What changed in this filing

/stocks — the workspaceLOADING

Item 1. Business

2022-03-18 compared with 2021-03-16 · 54 added, 38 removed, 219 unchanged (30% of the section changed)

8 unchanged sentences

As search continues to evolve, and increasingly leverages AI, consumers are more likely to rely on these direct answers.

While consumer online search behavior has changed, the site search experience on many businesses’ websites has not evolved to meet consumer expectations.

Numerous site searches are unable to understand natural language queries instead returning a list of links based on keywords rather than direct answers.

While consumer online search behavior has changed, the search experience on many businesses’ websites has not evolved to meet consumer expectations.

Numerous searches are unable to understand natural language queries instead returning a list of links based on keywords rather than direct answers.

Poor user experience on a business’s own website may result in lost sales opportunities or may cause consumers to visit a competitor’s website.

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The Knowledge Graph organizes data in a way that can answer complex questions by storing both data points themselves and the multiple relationships between data points.

Our products and features are built to leverage the structured data stored in the Knowledge Graph so businesses can provide official answers to consumer questions.

Then our platform uses multiple algorithms to better understand user intent and find relevant results from structured data, semi-structured data or unstructured documents.

In addition, our products and features are built to leverage the structured data stored in the Knowledge Graph so businesses can provide official answers to consumer questions.

Businesses of nearly all sizes and in a diverse set of industries can benefit from our platform and capabilities.

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• analyze how features in the platform drive consumer engagement and revenue for our customers.

Recent Developments

On March 7, 2022, Howard Lerman notified our Board of Directors of his intention to step down from his position as Chief Executive Officer of the Company effective March 25, 2022.

Michael Walrath, the Chairman of the Board of Directors, will succeed Mr.

Lerman as Chief Executive Officer, principal executive officer and principal operating officer of the Company, effective March 25, 2022.

On March 7, 2022, Steven Cakebread notified our Board of Directors of his intention to step down from his position as Chief Financial Officer of the Company effective March 25, 2022.

Darryl Bond, the Company’s Executive Vice President and Chief

Accounting Officer, will succeed Mr.

Cakebread as Chief Financial Officer and principal financial officer of the Company, effective March 25, 2022.

Bond will continue to serve as the Company’s Chief Accounting Officer.

On March 7, 2022, the Board also appointed Marc Ferrentino, the Company’s Chief Strategy Officer, as President and Chief Operating Officer of the Company.

In connection with the changes in our senior management, our Board of Directors and new management anticipate certain additional changes to our strategy and personnel that have not yet been determined.

Industry Background

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Simply managing and updating information within the few core search engines, such as Google and Bing, through these traditional methods is already very challenging, and becomes even more so when implementing updates on newer services such as Instagram, Snapchat and Uber.

Poor Site Search Experience Results in Lost Transactions.

While consumer online search behavior has changed, we believe the site search experience on many businesses' websites has not evolved to meet consumer expectations.

Many site searches are unable to understand natural language queries and instead return a list of links based on keywords rather than direct answers.

Poor site search experience on a business’s own website may result in lost sales opportunities or may cause consumers to visit a competitor’s website.

Poor Search Experience Results in Lost Transactions.

While consumer online search behavior has changed, we believe the search experience on many businesses' websites has not evolved to meet consumer expectations.

Many searches on a business’s website are unable to understand natural language queries and instead return a list of links based on keywords rather than direct answers.

Poor search experience on a business’s own website may result in lost sales opportunities or may cause consumers to visit a competitor’s website.

Consumer Reviews Are of Critical Importance.

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We believe that there is a substantial opportunity to continue to increase the size of our customer base across a broad range of industries and companies.

In October 2019 with the launch of Yext Answers, our site search product, we further expanded our customer base to include businesses that maintain websites but without physical locations, such as consumer product businesses.

We plan to continue to invest in our direct sales force to grow our customer base, both domestically and internationally.

We plan to continue to invest in our sales force to grow our customer base, both domestically and internationally.

• Expand Existing Customer Relationships.

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For example, some businesses may initially purchase our platform only for their stores in a particular country with opportunities to expand to other stores in the geographic region.

We continue to sell additional features, such as Pages,

Reviews and Answers, to existing customers.

We continue to sell additional features, such as Pages, Reviews and Answers, to existing customers.

See "—Sales and Marketing" for a discussion of customer retention and our ability to expand customer relationships.

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We sell our platform throughout the world and believe there are substantial opportunities to increase sales to customers outside of the United States as well as to help our existing U.S.-based customers manage data for more of their international business.

We have an established presence in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Japan and China and we intend to further expand our footprint to other regions.

We have an established presence in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Japan and we intend to further expand our footprint to other regions.

• Develop and Market New Products and Features.

We are committed to developing and marketing innovative capabilities and we will continue to invest in our platform and develop products and features to help our customers better control the facts about their businesses online.

For example, in October 2019 we launched Yext Answers, our site search product.

In the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, we expanded Yext Answers into five new languages, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Japanese, and enhanced Yext Answers with two major algorithm upgrades.

In the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022, we tailored our products and features for various use cases so that our platform could be deployed more quickly to resolve a customer’s specific search needs such as support search on both internal and external platforms.

• Drive Usage of Our Platform.

Our customer success professionals are responsible for building relationships with customers, increasing customer’s adoption and engagement with the Yext platform.

In the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, we launched the Hitchhikers program, a comprehensive training program and community for professionals to develop the skills to build custom search solutions for their business using our platform.

Our Hitchhikers program, a comprehensive training program and community for professionals, helps our customers and the developer community develop skills to build custom search solutions for their business using our platform.

• Extend the Knowledge Network.

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We are increasing our focus on adding more industry vertical-specific and international services to our Knowledge Network as well as including new services that may become more commonly used in the future

For example, in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2019 we launched a global integration with Amazon to give businesses control over the answers Amazon Alexa provides about them, and in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, we launched an integration with WebMD, while expanding the global reach of the Knowledge Network through multiple integrations with international applications.

• Expand Our App Directory.

• Expand Integrations.

Yext offers integrations with a number of other platforms accessible through the Yext App Directory.

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As the number of integrations in the Yext App Directory grows, we believe that it will further expand the ways that our platform can be utilized and increase customer retention.

For example, in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, we launched the WordPress Answers Connector, a plugin that allows WordPress users to seamlessly integrate Yext Answers into WordPress pages.

For example, in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022, we launched integrations with Salesforce and Zendesk enabling mutual customers to implement Yext's search experience on help centers as well as support agent's workspaces and decrease case creation by recommending related content within the case submission form.

Key Benefits of Our Platform

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• Reduced Support Costs.

Yext Answers helps consumers find information quickly and easily on a business’s own website without having to contact a support center or chatbot.

We have tailored our products and features to resolve a customer’s specific search needs such as support search on both internal and external platforms.

For this use case, our platform is designed to understand the meaning behind customer questions and deliver direct answers drawing from a business's FAQs, product manuals and help articles.

By helping consumers resolve their own questions and reducing support agent's case resolution times, our platform reduces a business's support costs.

• Global Reach and Local Expertise.

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From our platform customers can centralize, control and manage data fields, including store information such as name, address, phone number and holiday hours;

professional information such as headshot, specialties or education;

professional information such as headshots, specialties or education;

job information such as title and description;

FAQs and more.

Our customers can then use this data to answer consumers' questions, to power and update their landing pages and to make this information available through our Knowledge Network of approximately 200 maps, apps, search engines, intelligent GPS systems, digital assistants, vertical directories and social networks in a complete, up to date and accurate manner.

These and other public facts about a business are stored in a database called the Knowledge Graph.

The Knowledge Graph organizes data in a way that can answer complex questions by storing both data points themselves and the multiple relationships between data points.

Our customers can then use information from the Knowledge Graph to answer consumers' questions, to power and update their landing pages and to make this information available through our Knowledge Network of approximately 200 maps, apps, search engines, intelligent GPS systems, digital assistants, vertical directories and social networks in a complete, up to date and accurate manner.

The key products and features that comprise the Yext platform include:

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Ultimately, our platform helps businesses deliver accurate, consistent, up to date and compelling information to consumers.

In September 2020, Yext announced the general availability of Hitchhikers, a comprehensive training program and community for professionals, who use Yext.

With the launch of Hitchhikers, professionals are now able to build custom search solutions for their business using our platform.

We also offer our customers additional resources through Hitchhikers, a comprehensive training program and community for professionals, whom use Yext.

With Hitchhikers, our customers and the developer community are now able to build custom search solutions for their business using our platform.

We continue to invest in platform and features development to help our customers better control the facts about their business and have released new products and features to all of our customers multiple times a year.

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The Yext platform allows customers to collect, store and manage structured data, consistent with standards published by schema.org.

Schema.org is an open and collaborative initiative launched by certain large search engines that defines the vocabulary

and format for structured markup.

Schema.org is an open and collaborative initiative launched by certain large search engines that defines the vocabulary and format for structured markup.

Search engines like Google and Bing consume data through structured markup placed in the underlying code of web pages.

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Our sales organization varies by market within each country and will change over time as we build critical mass and address various verticals within a market.

Our quota-carrying sales representatives were approximately 250 at both January 31, 2021 and 2020.

Our quota-carrying sales representatives were approximately 225 and approximately 250 at January 31, 2022 and January 31, 2021, respectively.

In connection with our recent management changes, we reduced such headcount by approximately 35 representatives.

We may make additional changes to our sales approach as we update our strategy.

We offer annual and multi-year subscriptions to our platform.

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Our packages start with basic access to the Knowledge Graph and successively include access to additional capabilities at a higher cost.

During the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, we offered unbundled products for our enterprise and mid-size customers enabling them to purchase each of our products separately rather than in packages with pricing based on capacity or licenses.

More recently we have offered our enterprise and mid-size customers the option to purchase our products separately, in addition to packages, with pricing based on licenses as well as capacity.

Our marketing efforts are focused on promoting our brand and generating demand for our products.

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Patents and Patent Applications

As of January 31, 2021, we had twelve issued U.S.

patents, twelve non-provisional and two provisional U.S.

patent applications, four international Patent Cooperation Treaty patent applications pending, and nine national stage applications outside of the U.S.

As of January 31, 2022, we had fifteen issued U.S.

patents, one issued national stage patent, nineteen non-provisional and three provisional U.S.

patent applications, two U.S.

design patent applications, six international Patent Cooperation Treaty patent applications pending, and sixteen national stage applications outside of the U.S.

The issued patents have expiration dates ranging from 2032 to 2039.

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In addition, other companies may offer products and services at lower price points than us or that compete with some of the features present in our platform.

For example certain local marketing and reputation management companies offer one or more products that manage location information across search platforms or facilitate monitoring and responding to reviews.

We believe that we generally compete favorably with our competitors because of the size and breadth of our integrations and relationships with the applications in our Knowledge Network, the features and performance of our platform, the ease of integration of our platform with the technological infrastructures of our customers and the incremental marketing benefits and return on investment that our various products and features offer to our customers.

As we develop our platform, we will introduce products and features that compete in new markets and as a result we will face more established businesses in these markets.

For example, in October 2019 we launched Answers, our site search product, which competes with other site search products.

For example, Answers, our search product was launched in 2019 and competes with more established search products and legacy search features.

We believe our product is differentiated from that of our competitors because of its ease and cost of deployment, ability to leverage structured data in Knowledge Graph, multi-algorithm approach and natural language understanding.

As we introduce new features and our existing platform evolves, or as other companies introduce new products and services, we may become subject to additional competition.

Human Capital

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ERGs provide a community for underrepresented groups and their allies and offer professional development and mentoring opportunities.

In the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021, the Company made a greater commitment to diversity and inclusion by hiring a senior diversity and inclusion manager to develop and implement diversity and inclusion strategies to improve our recruitment process, performance management, leadership development, employee engagement and retention.

In addition, our diversity and inclusion team develops and implements diversity and inclusion strategies to improve our recruitment process, performance management, leadership development, employee engagement and retention.

To attract and retain highly capable and innovative employees, we have developed competitive compensation packages and benefits programs.

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In addition, we conduct an annual employee survey to gauge employee engagement and identify areas of focus.

To support our employees in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021 and to promote their health and safety, we temporarily closed our offices requiring all of our employees globally to work remotely.

We invested resources in supporting our employees in a shift to remote work, including offering all employees a stipend for supplemental home office equipment and supplies.

To support our employees in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022 and to promote their health and safety, our offices are open on a voluntary basis in accordance with guidance provided by government agencies, although currently the majority of our employees are still working remotely.

While we continue to hold virtual events, we have also resumed in-person marketing events.

We provided two weeks of emergency family leave for employees to take care of a child or parent due to COVID-19 disruptions.

To help mitigate the financial impact of COVID-19 on certain employees in our sales organization, we offered to advance a portion of the employee’s target commission during the fiscal year ended January 31, 2021 and modified certain quota targets.

As of January 31, 2021, we had over 1,300 full-time employees, the majority of which are based in our New York headquarters.

As of January 31, 2022, we had over 1,400 full-time employees, the majority of whom are based in our New York headquarters.

Governmental Regulation

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Our telephone number is (212) 994-3900.

Copies of our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to these reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, are available, free of charge, on our investor relations website as soon as reasonably practicable after we file such material electronically with or furnish it to the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC.

material electronically with or furnish it to the Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC.

The SEC also maintains a website at http://www.sec.gov that contains our SEC filings.

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Compared sentence by sentence after normalising whitespace, quotation marks, case and digits, so re-formatting and restated figures do not read as changed language. Wording changes appear as one removal and one addition. The current filing and the prior one are authoritative.

What changed 10-K

Item 1. Business