Robert McMahon: Yes. Obviously, this year has been one for the ages in terms of being able to try to manage the forecasting. And so we’ve taken a number of different angles at it to look at it. So not only growth rates, which I think is the focus here, but also actually if you looked at it on a sequential basis and look at the actual dollars, I think that that’s probably more instructive, particularly as we were looking at the bleeding of the inventory. I would say what we’ve seen over the last couple of quarters is that signs of stabilization. There are always puts and takes across the various businesses. And we think that we’ve tried to do that. We’ve built in feedback based on the field’s projections, the funnel that Mike and Padraig talked about and then an assumption around the conversion of those funnels.
And we haven’t seen the funnels slow down. There’s still modest growth, and we’re starting to see the slowing of the elongation. I’m not saying that it’s stopped or accelerated in terms of the purchase but we are starting to see that slowing and you’re actually seeing that in that book to bill. And when we look at the orders on a sequential basis, we’re starting to see that kind of stabilization as well. And so that’s kind of how we’re looking at continuing to go forward. if you kind of just built that going into next year, you would start seeing a challenging first half and then better performance in the second half. Hopefully, that gives you some flavor.
Josh Waldman: Yes, that’s helpful. And that was actually going to be my follow-up. And maybe I don’t know, Bob or Mike, if you want to take it. I was curious if you could maybe quantify where the funnel stands entering ’24 versus maybe where it typically is entering the year? And just how correlative or how much do you think it is a predictor of near-term demand? I mean is that — is better funnel conversion at all kind of part of what drives the improvement as you progress through the year?
Mike McMullen: I think pursuant to Padraig and Bob, kind of the same rates, right, no significant improvement.
Robert McMahon: Correct. We’re going up against — the first half of this year, actually, what you saw was the elongation of those cycle times. And so what we’re seeing right now is kind of — like I said, it’s not necessarily fully stable, but it’s not decline — or increasing at the rate that we saw in the first and second quarters of last year. And so you’re starting to see that. And so all things being equal, that conversion is actually improving slightly versus a year ago. It’s still not back to historical numbers. And that’s what we’re trying to handicap here as we look at our forecast going forward.
Operator: We’ll go next now to Daniel Brennan at Cowen.
Daniel Brennan: Great. Maybe just on China. I know you mentioned, I think, in the prepared remarks like month-to-month pacing had improved in the quarter. Just any more color or anything on exit rates in China. And if you could, I’d be entered to get like some more color on the end market trends in China. I know you gave some color on biopharma, but could you discuss pharma overall and any other interesting color from an end market basis?
Mike McMullen: Sure. Bob, maybe we’ll tag team on this, which was — I think the — relative to the order book, I think we were slightly above revenue for the quarter. No really unusual pacing through the quarter from China. We’ve been calling — I know a lot of our conversation today has been about pharma, but we’ve been saying for some quarters overall for China, it’s been a broad-based slowdown. And that’s what the business has been, and that’s how we ended the year in terms of the end market performance. I will say that we were pleased that we were in line with our expectations for the business. So again, we described earlier that the business was moving along at a certain overall level. I think we do have a view of China that we will still be down in terms of the revenue for the year. But reflective of where we are, where we’re seeing the business right now. So…
