nCino, Inc. (NASDAQ:NCNO) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Bob Napoli of William Blair. Your line is open.

Adib Choudhury: Adib Choudhury on for Bob. So first question, just in terms of the significant Japan, could you kind of talk about how critical system integrators were, if at all? Now and more broadly, are you seeing kind of peers using a similar SI strategy in some of your core international cloud banking market?

Josh Glover: Absolutely. This is Josh. The system integrators are part of that play. They have local presidents to understand the culture. We’re taking some of these institutions literally from paper straight into the cloud. So having the local team change management expertise and scalabilities of those SIs particularly as we expand internationally, really helps. And we’re pleased not just about the initial proof point, but also about the way these banks are thinking about the single platform where you have banks that are starting with mortgage, some are starting with commercial, but they’re all doing it from the lens that they want to get the whole institution up on nCino.

Adib Choudhury: Got it. And I guess one for Greg. Thinking about the long-term operating margin targets you guys laid out during the Investor Day, 35%, and that compares to the 12 or so implied from the current fiscal full year guide. As we think about annual margin expansion cadence? Should that kind of be evenly attributed or more front and back-end loaded? And what’s the visibility you kind of have around that expansion?

Gregory Orenstein: Yes. We’ll hold off giving any guidance beyond this year. Again, as we look at the target, I set out a time frame of four to six years. And I think it all depends on the opportunities that we see ultimately the market. But again, we’re going to err on the side of growth. And to the extent that, that margin target is a little bit lower because our growth is higher as we march towards that rule of 50, we’d be very happy with that. So again, I think we’ll update you as we move along in terms of progress that we’re making, but we continue to see opportunities for leverage across the organization. Again, you see in the progress that we’ve made on our margin lines as well as on our OpEx lines. And I said earlier, the team has done a great job, the organization has done a great job embracing the environment that we’ve been operating in.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Adam Bergere of Bank of America. Your line is open.

Adam Bergere: Can you give some color on the deals that pushed? Is there any sort of commonality between those deals or thinking more in depth on them. Is there any way in which you could quantify to mentalize how much that may have impacted Q3 results? And lastly, how are those deals tracking now that you’re roughly a month into Q4?

Josh Glover: Absolutely, those are not deals that dropped out of the pipeline. Ultimately, sometimes they may have wanted to get another board look at that. Sometimes they may want to see how the year continued on. They are in this interest rate environment, continued to keep a keen eye on their credit quality. They’re also thinking about their P&L as they deal with this margin compression. So we do not see a lack of conviction on the need for transformation. We do see more measured investment as they think about new lines of investment for the institution.

Pierre Naude: Yes. I think it’s more a case of timing versus need. Also, we’ve not lost any of those deals to competitors. This is more a matter of let’s revisit in the budget cycle for banks and as soon as those are solidified, we’ll move forward. And we see that in our pipeline movements as well. So we’re very optimistic that we’re going to see some of those coming through.

Adam Bergere: Got it. And as a quick follow-up, have you sort of embedded that new assumption of, I don’t know, these are taking a little longer than expected into the Q4 guide?

Pierre Naude: Yes. Our Q4 guide is assuming that it’s — we understand now very well the churn expectations in the market, both on IMBs. So we’ve taken a conservative view, and we built that into the guidance that we provided.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Alex Sklar of Raymond James. Your line is open.

Alex Sklar: Great Greg, outside of the $2 million accrual that you called out that it sales and marketing this quarter. Was there anything else onetime impacting operating income this quarter? And then kind of unrelated to your answer about preferring growth, a couple of the earlier questions, Can you just talk about what’s being factored from a hiring or an investment perspective in fourth quarter relative to third quarter driving kind of the sequential margin decline?

Gregory Orenstein: Yes. So from it was $2.8 million. That was really the onetime thing. The other thing I’d note is in the second quarter, we had our insight, our annual user conference. And so that’s a heavier spend. So as you look at it on a sequential basis, I would note that as well. When you look at fourth quarter, it’s the guide that we provided ultimately taking into account, obviously, holidays seasonality that we sometimes see in the fourth quarter. So I think that’s what is impacting the guide if you deduct the onetime that I noted from the total and you look at the guide that we gave, I know there’s a small little delta there, but that’s really what it comes down to.