Gregory Q. Brown
Analyst · Northcoast Research
Yes, I would summarize it this way. And I recognize that -- a number of questions around the topic. It's really about timing. And I don't mean to distract or take away from the realities of the Q1. It's the mix of the mix to higher infrastructure and deployment services and the way the orders flow through. We had a -- almost a $3 billion order quarter in Q4. It's a huge volume that comes in. A component of it is federal that we mentioned about it earlier, but quite frankly, I'm just not that concerned, nor is Gino. And I don't mean to blow by it, that's not at all what I'm trying to do, but we look at the business annually, we look at the backlog that's aged, we look at the engagements we're in. We're not contemplating significant LTE. And when I think about, can this business grow 2% to 4% for the ensuing 9 months over a flat compare with the same period, I think it's very reasonable. And I think it's in that context that we have higher confidence. When we come into a quarter, I've referenced, Mark and Gino have referenced, that we have 80% -- approximately 80% visibility into a quarter. That too was unchanged. About 50% from backlog, 30% of what we characterize in our own vernacular as run rate, which is add-on and additional services and things with very little variability. And then there's about 20% of the quarter that we need to go get, which is anywhere from $350 million to $400 million and new orders to turn and book and ship. I think, in the last several months, with Gino's arrival and, I think, some rigorous processes and stronger linkage between finance and Mark Moon's organization, I feel more comfortable about some steps that have been taken. I think a great example of that is the cash generation of $741 million in Q4, which we've never had. And I will give a tip of the hat to Gino that dove into this. From a working capital standpoint, receivables, payables, it's the "mud under your fingernails" blocking and tackling that I'm very pleased with. So I think we're operationally more crisp. And the overall demand drivers of the business are strong, multiyear backlog is up. So those are the elements that underpin our guidance and my feeling of feeling more comfortable about this business.