Item 1. Business
ITEM
1. BUSINESS
OVERVIEW
AND HISTORY
Reliability
Incorporated (“Reliability” or the “Company”), headquartered in Clarksburg, Maryland, through its wholly owned
subsidiary, The Maslow Media Group, Inc. (“Maslow” or “MMG”), provides workforce solutions to its clients consisting
primarily of Employer of Record (“EOR”) services, recruiting and staffing, and video and multimedia production. The Company
focuses on domestic clients but provides services to these clients throughout the world. The Company’s clients are in diverse industries
including media, financial services including banking, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, energy, healthcare, photography
and chain restaurants.
Reliability
was incorporated under the laws of the State of Texas in 1953. From 1971 to 2007, the Company was principally engaged in the design,
manufacture, market, and support of high-performance equipment used to test and condition integrated circuits. This business was shut
down in 2007, and the Company was continued as a “shell company” as defined by the Exchange Act, with no operating activities
until October 29, 2019, when the Company acquired Maslow.
Maslow
was founded in 1988 by Linda Maslow whose impetuous was recognizing the need for a single resource that could provide qualified production
crews to Washington, D.C.’s television, cable, and multimedia outlets. Maslow was later incorporated in Virginia in 1992 and changed
its name to our current legal name, The Maslow Media Group, Inc. Maslow’s initial business consisted of providing “script
to screen” services which consisted principally of providing production management and services to television, cable, and multimedia
outlets. Over time, Maslow expanded its product offerings, adding workforce management solutions, such as EOR services, and recruiting
and staffing services. As Maslow grew, it expanded its geographic footprint by acquiring clients outside of the Washington D.C. metro
area.
On
November 9, 2016, Linda Maslow sold the business to Vivos Holdings, LLC (“Vivos Holdings”) owned by Naveen Doki (“Mr.
Doki”) and Silvija Valleru (“Ms. Valleru”).
In
2018, Vivos Holdings and several other Vivos companies, (“Vivos Group”) engaged an investment banker who approached management
of Reliability to discuss a potential reverse merger transaction. The other investors who collaborated on a share swap of Maslow for
other Vivos companies were Shirisha Janumpally (“Mrs. Janumpally”) ,
wife of Mr. Doki, and Kalyan Pathuri (“Mr. Pathuri”), husband of Silvija Valleru.
These
4 individuals, Mr, Doki, Mrs. Janumpally, Mr. Pathuri, and Mrs, Valleru also have common ownership combinations in a number of
other entities [Vivos Holdings, LLC. Vivos Real Estate Holdings, LLC (“VREH”), Vivos Holdings, Inc., Vivos Group, Vivos Acquisitions,
LLC., and Federal Systems, LLC], (collectively referred to herein as “Vivos Group”).
The
reverse merger was consummated on October 29, 2019. As a result of the Merger, the Vivos Group (Vivos Holdings LLC officially) acquired
approximately 84% of the issued and outstanding shares of Reliability which were distributed by Vivos Holdings LLC.
On
October 29, 2019, Maslow became a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliability by merging R-M Merger Sub, Inc., a Virginia corporation and
a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliability, with and into Maslow, with Maslow being the surviving corporation (the “Merger”).
The Merger is more fully described in our Current Report on Form 8-K filed on October 30, 2019.
The
Company ceased to be a “shell” company as defined by Rule 12b-2 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, (the
“Exchange Act”) by virtue of its ownership of Maslow following the Merger. The acquisition of Maslow also resulted in a “change
in control” of Reliability.
Since
the Merger, Maslow expanded its staffing vertical footprint by acquiring the business assets of Intelligent Quality Solutions Inc. (“IQS”),
from Vivos Holdings, Inc. providing IT Staffing solutions in December 2019, which formerly operated in Plymouth, Minnesota.
4
On
or about February 25, 2020, the Company, as plaintiff, filed a complaint with the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, Maryland
against Vivos Holdings, LLC, Vivos Real Estate Holdings, LLC and Mr. Doki (collectively “Vivos Debtors”), to enforce Maslow’s
rights under certain promissory notes and a personal guarantee made by the Mr. Doki. On or about May 6, 2020, the Defendants filed a
counterclaim and third-party complaint for Damages, declaratory and injunctive Relief and jury Demand (the “Counterclaim”).
The
Company also began pursuing arbitration in New York in 2020 which was the contractual remedy for breaches of the Merger agreement between
Maslow and Reliability. It is the Company’s contention that the Vivos Group failed to disclose several material pieces of information
to Reliability management pre-merger as was required by the Merger agreement. Additionally, the Vivos Group declined to honor a number
of commitments made to Reliability including a $3,000 promissory note and an agreement to shield the Company from their personal debt
per the “Liquidation Agreement (See 1A and Item 3). Per the Merger agreement these breaches can lead to a loss of up to all shares
in Reliability for the Vivos group.
On
December 23, 2020, at a hearing in the Maryland Circuit Court of Montgomery County, Maryland, a motion by the Vivos Group to compel a
shareholder meeting was summarily dismissed. On January 20, 2021, Defendants and Counter/Third-Party Plaintiffs, Vivos, VREH, Doki, Pathuri,
Igly, Judos, by counsel, filed a Notice of Appeal on the dismissal. However, the deadline to pursue the appeal lapsed absent additional
filings by the Vivos Group.
On
July 21, 2021, Maslow settled the obligation which with it had been committed by Vivos Holdings, LLC in July 2018, with Libertas Funding,
LLC and Kinetic for $475. This debt belonged to Vivos Holdings LLC, and the aforementioned Liquidation Agreement, had been created as
a safeguard to shelter Maslow should Vivos Holdings, LLC default, which actually transpired prior to the Merger closing in October 2019.
(See Section 1A).
On
September 7, 2021, the Company entered to Arbitration and Tolling Agreements with the (the “Agreements”) Vivos Group and
all other persons who were parties to the pending litigation previously reported in the Texas, New York and Maryland courts and before
the American Arbitration Association. The Agreements call for the stay or dismissal of the pending litigation, with the parties agreeing
to resolve their disputes before a single arbitrator in Maryland.
On
March 21, 2022, the Company began its arbitration proceedings against the Vivos group that is slated to run into the second quarter 2022.
Maslow contends the Vivos Group committed merger violations which could result in relinquishment in whole or in part shares of Company
common stock received by the Respondents in connection with the Merger. We anticipate an arbitration decision by July 7, 2022.
We
refer below to the disputes between Reliability and the Vivos Group as the “Vivos Matter.”
As
of December 31, 2021, the Vivos Debtor balance was $4,985.
As
of March 31, 2022, there were 300,000,000 shares of the Company’s common stock, no par value per share (the “Company
Common Stock,” or “Common Stock”) outstanding.
EMPLOYEES
As
of March 30, 2022, we had 20 team members (staff employees) at our Clarksburg, MD corporate and remote locations. During
the fiscal year ended 2021, we assigned approximately 2,000 field talent workers and approximately 268 were working on average
or were deemed full time equivalent (FTE) throughout the year.
As
of December 31, 2021, 794 active field talent workers and Maslow staff employees had been employed over the past 6 months.
Approximately
15% of our field talent are represented by a labor union. We are not aware of any current labor efforts or plans to formalize organize
any of our other team members or field talent. To date we have not experienced any material labor disruptions.
In
March 2020, the Company began experiencing a sudden drop-in client requirements due to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in hours of contracted
employees being slashed.
From
a corporate employee perspective at 2021 year end, Maslow had 23 FTE’s on staff up from 22 a year ago.
5
PRODUCTS
Employer
of Record (“EOR”)
Maslow’s
EOR product is a unique outsourced managed workforce solution. The costs and compliance obligations relating to the employment of contingent
or permanent workers are borne by Maslow. These workers are Maslow employees, and the client is responsible for maintaining its workplace,
but all administrative roles and responsibilities are handled by Maslow as the employer of record. This arrangement also obviates the
need for our clients to hire independent contractors for short-term or project-based hiring, who may later be re-classified as “employees”
by the Department of Labor, resulting in significant costs to the client.
The
EOR services offered by Maslow consist of the following principal activities;
●
state
employment registration;
●
employee
onboarding/offboarding;
●
payroll
processing;
●
benefits
offerings and administration;
●
workers
compensation claim management;
●
employee
relations;
●
regulatory
compliance;
●
manage
State/County/City mandated employee benefits, such as paid safe and sick leave; and
○
Locality
mandated training administration
○
Unemployment
claims administration
●
on
site workforce management
The
EOR solution is different than a professional employer organization (“PEO”). In the PEO model, the workers are employees
of the PEO’s client. EORs differ from PEOs in that the EOR;
●
is
the employer of the customer’s worker;
●
assumes
all liabilities (i.e., U.S. Department of Labor classification, worker’s compensation, etc.) and responsibilities for its workers
provided to customers;
●
is
responsible for all compliance with federal and state regulations, including healthcare mandates such as the Affordable Care Act;
●
customers
maintain a single service agreement with the EOR;
●
has
the ability to offer employee benefits to workers that may not be provided on a cost-effective basis by the customer;
●
manage
all issues arising from employment contracts; and
●
provides
its own benefit plan to its employees, meaning clients could enact a significant savings depending on generosity of their benefit
package to their employees.
Recruiting/Staffing
Maslow
has been in the staffing business for over thirty years. During that time, Maslow has developed, and we continue to develop, a large
global network of multimedia and video production workers for our media clients, camera crews and other technical and creative talent.
Maslow uses this extensive network to rapidly respond to our clients’ needs for contingent staffing and permanent placements.
6
In
December 2019, Maslow acquired the operational assets of Intelligent Quality Solutions, Inc. (“IQS”), a staffing firm focused
on information technology (“IT”) related industries and specializing in software testing. IQS formerly operated out of Plymouth,
Minnesota.
Our
overall temporary staffing services consist of on-demand or short-term staffing assignments, contract staffing, and on-site management
administration. Short-term staffing services assist employers in dealing with employee demands caused by such factors as seasonality,
fluctuations in demand for their products and services, vacations, illnesses, parental leave, and special projects, without incurring
the ongoing expense and administrative responsibilities associated with recruiting, hiring and retaining these employees. More and more
companies are focused on effectively managing variable costs and reducing fixed overhead. The use of short-term staffing services allows
companies to utilize a contingent staffing approach for their personnel needs, thereby converting a portion of their fixed personnel
costs to a variable expense.
Our
staffing services place workers with clients for assignments lasting from three months to an indefinite time period. We offer our clients
several levels of staffing services including providing just the managed service or more involved assignments consisting of staffing
an entire department or providing the workforce for a large project.
In
some cases, we place an experienced workforce manager on-site at our client’s place of business. This manager then has responsibility
of conducting all recruiting, employee screening, interviewing, drug testing, hiring and employee placement for employees at the client’s
place of business.
As
is common in the staffing industry, the majority of our engagements to provide temporary services to our client are generally of a non-exclusive,
short-term nature and subject to termination by our client with little or no notice. Near-term strategy to identify exclusive contractual
engagements will further strengthen the stability of this revenue stream.
In
2021, we began focusing on the placement of full-time equivalent employees on a contingency fee basis as a stand-alone practice.
Because the margins are significantly higher, this line of business boosts our overall margins and operating incomes as explained in
Results of Operations. Permanent Placement margins are much higher than temporary staffing and EOR in that we do not bare employee or
1099 costs for the direct hire/permanent placement.
Video/Multimedia
Production
Maslow
continues to be a provider of multimedia and video production solutions via its script-to-screen production services for corporate, government
and non-profit clients.
We
use our large, pre-vetted network of worldwide freelancers with high-level technical and creative skills to respond quickly to our clients’
needs. Our network includes directors of photography, audio engineers, make-up artists, field producers, gaffers and grips, talent, teleprompter
operators, and drone operators. Maslow provides video production services to our clients for the purpose of branding videos, documentaries,
Public Service Announcements, training modules, live events, webcasts, animation, projects, and more. Our freelance video production
teams and clients collaborate with our in-house, full-time Video Production Managers who bring years of experience to every project,
and who work side-by-side with the team to create the vision and story for the project. In addition to human assets, Maslow sources the
latest technical broadcast equipment for television, the internet and social media. Our network includes freelance talent across the
globe to allow us to provide local talent, resulting in cost savings to our clients.
Maslow
provides, among others, the following production services;
●
pre-Production
conceptualization of final video deliverable;
●
project
consultation from scriptwriting to site scouting;
●
budget
development and management;
●
booking
and managing of logistics for field and studio teams;
7
●
broadcast
level HD camera crews and field support worldwide including makeup artists, AV support, field producers, and full equipment rental;
●
post-production
facilities and freelance support including non-linear editors, graphic artists, narrators and actors;
●
animation
and graphic design development, including whiteboard animation;
●
live
transmission services from satellite to streaming; and
●
management
of fully staffed client studios.
Intelligent
Quality Solutions (“IQS”)
The
Company operates its IQS assets as an IT staffing division within Maslow. Maslow provides IT staff augmentation for software developers,
architects, quality assurance (“QA”) analysts, engineers, R&D, testers, business systems analysts and other resources
to our customers in a myriad of industries including those manufacturing and or providing medical devices, health care, energy technologies,
mobile communications, and photography, as well as the restaurant and hospitality industry.
We
provide staff augmentation from our technical resource pool comprised of top industry professionals. Our team members are typically full-time
employees that have established themselves as leaders in their chosen field. We normally provide talent with skill sets that perform
these types of roles:
●
Software
Architect
●
Automation
Architect
●
DevOps
Engineer
●
Medical
Device Engineers (including Quality Engineers, R&D, Manufacturing and Electrical)
●
QA
Tester
●
Program
Manager
●
Project
Manager
●
QA
Analyst
●
Quality
Engineer (“QE”) and
●
Software
Developer.
IQS
is an innovative leader in information technology staffing and staff augmentation. As a partner, we provide expertise and technology
to help companies achieve their optimal growth and profitability by securing the right talent at the right time. We also offer integrated
workforce solutions as a managed service to give companies even more valuable resource options.
Our
teams support client projects with dedicated research, sourcing and recruiting specialists. IQS provides ongoing training for our managed
teams, keeping them abreast of industry trends, practices and technologies. Clients who have partnered for managed Human Resource operations
and services with IQS have discovered that they lower costs, reduce risk and streamline critical processes.
Our
dedicated recruiting project teams provide:
●
Search/Recruiting
●
Staffing/On-boarding
●
Payroll
Administration
●
Benefits
Administration (where applicable)
●
Workers
Compensation Claims
●
Contingent
Workforce Management
●
Employee
Relations
●
Labor
Law Requirements and
●
State
Employee Registration.
8
OUR
INDUSTRY
Maslow
operates within the workforce management industry. The services Maslow provides (managed services, employer of record, staffing, recruiting,
and video production services) generally fall within the broader category known as “workforce management” services.
The
temporary staffing portion of the workforce management industry supplies workers to clients. These services offer client’s the
ability to rapidly match their workforce to changes in business conditions and needs. In some cases, clients can convert fixed labor
costs to variable costs. The demand for a flexible workforce continues to grow with competitive and economic pressures on employers to
reduce costs, manage payroll compliance risks and respond to changing market conditions.
Per
Staffing Industry Analysts’ (SAI) 2021 North America Staffing Company Survey, the 2022 trend expected to have the most impact
to staffing businesses include: increased VMS/MSP use, a continuation of talent shortages, economic slowdown or downturn, customers
moving to AI and hired recruiters to fulfill staffing needs, and company increasing use of flexible/remote workers.
The
temporary staffing industry is large and highly fragmented with thousands of competing companies. It is estimated that the 2022 U.S.
temporary staffing market will be between $156.4 and 157.9 billion, which is up from an estimated $151.8 billion in 2021 (Statistica).
This matches the market’s previous high in 2019 at $151.8 billion and represents a 16% increase over 2020.
Staffing
companies compete both to recruit and retain a supply of field talent and to attract and retain clients to use these workers. Client
demand for temporary staffing services is dependent on the overall strength of the labor market and trends toward greater workforce flexibility.
The temporary staffing industry includes several markets focusing on business needs that vary widely in duration of assignment and level
of technical specialization.
However,
the temporary staffing market is subject to volatility based on overall economic conditions. Historically, in periods of economic growth,
the number of companies providing temporary staffing services has increased due to low barriers to entry. During recessionary periods,
the number of companies has decreased through consolidation, bankruptcies based on loss of key clients or material reductions of usage
by existing clients, or other events. Prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we had been seeing that the temporary staffing industry
was experiencing increased demand in relation to total job growth. Post COVID, clients continue to seek a more flexible workforce. In
2021, staffing revenue returned to 2019 levels with an expectation of a 3-4% growth in 2022.
According
to Staffing Industry Analysts (“SIA”) Global talent shortages are at a 15-year high, and more than one in three US employers
report difficulty filling jobs. SIA cites the by Manpower Group report which states; “the US has been
facing an extreme talent shortage crisis – a crisis that has made it difficult for staffing coordinators to source quality talent
for clients. A crisis that might not be leaving soon. A crisis that will require staffing agencies to revamp their recruitment approach.”
This addresses the current demand-supply shortage paradigm the staffing industry faces.
SIA
states that “Compared to the pre-pandemic year of 2019, the staffing industry in 2022 is more resilient, more automated, more efficient,
more empathetic and, thankfully, facing more demand. This should be a good year.”
Each
state has their own set of employment laws and regulations. The complexity of keeping up with this regulatory compliance landscape, particularly
for smaller employers and companies requiring workers in multiple states, has focused more attention on EOR services. For example, California
adopted eleven new employment laws for 2020.
In
reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, federal and state legislatures have proposed and enacted legislation affecting the employee-employer
relationship and these new and proposed laws may have a material impact on our operations, business, finances and prospects. In 2020
and 2021 for instance, restrictions were instituted in several states preventing large number of employees to return to the office. Many
companies in 2021 had their workforces return to work in some capacity but included COVID vaccination mandates which a portion of the
US population were not willing to comply with, resulting in many cases in employment termination. No certainty can be provided as to
the nature of new regulations or their impact. Individual states continue to change their pandemic related requirements to relax or remove
restrictions on employers, but no assurance can be given as to the effect of these changes or the potential that they may be reimposed
if conditions warrant.
9
OUR
CLIENTS
Historically
the largest portion of our business have come from two clients, AT&T Services, Inc. (inclusive of its DirecTV division) (“AT&T”)
and Janssen Pharmaceuticals (which includes workforce partners Ortho McNeil and Johnson & Johnson). But in 2021, Goldman Sachs revenue
exceeded Janssen, and Morgan Stanley’s business improved 69.6% from 2020.
AT&T
still remains the clear leader accounting for 27.9% of the Company’s total revenues for 2021. This closely compares to it representing
28.8% in 2020. In 2019 AT&T accounted for 37.5% of the Company’s business.
The
combination of revenue from new accounts, increase in revenue from several existing clients and AT&T’s 19.1% drop in revenue
due to COVID-19 stay at home orders, and DirecTV loss in programming which moved to other media firms like NBC or were dropped completely,
resulted in a more egalitarian client mix.
Goldman
Sachs and Co., Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and Morgan Stanley represented 14.9%, 14.5%, and 10.9% respectively in 2021 compared to revenue
contributions of 8.7%, 10.8%, and 5.7% respectively in 2020. No other client exceeded 10% of revenues.
Collectively,
AT&T and Janssen Pharmaceuticals, represented 58.6% (32.9% and 25.8% respectively) of accounts receivable as of December 31, 2021.
Comparatively, AT&T and Janssen Pharmaceuticals were at 48.5%, and 18.4% in their respective portions of our accounts receivable
balance in 2020.
Other
significant customers include WETA, Kaiser Permanente, Strategic Education (Strayer University), Abbott Labs, US House of Representatives,
Felix Lighting, Liberty Mutual, Dahl, NEP, and Newsmax.
GROWTH
STRATEGY
Maslow
had developed its expertise in the EOR market principally in the media industry. We believe there is an opportunity to leverage this
expertise into other industries. The client acquisition challenge outside of media consists principally of educating prospective clients
of the merits of the EOR solution over other options, finding the unique opportunities in each industry or within a corporate client
that lend itself for an EOR solution, and competition from other providers of EOR services. The existing pandemic may make EOR a more
desirable solution to companies that are looking for more agile ways of changing the headcount and nature of portions if not all of their
workforce in an expeditious and low risk manner.
If
the Vivos Matter (defined and referenced in Overview section) is resolved, the Company plans to tap the capital markets to pursue an
aggressive but disciplined acquisition growth strategy, both in terms of using shares for raising capital and as currency to acquire
additional businesses as was our intent when we merged with Reliability in October 2019. We believe that the staffing/EOR segment is
fragmented and while there are several large players in the industry, there are also a significant number of smaller businesses that
would make ideal acquisition targets. These businesses are often limited in geographic scope or are specialized within an industry. In
addition, we continue to emphasize organic growth specifically directing resources to sales with the hiring of an experienced Vice President
of Sales in the first quarter of 2021.
Presently,
the Company does not have any authorized shares that are not issued. No shares are expected to become available to the Company until
an amendment to the Company’s Certificate of Formation to increase the number of authorized shares of Common Stock or a reverse-split
of the outstanding shares of Common Stock is approved. Such approval may not likely occur until the Vivos Matter is resolved. Following
the Merger, shareholders holding over 80 percent of the issued and outstanding shares of Common Stock notified the Company that acting
as a group they would not approve an amendment to the Company’s Certificate of Formation to increase the number of authorized,
but unissued, shares of Common Stock. As a result, the Company has not been able to execute on its business plan.
Upon
ability to utilize the capital markets, we expect to achieve greater synergies and removal of redundant resources by acquiring EOR and
specialized staffing firms in more diverse locations and serving diversified industries such as healthcare, medical, biotech, pharmaceuticals,
aeronautics, green technologies, oil and gas, and a myriad of IT specialties. We believe that acquisitions would be not only directly
accretive, but also provide significant cross-selling opportunities. Moreover, we can see immediate returns on these acquisitions as
we can quickly consolidate back-office operations and realize significant savings.
10
We
will focus our organic growth on growing our EOR and staffing business and leveraging our experience to enter new industries, particularly
those that rely significantly on contractors and freelancers to perform limited time or project-based assignments such as IT (i.e., software
developers and testers), marketing, food services (i.e., cafeteria), and sales activities.
As
stated above under “Our Industry”, the trend for staffing expertise in the areas of AI, gig, cloud services, VMS/MSP, plus
the expected need in fields like biotech, and healthcare, are of interest to Maslow. We will continue to embrace this trend and look
to expand on our capabilities, which in turn we believe will open up new markets for us.
Additionally,
we will continue to invest in technology and process improvements, as necessary and resources allow, to ensure that we operate at optimal
productivity and performance and are able to quickly adapt if operations scale up.
COMPETITION
The
staffing services market is highly fractured and competitive with limited barriers to entry. We compete in national, regional and local
markets with full-service and specialized temporary staffing companies. Some of our competitors have significantly more marketing and
financial resources than we do. Price competition in the staffing industry is intense. We expect that the level of competition will remain
high.
The
principal competitive factors in attracting qualified candidates for temporary assignments are pay rates, availability of assignments,
duration of assignments and responsiveness to requests for placement. Because temporary employees often use more than one recruiter for
assignments, the speed at which we place prospective workers, and the availability of appropriate assignments are important factors in
our ability to complete assignments of qualified workers. In addition to having high quality workers to assign in a timely manner, the
principal competitive factors in obtaining and retaining potential workers in the temporary staffing industry include properly assessing
the clients’ specific job requirements, the appropriateness of the workers assigned to the client, the price of services and the
monitoring of client satisfaction. Although we believe we compete favorably with respect to these factors, we expect competition to continue
to increase.
The
workforce management industry is highly fragmented, so we experience competition from different competitors for different services. Some
direct competitors of Maslow for EOR services in the television and video production industry include, but are not limited to, Entertainment
Partners, Cast & Crew, PayReel, Inc., Innovative Employee Solutions. Competitors in the broader EOR space include, Velocity Global,
Easy Payroll Global, Elements Global Services, and Nexus Contingent Workforce. Direct competitors of Maslow in the staffing space include,
but are not limited to TeamPeople, a division of System One Inc., Randstad, Insperity, Group Management Services, and Namely.com. Direct
competitors of Maslow in the executive recruiting/permanent placement include, but are not limited to, TeamPeople, a division of System
One Inc., Creative Circle, The Lucas Group, Onward Search, and DHR International. Some direct competitors of Maslow in the video production
services space include, but are not limited to, PayReel, Inc., Crew Connection Inc. and TeamPeople, a division of System One Inc.
In
addition to the above identified competitors, there are additional competitors that include any company that provides a similar range
of services as us, as well as companies that just provide some or one of the services Maslow provides. The direct competitors listed
above service the same industry that Maslow services and relies upon. The criteria for which these companies compete are generally based
on price and service levels.
While
recognizing the need to continue implementation and awareness in human cloud services as referenced, we believe our competitive advantage
is underpinned by human relationships and interactions, and that online staffing will never replace relationships built on a personal
touch. This plays into MMG’s strength as our underlying client business relies on these personal relationships such to be successful,
leading us to continue to hire career professionals who are able to parlay the emotional intelligence needed with ever evolving modern
technology. We see this hybrid of technology and client centricity to be our competitive advantage.
11
SEASONALITY
The
staffing industry has historically been cyclical, often acting as an indicator of both economic downturns and upswings. Staffing clients
tend to use temporary staffing to supplement their existing workforces and generally hire direct workers when long-term demand is expected
to increase. Consequently, our revenues tend to increase quickly when the economy begins to grow and, conversely, our revenues may decrease
quickly when the economy begins to weaken. Other factors include the timing of recurring annual client events or sporting seasons which
last a defined period of time throughout the year.
REGULATION
We
are subject to regulation by numerous federal, state and local regulatory agencies, including but not limited to the U.S. Department
of Labor, which sets employment practice standards for workers, and similar state and local agencies. We are subject to the laws and
regulations of the jurisdictions within which we operate. While the specific laws and regulations vary among these jurisdictions, some
require some form of licensing and often have statutory requirements for workplace safety and notice of change in obligation of workers’
compensation coverage in the event of contract termination. Although compliance with these requirements imposes some additional financial
risk on us, particularly with respect to clients who breach their payment obligation to us, such compliance has not had a material adverse
effect on our business to date. Additional government regulation of the employer-employee relationship could result in additional clients
seeking our services. Conversely, increased government regulation of the workplace or of the employer-employee relationship, or judicial
or administrative proceedings related to such regulation, could also materially harm our business.
AVAILABLE
INFORMATION
We
file electronically with the SEC, our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments
to those reports pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Our website address is www.maslowmedia.com.
The information included on our website is not included as a part of, or incorporated by reference into, this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
We will make available free of charge through our website our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports
on Form 8-K, and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act as soon as reasonably
practicable after we have filed or furnished such material to the SEC. You may read and copy any materials we file with the SEC at the
SEC’s Public Reference room at 100 F Street, NW, Washington, DC 20549. The public may obtain information on the operation of the
Public Reference Room by calling the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330. The SEC also maintains an Internet site that contains reports, proxy and
formation statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC at www.sec.gov. Furthermore, we will
provide electronic or paper copies of filings free of charge upon written request to our Chief Financial Officer.
Text extracted from the filing as submitted to EDGAR. Formatting, tables and exhibits are simplified for reading; the original document is authoritative for anything you rely on.