Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADSK) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Debbie Clifford: And Jay, to your second question, channel compensation, the details, they are still in the works. But ultimately, how we think about engaging with our channel partners, engaging with our customers, how we think about the compensation programs, everything is about delivering value to our customers, driving adoption, driving customer satisfaction. So, examples of some of the things that you’ve seen us do historically are things like moving more front-end incentives to back-end incentives that mandate some kind of adoption metrics, things like that, again, all in service of trying to deliver value. And in terms of the impact on margins, well, we haven’t guided to margins next year, we haven’t guided specifically to anything next year other than some of the breadcrumbs that I just left you guys. But I would say that as we’ve said before, we’re committed to achieving our margin target in that 38% to 40% range in the fiscal €˜23 to €˜26 window.

Jay Vleeschhouwer: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Phil Winslow of Credit Suisse. Your line is open.

Phil Winslow: Hi, thanks for taking my question. I should have one earlier. But Andrew, a question for you, then a follow-up for Debbie. One of the questions I think is about the cyclicality of the AEC industry. And as you mentioned, the industry entered this year with a backlog from 2020 and frankly, even 2019. But as you pointed out, the macroeconomic environment has obviously deteriorated. So my question is what are you seeing and hearing from this vertical, especially about sort of the go-forward pipeline, as you think about the software that Autodesk sells in the various spaces here, the design, plan, build and maintain? And then I’ll just wait to ask the question to Debbie. Thanks.

Andrew Anagnost: Yes. So first off, one thing continues to pressure the industry more than the demand, and it is the labor shortages and the capacity to execute. Construction companies still have a backlog of business. They are still struggling to execute through the business that they have. I’m sure you saw that some of the leading indicators of architectural buildings have gone or entered into a shrinking territory, which means that architects are going to see some decline in some of their buildings moving forward, but they also still have a backlog of business. So we’re still seeing customers saying, look, you know what, I have a pretty big pipeline of business that I haven’t executed on a queue of projects, and I still have capacity problems of getting through it.

They are labor-related, they are material related, they are execution related. So we still have an overhang of backlog that’s going to continue into next year for a lot of our customers, and that’s what we’re hearing from our customers. That’s not to say they are not seeing pressure, and that’s not to say that they are not seeing some pressure in various segments. But they are still seeing a pretty good book of business for the next 12 to 18 months. Now as things continue, they’ll start to see kind of downward pressure in some of that backlog. But right now, they are all much more concerned about their ability to execute than they are about the book of business that they are accumulating.

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