Resources Connection, Inc. (NASDAQ:RGP) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Resources Connection, Inc. (NASDAQ:RGP) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript January 7, 2026

Resources Connection, Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.06, expectations were $-0.02.

Operator: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Resources Connection, Inc. Conference Call. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to remind everyone that management will be commenting on results for the second quarter ended November 29, 2025. They will also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. An explanation and reconciliation of these measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measures are included in the press release issued today. Today’s press release can be viewed in the Investor Relations section of RGP’s website and filed today with the SEC.

Also, during this call, management may make forward-looking statements regarding plans, initiatives, and strategies in the anticipated financial performance of the company. Such statements are predictions, and actual events or results may differ materially. Please see the risk factors section in RGP’s report on Form 10-K for the year ended May 31, 2025, for a discussion of risk, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause the company’s business, results of operations, and financial condition to differ materially from what is expressed or implied by forward-looking statements made during this call. I will now turn the call over to RGP’s CEO, Roger Carlisle.

Roger Carlisle: Thank you, and welcome everyone to Resources Connection Q2 earnings call. Before we get into the quarterly earnings discussion, I want to thank our leadership and employees for welcoming me as the company’s newly appointed CEO and for supporting a smooth transition. I also want to recognize our teams for maintaining a strong focus on our clients and our business during this time. I mentioned both our clients and our business as focal points because we have employees who serve our clients’ needs as well as employees who support the needs of our client service professionals and our business. Both employee groups are critical to our success. For those of you on today’s call with whom I have not yet had an opportunity to speak, I look forward to doing so in the near future.

I recognize that you have invested time understanding the company, its services, and markets, and we appreciate your interest and effort. Regarding our business, let me start by saying my enthusiasm for the company’s future has grown since stepping into this role in November. The deeper I get into our business, the more impressed I am with the talent and capability here. But even more so with the commitment and enthusiasm I find when talking with our people. The quality of our people is reflected in the caliber of long-standing and newly activated clients who trust us to assist them with issues they view as important to their success. I also want to say that while the market of our services has been more challenging and uncertain of late for a variety of reasons, I believe there is a sufficiently large market of client needs for which RGP is positioned to serve that will allow us to grow our business and financial results.

However, doing so requires that we focus on what gives us a competitive right to win. That is providing relevant skills and solutions to our clients to satisfy their needs, at a price that brings them better overall value than other providers in the marketplace. Our balance sheet and liquidity are strong, which is a testament to the resilience of our people and client relationships, as well as the flexibility of our business model. However, our quarterly earnings results also reflect the continued lack of positive momentum for our consolidated revenue and adjusted EBITDA. These results underscore the need to take decisive actions to better align our cost structure with our current revenue levels, refocus our on-demand offerings to address the evolving needs of our clients, and scale our consulting business to deliver high-value solutions to both existing and new clients.

These three points will form the basis of our strategy going forward. We have already made progress this quarter reducing our cost structure to better align it with our current revenue levels, and we will continue this work in the third quarter. Improving our financial results in the on-demand segment requires that we better understand our clients’ current needs and adjust our ability to provide consultants to fit those needs. Scaling our consulting business requires identifying and hiring experienced consulting professionals to grow our ability to deliver value-added solutions to our clients. In the evolving consulting marketplace, we are finding that these types of professionals understand and are excited about the competitive nature of RGP’s service offering model and the value proposition it offers to clients.

We believe this will make us a strong employer choice for such professionals going forward. We also believe that RGP’s ability to provide in-demand finance, risk, operation performance, and technology solutions in three different delivery models—that is, on-demand, consulting, and outsourced services—at a price point that is competitive to other traditional professional service firms, gives us an opportunity to be uniquely successful in winning and serving clients’ needs in the changing landscape for such services. Lastly, no professional services firm can succeed in the present and future market without understanding how artificial intelligence, automation, and other technologies are impacting their clients’ businesses and how it impacts the professional services they seek and procure.

This is no different for RGP. We are actively working to understand how our clients’ needs are impacted by their own AI and automation strategies. Likewise, at RGP, we are continuing to implement additional AI and automation tools across our business processes to enhance the cost-effectiveness of our client service delivery and internal business support functions. The work we have discussed so far today and the achievement of the expected results will certainly require time and disciplined execution. But the path forward is clear, and we are confident these actions will strengthen our business and create long-term value for our clients and shareholders. With that, let me turn the call over to Bhadresh Patel.

Bhadresh Patel: Thank you, Roger, and good afternoon, everyone. Before I begin, I want to welcome Roger as our new Chief Executive Officer. With Roger’s leadership and fresh perspective, we are well-positioned to strengthen execution, accelerate our strategic priorities, and drive operational discipline across the organization, capitalizing on our inherent strengths. In the second quarter, we exceeded expectations in adjusted EBITDA, despite revenue coming in below consensus, reflecting disciplined cost management and execution. In North America, expanded go-to-market initiatives across our on-demand and consulting segment, along with stronger cross-practice collaboration, drove improved pipeline activity. Our Europe and Asia Pac segment delivered both year-over-year and sequential growth.

While outsourced services revenue remained essentially flat versus the prior year, we achieved meaningful improvement in gross margin. Overall, we remain focused on value-based pricing, targeted investments, leadership, and service capabilities to drive momentum, and cost discipline. Jennifer Ryu will provide additional details on our performance and efficiency initiatives shortly. With that, let me turn to our performance by segment. While consulting segment revenue declined year-over-year, we delivered essentially flat sequential revenue with growth in select areas of CFO advisory and digital transformation. Bill rates continue to improve both sequentially and year-over-year with higher increases on new projects, reflecting the strong demand for our specialized services.

We are also moving up the value chain with existing clients, for example, highlighted in Q2 by a large technology company selecting RGP as a global preferred consulting provider, expanding our role from on-demand talent into advisory services on mission-critical work. As part of our strategy to grow the consulting segment, we will complete the integration of ReferencePoint by the end of the fiscal year. Combining ReferencePoint’s capability with our consulting platform and leadership will enhance collaboration, streamline go-to-market execution, and strengthen our focus on CFO advisory and digital transformation. This positions us to deepen relationships with existing on-demand clients while also expanding our reach to new clients. Finally, on consulting, I want to thank John Bowman as he begins a well-earned retirement.

His vision and commitment to both clients and employee values leave a lasting impact on RGP. I am pleased to announce Scott Rotman, who joined RGP in August, will succeed John as president of consulting services, leading our CFO advisory and digital transformation offerings. Under Scott’s leadership, we will strengthen our integrated consulting segment and deliver client value across strategy, transformation, and on-demand talent. Turning to on-demand, revenue declined year-over-year but continues to show signs of sequential stabilization, supported by higher average bill rates compared to both the same period last year and the prior quarter. We remain focused on execution and disciplined pipeline management with emphasis on skills for ERP, finance transformation, data, and supply chain.

Across North America, several markets delivered sequential revenue growth, and in markets that are lagging, we are in the process of bringing in new leadership. Turning to international, our Europe and Asia Pac segment delivered both year-over-year and sequential revenue growth in the second quarter, supported by higher weekly revenue run rates and improved bill rates versus the prior year, while maintaining stable gross margins. Performance was led by Europe, Japan, India, and The Philippines, underscoring the strength of our client relationships and the effectiveness of our regional strategy. We are committed to deepening multinational client relationships along with expanding our local client base, differentiating through a combination of local delivery and scalable global delivery centers, and maintaining disciplined cost management.

Lastly, in outsourced services, revenue remained steady year-over-year, and gross margins improved versus the prior year. We continue to add new clients to our platform while also exhibiting strong retention, and bottom-line performance benefited from both operating leverage and efficiency measures. To conclude, we remain focused on disciplined execution and delivering meaningful value to clients across all segments, while continuing to see our strategy take shape and position RGP for sustained growth, profitability, and value creation over time. With that, I will now turn the call over to Jennifer Ryu.

Jennifer Ryu: Thank you, Bhadresh. Good afternoon, and Happy New Year, everyone. Consolidated revenue for the second quarter was around the midpoint of our outlook range, $117.7 million. While gross margin of 37.1% was below the outlook, run rate SG&A expense of $39.7 million was significantly more favorable, enabling us to deliver adjusted EBITDA of $4 million in the second quarter, or a 3.4% adjusted EBITDA margin. We incurred $11.9 million of one-time expenses in the quarter in connection with the CEO transition and a reduction in force, contributing to a GAAP net loss of $12.7 million. I will now provide some additional color on our revenue, gross margin, and run rate SG&A expense. Consolidated revenue declined 18.4% on a same-day constant currency basis from the prior year quarter.

While on-demand and consulting segment revenues remain soft, we are encouraged by the steady year-over-year growth in the Europe and Asia Pac and outsourced services segment. We continue to focus on improving sales execution as well as aligning both our consulting solutions and on-demand talent pool to client demand to drive more pipeline growth and faster revenue conversion. Gross margin for the quarter was 37.1% compared to 38.5% in the prior year quarter. We drove a 97 basis point improvement in pay bill ratio; however, leverage on indirect cost of service was unfavorable, notably related to healthcare costs and paid time off, including higher holiday pay due to Thanksgiving coming in the second quarter of this year. Enterprise-wide average bill rate was $121 constant currency, versus $123 a year ago, driven mostly by revenue mix shift toward the Asia Pacific region.

On an individual segment basis, we saw a 6.4% improvement in consulting and a 2.4% improvement in both on-demand and Europe and Asia Pac segments. As we continue to execute our pricing strategy and scale the consulting business to deliver higher value, larger scale engagement, we expect to gain more upside in bill rates. Now on to our SG&A and cost structure. While we have been on a continuous journey to reduce costs over the last few years, we are conducting an even deeper assessment across the entire organization to streamline organizational structure, simplify processes, and adopt automation and AI to ensure our cost structure is adequately sized to the current revenue level. The assessment is near completion, and we expect to implement the cost actions over a twelve-month period.

In October, we executed a reduction in force, the first in a series of actions to come in 2026. The reduction impacted 5% of our management and administrative headcount and is expected to yield annual savings of $6 million to $8 million. Back to our improved SG&A performance for the second quarter, enterprise run rate SG&A expense for the quarter was $39.7 million, a 15% improvement from $46.5 million a year ago. Management compensation expense improved significantly by $3 million as a result of the reduction in force we executed this quarter and at the end of fiscal 2025. The remainder of the year-over-year improvement in SG&A is attributable to lower variable compensation and reduced SG&A spend, including travel, occupancy, and professional services.

Next, I will provide some additional color on segment performance. All year-over-year percentage comparisons for revenue are adjusted for business days and currency impact, and as a reminder, segment adjusted EBITDA excludes certain shared corporate costs. Revenue for our On-Demand segment was $43 million, a decline of 18.4% versus the prior year quarter. Segment adjusted EBITDA was $4.1 million, or a margin of 9.5%, relative to $5.6 million, or a 10.5% margin in 2025. Revenue for our Consulting segment was $42.6 million, a decline of 28.8% from the prior year quarter. Segment adjusted EBITDA was $4.5 million, or a 10.4% margin, compared to $9.7 million, or a 16% margin in Q2 fiscal 2025. Turning to our Europe and Asia Pac segment, revenue was $20.1 million, or 0.6% growth from the prior year quarter.

Segment adjusted EBITDA was $1.5 million in both years, representing a 7.4% margin in Q2 fiscal 2026 and a 7.5% margin in Q2 fiscal 2025. Finally, our outsourced services segment revenue was $9.4 million, up 0.8% compared to the prior year quarter. Segment adjusted EBITDA was $1.7 million, or an 18.4% margin, up from $1.5 million, or a 16.4% margin. Turning to liquidity, our balance sheet remains strong with $89.8 million of cash and cash equivalents and zero outstanding debt. Quarterly dividend distributions totaled $2.3 million. With cash on hand, combined with available borrowing capacity under our credit facility, we will continue to take a balanced approach to capital allocation between investing in the business to drive growth and returning cash to shareholders through dividends and opportunistic share buybacks under our repurchase program, which had $79 million remaining at the end of the quarter.

I will now close with our third quarter outlook. Early third quarter non-holiday weekly revenue run rate has been largely consistent with the second quarter. As expected, due to the midweek timing of Christmas and New Year’s Day, revenues from those holiday weeks were much softer. Taking into account the seasonality and based on our current revenue backlog and expectations on late-stage pipeline deals, our outlook calls for revenues of $105 to $110 million in the third quarter. On the gross margin front, with the same seasonality impacting utilization and holiday pay for agile consultants, as well as employer payroll tax reset at the start of a new calendar year, we expect a gross margin of 35% to 36% in the third quarter. Now on to SG&A. Reflecting realized benefits from our cost reduction effort, offset by higher employer payroll taxes, run rate SG&A expense in the third quarter is expected to be in the range of $40 to $42 million.

Non-run rate and non-cash expenses will be in the range of $6 to $7 million, consisting of non-cash stock compensation and restructuring costs. In closing, reiterating what Roger stated earlier, our strategy and our path forward are clear. We will continue to focus on improving our sales execution, optimizing our talent and consulting solutions to serve the needs of our clients, driving an efficient cost structure to strengthen our business, and deliver more value for our clients and shareholders. This concludes our prepared remarks, and we will now open the call for Q&A.

Q&A Session

Operator: Thank you. To ask a question, please press 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press 1-1 again. One moment for questions. Our first question comes from Mark Marcon with Robert W. Baird. You may proceed.

Mark Marcon: Hey. Good afternoon, everybody, and nice to talk to you, Roger, and welcome to the company. I am wondering, can you talk a little bit about or elaborate a little bit on the specific areas where you are seeing, you know, AI leading to some disintermediation with regards to finance and accounting roles? And I am specifically interested in terms of, you know, how widespread is it at this point? How do you expect it to continue with specific roles and how you are adjusting to that?

Roger Carlisle: Sure. Good to meet you. And I will let Bhadresh add. He has been here longer dealing with it than me. But I think we are seeing, for example, in operational accounting roles, things that, you know, or you can imagine through AI or automation are easiest to replicate and replace. And so that would be some of the roles that we see as most impacted by our clients’ efforts in that regard in the AI and automation world. In terms of how widespread that is, I mean, I think it is my sense. Again, I will ask Bhadresh to add as well. My sense would be that it is like most of the things we hear about AI, there is a lot of activity going on. Those things that are internal, like those processes, are where AI and automation are having the earliest impacts, but there is still a lot of spending.

There is still a lot of activity that is not being realized or benefit not been realized by clients. So I think, you know, it remains to be seen how pervasive and how rapidly that occurs, but we are seeing that. And, Bhadresh, add if you think there is something.

Bhadresh Patel: Thank you, Roger, and I think you are spot on. What we are seeing with clients and everyone is what I would say is the experimenting with AI. They are seeing what leverage they can get in their organization, especially in finance. As Roger said, the operational accounting roles, what I would call more repeatable roles, are getting replaced. However, what we are finding is that it is getting clients access to data quickly and analytics of the data quickly and informing their ability to get their business more efficient. But that is requiring more work, right, to go execute. So we are not seeing that big windfall that everyone was expecting that AI is going to replace so many jobs. It is accelerating the ability for our finance organization and client finance organizations to provide insights to their segments in terms of performance, predictability, you know, future trends and things like that so people can take action on it.

Our clients are also seeing that. I think, you know, a lot of them have continued to invest. Some feel like they are overinvesting and not realizing the benefits. So we feel like, you know, obviously, time will tell where this will land, but, you know, in the early stages into, you know, the early days of digital transformation where everyone is overspending until they normalize it. The second part of this is, you know, as clients are understanding how to leverage AI for their organization, it is just not that AI is replacing jobs. It is also changing processes and how companies operate. So it is becoming a transformation initiative that should drive, you know, our ability to provide more services requiring higher talented people that can understand what the impact of AI is, what AI can do, and then, you know, how that business operates and changes the way they work not only within the function but the interactions with other functions.

Roger Carlisle: Bhadresh, I just want to add one thing. I think the second part of your question was what are we doing about it, right? In comments that, you know, our talent teams and our on-demand teams are working with clients to understand, you know, what skills they need in that environment. As Bhadresh said, there are certain, you know, skills and projects that are cost because of that work, and there are certain skills that are needed because of the technology being a major driver of that. So as we mentioned in our script, you know, ERP skills, other kinds of technology skills. So we are looking to shift our skill base towards the things that clients most need in this environment.

Bhadresh Patel: Yeah. And, Roger, to add to that, I think, you know, what is becoming inherently clear is that, you know, the higher-level skills that we are staffing in the on-demand business, what clients are seeking is that they are also becoming AI experts or AI knowledgeable for that particular function or particular role. That is becoming critical. I think on the consulting side, what we are seeing is that clients are taking on these AI initiatives. Data authenticity and accuracy is becoming a bigger issue, which is leading to bigger data projects with data cleanup and data, you know, data tagging and things like that. So that is where a lot of focus is coming up in order for them to realize the full benefits of AI as they look at both, you know, end-to-end implementation of it.

Mark Marcon: Just to elaborate a little bit, can you just like, you have a fairly broad swath of the Fortune 500 that you serve. How widespread is what you are currently seeing? And then can you be a little bit more precise with regards to the types of roles? Are we talking about, you know, just accounts receivables and payables, data entry, or is, you know, historically, you have also supplied people that were, you know, providing some analytical capabilities as well. And so I am trying to understand, you know, to what extent are these lower-level roles rather than also impacting higher-level roles?

Bhadresh Patel: Yeah. I mean, the lower-level roles are definitely getting impacted, right? Because AI is able to do those analyses and things like that as you go, you leverage learning models to do that. In the higher-level roles, we do not see it as an impact. What we are seeing is a skill reconciliation is what I hope to say or skill evolution. You know? And as we are providing, for example, a controller or anything like that or in the senior financial analyst in these types of roles, they are looking for those that actually understand AI, know how to use AI, and know how to implement AI, to leverage it more. And that is, I think, the distinction we are seeing. In testing of reconciliation, receivables, all those types of things are, you know, evolution of RPA into, you know, AI.

But FP&A is becoming a big area where clients are starting to use, you know, AI to really start to look at how do they accelerate what was historically done in Excel spreadsheets to drive those types of analytics data. So that is where we are really seeing the difference.

Mark Marcon: Great. And then, Roger, you mentioned, you know, scaling up in consulting, and you mentioned incremental hiring there. Can you talk a little bit about the practice and the areas that you want to focus on within consulting?

Roger Carlisle: Yeah. I think it is the issues that still remain in high demand in corporates, corporate America, for example. So financial transformation, financial technologies, you know, technology generally, data analytics, risk, all those kinds of things. Tax that, you know, that get towards the ability to, in some cases, both for the class to do more with less, for the class to have a better view of their own organizations, all of those things, and drive value. You know? So all of those things, I think, are still in high demand. Clients may be a little more cautious in taking their time to assess what they are doing, but those are still in high demand services. And so we are looking to add our capabilities in those regard. Those areas.

Mark Marcon: Right. And then, Jen, just a clarification. With regards to the SG&A, you mentioned $40 million to $42 million, and then you mentioned $6 million to $7 million in terms of stock comp and restructuring. Is the $40 million to $42 million inclusive or exclusive of that $6 to $7 million in stock comp and restructuring?

Jennifer Ryu: Yeah. The $40 to $42 million is exclusive. So $6 to $7 million of non-cash and non-run rate restructuring cost on top of the $40 to $42. And the reason why it is comparable essentially to our third quarter SG&A is because while we are realizing the, you know, the benefits and the latest reduction in force we did in October, you know, from a seasonality standpoint, we have the payroll tax reset. And, also, you know, when we did the RIF in October, essentially, Q2 already kind of has almost a full quarter of benefit already in there. So but to answer your question, the $6 to $7 million of non-run rate is in addition to, not a part of, $40 to $42.

Mark Marcon: And then how much of an impact was the higher healthcare cost? And are you doing anything in terms of plan design changes with regards to what you offer to your employees to ameliorate that?

Jennifer Ryu: Yeah. The healthcare, this quarter is about a million plus impact compared to Q2, so it is significant. It impacted both our and A and probably lesser to, you know, impact on SG&A, but a lot of impact on gross margin. Yes. We do, you know, we do take an annual assessment of our plan design. We also kind of look at, you know, the cost ratio sharing between employer and employees. I would say that this quarter, this is an anomaly. You know, we got a lot of unfavorable claims experience in October specifically. So I do not expect that this or at least I would think that this is an anomaly. So I think that this should normalize. You know? Again, we do not have control over our claims experience. But we do take a pretty deep look each on an annual basis on our plan design.

Mark Marcon: Okay. Great. And then, Roger, I did not want to focus on the micro questions initially, but I would love to come back to just kind of the broader strategic framework. It sounded like you are basically going to be looking at things over the next twelve months. I am wondering if you can just talk a little bit about, you know, what you are going to really focus on, you know, and what your vision is, and it is probably going to end up changing as you learn more about the company. But what your vision is for, you know, what investors should expect, you know, twelve to twenty-four months from now?

Roger Carlisle: Well, I think I am not sure the strategy itself changes at a high level. I mean, we are going to be focused on our on-demand services and our consulting services, and those, you know, that is the two biggest things we do. And it is where we can drive a lot of value for our clients. So I think it is why we said, you know, the three focal points for our strategy in the near term, you know, twelve months or longer if it takes, is right. Get the cost structure aligned with our revenue, so that we are profitable on that basis. You know, for lack of a better word, fix our on-demand. What I mean by that is we have talked about, which is be sure we are getting in front of our clients with our sales team and really understanding what the client needs.

And then working with our talent team to be sure that we are, you know, sourcing and have that kind of talent to offer them. So we can bring that kind of value to clients. And do that in a focused, consistent manner. And then thirdly, grow the consulting segment that we can deliver those services. We can do that now. But we are not particularly scaled in those capabilities that we talked about earlier. So we want to add those, and I think we can grow. I think we have a real right to win in this space because of our ability to deliver in those three different modes that we spoke about earlier. And to do so at a price point that creates, I think, a better overall value than some of the other competitors in the marketplace. But all of that requires that we are focused in what we do and that we have the right talent in place to do it.

And so there is some work in that. And that is really, for me, that is the main thing. Those eyes we just spoke about are the main thing we are focused on over the next twelve months. I cannot tell you when I think exactly we will see the results of that. I would like to think we will start seeing, you know, it be three quarters of nothing and then all in one quarter. So I would like to think you will start to see some incremental improvement as quarters go on, but I do not think that is going to be in the next quarter. I think there is a lot of work that we have to do.

Mark Marcon: I appreciate it. Thank you.

Roger Carlisle: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. And as a reminder, to ask a question, please press 1-1. Our next question comes from Kartik Mehta with Northcoast Research. You may proceed.

Kartik Mehta: Hey. Good evening, Roger and Jen. Roger, I know you started talking about AI, and I am wondering, is that causing any of your clients to maybe take a step back as they try to figure out how they want to implement AI, roles they might want? Is that causing any delays from a decision standpoint?

Roger Carlisle: Yeah. I do not know if that itself is causing any decision delay. I think there are things that happen in the market where there is some level of uncertainty that would contribute to decision delays by clients. I think in the case of AI and automation, you know, clients, first of all, I think by and large, like, you read in a number of places, resources, I think there is more interest and effort to implement if there is more impact and value yet for many clients. So I think it is fits and starts. Right? Like, if you start the investment, you might have told, you know, whoever was authorizing that investment that we are not going to need quite so much, you know, human capital to do these processes, so you do not hire as much.

Then later you find out you do need it, so there can be some sort of starts and stops, but I think it is really more about what roles will AI sort of successfully make less necessary. And then as Bhadresh said earlier, what roles will AI enhance the capability of and actually make those roles more efficient or successful in what they do. So there is some learning, I think, going with clients, but I do not know that that is particularly contributing to decision delay. I know Bhadresh, you have a view on that.

Bhadresh Patel: Yeah. The only thing I would add, Roger, is that, you know, what clients are getting bombarded with is spot technologies for a particular process or a spot process that AI can automate. And it is conflicting potentially with their enterprise applications. And those vendors are also SaaS-based products, which are saying they have AI in their products. And so no one is really matured full AI into all of their products. Right? So the clients are wrestling with, does my ERP system have AI now, and can I leverage it, or do I need a spot technology to fill a gap and then integrate that with my ERP technology to do that? So we are seeing that type of confusion right now. Right? We are finding some clients that are very forward-thinking, willing to experiment, and go aggressive, and, you know, understand that they may have to undo some things, and we always have laggard clients that are asking a lot of questions and kind of dip their toes in but are hesitant to do it.

So we are seeing all sorts of spectrums around this. I do not think we are seeing delayed decisions, right, in purchasing, but what clients are inquiring more about is what can we do with AI with what we have and what can we do with AI, what we do not have. And that is the bigger debate with clients, and it is a slowdown in decision-making.

Kartik Mehta: And, Jen, just on the gross margins, I know you talked about the healthcare costs obviously impacting both gross margin, SG&A, and then there is the extra holiday. You know, if you try to take those out and normalize gross margin, where do you think gross margins would have been for this quarter? For the quarter you reported, I apologize.

Jennifer Ryu: Yeah. This quarter in Q2, the impact of healthcare is almost 100 basis points. So without the additional sort of the abnormal healthcare cost, we probably would have reached 38%. And then Q3, typically, that is our seasonality, right? Because we have a lot of holidays in there. So there is definitely, you know, seasonality, healthcare, a lot of noise. But if you look at our pay bill ratio, it has steadily improved over the, you know, the last probably last full, you know, three, four, probably plus quarters. You know? And all and, of course, Kartik, I mean, the impact of all of these indirect costs on gross margin also has to do with our revenue level too and that leverage. So, you know, I think the main thing that we, you know, we really focus on is things that we can control, which is the average bill rate and continue to, you know, to improve that.

And also then on the consulting side, to improve our utilization, which, you know, which I think we have made pretty good progress in the last couple of quarters.

Kartik Mehta: Perfect. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Operator: Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Roger Carlisle for any closing remarks.

Roger Carlisle: Thank you, operator, and thanks, everyone, for joining our call today. As I said earlier, we appreciate your interest in RGP, and as I mentioned, I look forward to speaking with many of you in the coming months. Do not hesitate to reach out with any additional questions, and I hope everyone has a happy New Year. Thank you again.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes the conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.