Earnings Labs

Concentrix Corporation (CNXC)

Q3 2019 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 30, 2019

$25.20

+2.69%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the ServiceSource Third Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Chad Lyne, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Chad Lyne

Analyst

Thank you, Michelle, and good day, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to ServiceSource’s third quarter earnings call to discuss our results for the quarter ended September 30, 2019. As a reminder, a copy of our earnings release has been posted on the Investor Relations section of our website at www.ir.servicesource.com. On the call today is ServiceSource’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Gary Moore; and our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Rich Walker. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that during the call, we will make projections or forward-looking statements that involve risks related to future events. All statements made during the call reflect our views as of today and are based upon the information currently available to us. All projections and forward-looking statements should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statements in the earnings press release and the risk factors included in our SEC filings, including our reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q. These documents contain and identify important factors that could cause results to materially differ from those contained in our projections and forward-looking statements, and we undertake no duty to revise or update any forward-looking statements. In addition, during the call, we will also be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures and projections, which we believe provide additional information to enhance the understanding of how management assesses the operating performance of the business. You can find the reconciliation of the GAAP and non-GAAP measures in the earnings release posted on the IR portion of our website. And with that, I’ll turn the call over to Gary Moore, ServiceSource’s Chairman and CEO.

Gary Moore

Analyst

Thank you, Chad, and welcome, everyone, to our third quarter 2019 earnings conference call. As you saw in the release and the 10-Q we filed yesterday after market close, we had a solid quarter. Our teams performed with a high level of focus, rigor and discipline, which translated into stronger sequential results throughout the business. Relative to the second quarter of this year, we grew revenue 2% and expanded non-GAAP gross profit 240 basis points while prudent operating expense management in all areas of the company allowed us to drive positive adjusted EBITDA of $1.1 million. We still have more work to do, but we are pleased with the commitment of our teams and the important progress that is being made. Over the past three quarters, we’ve enacted a series of strategic changes and tactical realignments in the organization to improve our execution and strengthen our brand promise to our client. Our end-to-end engagement model and global account management investment are bearing fruit as we delivered positive outcomes for our clients this quarter and generated year-over-year growth at the majority of our largest relationship. From a go-to-market and sales standpoint, we also made good strides. We saw encouraging progress in the sales pipeline, stronger bookings activity, up sales and expansion with several key accounts, and the signing of a $2 million new logo win for a global security software provider. Allow me to share a little more context behind the new logo wins as it offered validation of our strategy, the differentiation of our CJX solution suite and the alignment of our value proposition to a large and growing market opportunity. As you would expect, I’ve been spending a significant amount of my time with senior executives and our clients and prospects across the C-Suite. The priorities are the same.…

Rich Walker

Analyst

Thank you, Gary, and good morning, everyone. We are pleased by the results we delivered in the third quarter and the disciplined execution and operational rigor that allowed us to exceed our expectations, but I will reiterate Gary’s remarks that we remain keenly focused on the longer-term journey in front of us. For today’s call, I’ll be reviewing our third quarter results and comparing to both third quarter of 2018 for a year-over-year view as well as to the second quarter of 2019 for a sequential view of the progress we are making. At the top line, revenue was $53.4 million, down $3.8 million or 6.6% compared to the same period in 2018. Approximately $3.5 million of the negative variance was from three logos that were in the third quarter of 2018 that had zero contribution to this year’s third quarter. On a sequential basis, revenue was up $1 million or 2% driven by strong performance at our top 10 clients, including ongoing expansion with the cloud client that we announced earlier this year. By region, NALA revenue for the third quarter of 2019 was $32.2 million or 6.2% of total revenue compared to $34.3 million in the prior year period. Sequentially, NALA revenue was up from $29.6 million in the second quarter of 2019. EMEA revenue for the third quarter of 2019 was $12.9 million or 24.2% of total revenue compared to $13.8 million in the prior year period and $18.4 million in the second quarter of 2019. APJ revenue was $8.3 million or 15.6% of total revenue compared to $9.1 million in the prior year period and $9.4 million in the second quarter of 2019. Turning to expenses and margin, our non-GAAP cost of revenue in the third quarter was $36.7 million, down $1.7 million or 4.4% year-over-year…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Zach Cummins with B. Riley FBR. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Zach Cummins

Analyst

Hi, Good morning, Gary and Rich.

Gary Moore

Analyst

Hi, Zach.

Rich Walker

Analyst

Hi, Zach.

Zach Cummins

Analyst

Good. How are you? Just starting off, Gary, with the bookings performance. It seems like it was really a nice sequential pick up from – especially from Q2. So can you talk a little bit more about some of the changes, especially in the leadership and kind of your go-to-market approach that helped drive that better performance here?

Gary Moore

Analyst

Yes. I think you will remember, I was not very pleased with where we were going in Q4. Q1 showed a little bit of rebound. Q2 was a disappointment. We make changes at the very top of the company relative to sales. We promoted two excellent sales leaders. We divided them between going after new logos, new accounts, hunting, if you will. And then we took the global account managers, and that team then rolled in the other sales leader to focus on our accounts. Those moves alone are showing tremendous, tremendous results in terms of a relationship. We stepped up our activity relative to our executive sponsors. They are much more engaged with a process and methodology today. So I just feel we’re executing as a team. It’s not sales and then delivery. It’s an integrated go-to-market sales and delivery, working very closely together. We moved sales responsibility under Denzil Samuels, I mentioned that last quarter. Denzil also has marketing alliances and the channels, if you will. So we have a lot more to go relative to the things that we’re doing, but I’m very pleased with the progress we made, especially that new logo in the quarter.

Zach Cummins

Analyst

Got it. That’s helpful. And then Rich, after a really strong Q3 or pretty solid Q3 results here, I was just curious in terms of maintaining the full year guidance. I mean can you talk about a little bit of the rationale behind that? I think if you’re maintaining the full year guidance, it’s essentially implying that 4Q revenue is going to decline now on a sequential basis, and then there’s going to be an adjusted EBITDA loss in Q4 if 4Q guidance is the implication.

Rich Walker

Analyst

Yes. Obviously, Zach, our objective is to meet or exceed our expectations and our guidance. We always take a measured and balanced view of where we are in market, where our clients, where our customer opportunities are. We don’t give quarterly guidance. We look at the full year. We continue to balance with scales of where we make investments and where we continue to execute. We’re going to continue to do all of that through the balance of the year. So leaving guidance where it was, we thought is an accurate reflection of where the market is and where we’re focused.

Zach Cummins

Analyst

Got it. That’s helpful. And then, Gary, can you talk about the renewal performance in Q3? It seems like 75% of the business was renewed year-to-date. I think there was a little bit of a sequential tick down from what you did in the first half of the year. So could you just talk about how that performed versus your expectations? And maybe what were some of the factors that could have driven that number a little bit lower from first half to – now to – here to Q3?

Gary Moore

Analyst

Yes. Zach, I – first off, it’s not – the number is not a surprise. It was in line with what we were expecting for Q3. And the numbers – the 75% is not reflective of churn. It only reflects what was up for renewal in the quarter and what we did against that. And we still have some pending that could improve that number. So I think again, no surprise. I feel very good about how we’re engaging with the clients well ahead of time. And I think as we continue to work and make progress, you’ll see that what we’re able to do in Q1, Q2 and where – I believe we’ll end up relative to Q3 in terms of churn. Again, it’s only 45% of our revenue for the whole year that’s up for renewal, so we’re not losing a ton of business there. And so I feel very good. I don’t know how much more to add to that, Zach. Hopefully, that gives you a clear picture. But the key point is it’s not churn. It’s not reflective of the churn in the quarter.

Zach Cummins

Analyst

Got it. That’s helpful. And then I think you mentioned in your commentary that a majority of the renewal work was out of the way in Q3. So can you give any sort of context of kind of what’s up ahead of you here in Q4, a little more context to how you’re feeling as you’re moving forward on those renewals here towards the end of this year?

Gary Moore

Analyst

(22:33):

Zach Cummins

Analyst

Yes. Maybe I misunderstood a portion of the commentary. It seemed like, at least from some of the comments, that it sounded like a majority of the renewal work that was on the slate here in the second half was happening in Q3 or has already happened in Q3. Is that kind of an accurate reflection in terms of what’s still left to be renewed here in Q4? And how you’re feeling as you get towards those towards the end of this year?

Gary Moore

Analyst

Yes. So first half of the year was a one-third of the 45%. The second half is two-third, and Q3 was – is the biggest of all of those.

Zach Cummins

Analyst

Got it. And just – yes, that’s helpful. And just one last question for me. Rich, in terms of managing cost, it seems like you’ve done a really great job this year in terms of really being stringent with cost management here, especially in the near term. So can you just give a little more context in how you’re thinking about this going forward and whether there are certain areas for investment versus if there’s potential areas where you could even squeeze additional costs out of this model?

Rich Walker

Analyst

Yes. Very much so. First of all, it’s really all of the key leaders in the business and even the next line leaders, Zach, that are really embracing kind of what we call an ROI-focused approach. So we’re inspecting where we’re spending money in the near-term, what we’re trying to enable longer-term, and everything starts with how we’re supporting the clients. We went into the year with a commitment to our technology investments. We’ve made the progress we expected there. That’s driving our dependency on third-party contractors. It’s simplifying our technology stack, providing good management reporting internally. Proverbially, what’s measured is managed. All of our P&L leaders are doing a superb job of understanding their investments, what the return in payback is to support clients. And it’s just good hygiene, Zach, just constantly getting into the detail, making difficult decisions, trade-offs in the near term or longer term, and the teams are executing. We’re seeing sequential cost reductions. We haven’t even seen and won’t until we get into 2020 some of the benefits of the automation. So it’s just good blocking and tackling in some respects.

Zach Cummins

Analyst

Got it. That’s helpful. Well. Thanks again for taking my questions. And congrats on the strong results here in Q3.

Gary Moore

Analyst

Thanks, Zach. Really appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

And that does conclude today’s Q&A portion, and I would like to hand the conference over back to Mr. Gary Moore for any further remarks.

Gary Moore

Analyst

Thanks, Michelle. I – again, I just want to reiterate, we’re in this for the long term, and we’re focused on a number of things. We’re very proud of the progress we’ve made year-to-date, and we’re focused on a very strong close for Q4. And as I pointed out during the call, there’s a lot of things going on in the market that could affect that. So I feel very good about the reaffirmation of our guide for the full year. So thank you all very much. We appreciate your support.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today’s conference. This does conclude the program, and you may all disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.