SecureWorks Corp. (NASDAQ:SCWX) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Matt Saltzman: Got it. And maybe if I could just ask a quick follow-up just around go-to-market orientation being more skewed towards partners now. Do you feel that maybe, things might actually not be as — I guess, maybe there aren’t as many headwinds in Q4 as you would usually expect, but maybe there’s just less visibility because you’re going through that partner channel?

Wendy Thomas: In terms of the pipeline?

Matt Saltzman: Yeah. Just in terms of customer spend intention since a lot of those engagements are happening at the partner level now. Perhaps, there is just lower visibility and things may not actually be that bad or kind of — I guess, to ask a better question, how do you think about assessing the demand environment when more of the go-to-market is going, via external sources?

Wendy Thomas: So, it’s a good question. And we have been cautious in terms of learning the win rates and cycle times with relatively new partnerships. So, there’s certainly a learning curve that we’re on there in terms of predictability. We do engage with those deals and have some amount of visibility into the pipeline from deal registration and such, but it is true. It is a different motion, and therefore our sort of range of outcomes on that can be a little more dispersed than it was when we were a pure direct model a couple of years ago.

Matt Saltzman: Got it. Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Tal Liani from Bank of America. Tal, your line is now open.

Unidentified Participant: Hi, team. You have Madeline on for Tal this morning. Just one quick one for me. I just want to go back to the budget flush commentary. If we look across cyber peers over the last year budget flush, the lack of the 4Q budget flush also happened last year. And some would argue to a bigger extent because it was definitely more unexpected last year. I feel like though, given the macro environment that we’ve been in over the last 12 months and potentially even more, budget flush was — the lack of budget flush was expected, right, we thought last year. So I guess I just want to understand why it’s new for just you guys this year, or why maybe the impact is greater for you this year versus peers who aren’t feeling the same. Thanks.

Alpana Wegner: Yes. Good morning, Madeline. This is Alpana. Thanks for the question. I would say that for us, it was more in our commentary is really around the change in the guide. Last year in Q4, we did see a good amount of budget flush come through. You can see sequentially when you look from Q3 to Q4 last year, we had a nice quarter from an ARR growth perspective. And really the commentary was just around when we set our guide last quarter, we had some expectations, not the same level as last year, but we did think we’d see some. And so, the revised view is really as we move through Q3 and as we’ve looked at the pipeline and the demand that we’re seeing, while there’s a lot of good activity and good discussions with prospects and we’re seeing those sales cycles in the demand holding. We didn’t see that natural increase, albeit at a lower level than last year that we were expecting when we had previously set our guide.

Unidentified Participant: Got it. Thank you.

Operator: We currently have no further questions. So I would like to hand the call back to Kevin Toomey for closing remarks. Kevin, please go ahead.

Kevin Toomey: Okay, thank you. That wraps the Q&A and today’s call. A replay of this webcast will be available on our Investor Relations page at secureworks.com along with our supplemental web deck with additional financial tables. Thanks again for joining us today.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.

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