ServiceNow, Inc. (NYSE:NOW) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Tyler Radke: Yes. Thank you very much for taking the question. So, the beat on constant-currency current RPO was one of the largest we’ve seen in quite a while. Could you just unpack was that mostly federal, or was it broad based? And then secondly, Gina, on the current RPO outlook for Q4, can you just help us understand the dynamic with the one point headwind a little bit better? Did Q3 also face that headwind given you booked so many of these large federal contracts? Thank you.

Gina Mastantuono: So, thanks. Tyler, thanks so much for the question. So yes, we’re very excited. Q3 results were just phenomenal across the board, and the beat on constant-currency cRPO was two things, specifically strong net new ACV growth, and that was primarily driven, but not entirely, primarily, not entirely driven by very strong federal business, which was just fantastic and great business for us. We also did have better federal early renewals. If you remember, we’ve been really prudent in how we’ve been forecasting early renewals, given the current macroenvironment. And so the beat this quarter was two-pronged right. So strong net new ACV growth as well as strong early renewals. To your question on the impact of Q4 cRPO and the one point headwind, how Federal agencies usually contract is one year out, right.

So their contracts are only 12 months in duration. So it doesn’t have a negative impact on Q3, right, because at the end of Q3, you have it in their peripheral year. But at the end of Q4, with one quarter of those contracts roll-off cRPO, it means that there is a headwind to Q4 and because Q4, sorry, because Federal was so strong, and the mix of federal in Q3 was stronger than we’ve ever seen before, there is that headwind into Q4. But again, as you think about the underlying business, extremely strong results, in fact, Federal business has a strong renewal rate at 99%. So as you think about the underlying health of the business going into ’24, it remains very strong.

Tyler Radke: Thank you.

Bill McDermott: Thanks.

Gina Mastantuono: Thanks, Tyler.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from Keith Weiss with Morgan Stanley.

Sanjit Singh: Yeah, this is Sanjit Singh for Keith. I wanted to congratulate the team on the 24% constant — on the current RPO growth. That was really impressive. You know, Bill, when I looked at what you were talking about in terms of GenAI trials, and landing four customers right at the end of the quarter, in terms of your — the team’s expectation about adoption of IT — ITSM Pro Plus versus Pro, is there — do you see a scenario where that adoption could potentially happen faster than the cadence of adoption that you’ve seen over the last five years with ITSM Pro? I appreciate the — I appreciate the thoughts.

Bill McDermott: Well I can — I can tell you that we, first of all, I appreciate your question, Keith. You know how well we have done with the Pro version of the platform and there’s still plenty of room to expand on that, but the demand that we’ve seen so far for Pro Plus, and the transformational nature of what customers are now able to do on the Now Platform has led to the single best type that we have seen at ServiceNow. I’ll let CJ give you some color on individual customers and some of the actual stories that, I think, you’ll find illuminating.

CJ Desai: Absolutely. Thank you, Bill, and thanks for the question. So, we have one data point from the last week of September, which, I do not want to translate it to trend. However, we are having many, many conversations with some of the iconic companies, and public sector customers, around ServiceNow’s generative AI offering. So when we launched in 2018 Q3 the Pro SKUs, that was a curve that followed over multiple quarters, now 20 quarters, and we know what that looks like. With Pro Plus, what I’m seeing is, it is no longer about the potential of generative AI, where they are questioning is generative AI good for us in context of ServiceNow platform, but the conversations have shifted to, hey, CJ, how long would be — would it take for us to implement?