Genpact Limited (NYSE:G) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Keith Bachman: Okay. And my second — my follow-up question relates to that is, how do you think about either expanding existing fill sets or getting into new market opportunities in terms of using M&A in particular? And so you mentioned 50%, I think, of free cash flow to capital allocation projects. But how do you think about the changing nature or changing the strategy as it relates to M&A or is it more of the same? Thank you and that’s it for me.

BK Kalra: Thank you. Thank you, Keith. Look, I think, how I’ll think about it is the following. M&A continues to be a key strategic lever for us. It always has and it would be. And as I think of M&A and I want to connect it back to execute, I think, we have done reasonably well in finding assets. Can we improve our execution in integrating the assets is the other attribute of execution? But is M&A integral part of our strategy? The answer is yes, yes, yes. And we will continue to be disciplined from ROIC standpoint and as we execute more. But we will update you as we go along, Keith. Mike?

Mike Weiner: May I add to that? Our number one thing that we’re looking for is in addition to the financial discipline and everything else BK just alluded to is how we’re building additional capabilities for the organization and organically. So to the extent those capabilities, gen AI related or AI related, come about, you will be deploying capital there to build upon that, build a franchise.

Keith Bachman: Okay. Many thanks, gentlemen.

BK Kalra: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. And one moment as we move on to our next question. And it looks like our next question is going to come from the line of Maggie Nolan with William Blair. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Maggie Nolan: Hi. Thank you. Can you elaborate on the simplification of the go-to-market strategy and what you hope the outcomes of this are for the business?

BK Kalra: Sure, Maggie. So, clearly, I think, as organically you build the organization, you somehow start orienting yourselves to various dimensions and that is what happened with us as well. And me coming in from inside really understood from the client perspective, as well as from our internal teams as to how we can increase the agility and accountability. So from multiple metrics to organization, what we have done in the last 60 days is oriented ourselves to 12 business units that mirror client organization. When I say that, so take an example of orienting with consumer goods and retail companies or orienting with — we always had, but we had other dimensions and I think we clarified it for the organization and oriented everybody to be in the service of clients as we build the capabilities and as we build Data or AI capabilities. And similar simplification exercises we will report back, but this is what I mean by simplification what you specifically asked.

Tiger Tyagarajan: Yeah. I think I’ll just quickly add on to that. Ultimately what we’re hoping for with all that is speed and clarity to be able to move quicker and quite frankly grow our revenue at a just faster pace. The opportunities are out there.

Maggie Nolan: Thank you. That’s helpful. And then specifically on the DTAI segment, did something change between 3Q and 4Q that allowed you to grow sequentially? And then how should we think about any potential change in the context of 2024 and how you incorporated that into the guidance?

Mike Weiner: Yeah. So let me quickly talk about the sequential movement in DO from 3Q to 4Q. We had the impact of the new deals we talked about. They ramped as expected. They actually ramped even a little bit better. That was offset by higher productivity and change in scope on existing work, which is typical within our historical average, right? As we move into our first quarter guide, we still have the positive impact of those new large deals. Now quarter three as they continue to move through on a year-over-year basis. However, when you look at the vintage or the historical vintage of existing contracts, we have higher deal related productivity on those existing contracts, which is typical in terms of the timing, which pulls down some of that growth, as well as with the absence of second half of 2023, we just had large — fewer large deals flowing in, which is going to affect us in the first half of the year.

They’re lumpy in nature. As well as DTI, it just has a seasonal low in the first quarter.

Maggie Nolan: Okay. Got it. And congrats, BK, and thank you, Tiger.

BK Kalra: Thank you, Maggie.

Tiger Tyagarajan: Thank you, Maggie.

Operator: Thank you. And one moment as we move on to our next question. And our next question is going to come from the line of Ashwin Shirvaikar with Citigroup. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Ashwin Shirvaikar: Hey. Thanks. Congratulations, BK and Tiger, on the formalization of the changes that you guys announced last quarter.

Tiger Tyagarajan: Thank you.

Ashwin Shirvaikar: Maybe I can start with asking a question on margins. Normally, we do see sort of year-over-year margin improvement. You’re kind of holding the line on that. Is that a very specific signal with regards to wanting to invest for growth? And then the part two of the margin question is, you’re starting out with 16%. What’s driving in 1Q, what’s driving that and what kind of margin cadence should we then expect to see?