Gartner, Inc. (NYSE:IT) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jeff Meuler: Appreciate that. And maybe just a follow-up, given that comment on the strength selling to the functional leader channel. Productivity metrics, I understand, kind of, the way the metric works and the year-over-year acceleration in sales headcount growth, but productivity was down and quarterly productivity was also quite a bit down year-over-year. Can you just kind of like tease out 10-year mix impacts? I don’t know if there’s anything on — anything further to say at the tech vendor channel, but just kind of like help us bridge that because it does look pretty soft. Thank you.

Gene Hall: Yes. So Jeff, I mean, again, the way to kind of think about the results in quarter and if you look at it on a rolling four quarter basis, is again that the end user side of the GTS business held up really, really well. And performed really well throughout the year and in the fourth quarter, including the productivity. And again just we saw that deceleration from high-teens to high-single-digits, obviously impacting the productivity as well. I think as we have brought in more and more new associates and the sales force. Last year, we talked about in 2021 rather, we had the best tender mix we’ve ever had. In 2022, we had really the highest proportion of new people we’ve ever had that’s obviously going to impact productivity. We’ll start to see the benefits of the tenuring over the course of 2023 as all of those people we hired over the course of 2022 start getting up the productivity curves.

Jeff Meuler: Got it. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Heather Balsky from Bank of America. Your line is open.

Heather Balsky: Hi, thank you for taking my question. I guess, first off, you’ve communicated a fair amount during the call that you’re taking a prudent approach to guidance. And I know you just addressed the tech center piece of the business, but I’m curious if you can elaborate a little bit in terms of how you’re thinking about the overall macro environment in your guide, especially on the research side? And then as well for conferences and consulting, because it seems like the guide for those parts of the business imply the economy holds up pretty well. So just want to kind of get your deeper into your train of thought? Thanks.

Craig Safian: Sure. Good morning, Heather, and thanks for the questions. So I think a couple of thoughts there. So I’ll start with conferences and consulting first. And so as we look at those two businesses, again, coming off of very strong 2022, if you look at the backlog position in consulting, we actually entered the year in really good shape. We had a very strong delivery quarter in the fourth quarter, but also a very strong bookings quarter. And again, based on the visibility that we have, roughly through the first half of the year, we feel really good about the consulting business and the trending looks good there. And again, I think our client base to Gene’s earlier comments about the tech sector, are still embarking on a lot of — embarking or continuing on a lot of digital transformation and major tech projects and programs where our consulting team really can’t help them get the most value out of that.