Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation (NASDAQ:CTSH) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

James Faucette: Thank you so much. 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 gauge there on the bottom end.

Ravi Kumar: 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 four given the furloughs. So that’s the sort of trajectory we are looking at if markets really tank [ph] and our performance didn’t show any positive progress.

James Faucette: 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, etcetera?

Ravi Kumar: Yes. So discretionary is small projects, normally in smaller projects. You have a different kind of pyramid versus large deals where you have a much healthy pyramid, if I may. So 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. If you’ve noticed, we improved utilization from quarter four to quarter one. So that gave us the extra runway. And we’ll continue to sharpen our utilization. So that gives us the continued extra runway to grow and keep the engine agile enough to hire the senior people you need and rotate the people from existing teams into newer projects as that happens.

So I think we have that agility now on our fulfillment engines. I’m very pleased not just about how we have tackled the demand environment. We’re very pleased with what we have done on utilization and what we have done on fulfillment of deals we have won as well as getting prepared for the discretionary spend whenever it eventually comes back. So the engine is as agile enough for the current demand situation as well as if there is a spike in the demand, we think we are well placed to seize those opportunities.

James Faucette: That’s great. Appreciate that incremental color.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Moshe Katri with Wedbush Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Moshe Katri: 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, 1.3 times book-to-bill. Is there a way to kind of break it down by new logos to renewals and extensions and maybe compared to last year, also as 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? Thanks.

Ravi Kumar: 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 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. I mean the book-to-bill ratios, Moshe, you know this. It also depends on what are the duration of the deals.

I’m sure you asked this question because of that. The duration of the deals, when you take large deals, they go up and you take small deals, it goes down. So the book-to-bill has a meaningful impact between the two. So one of the other metrics we are internally tracking is ACV because then that gives us what is the incremental revenue we get for the current calendar year. So it’s a combination of things you have to put together get to a point where how much is it going to incrementally contribute to growth.

Moshe Katri: 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?

Ravi Kumar: 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, 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 [ph] lanes and are very, very active in our journey. We also have a target list now of new logos in geo-based. And we have kind of separated that from the mining engine because the hunting engine is coming very well. And there’s a transition to the mining engine as the annual size of those accounts changes. What we have not done is we have not expressed this to our market how many new logos we are opening and we have not created that information pack in the external market. But internally, we’re very, very pleased with where we are on new logos and how we are ramping it up.

Moshe Katri: Understood. Thanks Ravi.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jamie Friedman with SIG. Please proceed with your question.

James Friedman: Hi, thanks for sneaking me in here. 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?