DocuSign, Inc. (NASDAQ:DOCU) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Cynthia Gaylor: I’ll take the billings question. But before I do that, I realize I misspoke on international revenue. So just to clarify, international revenue grew 29% to $620 million. I think I said $250 million, just a clarification there. On the billings question, I think it’s related to a couple of things. One is, as we talked about last quarter, we’re expecting a slower start to the year. I think when you look at the macro environment, we certainly haven’t gotten better and you could probably sense just maybe gotten a little bit worse. And on top of that, we have made some changes to the fields, which we think could cause some disruption. So I think that’s certainly playing into both the revenue and the billings guide we’re giving to the year.

I’d also say we always guide to what we can see. I think we can see Q1 better than we can see the rest of the year. But given the 1% guide in Q1, we would expect that to kind of improve as we move through the year and some of the investments we may start to take hold. So I think those are some of the dynamics kind of…

Operator: Our next question is from Jackson Ader with SVB.

Jackson Ader: First one, on the macro environment, how does the macro environment actually impact you? Is it — is it number of employees at your customers are coming down and so they don’t need as many envelopes? I’d be surprised if it were the DocuSign line item is like getting a bunch of scrutiny and IT budgets or something. But just given the ROI and the traditionally very quick payback, I would think that e-signature would be a place where people are actually like more willing to invest in a tough macro environment. So, how do I square that?

Allan Thygesen: Yes. Thanks for the question. The first thing I would say is the overall macro environment just affects businesses of all sizes and their ability and willingness to spend on all kinds of software, including ours. But I don’t think we’re particularly more macro sensitive or a little less than others. In terms of the industry mix in the economy, we do have a little bit of over exposure, if you will, to real estate and a few other sectors that have been a little tougher. On the other hand, we are quite diversified and have some real strength in sectors like health and manufacturing, telecommunications. So that’s balancing out. In terms of the value prop, I agree with your statement. I think there’s a very quick payback.

I think we’re seeing that. So customers — and that’s also a key part of DocuSign’s competitive value proposition vis-à-vis other competitors, people tend to respond fast. They’re more likely to respond to an agreement. They’re more — they’re faster to respond and they have a better positive experience. So overall, I think the macro environment presents some clouds for IT budgets of companies of all sizes. We are seeing maybe a little bit more vertical exposure than the average company but are generally pretty balanced. And I think our value prop remains quite strong.

Jackson Ader: Okay. All right. Great. And then a very quick follow-up. The — how much of the like second kind of round of restructuring was factored into the preliminary margin guidance for the year that was given, Cynthia, on last quarter’s call?