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Forrester Research, Inc. (FORR)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 11, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, thank you for joining today's call. With me today is George Colony, Forrester's Chairman of the Board and CEO; Michael Morhardt, Forrester's Chief Sales Officer; and Mike Doyle, Forrester's Chief Financial Officer. George will open the call. Mike Morhardt will follow George to discuss sales. Mike Doyle will then follow Mike Morhardt to discuss our financials. We will then open the call to Q&A. A replay of this call will be available until March 13, 2015 and can be accessed by dialing 1-888-843-7419 or internationally at 1-630-652-3042. Please reference the pass code 9233923#. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that this call will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as expects, believes, anticipates, intends, plans, estimates or similar expressions are intended to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the Company's current plans and expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause forward-looking activities and results of operations to be materially different from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. Some of the important factors that could cause actual results to differ are discussed in our reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. I'll now hand the call over to George Colony.

George Colony

Management

Good afternoon and thanks for joining Forrester's Q4 and full year 2014 conference call. In my segment of the call I will give you state of the year summary outlining the company’s 2014 performance and looking ahead to plans for 2015. Following my remarks Mike Morhardt, Forrester’s CSO will summarize our progress in building a larger and more productive sales organization and Mike Doyle Forrester’s CFO will then give a financial review of the fourth quarter and full year for 2014 Mike, Mike and I will then questions. I am pleased to report that Forrester changes earnings in revenue guidance for 2014. Our sales team made plan for the year and we are looking forward to continued improvements in our performance for 2015 building on our momentum. Since the beginning of 2013 we have been transforming Forrester both strategically and operationally. We have invested in people technology and new products and I would like to use this time to summarize where we stand in each of our initiatives. I have talked extensively in past calls about Forrester’s strategic shift around the age of the customer. To summarize in the summer of 2013 the executive and the Forrester Board made the decision to focus the company’s products on helping client succeed in the emerging era of empowered customers. This change is highly challenging for our clients and Forrester helps on three levels. One, Forrester’s data enables clients to better understand their customers. Two, we guide marketing and strategy executives on how to win and retain those customers. And three, we lead technology management clients to create the system to serve those customers. Most importantly we do one, two and three in concert for clients and this is when we have the greatest impact on their businesses. How is the strategy being…

Mike Morhardt

Management

Thanks, George. In Q4 and throughout 2014 the sales organization continued to demonstrate strong progress to our goal of consistent double-digit bookings growth. The Age of the Customer as a go to market strategy is resonating with our clients and prospects which gives us great confidence in the size of our market opportunity. We saw good signs across many of the sales teams and the metrics we track. From a sales perspective as George mentioned the global sales organization achieved their plan 2014. Our three largest groups North America East, North America West and the Premier Accounts Group our global account organization all hit plan and grew for the year. They represent roughly 70% of our plan and showed strong performance throughout 2014. Our international business development team made up of our partners also hit plan and showed strong year-over-year performance. Our new business team after a slow start to the year grew by -- grew year-over-year after a strong Q4 and they are fully staffed going into 2015. As I mentioned in our last call we hired a new sales leader as George mentioned in Europe John McNerney. He hit the ground running and while Europe did not hit plan they did grow year-over-year by mid-single digit. John has quickly made changes to the leadership team in Europe and I am confident they will be back on track in 2015. In Asia-Pac we saw slowdown in growth in several of the key markets that we serve. The issues were isolated to a couple of key geographies like China. We also saw some process issues with our consulting business. The pipelines have improved in China and we have changed several of the processes that were slowing us down in the consulting business. From a metric perspective we also saw continued…

Mike Doyle

Management

Great, thanks very much, Mike. I'll now begin my review of Forrester’s financial performance for the fourth quarter of 2014, including a look at our financial results, the balance sheet at December 31, our fourth quarter metrics and the outlook for the first quarter and full year 2015. Please note that the income statement numbers I am reporting are pro forma and they exclude the following items: the amortization of intangibles, stock-based compensation expense, reorganization costs and net losses from investments. Also for 2014, we are utilizing an effective tax rate of 38% for pro forma purposes. The actual effective of tax rate for the full year was approximately 41%. For the fourth quarter and full year Forrester met revenue and pro forma op margin and achieved the top end of EPS guidance. The fourth quarter culminates the year of significant progress for Forrester in a number of key areas. In February last year we laid out an ambitious agenda both strategically and operationally. George and Mike shared with you the significant progresses made with the Age of the Customer strategy and the improvements in our research, product, consulting and sales organization. This progress had a direct and positive impact on our financial result for 2014. All of the financial targets we set back in February of 2014 for revenue, operating margins, EPS and returning value to shareholders were achieved. Now let me turn to more detailed review of our fourth quarter and full year results. Forrester’s fourth quarter revenue increased by 4% to 80.7 million from 77.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2013. The volatility in global currencies in the later part of 2014 resulted in a 2 points of negative impact to overall revenue growth for the quarter. Fourth quarter research and services revenue increased 5% to…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions). And our first question comes from Timothy McHugh. Please go ahead.

Timothy McHugh

Analyst

Just want to ask more about the consultant business in comments that you made there. I guess one, how low is utilization and how did that compared to your expectations and secondly, I guess when you talked about having to shift some people around versus how you had them organized prior around role. How much of the consultant forces being shifted? And lastly I guess how easy is it to shift people around to the extent that you hired them for? Supposedly, I guess the consult there have some expertise around certain roles?

Mike Doyle

Management

Tim its Mike Doyle. So I think first of all we went into this year as we were building out the organization, utilization in the traditionally I would say should we expect the consulting force to be utilized approximately 70%, but obviously we were building in, people coming on, people had to ramp up and also we were sort of feeling our way. We have some consultants frankly who went beyond 70% utilization in the areas frankly that were very, very hot and I think one of the challenges we ran into Tim was that candidly we probably over hired in some areas and fell short in other and so what we saw during the year was having to flex analysts back into project consulting to pick up some of that work and look at the analysts who frankly maybe where we over hired and see if they were in areas that were approximate to other roles that we were seeing at a much hotter, could they migrate over. So I would say that it’s difficult to point to I think some areas we had analysts were probably 20% underutilized and others as I said who were exceeding capacity and working well beyond what we had expected. So I don’t think -- and I think we will this year, but I don’t think it would be very useful to give you sort of an aggregate utilization for the year because we had so many analysts coming in during the year, ramping and utilizing, so the full year utilization numbers look a little strange. So how we looked at it internally was once we had someone fully ramped are they exceeding the 70% number or about 70% number or they not. And I would say that as we got into the year we were probably seeing little more than half were hitting that 70% and good chunk that were fallen in the ranging a little to a lot short and we tried to rotate accordingly and fill the voiding demand because it’s clearly demanded there with analyst activity. And today the action reflects basically a look at those folks who we didn’t believe could migrate over to the hot areas, and I think we have now right sized and balanced the organization where we are going to get very healthy utilization. Our targets are and our utilization targets and how we plan that business are very similar to our peers in this space, I mean they look nearly identical and then we will be adding to that organization as the business grow. So I feel good about where we are. And I think I am learning to trust them.

George Colony

Management

This George here Tim. I think it was less of a crisis and more of really a market adjustment and organization adjustment. And so I think this was -- we saw that coming and we were going to have made in a major adjustments at the end of the second year and we did that.

Timothy McHugh

Analyst

And I guess is it right size has been for ’15 or when you talk about ’16 profitability go up; is that a big swing factor where you are expecting that to I guess correct in ’16?

George Colony

Management

I think it’s right science for ’15 and then I think what we are going to see is as we build out our plan for ’16 we are going to be adding heads in consulting as demand continues to grow we will continue to grow that business. And I will say as you get into ’16 you are going to see faster growth in our syndicated business than you do in what I call consulting and advisory businesses. But we are going to continue to hire consultants just we will continue to hire analysts because demand for our business is going to grow. We don’t think that its [capped] at where it should be right now. But you won’t see the big spike up for example that we saw this year as we were building out the organization where we had a significant number of heads. I think you are going to see much slower rate of headcount growth in consulting going forward and the same in research. I think it’s going to grow as we see demand and we’ll add heads accordingly.

Timothy McHugh

Analyst

And the internal sales team, how much of that is a lower cost to serve existing customers versus really more focused on and I guess maybe serving customers that you didn’t service much in the past?

George Colony

Management

Little bit of bolt Tim. So we have various sized clients. These clients were sort of populated across all the various sales teams. We have centralized these organizations that are lowering their average revenue. We have a specific set of products that we sale them, which are not discounted and we serve that with some of our junior sales teams as they come up through the ranks. So it's a combination of existing clients that we have taken away from some of the field base teams to help their effectiveness and also as we attract new clients and target new markets this inside sales team is a great tool for that, for smaller -- again smaller clients.

Timothy McHugh

Analyst

And then lastly Mike, I missed a little bit of what you said at the end, but I heard the comment in there somewhere about I guess opportunistically looking for repurchases in 2015 and it seems like you didn’t buy at least a lot of stock in Q4 at least relative to what you are and the page you were on earlier in the year, I guess are we at a point where you're not going to be as aggressive as you were then during the prior, I guess two years?

Mike Doyle

Management

I think that’s probably a fair statement Tim, we’re going to be opportunistic the past couple of years we’ve been frankly in the market very regularly and we’ll continue to be and to buy shares opportunistically, we gotten our balance sheet to a level that we wanted to achieve, which is we brought our cash balances down dramatically and so that would by default suggest that our activity is going to turn left to repurchase, I think it's going to look more at internal investment and acquisition as we go forward. I think we are, we’re ready for that sort of thing and actually really we were this year, but our cash balances are at a good place, we’ll continue to buy opportunistically our share prices present that opportunity, we certainly don’t want or expect share count to grow, so minimal but we’re looking to keep it, so it's flat could be our target and look more towards acquisition and internal investment as uses for cash and uses for leverage in the business meaning go out and borrow if we have to for the right acquisition.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Bill Sutherland from Emerging Growth Equity. Please go ahead.

Bill Sutherland

Analyst

So Mike Morhardt, I guess I’ll start with you on securities, what do you think when you said you could potentially be growing the account reps faster than 10%, I man that’s your target, what are the gaining factors, I mean what are you looking to see before you step on the accelerator more?

Mike Morhardt

Management

Well, big part of that is how we are doing against our bookings plan. So if things are tracking and we’re seeing, we have confidence about the size of our market and our ability to go after it. We are building out strong territory, as George mentioned we have now an alpha team that helps build out these territories that we think can be productive pretty quickly and we’re seeing improve productivity in the reps that are one-year to 18 months. So it gives us a lot of confidence that if we get to end of the first quarter, end of the second quarter and all systems are green then I approach towards you Mike and ask to see if we can accelerate this. As Mike mentioned, our rep headcount got up to 11% this year, I’d like to be in double-digits and definitely for this year and with the potential to accelerate as we get into the second half.

Mike Doyle

Management

Yes, Bill this is an example, last year we were in the February call, at that point in time we talked about Mike adding 6% net to his quota of carrying reps and we ended at 9%. So, we’re going to be opportunistic as one of the reasons why we wanted to give a little bit of a picture for ’16, I mean we are really and truly about and George is going to pushing it hard internally that getting momentum back in the business, getting us back to healthy double-digit top-line revenue numbers, very healthy margins and I think as we see opportunity and as Mike seems progressing we’re going to continue to add a head pickup in that area.

Bill Sutherland

Analyst

The ramped rep are at a level now where we can kind of make educated connections between booking growth and the sales force expansion or is it still little bit of a lag that we should take into account?

Mike Doyle

Management

There is a little bit of lag, but I think as you look at ramps headcount were, there is a couple of different levers here, they are making sure that our attrition stabilizes and drop, they are making sure that we’re ramping these folks effectively and creating the right territories, but yes you can -- there is always going to be a lag if we’re hiring 10%, 12%, we may not pick up all of that in form of just sales expansion that’s why we’re looking to improve productivity as well to price increases and through other productivity driver. So there will be a lag but not a dramatic one.

Bill Sutherland

Analyst

So Mike Doyle on the deferred revenue in future AR, so it would have been flat adjusted for FX and the renewal shift is that correct?

Mike Doyle

Management

Yes that’s right Bill, I mean with an interesting quarter and what we’ve said it’s a preferable metric over AV although agreement value was probably a better indicator of how we were doing, and Mike since he’s come on board he’s consciously look to as best he can better level what’s going on with would be within the quarter where deals being book. So, he started this push back in ’13 and also by the way in the fourth quarter of this year moved out another 8.8. So, we had a similar arrangement that’s going to impact next year’s numbers, but it's so offset because you’re getting a coming back sort of into '15. So this is a conscious decision on Mike's part to try and move AV and it had a very real impact otherwise deferred revenue and future [indiscernible] would have been flat year-over-year.

Bill Sutherland

Analyst

The question sort of asking as well the lack of growth in that line and what's that about?

Mike Doyle

Management

I think there is some noise there Bill because as I look at our internal numbers I tend to see AV as a better indicator directionally of where we are headed and what can happen from a bookings standpoint. Normally, I tend to -- AV can be -- can create some of you don't know but in this insistence and in this quarter deferred revenue did.

Bill Sutherland

Analyst

Okay.

Mike Doyle

Management

Yes and we can probably have a flip in deferred revenue Q1 of '15 this quarter versus last year that's going to have odd noise going the other way, so we’ll try as best we can to porch that out in each call.

Bill Sutherland

Analyst

In events was and in the quarter was attendance sounds as well as sponsorship?

Mike Doyle

Management

Attendance figures were actually good Bill, it's sponsorships that were off. And so I think we had some sales turnover that absolutely impacted sponsorship sales in the back half and I think we have brought a new sales leader she comes from an event background, I think she is going to do a great job. We're also looking to upgrade the sales talent there and that activity has been going on, so I think that part is good. So I think details were good which means we're going to get sponsors back, I think it's more of sponsorship -- you got to get sponsorship sale and Mike Morhardt comes from better background in this than I am. It's a different sale and you need some to be a little more senior so I think we're trying to attract that kind of talent. As long as the attendees are there the sponsors will show.

Bill Sutherland

Analyst

Yes that's what I was thinking. And then and George couple of things you have mentioned -- you have made a comment in the consulting section of your remarks about 50-50 equilibrium as a goal, is that meaning analysts to consultant on a given project is that what you are referring to?

George Colony

Management

Yeah, there is no answer which I did not get into as you remember Bill we do two types of consulting one we call advisory consulting which is the one or two days or speeches where we can simply sell with volume and then we do project consulting.

Bill Sutherland

Analyst

All right I see what you are doing. Okay.

George Colony

Management

Okay. So at the end of the day when we continue the transition the 50% is advisory consulting being prepared by analyst and that's by the higher price it is very, very short it's applied to [indiscernible] don’t give a speech network and then the project consulting will be performed by the project consulting team, so we will end up at a 50-50 split.

Bill Sutherland

Analyst

And the reason it's happening a bit later than you hoped is related to what?

George Colony

Management

I think it's really when I talk to the support it's really organizationally -- the market signals or organizational signals I think we're just we had some in precision there in Q3 and Q4. What's really great about this is that we have shown a lot of agility in our ability to have analysts perform more consulting and to slow the transition down. They really stepped up in Q4 analysts back into the consulting firm. So we're doing this -- the great deal is we have a lots of knobs to turns and so it’s good leverage to pull and we're showing a lot of agility here. So this is not a crisis this is just a little bit of slower transition.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Vincent Colicchio from Noble Financial. Please go ahead.

Vincent Colicchio

Analyst

Mike I am curious how the European business performed relative to plan in the quarter and I know in recent quarters you guys have said that the economic backdrop was not bad enough that it should stopped us from improving in Europe, do you think that's still the case for 2015?

Mike Doyle

Management

Like -- Like Mike Morhardt gave some color after me. I think that's absolutely still the case -- I think where we have made leadership changes in region we're looking at those regions that have performed incredibly well despite what are not the best economic headwinds to sell into I think that we still have a lot of opportunity and I think the new sales leader there is already demonstrating that. So where we have had we have made leadership changes, we're seeing improvement, we have made other leadership changes that I think are going to bear fruit in 2015. So, now I am still feeling like we're going to get our numbers in Europe. And I did not say it's easy and I am not -- because I am sure we have some Europe folks up from the sales team who are listening to the call and think yeah this the CFO talking its always easy but I do think we're going to get to our numbers. I think there are a lot of good things going on there right now. So, Asia-Pac on the other hand to Mike's point earlier was with macro winds absolutely slowed us down in the second half but that's not the case in Europe there is opportunity there for us.

Mike Morhardt

Management

I have spent a lot of time in Europe in the last quarter -- two quarters. And what I would say Europe is about the Age of the Customer dynamic, so they are about a year behind us. So if you imagine 15% of U.S CIOs our ability to beat the agenda it’s that's probably someone near at 5% and 7% in Europe. So but for us that really represents an opportunity. The interest areas as high it is in the U.S -- I would say a little bit lower in Asia but so they are probably about a year behind us but the interest is very, very intense in Europe, around Age of the Customer.

Mike Doyle

Management

And then just one, so from a European sales team performance perspective we did see good mid-single digits year-over-year performance which is a good sign and so we started to see the team ramp up as we got into the second half of the year. We made some leadership changes in Q4 some additional ones as we ran into the first part of this year and the team is ramped up and ready to go. There are definitely some macroeconomic components to it, but our opportunity is huge there. We are not backing off of what we can think -- what we think we can do from a growth perspective.

Vincent Colicchio

Analyst

And then Mike what about Q2 we would be thinking about for 2015 and ’16 respectively?

Mike Doyle

Management

I think we will probably have another point decline in queue for 2015, because essentially what’s happening now is we have a large fully ramped consulting organization so we are going to continue to sale that and then I think you are going to see the reversal, I think in ’16 you are see queue go back the other way. We have not walked away from our target of about 70% of our business coming from syndicated, so I think you will see a swing back the other way probably another point going back or two in ’16. So this should be the bottoming out year for queue and then we are going to start marching back towards 70%.

Operator

Operator

And I am not showing any further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Mike Doyle for closing remarks.

Mike Doyle

Management

Great, thanks very much. I appreciate everyone joining the call. George and I will be out on the road in the course of the quarter we want to talk as many people as we can. I think we have got a lot going on in a good way. So we will be scheduling time, we have to see folks. So thanks again for attending the call. And will see you soon.