ESG reporting requirements, including inaccurate or incomplete disclosures, may lead to regulatory penalties, litigation, and reputational damage. While the Company has adopted certain voluntary targets, environmental laws, regulations, or standards may be changed, accelerated, or adopted and impose significant operational restrictions and compliance requirements upon the Company, its products, or customers, which could negatively impact the Company’s business, capital expenditures, results of operations, and financial condition.

Compliance with privacy and cybersecurity laws and regulations (including the emerging European Union Cyber Resiliency Act) could increase our operating costs in managing product compliance and as part of our efforts to protect and safeguard our sensitive data, personal information, and IT infrastructure. Changes in these requirements could impact demand for our hardware and software products, solutions, and services.

As global standards and regulations relating to AI increase and change, it could result in additional costs, reputational harm, legal liability, and regulatory scrutiny related to our use of AI. Additionally, misuse of sensitive data used in AI models may lead to privacy violations or non-compliance with data protection laws.

Claims from taxing authorities could have an adverse effect on our income tax expense and financial condition.

We conduct business in many countries, which requires us to interpret and comply with the income tax laws and rulings in each of those taxing jurisdictions. Due to the ambiguity of tax laws among those jurisdictions as well as the uncertainty of how underlying facts may be construed, our estimates of income tax liabilities may differ from actual payments or assessments. We must successfully defend any claims from taxing authorities to avoid an adverse effect on our operating results and financial condition.

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Potential liabilities and costs from litigation could reduce our profitability.

Various lawsuits, claims, and proceedings have been or may be asserted against us relating to the conduct of our business or of our divested businesses, including those pertaining to the safety and security of the hardware and software products, solutions, and services we sell, employment, contract matters, and environmental remediation.

We have been named as a defendant in lawsuits alleging personal injury as a result of exposure to asbestos that was used in certain of our products many years ago. We estimate the future litigation-related costs, including both future claim resolution costs and defense costs, that we expect to incur. This process is not exact because it relies on a variety of assumptions and specific factors that could potentially change over time and therefore increase or decrease our future projected legacy asbestos net liabilities. Our products may also be used in hazardous industrial activities, which could result in product liability claims. While we have insurance coverage for certain of these claims, the uncertainties of litigation and the uncertainties related to the collection of insurance proceeds make it difficult to predict the ultimate resolution of these lawsuits.

Our operations are subject to various environmental regulations concerning human health, the limitation and control of emissions and discharges into the air, ground, and water, the quality of air and bodies of water, and the handling, use, and disposal of specified substances. Our financial responsibility to clean up contaminated property or for natural resource damages may extend to previously owned or used properties, waterways and properties owned by unrelated companies or individuals, as well as properties that we currently own and use, regardless of whether the contamination is attributable to prior owners. We have been named as a potentially responsible party at cleanup sites and may be so named in the future, and the costs associated with these current and future sites may be significant.

We have, from time to time, divested certain businesses. In connection with these divestitures, certain lawsuits, claims, and proceedings may be instituted or asserted against us related to the period that we owned the businesses, either because we agreed to retain certain liabilities related to these periods or because such liabilities fall upon us by operation of law. In some instances, the divested business has assumed the liabilities; however, it is possible that we might be responsible for satisfying those liabilities if the divested business is unable to do so.

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Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments

None.

Cybersecurity

Risk Management and Strategy

The Company has a cybersecurity risk management program designed to assess, identify, manage, and govern risks from cybersecurity threats. Our cybersecurity risk management program is a key component of our overall enterprise risk management strategy. The Company’s cybersecurity risk management program focuses on risk and threat identification, protection, detection, response, and recovery, designed to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of critical systems and data. The Company’s cybersecurity incident response and crisis management plans are components of the cybersecurity risk management program, focusing on effective response to cybersecurity incidents or attacks. We monitor our internal technology for cybersecurity threats, and we use various security capabilities to mitigate the risk of these threats. Additionally, the Company provides annual cybersecurity and information security awareness training for all employees and contractors. The Company maintains a robust, risk-based approach to identifying and overseeing cybersecurity risks presented by third parties, including vendors, service providers, and other external users of the Company’s systems, as well as the systems of third parties that could adversely impact our business in the event of a cybersecurity incident affecting those third-party systems.

Governance

The Company’s cybersecurity program is led by the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Our CISO has more than 30 years of technology and cybersecurity leadership experience and is a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP), and a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA). The CISO reports to the Chief Information Officer (CIO). The CISO leads a team that is responsible for executing cybersecurity strategy, to support risk management, and protection of Company systems, products, and employee and customer information. As the foundation of the cybersecurity program, the Company maintains cybersecurity policies and procedures that are informed by recognized security frameworks and applicable regulations, laws, and standards. We use various frameworks, standards, guidelines, and best practices as a guide to help us identify, assess, and manage cybersecurity risks relevant to our business. The Company engages third parties to assess our cybersecurity posture and program maturity.

We also consider cybersecurity, along with other top risks for the Company, within our ERM framework. The ERM framework includes internal reporting at the business and enterprise levels, with consideration of key risk indicators, trends, and countermeasures for cybersecurity and other types of significant risks. During the year ended September 30, 2025, the Company has not identified risks from cybersecurity threats, including as a result of prior cybersecurity incidents, that have materially affected or are reasonably likely to materially affect the Company, including its business strategy, results of operations, or financial condition. Nevertheless, the Company recognizes cybersecurity threats are ongoing and evolving, and we continue to remain vigilant. For more information on the Company’s cybersecurity-related risks, see Item 1A. Risk Factors.

The Company’s Disclosure Committee is a part of the cybersecurity risk program as it meets quarterly to review cyber incidents that have occurred during the quarter, and additionally, as needed, to discuss any potentially material cybersecurity incidents. Additional management governance is provided by an Enterprise Security Council, comprised of key senior business leadership with diverse experiences and responsibilities. The Enterprise Security Council oversees key cybersecurity and product security matters and initiatives, including policy, standards, strategy, program metrics, and cybersecurity risk escalation.

Cybersecurity oversight by the Board of Directors is shared between the full Board and the Audit Committee. The full Board of Directors receives periodic updates on the cybersecurity threat landscape, recent cybersecurity events, our cybersecurity strategy, and cybersecurity program priorities. The Audit Committee receives updates on information security, including internal controls and external reporting processes. The Audit Committee also receives updates from the Disclosure Committee with respect to cybersecurity incidents reviewed by the Disclosure Committee.

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