Resideo - Earnings Call - Q1 2021
May 6, 2021
Transcript
Speaker 0
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, I'd like to welcome you to the Resideo Technologies First Quarter twenty twenty one Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. Now it's my pleasure to introduce Vice President of Investor Relations, Mr. Jason Willey. Sir, I hand it to you.
Speaker 1
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Resideo's first quarter twenty twenty one earnings call. On today's call will be Jay Galbocker, Resideo's Chief Executive Officer and Tony Trendsow, our Chief Financial Officer. A copy of our earnings release and related presentation materials are available on the Investor Relations page of our website at investor.resideo.com. We would like to remind you that this afternoon's presentation contains forward looking statements. Statements other than historical facts made during this call may constitute forward looking statements and are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve a number of risks and uncertainties.
Actual results may differ materially from those in the forward looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including those described from time to time in Resideo's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company assumes no obligation to update any such forward looking statements. We identify the principal risks and uncertainties that affect our performance in our annual report on Form 10 ks and other SEC filings. With that, I will now turn the call over
Speaker 2
Thank you, Jason, and good afternoon, everyone. Q1 was a strong quarter across the business. We grew revenue 20% year over year as both Products and Solutions and ADI continue to benefit from a strong residential demand environment, with ADI seeing improved activity in commercial markets. We are building on these market tailwinds with improved execution across the business from manufacturing and supply chain through the engineering, innovation and sales organizations. With positive demand driving better than expected revenue, we delivered meaningful profitability expansion.
Both businesses leveraged the higher revenue into improved operating margin. Operating profit grew by $96,000,000 year over year and cash from operating activities expanded by $79,000,000 year over year. As discussed previously, we are taking advantage of the strong market conditions and business performance to accelerate investment in high return activities. Focus areas within Products and Solutions include key new product initiatives such as accelerating Pro Series releases, enhancing customer experience staffing and tools and a number of activities aimed at optimizing the sales organization and processes. At ADI, we continue to invest in our digital platforms and initiatives, sales force effectiveness tools and expansion in adjacent categories organically and through M and A.
Products and Solutions saw strong demand across the markets and channels during Q1. This is a continuation of trends that developed last summer as people focused attention on their homes and security. We also believe we benefited in a number of markets by having the ability to step up and meet our increased customer demand. The underlying market trends and spending on both repair and renovation and new home sales remained positive in the first quarter, trends we see continuing throughout 2021. While repair and renovation work are the largest drivers of Products and Solutions sales, we are encouraged by early signs of success in our stepped up residential new construction, or RNC, efforts.
An example is our recent engagement agreement with Meritage Home to integrate a range of our products into their homes and provide the platform to support their connected home offering. This win demonstrates Resideo's unique opportunity in the R and C market created by our broad product portfolio. We believe this product breadth will take on increasing competitive importance as builders look to integrate more in front of and behind the wall connected and smart home content into their portfolio. In the face of meaningful logistics and supply chain headwinds, the team did an excellent job delivering for our customers. While our backlog is elevated relative to where it is it has historically trended, we believe that in aggregate, we are managing through these challenges better than the overall market, presenting us with opportunity in certain categories and geographies.
During the quarter, we completed a comprehensive strategic review and planning process within Products and Solutions. The development of eight strategic pillars outlined on Slide four of our earnings slides was a key outcome of the process. This work formed the foundation for the strategy we outlined back in early March at our virtual investor event. These pillars were developed to balance long term decisions with key immediate actions. As part of this process, products and solutions will prioritize a shift from discrete traditional products to cross category solutions with an emphasis on enabling the PRO through data analytics.
We are focused on thinking about the home holistically with clarity on where to play and where not to play. The team is now executing to this strategy, taking the concepts and turning them into actionable items with clearly defined owners. At ADI, Q1 performance reinforces our continued leadership position in the security distribution market. The business is benefiting from increased interest in security products across residential and commercial markets and industry leading execution. On the commercial side of ADI, which typically makes up over two thirds of their business, we saw an acceleration of activity.
Residential focused categories remained strong in the quarter. In line with our strategy to increase investment in ADI, we continue to enhance our e commerce capabilities and the rollout of our sales force effectiveness tools. E commerce continues to grow as a portion of ADI sales. We also saw positive expansion in our private label business, which remains a relatively small part of ADI's mix but an attractive long term opportunity. During the quarter, ADI completed the acquisition of Norfolk Wire and Electronics, a U.
S. Regional distributor of data communication products with 11 physical locations in the Mid Atlantic. And earlier today, we announced another acquisition in the distribution space with Shoreview, a U. S. Distributor of ProAV products.
Shoreview serves the entire U. S. Through distribution locations on both coasts and brings a strong brand portfolio that builds on our existing Herman ProAV business. Both acquisitions are an example of our strategy to utilize M and A to accelerate expansion in attractive adjacent categories. I want to welcome both the Northfolk and Shoreview employees to the Resideo team.
With that, I will turn the call over to Tony to discuss our first quarter performance and 2021 outlook in more detail.
Speaker 3
Thank you, Jay, and good afternoon, everyone. Both ADI and Products and Solutions exceeded our expectations in Q1 and delivered substantial year over year improvement across metrics. Consolidated Q1 revenue was $1,400,000,000 an increase of 20% compared to Q1 last year. Gross margin of 25.9% was up 180 basis points from the 2020. '20.
Selling, general and administrative expenses totaled $238,000,000 down 5% from Q1 last year and representing 17% of total revenue compared with 21% of total revenue in the first quarter of last year. Operating profit for the first quarter was $130,000,000 or 9.2% of sales compared to $34,000,000 or 2.9% of sales last year. Products and Solutions first quarter revenue of $6.00 $6,000,000 was up 28% due to improved demand and strong underlying market conditions across all of our major product categories channels. Products and Solutions gross profit margin in Q1 was 38%, up from 33.9% in Q1 twenty twenty. P and S operating profit was $130,000,000 or 21.5% of sales compared with $58,000,000 or 12.2% of sales last year.
This improved operating performance was due to fixed cost leverage on higher volume as well as over 10,000,000 in engineering materials productivity improvements. These benefits were partially offset by $12,000,000 in higher freight and logistics costs and increased investment of approximately $5,000,000 targeted at new product development, marketing and sales force effectiveness. ADI first quarter revenue of $813,000,000 was up 15% year over year. ADI had three more selling days this Q1 compared to 2020, thus the daily sales average for the first quarter was up by 10%. Demand was strong in residential and commercial categories led by intrusion and video surveillance.
ABI's investment in e commerce and digital selling tools has continued to yield results with e commerce sales up 60% year over year and now accounting for 15% of total EDI sales. EDI gross profit margin in Q1 was 17.2% versus 17.9% in Q1 twenty twenty. The lower gross margin was a result of lower supplier rebates year over year and unfavorable sales mix in the EMEA region. However, we did see a 40 basis point increase in underlying product line gross margin. ADI operating profit was $59,000,000 or 7.3% of sales, up 23% from $48,000,000 or 6.8% of sales in Q1 last year.
ADI operating profit benefited from higher revenue and continued focus on cost management, partially offset by increased investment activity of approximately $3,500,000 largely around digital and sales force effectiveness initiatives. Corporate costs for the quarter were $59,000,000 or 4.2% of sales compared with $72,000,000 or 6.1% of sales in the 2020. This reflects a reduction in spin and transformation related costs of approximately $20,000,000 partially offset by the build out of our internal innovation, transformation and strategy teams as well as higher compensation and bonus expense. Consolidated cash from operations for the first quarter was $5,000,000 an improvement of $79,000,000 compared with the use of cash of $74,000,000 in the prior period. The first quarter is typically our lowest cash generation quarter due to payment of annual bonuses and customer rebates accrued in prior quarters.
We ended Q1 with cash and cash equivalents of $5.00 $8,000,000 and total outstanding debt of $1,200,000,000 Our net debt stood at $688,000,000 compared to $1,200,000,000 at the end of the year ago period. As a result of our robust Q1 results and the expectation of continued strong demand for the remainder of 2021, we are raising our outlook for the full year and now expect 2021 revenue to be in the range of $5,500,000,000 to 5,700,000,000.0 an increase of $300,000,000 across the range and implying year over year growth of between 812%. Consolidated gross margin is expected to be in the range of 26% to 29%. GAAP operating profit is expected to be in the range of $500,000,000 to $550,000,000 an increase of $50,000,000 from prior guidance. Our 2021 outlook anticipates corporate expenses of approximately $235,000,000 compared with $290,000,000 in 2020.
Additional outlook details can be found on Page 10 of our earnings slides. As a reminder, ABI will have two fewer selling days in 2021 compared to 2020, reflecting three more days in the just finished first quarter and five fewer days in the fourth quarter. Revenue of approximately $40,000,000 arising from the acquisitions of Norfolk and Shoreview are included in our revised outlook, but we expect these acquisitions to have minimal impact on 2021 operating profit due to acquisition and integration costs. Post integration, we expect both acquisitions to contribute operating profit at levels above ADI's current margins. For the 2021, we expect revenue in the range of $1,400,000,000 to $1,450,000,000 Consolidated gross margin is expected to be in the range of 25.5% to 27.5%.
And GAAP operating profit is expected to be in the range $115,000,000 to $125,000,000 Our outlook both for the year and for the second quarter takes into account supply chain constraints, higher freight and material expediting charges and market shortages of certain components such as microprocessors, all of which we now expect to persist through the remainder of 2021. Also included in our revised outlook for 2021 are incremental investments compared to 2020 totaling approximately $50,000,000 At ADI, these investments are targeted at driving scalable growth, including systems to accelerate our ecommerce offerings, sales effectiveness, and improved customer service. Within products and solutions, we're investing in incremental engineering and innovation capabilities, customer experience, Salesforce tools, manufacturing optimization, and processes and systems enhancements. And at the corporate level, we're focused on numerous back office transformation projects as well as ongoing innovation, strategy, and transformation activities. That concludes my comments.
I'll now turn the call back to Jay for concluding remarks before we take questions. Jay?
Speaker 2
Thanks, Tony. As we look to the remainder of 2021, we see the strong market trends in the residential and overall security markets continuing. We also expect increased opportunity for ADI within its core commercial categories as more geographies and markets open up and work begins or is restarted on projects. And we remain focused on execution on our transformation efforts, targeted at both cost optimization and growth initiatives. We see this work driving significant long term value creation with progress expected to be increasingly visible in our financial results as we move through 2021 and into 2022.
We win in the market because of the quality and reliability we deliver, which combined with our customer service and breadth of products provides a compelling offering for the professional, whether through Products and Solutions or ADI. We are putting in place a strategy to further leverage these strengths and enhance our innovation, which we believe will position us to drive sustainable long term outperformance in the markets we serve. This concludes our prepared remarks. And operator, we are now ready for questions.
Speaker 0
Press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. Again, star one to come into the question queue. And our first question is going to come from the line of Amit Daryanani with Evercore ISI.
Speaker 4
This is Michael on for Amit. Just so to start with, just wondering, if we look at the Q2 guidance, you take the midpoint of the revenue and the operating profit, it implies margins are stepping down around 70 basis points sequentially. I was just wondering if there's anything to call out there.
Speaker 3
Hi, It's Tony. Yes, a couple of things. I mean, first of all, the we're gonna shift mix a little bit in q two to ADI over over p and s. And we're also gonna have we gave you the investment number for the for the full year. We're gonna have more investment the business in the second quarter than we did in the first.
The from a from a mix standpoint, P and S has a a little bit less attractive makeup in their in their in their sales plan for 2020 for the second quarter, which which will also have an effect on the margin. Overall, though, there's there's no structural change in any of the margin outlooks for any of our, any of our core markets.
Speaker 4
Okay. And then, the more strategic of one, I'm just curious. So, you the know, M and A strategy with the ADI business seems very logical given how fragmented that market is. So the only real risk we see here is kind of around execution. Jay and Tony as well, I was just kind of wondering if maybe you could give us some insight into how you approach acquisitions and maybe some past experience you've had with this sort of strategy.
Speaker 2
Yes. I'll comment. This is Jay, and then I'll let Tony jump in. I mean the people we've brought into the organization over the last year are very, very experienced in terms of operators of doing integrations in our past lives. As well as Rob in the ADI side has a team in place that also have done a nice job of developing an integration playbook.
And as an example, the Herman acquisition that they did right before COVID hit, they did a really nice job of integrating it in the business through COVID. And with their own learning experiences from that, they're going to apply to these additional tuck ins that they're executing on now. So I'm very confident between what the ADI team in terms of their own playbook and then from a P and S standpoint, Phil, the transformation team and the other folks we brought in have done a lot of this in their careers. And as you know, integration is one of the big keys to success of great M and A. And some companies do it poorly and some do a great job.
And I'm really confident that as we do as we carry out M and A that we'll do we'll actually do an exceptional job in that area. Tony, do have any added comments to that?
Speaker 3
Yeah. I I'd just add that, you know, to to Jay's point, while m and a is relatively new to ADI as a component of their strategy, they're they have a very structured execution oriented, process oriented culture that lends itself really well to to m and a. And as Jay said, they've prepared for this for a long time. We have beefed up our m and a capabilities, not just at the executive levels, but also a little further in the organization with some folks who have pretty deep experience in m and a. And I guess the last the last well, two more points.
These deals individually are are pretty small. Right? I mean, we've got two deals here that over the next nine months are gonna generate $40,000,000 of revenue. So we definitely, you know, started cautiously in terms of scale. And we're gonna walk before we run.
We're gonna make sure that we don't overburden them with too many too many deals at at one time, and we'll monitor the progress as we as we go forward. Okay. Yeah. Great. Thanks for that color.
I just wanted to just double check
Speaker 4
what number you got. You said you said 40,000,000 from the two deals you've done so far?
Speaker 3
Correct. Okay. Great. Thanks. Yeah.
Speaker 0
And our next question will come from the line of John Lovallo with Bank of America.
Speaker 5
Hey guys, thank you for taking my questions. The first one is the 26% to 29% full year gross margin range, it's fairly wide. First quarter gross margin, I think it was 25.9%. Second quarter, you guys are thinking 25.5 to 27.5%. So this would seem to imply the second half gross margins would need to be well in excess of 30 and at the high end of that range.
So can you just help us think through some of the potential drivers, maybe at the high and low end of this gross margin range?
Speaker 3
Sure. Yeah. So hey, John. It's Tony. I guess the first thing I'd say is we've, you know, we've expanded the range five point, as as I'm sure you've noticed.
We were 2026 to '28. We moved it to '26 to '29 because, you know and you're right. That's a that's a broad range at at this point in the year. But it's somewhat of an unprecedented year. We we have concerns around the cost of freight.
We have concerns around expedited delivery. We actually have some supply chain concerns about making sure that we can get everything we need for some of our some of our product lines. And that that's part of the reason why the range is is relatively wide. Your your calculations are you're you're right in the sense that second half gross margins are gonna be higher than than first half gross margins. That was that was the case last year as well.
And to be honest with you, would I would say that Jay and myself and the leadership team, as we continue to poke at things, we've come to understand over the last couple of quarters that that's probably a a structural aspect of the mix of sales and, in the p and s business. It's just that the you know, you have a heating season and you have a cooling season. And, you know, this is a gross oversimplification, but the the products that get sold in one season are, you know, may have a somewhat more profitable profile than the ones that get sold in in other parts of the season. And then there's there's all kinds of puts and takes. I mean, I'll in one part of our business, we have a you know, we basically we have a we have a wire business where we pass through the cost of copper, and it's basically a pure pass through.
So those dollars go through as revenue, but, you know, they're kinda empty calories because they don't drive any margin. A fair bit of that in the first half of the year and relative to the to revenue in the second half of the year, that type of activity is likely to be less. Got it. Okay.
Speaker 2
That's I'd also just one other thing I'd add is the transformation team that you first talked about, as that team has really picked up momentum, and they're doing a lot of things that is our actions that are very critical for the future of the business as part of our DNA going forward. But there are also a lot of things that they action to help offset some of the things that we're facing, that the whole world's facing with logistics and supply chain that Tony talked about. So again, I think that just adds to the fact that we want we're being careful in terms of exactly what we're communicating to all of you. But Tony's comments about what we learned about the business are I would agree with also.
Speaker 5
Got it. Okay. And then maybe going back to the question that Michael asked and just looking at the second quarter guide, the outlook of 1.4% to 1.45% on the top line is pretty similar to what you printed in the first quarter. Let's assume the midpoint of the gross margin range of 26.5%. I mean, that would seem to imply a pretty decent step up quarter over quarter in SG and A, we call it 15,000,000 to $20,000,000 to sort of hit that operating profit range that you're talking about.
And how much of that 15,000,000 to $20,000,000 is the incremental investment? And what else is actually driving that higher?
Speaker 3
Significant majority of that is the incremental investment. There's some smaller stuff in there, John. There's our merit increases kick in on April 1, things like that. But the large majority of it is incremental investment from compared with where we were in Q1.
Speaker 0
And our next question will come from the line of Ian Zaffino with Oppenheimer.
Speaker 6
Hi. Great. I actually just wanted to ask about that mix question again. I think you said 2021 mix is gonna be different, or is that not what you meant? And we're really talking more about a seasonable a seasonal mix.
Because I understand, the heating cooling seasons, but, I just kinda wanted to clarify if that mix is an actual 2021 thing versus 2020, or is it seasonal? And if so, you know, what would be driving that mix if it's year over year?
Speaker 3
Sorry. Broadly broad what I was driving at here was was that that it's seasonal. We have a more profitable mix, particularly in q three and q four than we do particularly in q three, we have a more profitable mix than we do, in q one and q two. It's not the, you know, broadly speaking, the mix of products within p and s and the mix of sales between p and s and ADI are not you know, there's not they're not massive shifts in in mix compared to last year. It's really just this this seasonal flux that, that we're talking about.
I mean, EMEA doesn't really have a cooling season, so it tends to be, you know, they don't as as we ramp a cooling season in North America, there there tends to be a little less of that in EMEA. And then, you know, like I said, the heating season is, heating season just tends to be, those products just tend to be
Speaker 6
a little bit more profitable. Okay. I I I got you. And on, the microprocessor shortage, where does that hit you? That would mainly be
Are there other areas where it's gonna hit you? Any color there would be helpful.
Speaker 2
You know, it it it it depends in terms of, you know, which where the chips are going, but it isn't just security. So it's, you know, it it it and it isn't only microchips either. I mean, you know, from resins to many other things that, you know, they were grinding out as as other companies are doing. So I I would just say that it's it's a variety of different areas. Security is one of the larger ones, I would say, but not the only area.
Speaker 3
Andrew, we've got because it oh, no. It also go ahead, Tony. No. I was just
Speaker 2
gonna say comfort also. In particular, comfort and security. If I had to pick two categories. The Thermal Solutions group, a little bit. I mean, because I just the the the supply chain issues,
Speaker 1
you know, it's just it's
Speaker 2
a matter of degree, you know, which ones are are are bigger problem childs than others. But in general, I'd say security and comfort.
Speaker 6
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Speaker 0
And our next question will come from the line of Eric Woodring with Morgan Stanley.
Speaker 7
Hey, guys, thanks for taking my call. Congrats on the quarter. I guess I'll throw out two for you guys here. Just starting in terms of your performance in the first quarter, maybe you could just provide a little more commentary on just how P and S did across comfort versus security versus residential thermal? Anything that you'd call out there?
And then same for ADI on the on the geographic side. Anything of note that you'd call out? And then I have a follow-up. Thanks.
Speaker 3
On the on p Eric, thanks for the thanks for the questions. On the P and S side, all three all three of the, what I'll call, the traditional business lines grew pretty robustly during the quarter. Security was clearly the strongest. You know, ADT is a terrific and significant customer of that business. They they did really well.
We introduced our Pro Series line, which did well in the market in q one. So security saw the most robust growth of the three segments, but all three of them all three of them showed showed meaningful growth. In terms of ADI, I'm trying to I'm trying to remember there's not a lot. EMEA did a little bit better, but there's not anything particularly dramatic in terms of their their mix or anything that I call out one, you know, one geography or another.
Speaker 7
Okay. That's super helpful. And and then maybe, Tony or Jay, either one can take this. But, you know, big picture, your leverage has dramatically improved over the last twelve months. You no longer have any significant maturities before 2026.
You saw some ratings upgrade. So just curious how you're thinking about your target capital structure and leverage going forward? And then how you'd prioritize cash uses given this dynamic? Thanks.
Speaker 3
Great question. We'll have more to say about that over the next couple of quarters. I mean, we did a rollout in, you know, at Investor Day of some more long term targets. We're thinking more deeply now and working through with a little more clarity exactly where we wanna be in terms of return metrics and those kinds of things. And that really does that feeds into the, you know, kind of the long term capital structure.
I made the comments early in my tenure at Resideo that I would like to see us have an investment grade credit profile. Our leverage and, you know, the the business performance are there, but the track record and the consistency probably isn't. And, you know, frankly, we've gotten the, you know, significant component of exposure in the in the Honeywell IRA. So anytime we're thinking about our leverage, we think about the, you know, the reimbursement agreement obligation to Honeywell as as something that is tantamount to a fixed obligation. You know, as we grow the business, that shrinks as a proportion of the whole, but it's something we have to take into account when thinking about the capital structure.
So long way of saying we are I would say right now, we're in a period where we probably are carrying less, you know, less leverage than we feel like we could carry over the over the long term. If there were sensible or reasonable things from a cash deployment standpoint that would take our leverage up a little bit, we'd be comfortable doing that as long as it's within the constraints I just described.
Speaker 2
I would just jump in with Tony. Sorry, to interrupt. That last thing you just said, I want to just reinforce. I think that's a great way of framing it is that we're being a little cautious. But at the same time, we've I think we've done a really good job of putting ourselves in the right position.
We'll take advantage of opportunities as they come up.
Speaker 3
And in terms of, you know, in terms of of how we deploy that capital, the prioritization is inorganic growth. You know, the the the the deals that you see us doing in ADI at ADI, they're you know, we fund them with cash flow. That's, you know, that's not a problem. They're not they're not really of a meaningful scale. But now that we have a foundational perspective on the go forward strategy in PNS, I mentioned earlier, we we brought in, as our treasurer a few months ago, somebody who has very he's also head of corp dev, very deep m and a experience.
We're building out that strategy. We're building out the road map to how we wanna, play in that market. And the whole point of doing the debt refinance and the capital raise last year was to put ourselves in a position, I think we used the phrase, to be strategically proactive. And that's where we are. And that's Yes.
I'd add and
Speaker 2
I think Tony said that really well. Our presentation deck there, we have a one page slide called P and S strategic overview with the strategic pillars that I mentioned. And those are the areas that, of course, that the P and S business is focused on. And we just want to make sure that we have that as we move forward in each of those pillars that we have the flexibility to be able to act as we need to be it organically or M and A, but being smart about it.
Speaker 3
This is a long answer to your question, but one other thing I wanna mention is the transformation of our capital structure and the deleveraging of the business over the last twelve months has had a profound impact on the strategic and operational decision making in the business. We've really been able to point people to making the best decisions for the business over the a reasonable time horizon over the time horizon where, you know, over a multiyear time horizon as opposed to thinking about, you know, what's the cash implication or what's the EBITDA implication of of something. And that was really one of the reasons why it was such a high priority for us early early in the game as the the new leadership team. If we wanted to take concerns about important strategic and operational decision making, we wanted to take some of the financial concerns surrounding those decisions off the table for people. And we it feels like we've done that.
Speaker 7
That was great color. Thank you very much, guys.
Speaker 0
And our next question is going to come from the line of Paul Garrick with William Blair.
Speaker 8
Hi, good afternoon and congrats on a good quarter.
Speaker 3
Thanks Paul.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Paul.
Speaker 8
So two for me. First, in P and S, given the robust nature of the residential market now and the very tight labor market that we're seeing nationally and in trades, is the value proposition that Resideo is offering to PROS strengthening? In other words, are there things that you guys can do in this kind of market environment to differentiate and to grow closer to some of your contractors and perhaps even recruit new contractors to your brands and to your products?
Speaker 2
I'll jump at first because you get excited when you ask me that question and I'll let Tony. But yes, I mentioned in my comments,
Speaker 3
Paul, as
Speaker 2
you know, about RNC, the residential new construction and the total portfolio of products that we can offer as part of our growth together and deepening the relationship further with this great asset of pro installers that we have out there. So that's just one of one big example that we're going to we've got a lot of focus and effort on. Also, Phil Theodore, who's President of Products and Solutions, and his team have been working a lot in terms of training out there into the trades. Know you'll hear more about that as we move forward. And that's an important part and one of many things to be able to, as young, new people come on board in this market and in those areas with the trades, that they learn about us as part of that because we're there to help support that.
So your question is a really good question, but one and one that we're very focused on both short term and long term. Tony, you
Speaker 3
got anything to add to that? Yes. I apologize. It's a it's a pressure question, really, because it's an area that we focused on inside of PNS. It it really, you're you're right to ask the question in context of the pandemic and labor shortage.
But there's a long longer term challenge for, you know, for our pros, which is their, you know, their nuts and bolts labor force and their their skilled technicians, they're aging. And they're not we're not producing those tax at the rate that is necessary in the future. And we've had, you know, significant engagement with a number of our customers to to work with them for in areas of scholarships and supporting, you know, young folks coming into these trades because, I mean, for a whole bunch of reasons. One, it's the right thing to do. Two, it supports our our customers today.
But, you know, you make a you make a fan for life if you help somebody with their education. Right? So there's a tremendous amount of goodness associated with that. The the other thing I wanted to mention, though, and Jamie will have more color on this too. When we when we do product design, one of the things that we're focused on is making the pro successful.
And what that really means is when they show up in somebody's house, the product has to be you know, they've gotta be trained on it. It has to be easy to install. It has to be robust. And and those types of that type of process, that type of work really improves the the labor efficiency of, you know, of the professionals as they're as they're going out to the home. So the, you know, the reader question really goes back all the way into our product design cycles.
Speaker 2
Yep. You know, good feedback.
Speaker 8
Got it. No. That's very helpful color. I appreciate that. I'm sure there'll be more to come on the topic.
Second question for me, switching to ADI, in particular on the e commerce side. The e commerce growth in the quarter up 60% year over year, very robust. I believe last year was somewhere in the 20s, maybe mid upper 20s. I guess what's working there? And specifically, are there any changes in the marketplace or with your execution that you can point to that have increased your effectiveness and, you know, are now commanding more investment dollars from you?
Speaker 3
It's it's definitely commanding more investment dollars. There's no question about it. We, we have improved our ecommerce experience, I think, meaningfully, but we also have a long way to go. And, you know, we have a product information, systems that are coming online here as part of this investment that we've been talking about that are gonna improve that web experience and that ecommerce experience even more for our customers. The other the other part is training and, you know, driving our customers to that portal for what I'm gonna call the, you know, the everyday buys.
Our objective in this is, you know, one, we think it'll it'll increase sales overall and make for a better experience for our for our customers at ADI. But our real objective is also to free up our sales associates to be able to be consultative with with our customers and really take the order taking, you know, hate to say clerical, sort of, you know, let the the process pieces of the job out of their hands, move it move it to the web, move it to an ecommerce experience that is valuable and productive for our customers such that our sales associates, whom today we get tremendous performance out of, can be more consultative with the customers when they're in the branches.
Speaker 2
Yes. I think that's Tony hit the nail right in the head with that. And I would just add that as you stated, Paul, I mean, we've had nice growth since last year. So I think it gave us some opportunity through COVID, and it forced it helped accelerate that through COVID because of that. There's no doubt about it.
But now after we saw that and the markets even coming out of COVID, people are saying, how I can do this a lot easier by using the digital experience. And so as Tony said, we're investing further. It's one of our investment areas to further accelerate that. So I know Rob and his team of people at KDR are super excited about because they see the results every month.
Speaker 8
Understood. I appreciate the thoughtful answers. Thank you.
Speaker 3
Thanks, Paul.
Speaker 0
And at this time, it appears we have no further questions. I will turn the call over to you for any closing comments.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I just appreciate everyone's participation today on the call. Please reach out if
Speaker 3
you have any follow ups, and
Speaker 1
we look forward to speaking with you over the the coming weeks and and months. Take care, everyone. Thank you.
Speaker 0
Once again, we'd like to thank you for participating in today's Resideo Technologies conference call. You may now disconnect.