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Salesforce, Inc. (CRM)

Q4 2016 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 25, 2016

$181.14

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Ashley and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the sales (sic) [salesforce] (0:08) Fiscal Q4 2016 Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. And I would now like to turn the call over to our host, Mr. John Cummings. Sir, you may begin your conference.

John Cummings - Vice President-Investor Relations

Analyst · Kirk Materne with Evercore ISI

Thanks so much, Ashley. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us for our fiscal fourth quarter and full-year 2016 results conference call. Our fourth quarter results press release, SEC filings and a replay of today's call can be found on our IR website at www.salesforce.com/investor. With me on the call today is Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO; Keith Block, Vice Chairman, President and COO; and Mark Hawkins, CFO. As a reminder, our commentary today will primarily be in non-GAAP terms. Reconciliations between our GAAP and non-GAAP results and guidance can be found in our earnings press release. Some of our comments today may also contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Should any of these materialize or should any of our assumptions prove to be incorrect, actual company results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements. A description of our risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that could affect our financial results are included in our SEC filings, including our most recent report on Forms 10-K and 10-Q. With that, let me turn the call over to Marc. Marc Russell Benioff - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Okay. Thanks, John. And this is our biggest call ever, we've got over 500 people around the world, who are dialed into the call. And so, we know there's a lot of interest in the quarter and we made a decision, we're going to put aside the vast majority of our script so that we can get into Q&A as fast as possible with you. Look, my number one thing I want to tell you is, this is the absolute best quarter we have ever had. It's been just an incredible quarter, way beyond our expectations. It caps an incredible fiscal year for us. I'm sure that you…

John Cummings - Vice President-Investor Relations

Analyst · Kirk Materne with Evercore ISI

Ashley, we'll take calls when you're ready.

Operator

Operator

We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Keith Weiss of Morgan Stanley. Keith Eric Weiss - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Excellent. Thank you guys for taking the question, and very strong, very nice quarter. I guess the question I wanted to ask was the why – to Mr. Benioff, like you're saying not many companies at this scale actually see accelerating growth. Anything you can point just to, in terms of why you guys are seeing this now? What's really clicking on in the business that will let you guys accelerate? And then maybe if I could squeeze in one for Mr. Hawkins, just in terms of as we're thinking about FY 2017, the business is getting increasingly seasonal, so in Q1 growth would be a little bit lower and more growth in the back half of the year. Given the current sort of economic environment, how do you garner confidence in the ability to sustain this 20%-plus growth for the full-year of FY 2017? Marc Russell Benioff - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, our growth strategy is really built on having a full portfolio of products. I think you know about that in Sales, in Service, in Marketing, Community and Analytics, in Apps, in IoT, and as well as a full portfolio of geographies as well, doing business around the world like in the United States, in Japan, Europe, Australia, Canada; and in addition to doing business with enterprises and as well as small and medium businesses. And when that full portfolio accelerates, that is they all come in, in the quarter, which we really never expect, every product and every geography in both enterprise and SMB to come in, then you get this kind…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Kash Rangan with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Kash Rangan - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Kash Rangan with Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Hey, guys. Thank you for taking my question, and apologize for the background noise here. Marc, I've not heard of nine-figure deals in technology. Can you talk about what exactly, Marc Benioff, that is, or Keith, can you talk about the dynamics here? Who did you displace? What is the scope of this implementation? What is this customer looking to do with salesforce's portfolio of products, and could this be a – hopefully a leading forward indicator of what other customers could also adopt from the salesforce product family? Thanks. Congrats. Marc Russell Benioff - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, Kash, you make a very good point, which is, these are very unusual transactions and we never like to over-emphasize these transactions, because they tend to be few and far between, because they are just exceptional in size, quality and depth. But we had an incredible renewal with one of the world's largest insurance companies, and we had an incredible new transaction with one of the world's largest professional services companies. And it really, I think, is a testament to some of the processes that Keith has put into place in regards to the enterprise and I'm going to let him speak to that. And I want to also make the comment that it's not just those two large transactions, but you heard what Keith had to say about the broad range of large transactions that were seven-digit and eight-digit deals as well. And, I'll just get back to my first comment, it was across all sectors of the business in product, in geography, and in enterprise and SMB. And, Keith, will you just address Kash's question specifically, in terms of what we're seeing and how we're able to create such large transactions? Keith G. Block - Vice Chairman,…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Heather Bellini with Goldman Sachs. Heather Bellini - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Great. Thank you. I was wondering, Marc Benioff, if you could talk to us a little bit about your vision for Analytics, I know the product is relatively new. I guess I'm just wondering, out of Dreamforce, if you could give us an update on the types of customer conversations you're having in regards to Analytics? And if you were to look out kind of three years to five years, how do you think about – there's obviously multiple different vendors right now that can do Analytics on top of the salesforce platform. How do you think of your own offering kind of replacing those people that are piggybacking on top of CRM deployments today? Thank you. Marc Russell Benioff - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, Heather, I think it's a great question and really a huge focus here at salesforce. Of course, Analytics applications have been an incredible part of the CRM market for a long time, and there are many vendors who offer Analytics applications on our platform. When we first introduced our Wave capability, which was just a little over a year ago, we didn't introduce applications. We introduced a platform. We introduced the ability to build Analytics applications using our Wave platform. And we said that this strategy was going be quite differentiated from others, because we were going to be platform first, we were going to build an ecosystem, and then we would later build these applications and then we would later build all of these capabilities from the platform into all of our products and into all of our ISV capabilities as well. And that's where we are today. I think that there…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Ashley with Robert W. Baird. Steve M. Ashley - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Great. I have a couple quick ones. First, these nine-figure deals, how many years are these contracts over? And then secondly, with you becoming a strategic vendor, is your relationship with the IT department within these companies change? Thanks. Keith G. Block - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Operating Officer: Okay. So hi. This is Keith. So, obviously, we don't get into the term and length of these contracts, but you can imagine that if you're going to make a significant investment of nine-figures, that's probably a long-term relationship that you're talking about. And that again has been a focus area, I mentioned earlier, these are CEO-level conversations. We're in the boardroom, presenting to their boards and we're talking about transformation, which I think is something that is top of mind for all of these customers. As far as IT is concerned, you always have to talk about, and with IT, but these are transformational sales. These are conversations around growth, which is the top of mind for all Senior Executives and CEOs for sure; but, listen, in these large enterprises, the CIO is important. And by the way, we are a great platform. And CIOs and technologies are always interested in great platforms. And, again, that message certainly resonates. Marc Russell Benioff - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: And I'll tell you that there's definitely a transformation going on at salesforce and Keith and I've had a lot of conversations about this. We've talked about it on previous calls. I would say this transformation has accelerated. And, then Keith, how many sales calls, you were at Oracle for how long? Keith G. Block -…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Kirk Materne with Evercore ISI.

Kirk Materne - Evercore

Analyst · Kirk Materne with Evercore ISI

Thanks very much. Just two really quick ones and congratulations on a great fiscal year and fourth quarter. Keith, just to put a fine point on your last comment, there's a lot of discussions about IT budgets right now, what's going on with financial services. Is it fair to say, when we're thinking about salesforce, we should be thinking that you guys tap into budgets well beyond just the IT budget? That's our first question. And then second question would be, Europe is accelerating nicely right now. Can you just talk a little bit about whether or not that's sustainable? Thanks a lot. Keith G. Block - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Operating Officer: I'm sorry, but for some reason there was a garbled communication, so I'm going to have to ask you to repeat the second part of that one, okay?

John Cummings - Vice President-Investor Relations

Analyst · Kirk Materne with Evercore ISI

Can you repeat the question again?

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Brent Thill with UBS. Keith G. Block - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Operating Officer: We'll come back to that. Okay. Go ahead, Brent.

Brent Thill - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · Brent Thill with UBS

Hey, Marc. The App Cloud is your fastest growing cloud and it's showing really nice acceleration. Can you just give a sense of what you're seeing in some of these deals with the App Cloud? And I guess just a follow-on with Keith to the prior question, the fear of the macro has been weighing on a lot of investors, some of the comments from others, your tech brethren, and can you just give a signal – it doesn't sound like you've seen any type of slowdown, based on the result, but just give us a sense at kind of what you're seeing among some of the customer conversations as you look out the next couple quarters? Marc Russell Benioff - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Sure. I think number one is customers are looking to build applications faster than ever before. And customers want to build applications once and deploy them on every modern platform, which includes a watch, a phone, a tablet, a PC, and many different types of tablets and many different types of PCs, many different types of phones. And we have delivered the most modern, most incredible application development and deployment platform, I believe, in the enterprise today, which is Lightning. And you heard Accenture talked about on our February 2 launch, how it's accelerating their own ability to build applications not only internally but for their customers using our Lightning platform, because there's nothing else like it. Companies in the software industry have kind of doubled down and gone back and focused on building apps and kind of getting their apps to be kind of sexier and looking better on all these new devices. And that's a huge mistake. Because what these software companies should be focused on is building platforms that can deliver…

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Kirk Materne with Evercore.

Kirk Materne - Evercore

Analyst · Kirk Materne with Evercore

Thanks very much. I'll try this again. Just my question earlier was – is for Keith. Obviously, the European business is accelerating nicely over the last year. You guys put a lot of investments into that region. I was wondering if you could just talk about the momentum in that area, and the ability for that to continue into fiscal 2017? And then just a really quick follow-up to your earlier point around transformational deals. There's going to be a lot of discussion about IT budgets fluctuating in this kind of macro environment. When it comes to CRM, I think we should be thinking that you guys tap into budgets well beyond just IT now. Is that a fair comment? I think you were alluding to it earlier, but I just want to sort of clarify that as well. Thanks a lot. Keith G. Block - Vice Chairman, President & Chief Operating Officer: Yep. Let me talk to both. So, this time we can hear you loud and clear. So thanks for the question. So first of all, just on EMEA, I mean, one of our growth strategies has been international expansion, and that has certainly proven out in terms of the numbers. And that takes many forms. It's customer-facing, it's support resources, it's our data centers, it's all those sort of things that have really expanded our footprint internationally. And certainly in EMEA, that has paid out very, very well for us. Let me just give you an example. Two customers with incredible unsolicited CEO-level remarks at the World Economic Forum. We have entered into a relationship that we talked about on this call before with ABB. And at the World Economic Forum, often there are many sessions where the CEOs of these companies will host a transformational meeting…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line Walter Pritchard with Citi.

Walter H. Pritchard - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi

Hi. Thanks. A question for Mark Hawkins. Your guidance for the year in terms of operating margins is towards the lower end of your range of I think 100 basis points to 300 basis points of margin expansion, with your revenue growth at the lower end of that as well, can you talk about sort of how you are thinking about that prior framework for margins? And is there anything going on this year that we should think about impacting how you are adhering to that grid? Mark J. Hawkins - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure, Walter. First, thanks for the question and I'm happy to address that question. We're really pleased, coming off of a great year and a great finish where we beat our operating margin guidance. We delivered 177 basis points this last year. And on top of that, to then, consistent with our revenue margin framework, go ahead and do that 125 basis points to 150 basis points for FY 2017. We feel that's really appropriate in light of our framework, it's very consistent with it. We think it's appropriate and good guide and it also allows us to propel this growth to really help our customers solve the needs that they have and invest in the future to perpetuate this performance over the long-term. So that's what I would say, Walter.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Mark Murphy with JPMorgan.

Mark R. Murphy - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · Mark Murphy with JPMorgan

Yes. Thank you. I'll add my congratulations on the strong finish. Question for Marc Benioff, so we are hearing more discussion of transformational types of projects, where salesforce is displacing many legacy systems and is being used wall-to-wall. And so, there's also a view that the company has evolved from being a single engine to a three or four engine aircraft. So, I'm curious, when you look at the larger transactions, how commonly is a large deal just for a single cloud, because I think in the prior cycle – in the past, some of them were. Versus, how commonly is it viewed as really a single customer success platform and, just from the beginning, it's going to be spanning Sales, Service, Marketing platform and everything else? Marc Russell Benioff - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, I think that's a great question. And I'll tell you I believe that that's a huge growth driver for us going forward, because still, only, I think the number is, 72% of customers still use us for only one cloud. So, that is 72% of customers still only use either the Sales Cloud or the Service Cloud or the Marketing Cloud or the Platform or Analytics, or whatever. And the opportunity is to do exactly what you said, which is, to deliver a customer success platform. And we do want to go wall-to-wall with these companies, they do see that opportunity more and more. With some premium customers, we have had that opportunity. And I believe that is a huge opportunity for this company as it continues to grow and expand, that we have a rich portfolio of products to offer these customers. Even though the vast majority of the customers have only chosen one of those products, so far.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Karl Keirstead with Deutsche Bank.

Karl E. Keirstead - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Karl Keirstead with Deutsche Bank

Thank you. Question for Mark Hawkins. Mark, I wouldn't mind going back to the Q1 DR guide, which I think implies billings growth in the mid-teens level. And your seasonality question. You definitely told us before that deal activity especially renewals are skewing to 4Q, which obviously makes the sequential DR and billings growth comparison tough in 1Q. I'm just curious is this expected to be a greater than normal impact in this Q1? And are there any other issues worth flagging that are impacting Q1 DR? Thank you. Mark J. Hawkins - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. Absolutely, Karl. Thank you for the question. I think you're hitting it right on, which is when you described it exactly right the compounding effect that we described at Dreamforce is a reality. More and more of our DR is showing up in Q4. It impacts all of the sequential growth rates more and more as we showed in that amplified set of data that we referenced. But to kind of build on your point, there is one other thing that we're trying to make sure that everyone sees and to call out. Also I appreciate your question there, and that's regarding leap year. And it seems like a simple enough point, but when you take a look at our revenue and you divide it up by day, when there's one extra day that has the effect of having $20 million of extra revenue recognition in Q1, even though it all washes out in the year, right? But, when you have one extra day of revenue, it means you have one less day of deferred revenue, effectively. And so, that's the other thing you take a look at. So, if you take a look at the compounding effect and you adjust for the leap year, which washes all out in a year, but not in the quarter. I think you'll see just a kind of an appropriate pattern there for a guide. Okay?

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Tom Roderick with Stifel. Tom Roderick - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Hi, guys. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Let me direct this question to Marc Benioff and to Keith as well. You both talked about the role of systems integrators both as partners and customers during the quarter. I'd love to hear the role that those SIs are playing in bigger enterprise deals? And I'd be even more interested to hear to the extent that you do have some systems integrators, partners that are consuming a lot of salesforce.com. How are they doing so internally and how that's shaping their practice? Marc Russell Benioff - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, I think there hasn't been a conversation this quarter that has not evolved around the incredible success that we've had with Accenture. We're not only Accenture's fastest growing business unit, but also they've now deployed already 25,000 users of salesforce inside Accenture. You've heard their CIO and their CEO come to our launch on February 2 and give personal testimonial to the success that they've had, that their only regret is they didn't go faster with salesforce, that they're transforming their customer relationships at unheard of rates and this is having a broad ripple effect through the SI community, where I think that honestly they're all asking themselves why are they not all using salesforce, building apps on salesforce and selling salesforce and having the same great success that Accenture has had. Some of these SIs are kind of prima donnas, who have held on to the path too long and has affected their growth rates and their ability to work with customers, and in some cases, dislodged them from strategic customer situations because they were not…

Operator

Operator

And your final question comes from the line of Alex Zukin with Stephens.

Alex Zukin - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Stephens

Hey, guys. Thanks for squeezing me in. Marc, there's been some investor and customer dialog lately touching on the theme that salesforce is becoming a little bit more like Oracle. As you continue your drive to be the largest software company in the world, how does salesforce aspire to be different from them and others going forward, while balancing your various constituencies? Marc Russell Benioff - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, I think that's a great question, and something that we think about every day at salesforce and something that we talk about every day at salesforce, which is what kind of a company is this? And what is our culture? Who are we? And what is it that we do? And we've talked a lot about that on the call already that is, we have a radically different technology model than the technology model that has been in place at Oracle or SAP or even Microsoft. We have a – which is our multi-tenancy system built on our metadata model. We have a radically different customer model, which is a model built on customer success. And we have a radically different philanthropic model that we talked about, which is our focus on 1% of our equity, our profit, and our employees' time go into our salesforce.org. So, we've, of course, done about 1.3 million hours of community service. I believe we'll do even more community service this year than Microsoft, which is a company 10 times our size, because we're just very committed to volunteerism. We run over 25,000 non-profits and NGOs for free, which have been a gift of over $250 million in services to the non-profit community. And we've given away over $100 million in grants as well. I think also we're out there fighting for…

Operator

Operator

I would now like to turn the call back to John Cummings for closing remarks.

John Cummings - Vice President-Investor Relations

Analyst · Kirk Materne with Evercore ISI

Thanks so much, Ashley. And I'd like to thank everyone again for joining us on the call today. You can catch up with us next week. We'll be at several technology conferences, including... Marc Russell Benioff - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: And also I'm about to go on Mad Money with Jim Cramer in a few minutes. I'm about to go next door to the studios, so you'll see me at Mad Money on CNBC, and I think Jim's show, which I think actually just started.

John Cummings - Vice President-Investor Relations

Analyst · Kirk Materne with Evercore ISI

Yeah, well, we'll see you there, Marc. And then well as I said, we'll be at several tech conferences next week. Morgan Stanley, Pacific Crest, JMP Securities. As Marc mentioned earlier, catch us at one of our World Tours. If not, we'll update you on our next quarter call in May. Thanks so much. Marc Russell Benioff - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, thanks.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.