Tom Hogan: The acquisition was a big part of the Q4 headcount increase. A couple of different things there, Mayank. As far as the clients and what we’re seeing from the revenue perspective, it definitely is something that I think will work to in the second half of the year. I think the question, when I think about the types of deals that we’re going after right now and the ramping of the great new talent we brought in Q4, I’m just not really sure what that growth curve is going to look like. So, Paul, you want to take it?
Paul Martin: Yeah. So, Mayank, we continue to manage the head count to 80%, so what the numbers in Q1 ramping throughout the year, the head count growth will really start picking up more in Q2, Q3 and Q4.
Mayank Tandon: Okay. And then do you still have — just to be clear, do you still have any gas left in the tank to drive utilization higher or are you already at levels where you want to sustain.? And then also, just wanted to get your comments, Tom, around pricing that was the other part of the question.
Tom Hogan: Yeah. So utilization, I think we’re in a good spot. We were at a place where around 80% of the United States will maintain that. Utilization is a little lower. So we think of our global utilization together will be at 80% for the organization, will be there in Q1, like I mentioned, slower in January. From a pricing standpoint, keep in mind that the project base, the deals that we’re working on allows us to really have a very flexible pricing model that we’re closing deals three to six-month type projects, which allows us to really make sure we’re pricing appropriately based on our cost. So we’ll continue to pass on as we need to the pricing model to maintain the margins in United States. But keep in mind, really where we have the pricing levers as well as we leverage our global teams.
So, utilizing our teams in India, leveraging our teams in Latin America, allows us to be competitive from a price standpoint, obviously the margins are nice in those regions as well, where we don’t have to sacrifice on price in the United States, so we can get to the price target utilizing our global headcount. So, we shouldn’t see really an adverse impact to margins because we can be price sensitive utilizing our global network of consumers.
Mayank Tandon: Great. Thank you so much.
Operator: One moment for the next question. The next question comes from Brian Kinstlinger with Alliance Global Partners. Your line is open.
Brian Kinstlinger: Great. Thanks so much for taking my questions. I’m wondering first if you can speak to the pricing and wage trends, especially as it relates to new wins and new hires?
Tom Hogan: Yeah. I mean, the pricing is pretty aggressive right now. But I would say we’re not seeing a tremendous downward pressure, I think ABR essentially was flat quarter-over quarter. We’re not seeing that we’re going to have to really get price aggressive to win deals. Once again, as we continue to ship to our global teams, that’s really where the conversation comes in on price versus having to get aggressive on individual ABRs.
Brian Kinstlinger: And then — thank you. And then, on the large wins that you’ve discussed, are they with existing customers where you’re replacing slightly smaller projects with larger projects, or are they new customers generally?
Tom Hogan: Not necessarily replacing smaller projects with big projects. They’re expanding the footprint within our clients is a big part of it. We have some nice new logos as well. But our thesis on growth has always been land and expand, building relationships, you see that in our top 50 accounts that continue to grow year-over-year in the relationship as well as size of relationship. So the majority is expanding current footprint within our current clients.
Paul Martin: And Brian, as we talked about, there was also in the quarter that the big win in healthcare of a 100% plus project. So it’s a mix of both. But as Tom said, most of the deals themselves were existing clients, which is consistent with how we run our business.
Brian Kinstlinger: Great. My last question on the first quarter guidance, typically for the fourth quarter’s less billable days, you’ve got a large project ramping, you’ve got an acquisition that’s going to give a full quarter as opposed to, I think, a partial quarter. I’m just wondering at the low-end of guidance, is it that you have projects that are falling off and a lack of wins in the middle of last year that are replacing it? I’m just wondering typically there is not that big of a drop from the fourth quarter to the first quarter, if you can help me understand that? Thank you.
Tom Hogan: Sure. It’s not a full quarter with the acquisition. It’s just the perspective there. But quite honestly, it’s just the ramp that we saw in January what you’re seeing there is, as we end projects, start next project in that calendar year, some years are very seamless and they continue to move from one calendar cycle to the next. Others, we see some challenge of clients being ready to onboard and bring people into projects, and I really liked what you’re seeing there. So it’s not necessarily understanding where people are going to go. It’s really ramping them into their current engagements that we know about.
Paul Martin: And I think clients have been a little more cautious, particularly early in the quarter on ramping up project size. So, as a result of that we had some delays that affected the Q1 estimate.
Brian Kinstlinger: Great. Thank you, guys
Operator: Please standby for the next question.. The next question comes from Vincent Colicchio with Barrington Research. Your line is open.
Vincent Colicchio: Yeah, Tom. How do you feel about the direction of client budget? Is it still sort of difficult to assess that?
Tom Hogan: Vincent, it’s difficult to assess. I will say that there is a definite more optimistic tone though in the conversations we’re having. So we’ll see when the rubber hits the road as far as the buying process. But as we’re seeing right now, projects that we are seeing delayed in 2023, we’re definitely seeing reengagement and discussing when to ramp those projects up, which is good, which has the lead to closing those and having some bookings associated with them. I’ll also say and I mentioned earlier that a lot of the conversations we’re having we’re regarding optimization of operations, the cost take-outs. We are seeing a return to conversations regarding more discretionary spend, more revenue generating spend with customers, projects that were delayed in 2023 because they wanted to hold back.
