Christophe Beck: Yes, Josh. It’s year-on-year, so the improvement that we will see so in Q3 and in Q4. And in Q2, I was pleased to see that excluding Europe, our volumes went from flat to plus 1% year-on-year once again. And it’s all driven by the way we are driving the business. Because the end markets, honestly, so everywhere around the world have a tendency, so to soften, it’s not true everywhere. But for the most part, the softening quarter-after-quarter, hopefully, that’s going to change as well over time. We’re not counting on that. Just to be clear, our assumption is really that the end market trends will continue to soften in the next few quarters. How are we driving growth? It’s the old-fashioned way, by driving fundamentals.
It starts with new business. This is a practice that we have perfected over years/decades, as we call it, a grow-to-win pipeline, which is our new business pipeline, is at an all-time high right now. And we need to deliver it, obviously, by executing it, so customer by customer. In some businesses, it’s quicker, like in Institutional, or it takes a bit more time in Industrial, since it’s heavy equipment that we need to install. But new business is really good. Penetration as well of new solutions within existing customers is a priority so for us because it’s the lower cost to execute, because we go to those customers anyway. This is improving as well. Innovation is also in a very good place. Our innovation pipeline is also at an all-time high.
So, it’s an execution question as well. So to get that done, especially in what we call the mega markets in North America, Western Europe and in China, while we follow closely after in the other markets around the world. So, those are the big reasons. And it’s also driven by our new growth businesses, like data centers growing over 20%. Microelectronics, close to that as well. And our water business. That’s doing really well at the same time. So, it’s really focusing on the fundamentals, what we can control, because we can’t control what’s happening in the market.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of David Begleiter with Deutsche Bank.
David Begleiter: Christophe, you are investing in the business. Any way to quantify how much more you’re investing this year than last year on either an absolute or a relative basis? Thank you.
Christophe Beck: Good question. I think that’s for our CFO as well, so he is looking forward to more questions. Last time he had half a question. So, I’m glad that we can do it in tandem today. So, Scott?
Scott Kirkland: Yes. David, what I’d say is, I wouldn’t give you a specific number here. I would say we’ve continued to invest in the business not significantly different than we have in the past. As we’ve said through the last few years, we’ve continued to invest in the business, adding capacity, maintaining the team, investing in the team. So proportionately, it’s not that the big driver of what you’re seeing from the OI margin expansion, any change in that investment.
Christophe Beck: But maybe one comment I’d like to add as well, so to that, David, is that we differentiate how we invest behind our business. So just to share a little bit how we’re thinking about that as well. We call our growth engines for more investments because they grow faster. They have a higher margin as well. We have another category, which is more transforming businesses that could get better as well. They get a bit less, but they’re very focused in how we can drive our better margins. And then, you have kind of the third categories are the ones that need to become more profitable. They get less investments until they get to the right profitability margin. So, we really do that in a thoughtful manner, by business, by market, making sure we invest the best way we can.
Operator: Our next question is from the line of Jeff Zekauskas with JPMorgan.
