Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation — 2024 Q1
Transcript
Each turn shows the speaker, their inferred role, the section, and that turn's net sentiment (×1000).
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Cognizant Technology Solutions First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]
Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. By now, you should have received a copy of the earnings release and the investor supplement for the company's first quarter 2024 results. If you have not, copies are available on our website, cognizant.com. The speakers we have on today's call are Ravi Kumar, Chief Executive Officer; and Jatin Dalal, Chief Financial Officer.
Thank you, Tyler, and good afternoon, everyone.
first, by training Cognizant associates to use Gemini for software development assistance; and second, by integrating Gemini's advanced capabilities within Cognizant's internal operations and platforms. Using Gemini for Google Cloud, Cognizant's developers will be equipped to write, test and deploy code faster and more effectively with the help of AI-powered tools, improving the reliability and cost efficiency of building and managing client applications.
Thank you, Ravi, and thank you all for joining us.
[Operator Instructions]
I guess to start, can you comment on what areas performed better than your expectations here on growth in 1Q versus your guide? And then as we see an implied sequential improvement in the coming quarters, at least at the midpoint, how do we reconcile that with some of the commentary about the unknown timing of discretionary recovery? I'm curious if it's kind of an improvement driven by the ramp of the large deals and easier comps or if you're actually forecasting some improvement in that discretionary -- in that decision-making environment too.
Thank you, Bryan. Thank you for that question. This is Ravi here, and let me give it a try, and then I will ask Jatin to add in. The way we look at our guidance range is based on the visibility we get to the middle of the range. And then we look for what's the upside available. The upside available is based on large deal momentum. There is 30 to 40 basis points of M&A, which we are yet to do because this guidance includes 100 basis points of M&A. And the committed spend from many of our clients, sometimes, you can get an upside on it if you ramp up well. So that's the starting point.
Yes. No, Bryan, we are good. If you have any follow-up, we can take it.
No, that was very detailed. I appreciate that. My thoughts on margin, so just kind of unpacking the margin attribution with the gross margin contraction year-over-year but a strong SG&A reduction. Is that a trend we should expect that will continue as you move through '24, just given the large deal ramping? And just maybe, Jatin, talk about your comfort level in reducing the SG&A profile in NextGen still?
There will be puts and takes every quarter, as you very well know. But directionally, SG&A should continue to show a right momentum around improvement, but not so much because we have taken a large action in '23. So you would see the [ back ] end of our NextGen program acting through the SG&A line during the course of the rest of the year, but it won't be as large an impact or a big number compared to 2023. That's the view on SG&A.
I would say the only thing I would add to what Jatin said is SG&A also has leverage with growth. So if growth comes back, you will see leverage on SG&A.
Our next question comes from the line of Tien-Tsin Huang with JPMorgan.
Just following on Bryan's question there. Just thinking about bookings ahead in the second quarter, maybe second half as well. Any call-outs there around expectations, new deals or logos versus renewals, short versus large? What do you see on the horizon there?
Tien-Tsin, thank you so much for that question. We continue to see good large deals momentum through the whole of 2023. I mean, whatever we did in 2023 is helping us on ramp-ups this year, and we'll continue to build that for the rest of the year. This has been a good quarter. In fact, if you just see the announcements we made with clients as a part of our earnings release, you would notice that the number of announcements have also gone up. So I'm very pleased with the progress. I'm also pleased with the fact that we have now started to expand that into Europe and Asia Pacific.
Our next question comes from the line of Bryan Keane with Deutsche Bank.
I just wanted to ask about pricing in the environment right now since demand is low. Wondering if you're seeing pressure on the rate card in the industry right now? And any kind of bottom insight for that?
Yes. Bryan, thanks for your question. This is Jatin. Fundamentally, the current environment is that of consolidation of spend, of cost management, improvement in the productivity and so on and so forth. So this is the characteristics of the deals that we are seeing in the market. By design, these deals come with an expectation of superior pricing than what is the pricing which is inherent in the current work. So yes, there is a downward pressure on pricing, but it is nothing out of ordinary that one would expect in the current demand environment. We are not seeing out-of-ordinary behavior in the market as we compete. And I think it's a fair play from that expectation standpoint.
Got it. And then as my follow-up, you mentioned that normally, you guys would narrow the range for the revenue guide, but you've kept it due to some of the uncertainties. What would need to happen for you guys to get towards the high end of the range? Would you need some of that short-term demand work to come back? And would it even come back fast enough to hit the P&L to impact this fiscal year to get up towards the, I think, 2% constant currency revenue range?
Sure. So overall, the reason for large -- a larger range is as follows. I mean, as Ravi mentioned, we start with the midpoint and we look at what is the expected outcome that one can get to. Then we see the range of possibilities. Now if you see our own guidance vis-a-vis quarter 1 to quarter 2, there is an improvement in the guidance range that we gave in -- we are giving in quarter 2 versus quarter 1. And that also means that we will grow sequentially in quarter 2. So overall, we are making good progress. But if you see the demand environment remains reasonably tough, no different than what we spoke in the beginning of the year. And hence, there is a sort of uncertainty in the environment that we are factoring in as we look at our own performance as well as we look at the environment, which is surrounding us.
Our next question comes from the line of Jonathan Lee with Guggenheim Securities.
Ravi, given your call-out in your prepared remarks to your commentary, can you talk through any sort of deal leakage or cancellations or delays you may have seen in recent months? And if so, across which types of projects or verticals are you seeing this in?
Yes. So let me start and get Jatin to add. Discretionary has to be earned every year, so the discretionary doesn't come back. You could call it as structural leakage, if I may, but it isn't as much. It's not like somebody else is taking that away. So discretionary is always the unknown part, if I may. On the -- when I started the year in 2023, we had leakages because when there was a consolidation, somebody else was winning it and not us. That isn't happening anymore. I mean we are very stable with our clients. Our clients are continuing to invest in customers. There's no company-specific challenges, which have led to leakage or there is a potential of leakage. We see that as a very stable platform.
Yes. And if I just add a perspective of the deals that we have won in last, let's say, 18 months. Typically, you would see that compared to what you expected at the time when you won the deal, typically, you will go sometimes faster because you are fulfilling better, you are executing better than what you initially thought and customer thought. And sometimes, it would be slower because there are more change management issues they need to deal with, et cetera. So I think we are evenly placed regarding the pace versus expectation. I don't see anything out of ordinary. There will always be one of the deals that is taking a little longer time to ramp up because there is some change in the client organization, but nothing that is out of ordinary on a win versus execution of the deal.
Our next question comes from the line of Jason Kupferberg with Bank of America.
I just wanted to start on gen AI. I kind of had a 2-part question there because I know, Ravi, you mentioned rural gen AI and accelerating software development a couple of times. Just curious what your longer-term views are on role of a human software developer will change as gen AI tools potentially do more of the actual coding. And then just you mentioned 450 active gen AI client engagements. Can you give us a sense of the average project size there?
Thank you, Jason. The 450 -- let me start with the first one. The 450-odd client engagements, we've come a long way. If you remember, in quarter 2, 2023, we spoke about 100, and now we have 400 early client engagements. And these are very short prototype, rapid prototype kind of deals. 500 of them -- more than 500 of them, we have in the pipeline, and the thing to watch for now is how many of these will go into scaled execution for our clients. And that's where the monetize-able opportunities are. So we are continuing to work on it.
first, follow the innovation cycles of AI; second, build the last-mile infrastructure so that the raw power of AI can be made production grade, enterprise grade for our clients. That means last-mile infrastructure related to managing AI platforms, orchestration. In case of AI and like other discontinuities, how do you improve the accuracy of the models? How do you create explainability because this is a black box? How do you create explainability? How do you create observability? So all of those platforms we have built and we have announced is the last-mile infrastructure I kind of referred to, which helps us to take the drop over and make it production grade.
That's good color. And then just a quick follow-up. You mentioned 8 large deals you won in the quarter, $100 million-plus TCV, I think. Are those expected to contribute materially to 2024 revenue? And if so, were they already contemplated in your original revenue guidance?
Yes, I mean the visibility we have so far on the deals we have won, we have baked it into our guidance range. But Jason, you know this, the deals we won last year have a better throughput this year. And the deals we win this year will have a better throughput in the second half of this year and in 2025. The challenge in 2023 was we did have that backlog as we got into 2023 because we were not playing on large deals. Right now, I don't have that challenge because I had a good, healthy pipeline in 2023 that's contributing to 2024. And then we keep doing this in the same sustained manner, we will exit into 2025 with tail velocity. So the first year is normally lower than the second year. And by the end of the second year, you get to the run rate you have to. Normally, the span of the deals has changed. Earlier, it used to be lower. Now, it's 3.5 years or plus because large deals now come on a cost-takeout model, unlike transformation related to -- unlike transformation-related large deals.
Our next question comes from the line of James Faucette with Morgan Stanley.
Wanted to ask a couple of follow-up questions. You kind of laid out what needed to happen, particularly in the return of discretionary deals in order to get to the high end of your guidance range. Conversely, what would be the scenario in your mind that would end up with you towards the lower end of that guided range? I mean, are we looking at incremental pushouts and delays of starting of deals? Or I'm just trying to get a gauge there on the bottom end.
Yes, sure. So if you do that mathematically, I'm sure you already looked at those numbers, and those numbers really mean a very flattish performance for rest of the year and a negative performance that typically happens in quarter 4, given the furloughs. So that's the sort of trajectory we are looking at if markets really tanked and our performance didn't show any positive progress.
Got it. Got it. Okay. And then there's been a lot of talk about the transformational or discretionary deals and more focus on transformation. And it seems like that that's directly impacting your bookings and the types of things that you're able to put in into the pipeline right now. But is that having any impact on what you're doing from a hiring or skilling perspective? And how should we think about that as we go into next year if this kind of environment persists? Are there other considerations we should be taking into account in terms of how you'll be hiring and what impact that could have on profitability, et cetera?
Yes. So discretionary is small projects. Normally, in smaller projects, you have a different kind of a pyramid versus large deals, where you have a much healthy pyramid, if I may. So with discretionary -- normally, when discretionary comes in, you hire more lateral hires with experience. And when you deal with managed services deals, you hire the pyramid because the pyramid rightly fits in there. So that's probably how it is.
Our next question comes from the line of Moshe Katri with Wedbush Securities.
It's Moshe Katri from Wedbush. Ravi, congrats on strong execution in a pretty tough environment. I just want to go back to the booking kind of metrics, 1.3x book-to-bill. Is there a way to kind of break it down by new logos to the renewals and extensions and maybe compared to last year of, I guess, you mentioned ACV? I think you said bookings on a 12-month basis were up 1%. Is there a way to kind of get the same comps for ACVs?
Moshe, good to hear from you. So we do have that visibility. We have not published that externally. What we track is multiple things. We track the total contract value, the size of the deals, the duration of the deals, how much of that translates to ACV for this year and ACV for the next year, so for the first 12 months or the next 12 months. And we also track the pyramid attached to it and the capability set needed. So I pretty much have that information to rely on so that we can get our fulfillment engine intact as well as forecast better. So it is something we have. We have not published that externally, but I'm keeping a constant track on it.
Okay. And then is there a way to get that mix of new logos to renewals? Or that's also kind of internal and you don't disclose that?
So we have had a very healthy new logo program, Moshe. Since I've come on board, we have a specific program for new logos. We also have a program to ramp new logos to, say, a $50 million or $100 million client, an annual spend of $100 million, $50 million client. I mean opening new logos is one thing, but ramping them up to a $50 million account is another thing. So we have put both swim lanes. We're very, very active in our journey.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jamie Friedman with SIG.
Jatin, I just want to make sure I'm understanding how you're thinking about the shape of the year. If I take the midpoint of your Q2 sequential and if I make the assumption that the Q4 is flat, and I know in most years, it's not, but just for simple math, I'm getting about a 2.5% sequential in the Q3. Does that sound about right to you?
I'm -- I don't have the math in front of me, but yes, I mean, qualitatively, I would agree with you that we'll have to have a strong quarter 3 and a flattish quarter 4 for us to get to the -- towards the higher range -- higher end of our range, for sure.
Okay. And then Ravi, you, I think, used the word green shoot in the context of the BFS letters in BFSI. And it's the first time I've heard your company or most companies use that language with those 3 letters in years. Can you elaborate on that?
Yes. So the context was if you look at the last few quarters of sequential drop in BFS, you would notice that the sequential drop is relatively smaller between quarter 4 and quarter 1. So something has happened in between. So in the last 12 months, we have worked on reorganizing our BFSI vertical. We have energized the teams with some new hires. We have now a exceptionally good list of offerings. I mean, I now have an operating list for banking and financial services or for insurance. We have opened doors on fintech. We have taken AI and created small discretionary spend opportunities for ourselves. Just to give you a sense in insurance, we have quite a few AI projects running. So we have a variety of things happening.
Yes. Sorry, Jamie. I just add to what I just said before. It's -- I want to go back to what I said in response to an earlier question saying, our expected likely outcome is what we see at the midpoint of the guidance. And then we see the range of possibility on the both ends. And when you specifically asked, I was reacting to the range of possibility on the upper end. I mean, I just want to reflect accordingly so that I respond to you in its completeness.
Thank you. This concludes today's Cognizant Technology Solutions Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call. You may now disconnect.