Cognex Corp at Robert W Baird Global Industrial Conference Summary

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Robert Mason - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : Absolutely. Thanks, Rob. And if you have any questions, again, just a reminder, send those up to us and work those in. Rob, just real quickly, we would touch on the business as it stands coming out of the third quarter heading into the fourth quarter, is it fair to say that largely things have stabilized, the caveat maybe being automotive, is that fair?

Question: Robert Mason - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : Yes. And then logistics, of course, being the highest growth market that you see over the intermediate term that you showed on the slide and I think on the call, you also talked about its tracking strong double digits this year as well. So maybe consistent with market growth over the long term. So is it fair to say that you're seeing a broad-based recovery in that market?

Question: Robert Mason - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : And so what exactly is driving that? Are you seeing it coming out of new capacity? Is it a replacement of cycle starting to happen in the installed base, what exactly is driving.

Question: Robert Mason - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : That's correct because you noted a South Korean win customer this last quarter. Can you give us a sense as to what the geographic mix of the logistics business is today?

Question: Robert Mason - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : And are you seeing in those more advanced customers, the leading customers, is the mix of the solutions they're buying starting to evolve? We've talked for a long time about moving more towards machine vision. Are we starting to see any of that just yet?

Question: Robert Mason - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : Where you're seeing that machine vision uptake within those customers? Is it new facilities? Or are these.

Question: Robert Mason - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : Okay. The emerging customer initiative, you started to give some detail around that, that effort to broadly reach smaller, less sophisticated machine vision users. I guess stepping back, now that you've had that underway for really a couple of years, I guess, what has worked well so far and what are some of the changes that you're making to the model as you go along? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. NOVEMBER 14, 2024 / 3:05PM, CGNX.OQ - Cognex Corp at Robert W Baird Global Industrial Conference

Question: Robert Mason - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : Okay. And one of the questions we get is whether the portfolio that you go to market with, with the emerging customer sales force, is it deep enough? Is it broad enough at this point? Or are there new products that we should expect that fall into that portfolio?

Question: Robert Mason - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : Yes. And just as you think about, again, expanding that product portfolio, making it easier to sell, are we solely reliant on expanding deep learning, edge learning capabilities? Are there other feature sets that you're adding to the products that make it easier to sell?

Question: Robert Mason - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : And perhaps just to dig in there a bit. As you mentioned, Cognex has arrived early in the deep learning space and the level of investment there. But as you look at the market today, how do you differentiate yourself versus competitors? And what about your deep learning capabilities? Are you unique in the marketplace versus like Keyence, your often competitors?

Question: Robert Mason - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : Yes. Just last question around your emerging customer initiative. The -- how have you constructed that sales force to be more scalable as you go forward? You talked about hiring a new class into it this year. Maybe that repeats in years forward, but driving -- how can you drive the productivity out of that sales force?

Question: Robert Mason - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : Real quickly, I just wanted to pivot around competition. I've had several questions come in and ask about your market share relative to others. You did give -- your slide did include some good market share data. But maybe just on that question as well as increasing competition because that did come up more recently head on, I guess, in the way that you spoke about competition within China and pricing, et cetera, so just kind of tell us in there what you're seeing in the competitive department?

Question: Robert Mason - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : And just maybe a concluding thought around that. I mean, so you're very protective of your gross margin, value that highly. But in this -- at this particular point in time, you want to defend that turf or even go after that turf for the longer haul.