Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ:PRGS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Harshil Thakkar: Got it. Thank you.

Yogesh Gupta: You’re welcome.

Operator: And one moment for our next question. And that will come from the line of Anja Soderstrom with Sidoti. Your line is open.

Anja Soderstrom: Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. Lot of my questions have been addressed already. But I’m just curious after sort of bidding your guidance for the year, you’re coming in at the lower end. Was there anything in the fourth quarter that sort of surprised you?

Yogesh Gupta: Not really. We had a solid fourth quarter. We were within our guidance for revenue. We were above our guidance for EPS. I think, Anja, we had a solid quarter. I do think that we executed well. Again, Anthony, I don’t know if you have something you want to add.

Anthony Folger: Yes. I would just say that we – coming into the fourth quarter, we probably left our range on the top line a little wider than we might otherwise. And the reason for that was because we were just whipsawed on foreign exchange rates last year, like a lot of companies were. And so, there was a bit of uncertainty going into the fourth quarter about how that would all land. So, the range might have been a little bit wider than would have ordinarily been the case. But to Yogesh’s point, otherwise, it was, from our perspective, just solid across the board.

Anja Soderstrom: Okay. Thank you. And I’m just also curious for the MarkLogic with the term-based licenses. How long are the duration of those? Are those one-year contracts or…

Anthony Folger: Yes, a lot of multi-year. So, I’d say, yes, a lot of three-year contracts, some longer than that. But by and large, we end up with a lot of multi-year term-based license deals.

Anja Soderstrom: Okay. Thank you. That was all from me.

Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. And that will come from the line of Brent Thill with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Unidentified Analyst: Hi, guys. It’s on for Brent here. Thanks for taking the question. About 20% of your revenue is invested back in R&D. And I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about where those investment dollars are going. I’m wondering that you guys are working on now. And then maybe some key points you’d like to highlight for us.

Yogesh Gupta: Yes. So, Antonio, the – as we’ve said before, right, that our – we have a tremendous emphasis on customer retention. And so, the question becomes, what can you do to drive net dollar retention of your customers and retain them and expand business with them and continue to build with that, right? And so, we actually basically spend and invest more in R&D to make sure that our products stay ahead of the curve that – and this is across the board, right, this is across our portfolio, to make sure that our customers stay with us because it’s much, much easier, much, much cheaper for us to retain customers that way than to win new ones. And so – and of course we spend significantly less, again, relatively speaking, on sales and marketing, which is why if you look at our overall operating margins, they truly are world-class, right?

A company our size and scale in the software industry just doesn’t have the percentage operating margin that we do and the kind of cash flow generation that we do. So, I think that, to me, it becomes – and to us, it becomes very much a question of where do you put in your dollar to invest with shareholders. And we believe that investing in the product side is much better than trying to not invest in the product side and then try to clean up with all the other effort that would be needed. And so, that’s where we invest, and we continue to look for the right level of investments to continue to make sure that our products are leading edge. And it really is across our entire portfolio.

Unidentified Analyst: Awesome. Thanks for that. And maybe one quick follow-up or more of a clarification. I think you mentioned Kemp in your opening remarks. But where are we with that acquisition? I know you have to integrate Kemp and Flowmon together. Are we done with that or is there still a little more work to be done?

Yogesh Gupta: No, yes. I mean, we are done integrating Kemp. I think I might have said that in the opening remarks as well. Our integration of the Kemp business, both the products, Kemp and Flowmon products, and the business is complete. They are a key part of our infrastructure management portfolio, and they are – they have been integrated on our platform. And we’re now looking forward to closing the MarkLogic deal and beginning that integration.

Unidentified Analyst: Awesome. Well, thank you, guys, and good luck on integrating…