Thoughtworks Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 8, 2023

There are 14 speakers on the call.

Operator

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Thoughtworks Earnings Call for the Q2 of 2023. We will be recording today's call, and during the presentations, all lines will be on listen only. Joining us today will be Thoughtworks' President and CEO, Guo Zhou and CFO, Aaron Cummins. The earnings press release was issued earlier today and is also available on our Investor Relations page at thoughtworks.com. Some Some of the matters we'll discuss on this call, including our expected business outlook and anticipated costs and benefits of our restructuring actions, are forward looking and, as such, are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties.

Operator

These include, but are not limited to, those factors described in today's press release and discussed in the Risk Factors section of our annual report on Form 10 ks, our quarterly reports on Form 10 Q, and other reports we may file with the SEC from time to time. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed on this call. These forward looking statements are made only as of the date when made. During our call today, we will reference certain non GAAP financial measures. We will also provide growth rates in constant currency as a framework assessing how our underlying business performed, excluding the effect of foreign currency rate fluctuations.

Operator

We include non GAAP to GAAP reconciliations in our press release furnished as an exhibit to our Form 8 ks. The non GAAP financial measures provided should not be considered as a substitute for or superior to the measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. Thoughtworks assumes no obligation to update or revise the information presented on this conference call. I will now hand over to Zhao.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Rob. Welcome, everyone, to our Q2 earnings call. I would like to start by sharing an overall update on our business, and then Arren will take you through our Q2 results in more detail. Erwin will share our guidance and then we'll open for Q and A. In the Q2 of 2023, we delivered revenue of $287,000,000 With an adjusted EBITDA margin of 10.2 percent, both of which were below our guidance for the quarter.

Speaker 1

I want to first discuss the Challenges with 3 of our top clients during the second half of Q2, where the scope of work being executed was reduced due to client specific budgetary decisions Or shift in the client's strategic direction. These unforeseen decisions accounted for approximately 2 thirds of the revenue miss In the quarter, when compared with our guidance. We attribute the remainder of the shortfall to broader macroeconomic factors. During the quarter, and in particular the latter half, we witnessed a slowing of pipeline conversion. The change in client behavior That we have highlighted in recent quarters, including incremental project ramp ups and delayed decision making, continued during the quarter to a greater extent than anticipated.

Speaker 1

In response to these challenges, we undertook a total review of our business. And today, we're announcing a structural reorganization. As part of the program, we're reducing our employee headcount globally by approximately 5% to 6%. With this structural reorganization, We will move operational functions from a geographically dispersed to a centralized model. Create a new organizational home for the majority Our professional services workforce, our digital engineering center, and evolve our regional market structure.

Speaker 1

Centralizing operations globally will reduce overall costs, better align resources to strategic priorities, Right size operations and increased operational efficiencies. The new Digital Engineering Center will provide supply across the regional markets And allow us to respond swiftly to client requirements, including the continued shift from onshore to offshore delivery. Over our 30 year history, we have built various digital engineering centers across the world as a result of our geographic expansions. The time is right to further optimize our global delivery capabilities. The DEC will play an important role in capability building, Developing talent and driving innovation with our clients.

Speaker 1

We expect that the DEC will help improve our utilization rates And optimize resource deployment. We're pleased to share that the group will be led by Sudhir Tiwari, our Regional Managing Director of India and the Middle East. Finally, these changes will enable our Regional Markets to shift to a more client and industry based go to market focus And allow the company to continue fund investments in demand generation. And we will continue to invest in our outbound demand generating capabilities. The investments that we made over the last year are paying dividends as we continue to see an increasing share of our new TCV Attributable to our outbound efforts.

Speaker 1

Driving additional business through our focused sales efforts remains a key part of our strategy. And we're pleased to announce that we have promoted Chris Murphy to the newly created role of Chief Revenue and Client Officer in order to oversee these efforts. Through these changes, we expect to emerge a stronger company in order to navigate the current difficult macro environment While best positioning ourselves for the future, we will do this while staying true to who we are, a company intensely focused on helping solve our clients' toughest challenges By harnessing our expertise with ever evolving and cutting edge technology. Now I'd like to move on to additional details about the quarter. I'm pleased to share that Elwars was among the leading providers in the Q2 2023 Global ISG Index, Breakthrough 15 category for the Asia Pac region.

Speaker 1

This is based on annual contract value won over the last 12 months. We contracted with 29 new clients in the quarter, a year on year increase of 12% as we continue to build upon our outbound sales motion. Our voluntary attrition rate of 12.6 percent on a TTM basis remains well below industry norms and demonstrate the strength of our employee value proposition. In June, we published our Annual Social Impact Report. I'm very proud of the work Thoughtworks does to amplify positive social change While advocating for equitable tech future.

Speaker 1

Now let me share a few themes we're seeing in the market. We're focusing our demand generation program on data and AI services. And we're seeing a lot of client interest, especially for generative AI, and Thawares is well positioned to meet this demand. We have multiple initiatives underway to enhance our service offerings, capitalize on inbound interest, and generate outbound demand. First, at the end of Q2, we have trained around 500 thought workers in AI assisted software development.

Speaker 1

With a target to train a total of 1800 by September 2023, we're trialing a broad array of technologies To quantify their impact within software development lifecycle. For example, we developed Team AI, A springboard to create custom tools to leverage Gen AI to accelerate software delivery tasks, including requirement analysis, Code Generation and Test Planning. 2nd, we're developing new services and tools to help our clients pursue Gen AI led innovation And maximize value while upholding high standards in responsible tech. We just launched the Thoughtworks generative AI product accelerator. This is in response to client demand for Gen AI enabled product development.

Speaker 1

The generative AI product accelerator combines Thoughtworks' proven approach To developing products with our expertise in data and AI. This helps rapidly embed generative AI into ambitious digital products. We are already working with the top 50 clients and seeing value creation in just a matter of weeks. We have had many questions from clients about How to build Gen AI applications. And so we recently published an article to share insights.

Speaker 1

Lessons and practices In building an LLM powered generative application. And third, actively engaging with clients. We are currently working with 12 clients on generative AI projects and a further 20 clients where the work we are doing involves coding assistance with GenAI. A number of these are top 50 clients. The work we're doing with the clients is across a diverse set of use cases.

Speaker 1

For example, software development, search, Knowledge management, data analysis, and product development. We're working with a new client, BoltWorks, A Finnish technology company specializing in staff recruitment, BOLT works employee recruiters to scheme unstructured texts To find potential matches for candidates, interviews, and final recruiting decisions. This manual process is a bottleneck for scalable growth. Thoughtworks built a large language model based matching engine for jobs and workers to enhance scale and speed up the capabilities of their platform and business. Our solution is based on ChatGPT coupled with an open source large language model for the more sensitive data operations.

Speaker 1

Other service offerings that drive productivity and cost efficiencies are getting traction in the market. For example, FinOps. Clients are looking to achieve efficiencies from their cloud estates. We recently worked with a global top 10 pharmaceutical client. By applying our differentiated approach to FinOps, which combines FinOps platforms with continuous Automated remediation.

Speaker 1

We were able to identify $30,000,000 of cost savings across the cloud estate, Which had expected spend profile of $100,000,000 over 5 years. And we're seeing good progress in our digital application management and operations services, Daymo. Demo helps our clients achieve 0 maintenance of their software by leveraging our strength in digital application management and operations. 11 of our top 50 clients are demo clients at the end of Q2. Our demo team is working with Authority Brands, a US leading home service franchise group, To evolve their Successware product and continuously improve and ensure its long term reliability, stability and success.

Speaker 1

We continue to invest in our capabilities, and we believe we have the best digital talent in the industry. For these reasons, we believe that Towers is well positioned in the market. At the core, our strategy is to deepen relationships with existing clients and win new logos. We then supplement this with focused strategies around M and A, partners and geographic expansion. We continue to focus on the shape of our portfolio to more resilient verticals while investing in our service offerings, for example, Daymo.

Speaker 1

First, starting with partners. I'm pleased to share that Thoughtworks recently became an official premier Google Cloud Partner in North America. We have exciting program planned at Google Next in San Francisco later this month. Our client Global, Latin America's largest media company, will be speaking. Global, we share how by working with Thoughtworks, they successfully migrated a petabyte scale data pipeline from a legacy platform solution to Google Cloud.

Speaker 1

Turning now to client portfolio. The depth of our expertise and breadth of our capabilities means that we can help clients address a broad range of challenges. We assist from strategy right through to business outcomes. We're focused on improving the resilience of our vertical client portfolio. For example, in public sector, a new client in the US Federal sector is the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Speaker 1

Thoughtworks, along with its partners, have been awarded a 5 year design development blanket purchase agreement To provide IT and digital services, including web security, DevOps, design and product development. And our existing public sector client, the National Payments Corporation of India, our architects are working Closely with MPCI to scale the unified payments interface ecosystem as its protocols are entering new countries, including the ones in North America And the Middle East. We also work with the NCPI on enhancing and upgrading BHIM. BHIM is a payment We migrated the app from a legacy framework to highly scalable React Native framework using a strangler approach. You can find details of some of these client successes on our News section of our website, thoughtworks.com.

Speaker 1

I'm now going to hand over to Erin So that she can take you through the numbers in greater detail.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Shao, and thank you to everybody for joining us on today's call. Earlier this morning, we released our Q2 results. As Shao already mentioned, unexpected ramp downs by 3 significant clients And the second half of the quarter drove approximately 2 thirds of the quarterly revenue miss compared to the guidance we provided in May. In addition, our performance was impacted by slower pipeline conversion and incremental project start ups. While these Trends were previously witnessed during recent quarters, the degree to which they impacted client behavior and therefore our results was greater than we anticipated.

Speaker 2

Moving to our results. Revenues declined 14% year over year during Q2 to 287,000,000 In constant currency, revenue declined 13% compared to the prior year period. Acquisitions contributed 1 percentage point to the revenue growth rate in Q2. We remain close to our clients while macro uncertainty disrupts near term budget spending. We are ready and committed to assist our clients with the toughest challenges of their multiyear digital transformation journeys.

Speaker 2

Our thought leadership and expertise allows us to solve these difficult problems And our annualized average revenue per employee of $100,000 for the Q2, which remains above the industry average, Reflects the highly strategic work that we deliver for our clients. Now let's move to additional details about the quarter. We had another stable quarter with respect to bookings and we are pleased to report that our overall bookings at the end of Q2 on a TTM basis stood at $1,500,000,000 Our revenue base remains diversified and we continue to focus on increasing the participation from more resilient verticals. For the quarter, we saw year over year declines of 8% in both Europe and APAC, 20% in North America and 25% in LatAm. Moving to our industry verticals.

Speaker 2

Automotive, Travel and Transportation continues to be our fastest growing vertical, rising 18% year over year. Energy Public and Health Services declined 2%. Financial Services declined by 12%. Technology and Business Services declined by 27% And our retail and consumer vertical decreased by 29%. For the Q2 on a TTM basis, around 92% of our business came from existing clients.

Speaker 2

We currently have 35 clients with revenues greater than $10,000,000 on a TTM basis to more than the Q2 of 2022. In the Q2, as a percentage of total revenue, our top 5, top 10 and top 50 clients generated 18%, 28% and 67%, respectively. Adjusted gross margin was 36.6% for Q2 compared to 40.6 percent during the prior year period. Average bill rate and utilization were primarily responsible for the year over year decline. We saw modest low single digit pricing declines on a like for like basis, while also performing certain exploratory work for clients.

Speaker 2

In the Q2, our adjusted SG and A as a percentage of revenue was 26.5% compared to 23.7% in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA was $29,000,000 for the 2nd quarter and adjusted EBITDA margin was 10.2%, below our guidance mostly due to lower than Q2 GAAP diluted loss per share was $0.04 compared to a loss of $0.13 in the prior year period. Our adjusted diluted EPS was $0.03 compared to $0.11 for the Q2 of 2022. We had negative free cash Flow for the quarter of $19,000,000 compared to free cash flow of $20,000,000 in the prior year quarter, mostly due to the payment of Connected Labs earn out And quarterly income tax payments in the U. S.

Speaker 2

Our cash balance stood at $88,000,000 as of June 30, 2023, Alongside an undrawn revolving credit facility, we've made continued progress on repaying our debt this year and our outstanding term loan balance was $299,000,000 as of June 30, 2023. Now let me move to our business outlook for Q3 and for the full year 2023. We remain focused on expanding our pipeline as new and existing clients come to Thoughtworks to not only help solve their toughest challenges today, But also to prepare for future technology opportunities such as AI. For the Q3 of 2023, we expect Revenues to be in the range of $275,000,000 to $285,000,000 reflecting a year over year decline of negative 17 percent to negative 14% or negative 19% to negative 16% in constant currency. For the full year, we now expect revenues in the range of $1,137,000,000 to $1,157,000,000 reflecting a year over year decline in the range of negative 12% to negative 11% for both reported and constant currency revenues.

Speaker 2

We expect acquisitions will contribute approximately 1 point to the revenue growth rate in Q3 and 2 points to the revenue growth rate for the full year. We expect adjusted EBITDA margin for the Q3 to be in the range of 9% to 11%. For the full year, we now expect adjusted EBITDA margin of 11% to 12%. We expect that the actions we are taking with respect to restructuring and the realignment of our cost base will remove $75,000,000 to $85,000,000 of costs from the business on an annualized basis. This initiative will begin in the Q3 and is expected to be completed within the next 12 months.

Speaker 2

We expect total pre tax charges of $20,000,000 to $25,000,000 We expect to incur the majority of the pre tax charges in 2023. We expect that the charges will be offset by pre tax savings. For the Q3, we expect adjusted diluted EPS To be in the range of 0.02 dollars to 0.03 dollars assuming a weighted average share count of approximately 332,000,000 diluted shares outstanding. For the full year, we now expect adjusted diluted EPS of $0.11 to $0.13 assuming a weighted average Share count of approximately 332,000,000 diluted shares outstanding. Our Q3 guidance incorporates share based compensation of $18,000,000 For the full year, we expect share based compensation will total $74,000,000 As a reminder, beginning in 20 24, we to pay annual stock based compensation to range between 2% to 4% of revenue.

Speaker 2

And we would like to provide some context that is shaping our guidance for Q3 3 and the remainder of the year. First, the general contracting environment grew more difficult as we progressed through the second half of Q2, And we are factoring a continuation of recent trends into our guidance for the remainder of 2023. Specifically, we have moderated our expectations for the pace of pipeline conversion as we continue to see caution with client budgets. 2nd, we have factored in specific project ramp downs that occurred in Q2 and will impact The rest of the year. 3rd, our guidance incorporates a higher mix of offshore delivery compared to our previous forecast.

Speaker 2

We have previously discussed the ongoing shift to work from onshore to offshore delivery, but we have observed a faster than expected pace of change. While this dynamic is generally margin accretive, It does present a headwind to the top line and is impacting margins in the short term as we rebalance supply and demand in onshore versus offshore locations. Overall, while Q2 results did not meet our expectations, we are confident that we are taking the appropriate steps to build a more durable business. In addition to the actions we are taking to centralize our operations and reduce costs, there will also be some reductions in our professional services headcount Where individual skill sets or experience levels no longer align with client requirements and to enable us to make geographic adjustments to better align with client needs. Majority of the annualized cost savings will come from reductions in operating spend, particularly in non client back office functions.

Speaker 2

We are focused on driving efficiency while also providing the appropriate investments for the long term, such as continuing to build our outbound demand generation And fortifying our technology leadership. Our clients' needs, our digital transformation remain intact. Our pipeline is building and we remain close with our clients. And we are partnering with our clients as they look to capitalize upon the various technological innovations of both today and of the future. Now, let me hand back to Rob.

Operator

Thanks, Aaron. You can find our investor presentation on the Thoughtworks Investor Relations website. We will now move on to Q and A. I ask that you each keep to one question And one follow-up to allow as many participants, as possible, to ask a question. Operator, would you please provide instructions for those on the call?

Speaker 3

Thank you. Our first question comes from Tien Tsin Huang with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Hi. Sorry, can you hear me, Mr. Tien Tsin?

Speaker 5

Yes, we can. Hi. Thanks so much. Good morning.

Speaker 4

So, yes, so lots to digest that note here. Let me start maybe with just your reinvestment into the outbound demand Of course, the macro is tough. I'm sure you're thinking about replenishing the pipeline and going into next year. So Thinking about currently what percent of deals are a result of some of your outbound efforts now and as you're looking to diversify your revenue streams, you're moving more to this Industry specific outbound effort, is there a risk that we'll see some sales disruption, Hsiao, during the transition? How quickly do you expect to see Some of the results assuming a stable macro from here?

Speaker 4

Thanks.

Speaker 5

Thanks, Tianxin. We do believe that the outbound demand generation efforts is paying off already. Historically, Our Board enjoys a plentiful of inbound lease and that's our main go to market for many years. Historically, I think that average number average amount of new wins coming from Outbound was only about 15% of our portfolio and we have achieved, I think even in Q1 almost 30% of our new wins coming from outbound demand efforts And in Q2 that number has risen to 45%. So clearly we've made a lot of progress in generating demand proactively By going outbound through BDMs, target marketing campaigns, account based marketing campaigns.

Speaker 5

And then we continue to do that and our focus as you mentioned, Tianxing, is not across all industries. We tend to we're trying to focus a bit more on More resilient verticals in this current downturn from public to healthcare To Automotives and then we believe that with further effort we can even further increase that outbound demand outcomes From 45 percent to even more and at some point we definitely hope that in the long run that with inbound lease coming back again It will give us even a bigger pipeline to work with.

Speaker 4

Great. That was very clear, 45%. Okay. That's helpful as we think about tracking next year. So just maybe on for you Aaron just on the gross margin side, quick follow-up if that's okay.

Speaker 4

Just I heard both utilization impact as well as build rates driving the decline. I wasn't sure if that impact on bill rate was representative what you're For the second half of the year versus what you're trying to change in utilization for us, so maybe he can walk us through those dynamics as we reschedule our second half outlook. Thank you.

Speaker 6

Yes. Let me start with utilization. We did see an improvement in our utilization From Q1 to Q2. So obviously that's a positive sign, but it's important to note in both Shao's comments earlier as well as mine That that improvement was not evenly distributed across our business. We've seen lower utilization in our onshore locations versus our off And that has an impact both on our top line as well as gross margin.

Speaker 6

For Q2, we saw utilization of about 3 percentage points below what we typically target. Again, that's an improvement from what we saw in Q1. But the other impact is you mentioned Tien Tsin is around the bill rate. The bill rate is 2 dynamics. The first one is that shift in mix again from onshore To more offshore focus that's impacting the bill rate on the whole, it's also being impacted on some like for like Adjustments where we did see a low single digit like for like reduction in bill rate year over year In Q2 that compares to what we saw in Q1 where we were more flat.

Speaker 6

Now in terms of what we expect going forward, We're seeing more stability in terms of that bill rate impact. We're not expecting a further big movement, But to be more consistent with what we observed in Q2.

Speaker 4

Great. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Our next question comes from Maggie Nolan with William Blair. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Hi, thank

Speaker 7

you. Can you elaborate a little bit on how the move to a Centralized model is going to affect your ability to sell new business into existing clients. And then is there anything else that you would Anticipate needs to change as you manage those relationships and attempt to continue gaining share in existing accounts.

Speaker 5

Sure. Thanks, Migi. The centralized model we mentioned earlier talks about 2 parts. One is we want to centralize Our capacity, dealer capacity and consulting capacity around the world moving from a country managed Structure to a global managed structure, under the side, I think more significantly is we're evolving our regional demand generation structure to be more centralized as well. And our main focus to be more client focused and client centric than Our current country regional focus, the main impact we hope is going to help us from a new business From winning new business with existing client is that a lot of our customers today are global customers.

Speaker 5

They work within multiple regions across the world. And our geo model tends to focus on generating demand and then provide Excellent delivery in a specific country or even a region, but we tend to lack the global focus when it comes to go after new business. With the global model, our teams will report essentially by client, by vertical to a global role That will allow us to go to market more focused on a global delivery footprint and then working with our clients across multiple countries then just focusing on specific one. So definitely, we believe that it will help the expanding our spending with the existing customers in a more efficient way in the future.

Speaker 7

That's helpful. Thank you. And then when you think about the restructuring savings, what's the cadence of how those will hit the P and L? And how long does it take For those to start materially impacting the P and L and then what does the ramp look like towards that kind of annual run rate that you expect?

Speaker 6

With the restructuring from a savings perspective, once the actions are complete, We anticipate annualized cost savings of $75,000,000 to $85,000,000 And we anticipate that we'll Achieve most of those savings about 80% on a run rate basis before the end of this year. I did also touch on and just will as a reminder say on the whole the savings of $75,000,000 to $85,000,000 we expect To incur related costs that we'll see via restructuring charges of approximately $20,000,000 to $25,000,000 for the total program. Again, the majority of that will be incurred before the end of the year. We have a clear action plan where we're focused Is the areas that Shao just touched on particularly from a cost savings perspective, I would highlight that we expect the majority of our cost savings To be coming from non client or back office functions. And Our drive will be on not only efficiency and improvement and what we'll see by the time we get to an exit rate for Q4 2023, but importantly we think it sets us up very nicely for the longer term.

Speaker 7

Thanks for the update.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ashwin Shirvaikar

Speaker 8

Hi, yes. Hi, Jeff. Hi, Eric. Yes. Let me start with the deceleration in revenue per employee.

Speaker 8

What percentage of your revenue base has the Offshore on-site ratio and other cost side metrics that clients are seeking in the current environment. And the underlying question is, There is a demand weakening that's broad and has affected every player in the industry. It's why we kind of We have a low consensus for example, but Thoughtworks seems to have this incremental demand issue for its particular weighted average price point. So why should investors believe that you aren't say for example in the early innings of the impact as opposed to the later innings?

Speaker 5

Sure. Thanks, Ashwin. So I'll start with the onshoreoffshore split. Our revenue per employee It's doing a 100,000 range mostly due to the strategic kind of work we do and also our onshore presence. But as you were alluding to as our client budget gets tighter, we do work with them to find solutions such as moving more dealer work to offshore We'll offer demo to run existing system better versus building new ones right now.

Speaker 5

As a result, actually we sold more hours in Q2 than Q1, but the mix is a bit is more offshore heavy, Hence, the revenue is lower from Q1 to Q2. Now how far we have been going down this journey, I think it's Worth to keep in mind that we started our entire portfolio from a Work location perspective, 100 percent onshore about 30 years ago. We've added offshore over the years starting from early 2000. At this moment, we have a more than 75%, 25% split from headcount perspective onshoreoffshore. And then the movement, the speed of movement as you mentioned that from moving from offshore to offshore It has been about 1 to 2 percentage points every 2 or 3 quarters, 3 or 4 quarters.

Speaker 5

So the movement is not That's speedy from a change of portfolio perspective. Now we do want to actually our sales wants to get to 80% Or even perhaps slightly more than that from offshore percentage perspective. We believe that it's beneficial to both of our clients and Powerworks From a dealer mix perspective. So it is aligned to our own strategy to move towards that ratio. And then how far to your point do we think this will go?

Speaker 5

Is this going to go further to the 90%, 95%? We don't believe that will be the case. I think a lot of this near term pressure is to move the engineering type of work to offshore. But the higher value add, the consulting work, the strategy work, architecture, Cloud and then data AI, a lot of that work still remains onshore. And then I think As the macro eases a little bit as the budget cycle we're in now is through to the next one, We do believe that our onshore presence will continue to be a strategic advantage that will allow us to strengthen our relationship with our clients And we'll still be able to drive significant revenue growth from that.

Speaker 5

Hope that makes sense.

Speaker 8

I appreciate that. Appreciate that insight, Joe. The second question is with regards to sort of visibility and you Went through several points with regards to your new assumptions. That was very helpful. I just want to kind of ask as you sort of looked at Q2, were things getting sequentially Worse has this situation maybe stabilized at the lower level in July, is it still Getting worse, if you could kind of re go through the buffers in our outlook so to speak, Right.

Speaker 8

And maybe any changes that you made with regards to your forecasting methodology?

Speaker 5

Sure. That's a good question. Thanks, Ashley. So the macro environment for us Definitely grew more challenging in Q2, especially during the second half of the quarter. And that's the main reason we have reduced our expectations for the full year.

Speaker 5

And about a third of the reduction is we have without We're forecasting is due to a Q2 mix and the rest is due to the extension of the challenging Q2 demand environment, specifically The factors, we mentioned earlier, project turnover, slower pipeline conversion and then the work moving from onshore to offshore. And let me add some color to that in terms of how much buffer, what's our visibility on each of these factors. From a Project turnover perspective, we've seen most of that in Q2 and that's what we called out driving the that's driven the miss. We're still seeing some of that. When our top clients passed the major replatforming initiative at the beginning of Q3, at the beginning of July, And we believe that some of our clients are still adjusting and adapting to the challenging macro environment.

Speaker 5

And then We're probably going to continue to see project turnovers in Q3 due to that, and we factored that into our guidance. And in terms of the slower pipeline conversion, I mean the themes around client buying behavior remains the same that Still sales cycle is long, clients are tight on budget, it's slower to ramp up And it did become more difficult in Q2, incrementally more challenging in Q2 and the pipeline is moving slower than we anticipated compared to the last time we reported. So our guidance does incorporate in this slower rate of conversion into the rest of the year. That said, we do have a growing pipeline. We have a lot of clients engaging with us in driving new So the size and then the number of leads in the pipeline continue to grow.

Speaker 5

And we do have better coverage for Q3 and Q4, But we are taking conservative view from a conversion rate perspective based on what we've seen in Q2 and then so we extended that view And I use that lower conversion rate to calculate our guidance. So we do feel confident about where we're guiding. And then I think finally, I just want to point to this booking number. We do have a stable booking H1. And then as Erinn mentioned, RMB1.5 billion that implies Q2 booking is in line with Q2 2023 bookings are in line with Q2 2022 booking, which was a better demand environment.

Speaker 5

And then now the ramp up is more incremental, so not everything will be converting to revenue in the near term as soon As we probably have seen before, but sooner or later, these bookings will convert into revenue. And that give us confidence that we have Better visibility for Q3 and Q4.

Speaker 8

Very helpful. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Thanks, Nishu.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Our next question comes from Bryan Bergin with TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

Hi, thank you. I wanted to start with a follow-up on outlook reduction here. So looking for more detail on the cancellations and the deferrals, I heard that I think 3 large clients that accounted for a large portion of this. Are these still clients of ThoughtWorks? Can you comment on the industries and the regions those weighed on most?

Speaker 9

And curious, are projects like these coming out of plants entirely or do they in source them, they are competitors and anything any added color to be mindful there?

Speaker 5

Sure. Thanks, Brian. So the clients we called out, they were top clients. And then the work was Unexpectedly, not completely, but the scope reduction was significant and team side reduction was significant. As you were mentioning, they were actually spread across multiple industries, 1 in financial services, 1 in tech 1 sorry, 1 in energy and 1 in retail.

Speaker 5

It's none of this is Because the clients are complaining about the work or concerned about the quality of the work, they're also not being insourced Or loss to any competition is purely budgeting concern the client Are going through their own budget adjustment cycle and then they either decided to ramp down or stop Or not to extend the current work stream, but they are all still ongoing clients. We are still working with them, as I mentioned earlier, in this tough environment, even though there's contracts that says we have There's contracts, bookings that we're supposed to execute against. We want to maintain a long term relationship with our clients. We want to foster This partnership and that's why our top ten clients average tenure is 9 years. So we work with them trying to accommodate by Rev down the team, moving to offshore or using demo to run the application, existing application infrastructure rather than build a new one.

Speaker 5

So we pivot, but it's inevitably, it's a smaller revenue footprint from that point.

Speaker 9

Okay, understood. And then on bookings, just can you give some more color as it relates to the composition New bookings and really looking for the nature of the work. Has this shifted predominantly toward more efficiency initiatives for clients? And can you give us a sense of how maybe the average size of your engagements coming into bookings compares versus let's say last year?

Speaker 5

Sure. The new work that we were signing up including extension Are not substantially different from what we're doing today. They're essentially still focused more on enterprise monetization, For cloud, data, AI, user experience products, the cost saving, efficient saving programs, there are more, But they're not substantially more. And then this is some of this is driven by our Intention to push, for example, more demo service into our portfolio, but it's not substantially Different. And then sorry, what's the second part of the question?

Speaker 9

Just as it relates to average size of being

Speaker 5

So the booking itself is Hasn't been a significant change. The size of the SWs, total bookings we're signing, There are still large sized engagements, multiyear programs. I think it's the ramp up It is more incremental than we did, than we've seen before. That is the starting team becomes smaller, takes longer to get to the full team size. Previously at some point it would probably take 30 to 60 days to get to the full team size now.

Speaker 5

It will take up to 90 days to get to the full team size. Clients just get a bit more cautioned about their spending, but the booking average size of booking from a Contract perspective is still similar to what we've seen before. It was slightly smaller, but not substantially different.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Thanks, Glenn.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jason Kupferberg with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Speaker 10

Thanks guys. I wanted to circle back on the 3 large clients that I guess accounted for 2 thirds of the shortfall here. So Just so we were clear, is this simply that they're delaying new starts and or pausing existing projects Or have there been some outright cancellations here? And if it's more the former, what's your sense on when they expect to We engage with those delayed or paused initiatives.

Speaker 5

It's a mix Thanks Jason. It's a mix of both situations. One situation for example, The client has engaged with us since the mid of last year On the large multiyear replatforming initiative, replacing all their infrastructure That's running their back end operations. And then Around middle of the year just before the late in Q2, Our clients, their board has done another ROI analysis. They just couldn't justify The return on investment given the current budgetary and macro environment.

Speaker 5

So they decided to pause the entire program. Now they might come back at some point. We don't know if that's going to be anything in the next quarter or 2. But we have to pivot to something slightly different helping them to run their current infrastructure better. So that's a Complete.

Speaker 5

That's a stop, but we don't know when it's going to start. Another one is example It's a pivot and that is the initiatives our clients are running is for business case built for entire Europe region. And then I think there's an understanding realization that that project was too ambitious given the current macro that reduces scope to focus only on UK. And that means a lot of this architecture product design has to change. So that's a restart And it's going to restart to a smaller team.

Speaker 5

We're still engaged, but we know that's going to even if it's restart, it's going to become a smaller team. So those are the 2 examples that I can think of, if that helps.

Speaker 10

It does help. It does help. I guess the guidance for the back half of the year implies that quarter over quarter revenue growth will continue to be negative in Q3 and in Q4, I mean, I guess in a base case scenario, when do you think ThoughtWorks can get back to positive quarter over quarter revenue growth?

Speaker 5

I think there's just one caveat. From a number perspective, it does look that way, but we do have seasonality in our business. So Q4 Naturally, we have more holidays and vacation days, which tends to have lower revenue in Q4. If we think from a Revenue per day perspective, from we do expect from Q3 to Q4, it should stabilize already. So that if we just look at the revenue per day perspective, we actually feel that Q4, we have better coverage Q4, we're confident that it should already stabilize in Q4 and should be able to return to growth from there.

Speaker 5

A lot of this, obviously, is due to the fact that we are making intentional investments in demand generation, the outbound demand efforts, The positive signs we're seeing from automotive's vertical, for example, 18% growth And then the solid booking we've seen in H2. So we do feel that Despite the quarterly number itself from revenue per day perspective, H2 stabilization From Q3 to Q4, it's essentially going to be flat.

Speaker 10

Okay. Thanks, Yao.

Speaker 5

Thanks, Jason.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Our next question comes from Moshe Katri with Wedbush Securities. Your line is open.

Speaker 11

Hey, thanks. Can we talk a bit about APAC? That region was underperforming relative to some of the others in the past. I don't know where it is now, maybe it's stabilized, maybe it's not, but maybe talk a bit about Australia, Singapore and China, What's going on there and maybe talk a bit about the headcount plans for China as well? Thanks.

Speaker 5

Sure. Thanks, Moshe. So APAC from a year on year perspective declined by 8% last quarter and is mostly driven by Australia. So if we measure by if we look at our revenue by currency, by Australian dollar contracted almost 20%. So that's the main driver of the performance in APAC.

Speaker 5

And then in itself, it's mostly due to our high exposure in tech and retail In Australia and then the slowdown is having a bigger impact to the country than others. And then if we look elsewhere impact, in fact, Singapore has had Stair growth in H2 last year and we're continuing to see good growth coming from Singapore even though it's slowdown it's slowed down a little bit due to tough comps, but still healthy growth. India remains a strong growth engine, in fact that we've seen the demand from Indian local market, China is recovering in this post COVID environment, But it's not rebounding as fast probably as what we expect just on the general economy in China, but it is recovering from last year already. And then from a headcount perspective, we do intentionally want to contain Our exposure from headcount perspective in China, so the headcount world in China is we're benchmarking that much

Speaker 11

Great. And just a follow-up going back to TCV, dollars 1,500,000,000 can you remind us if you include any renewals in those numbers? Thanks a lot.

Speaker 5

It does include the renews. It's both new business renews, and that's why the number is significant from TTM perspective. It's €1,500,000,000 Versus our, I think, guide for revenue for the year is 1.13. So it includes everything.

Speaker 11

Okay. So is there any way to kind of dissect it by new logos Versus a year ago where we are?

Speaker 5

It's Now from a booking perspective, we don't look at we don't report that from a booking perspective. But there's another color Around the revenue we get from existing customers versus new customers, I think a couple of quarters ago, That number from the revenue we get from existing customers was around 8%, 8%. I think this quarter is 91%. So we're definitely getting more revenue from existing clients than from just purely new logos. And that's A combination of new work stream, new contracts and extensions with existing customers, If that helps.

Speaker 11

Understood. Understood. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Thank you, Moshe.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Our next question Comes from Arvind Ramnani with Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Speaker 12

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Yes. I just wondered if you could kind of the 3 clients that Kind of declined revenue. Can you just give a bit more color on some of the underlying reasons?

Speaker 12

Was it anything to do With execution or with this sort of like more internal discussions and is there any view that those projects may restart?

Speaker 5

Sure. Thanks, Arvind. So With some of the declines we're seeing, I think you're alluding to is are they going to restart or not. We definitely feel that The work is not going away itself. We're still talking to our clients about what needs to be done.

Speaker 5

And then in their digital transformation journey, we're still doing multiple streams of work. Some of the streams of work gets Delayed, paused or even canceled purely because they have to prioritize from a budget perspective. The stakeholders we work with, we talk to, they know they need this done. They know the work is necessary, is critical for the future of their own business growth. And that's how we started engagement.

Speaker 5

We signed a contract. We are working with them. But then They were surprised themselves a lot of the times, getting the mandate from their own CFO or CEO or even the Board They had to pause because there's no budget or the ROI calculation doesn't make sense in the current environment. So a lot of this surprised both us and our immediate stakeholders with our clients. That said, most of the cases we managed to pivot one way or the other, even including having a couple of people there to work Free to keep the lights out and help them to bridge this budgeting cycle.

Speaker 5

I do feel that many of the, If not most, many of the cases, we would expect the work to restart one shape or another When the budget pressure is gone, when they get a new phase of budgeting cycle, we'll be able to restart some of that work. So definitely, the work is not going away. It's just being squeezed by the budgets.

Speaker 12

Terrific. And Just to clarify this $130,000,000 reduction in guidance for the year is largely related to these Three clients and kind of back of the math calculations suggest that this is about 1100 or 1200 It kind of decline in number of employees required, right? Like if you take your kind of the revenue hole and kind of Just apply to your bill rate it comes to like 1100, 1200 folks. What's the plan with these with the folks who are Basically getting rolled off these projects?

Speaker 5

Sure. Erwin, I'll start with the The $130,000,000 and then feel free to jump in for the plan for the employees being rolled off. First of all, it's not all due to The 3 clients, I think that top three clients and then also the miss in Q2 generally that contributed to a third of the reduction. So it's not insignificant part, but it's not a majority of the miss. The rest of the guide down is due to Extension of this demand environment challenge we're seeing.

Speaker 5

So that will be further project turnover in some other clients We're expecting and then slower pipeline conversion and acceleration of work moving from onshore to offshore.

Speaker 4

Amy?

Speaker 6

Yes. So in terms of the headcount impact and how to understand the prior guidance Versus the updated guidance and then the headcount assumptions. Part of the reduced headcount assumptions Isn't from people rolling off, it's actually what I would describe as just cost avoidance or hires that we would not make. We were expecting to hire more people in Q3 and Q4. We do have a dynamic hiring plan and we are always adjusting our hiring based On what we're seeing in the market and then the pipeline evolution.

Speaker 6

So a lot of that that you mentioned Arvind is actually just through reducing our overall hiring targets for the year. The other piece of it that is worth reminding is simply voluntary So we have been moderating our hiring levels already and we do have natural attrition that occurs in our business in normal course Just under 13% on the TTM basis. And so again that is another factor in how we're managing the headcount. Now we have announced a restructuring plan today and we've talked about that quite a lot already. I would just reiterate that while the majority of that is focused on our operational spend particularly In non client back office functions, we're making some adjustments in professional services where we've seen A bigger imbalance in supply and demand and that's particular in large part to onshore versus offshore movement where it's been fast

Speaker 12

Perfect. That's really helpful. And just kind of last question for me is, I mean I know with a lot of these contracts, there's a MSA and kind of contracts Written where there's potentially some offsets and notice periods that the client has to give. Is that an Are there any offsets to sort of the ramp downs where the clients are giving you like extended notice period or they're sort of paying for some Kind of transition during some transition period?

Speaker 6

Go ahead, Shao.

Speaker 13

Go ahead, Erin.

Speaker 6

I was just going to say we do each of these situations is on a client by Client basis, as Shao mentioned earlier, we're very much in a relationship business. Our goal is to maintain our relationships with the clients in the long term and continue to see growth. There are notice periods, there are some degree of random clauses and or offsets, but on the whole it's I would just say it's client by client and we are seeing the reduced project scope as we've talked about which has impacted the top line.

Speaker 12

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Thanks, Ari.

Speaker 3

Thank you. And our last question comes from Matthew Roswell with RBC. Your line is open.

Speaker 13

Yes. Thank you for taking my questions. I'm filling in for Dan calling. Hopefully, it will be relatively short and I hate to keep sort of circling around the guidance. But Okay.

Speaker 13

You said about a third of the guidance reduction was the 2nd quarter miss. I was wondering if you'd be willing to bucket The remaining reduction between the categories you talked about, the shift offshore, the project delays, The pipeline delays and then I guess the other question is how much kind of downside have you put into the guidance? In other words, are you expecting things to get worse from here and get better?

Speaker 5

Sure. Thanks, Matt. So for the rest of the 2 thirds, if we want to bucket it, it will be 3 buckets, project turnover, Potential project turnover due to client specific decisions. Actually, one of them, as I mentioned earlier, is one of top 10 clients. And then the second is slower pipeline conversion and then finally acceleration of work moving from onshore to offshore.

Speaker 5

It's probably more the first two is probably more significant than the final one. So maybe perhaps around 40% each Is the weight we want to put out in the first two factors and maybe 20% of the weight we want to put on the 3rd factor, that is for the rest of the 3 as the 3 buckets, which overall contribute to the rest of the 2 thirds of the reduction. And then Sorry, you had a second question, I think I missed that.

Speaker 10

Yes, I guess how much sort

Speaker 13

of conservatism or Have you put into the guidance?

Speaker 5

That's right. So we definitely feel Comfortable with the guidance we've put out there from a visibility perspective. Yes, there is project turnover And we already know there is one and we probably expect some surprises at some point, but we are not seeing signals of more That we have seen to come from a just a volume perspective. And then And from a pipeline conversion perspective, we do have more coverage for Q3 and Q4 than we had for Q2 From a volume perspective, from a number of leads perspective, from the size of the pipeline perspective, And we factored in a slower conversion rate, a lower conversion rate based on what we have observed in Q2. So we already I think in our situation factoring the worst case scenario we've seen in the previous quarters and use that as the way to calculate our Conversion rate for Q3 and Q4 and then overall I think with From a visibility perspective, our bookings in Q1 continue to be solid.

Speaker 5

Our booking in Q3 despite the revenue In Q2, despite the revenue shortfall compared with a year ago, our booking is actually the same as a year ago. So all these put all these together, We feel that we have put a reasonable a comfortable guidance. We feel that's achievable in front. And then we feel that our if we focus on executing, we're in a good shape to meet the targets.

Speaker 13

Okay. Thank you very much.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thank you. This concludes the Q and A portion. I'd like to turn the call back over to

Speaker 5

Thanks and thank you everyone for joining us today for our Q2 earnings call. I'd like to acknowledge the continued support of Our Board and shareholders and to thank all thought workers, clients and partners for the extraordinary impact we're delivering every day together. Stay well, and we look forward to catching up with you next quarter.

Speaker 3

Thank you for your participation. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

Powered by Quartr
Earnings Conference Call
Thoughtworks Q2 2023
00:00 / 00:00