Zscaler, Inc. (NASDAQ:ZS) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Andrew Nowinski: Great. Thank you. Congrats on a great quarter, particularly on the billings. I mean, it looks like you solidly exceeded that even if you pull out that $20 million deal upfront. So I wanted to ask about the data protection products that you call out. You spent a lot of time talking about it on the call, and based on the info on your slide deck, it looks like there’s a lot of components to that beyond just data protection. So maybe, could you just talk about some of the vendors that you’re competing against there? I think you said one customer, you replaced two of their — two different vendors. Maybe you can just expand on what you’re seeing there from a competitive perspective? And maybe how competitive is it relative to like the markets for ZIA and ZPA? Thanks.

Jay Chaudhry: Yeah. So data protection becomes a natural thing for us when traffic starts flowing through Zscaler. So, literally, it’s hard to have any other data protection vendor when Zscaler is actually sitting in the traffic path. So what are some of the pieces of success here? First of all, DLP, data loss prevention, which essentially is done on the traffic that’s in line. We are replacing the number one vendor, we’re replacing there is Symantec 12, which is widely deployed. So first, we deployed Symantec, Blue Coat boxes, and no, the DLP is the secondary piece. The third big area we’re replacing is some of the CASB vendors. CASB early on got sold as a point product as a module. For us, it’s a feature. So any customer who has pure play SaaS be deployed essentially gets kind of replaced by our data protection platform.

So those are two big areas. But in addition, now we are seeing some of the newer areas coming up. For example, our endpoint DLP, which we recently launched, is getting tremendous attraction out there, the email DLP module we added is wonderful as well. Through acquisition of Canonic, we have added the SaaS, the ecosystem, sorry, supply chain via data protection. So all this has made Zscaler the most comprehensive platform, and it’s sitting traffic line. That’s why we kind of called it out because the growth is great, over 60% year-over-year. And we are close to $0.25 billion in ARR.

Andrew Nowinski: That’s great. Thanks, Jay. Keep up the good work.

Jay Chaudhry: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. One moment please. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Essex of JP Morgan. Your line is open.

Brian Essex: Hi. Good afternoon, and thank you for taking the question and congrats on the results. Jay, I was wondering if you maybe or even Remo as well, give us a little bit more color in terms of the ramp deals that you saw this quarter. Is there a way to quantify what percentage of deals were ramp versus prior quarters and how does that typically, how do the dynamics of those deals work in terms of the amounts of commitments, the pricing, and the flexibility around ramping? And does it give you more flexibility? Or does it give you more visibility around what you see in the pipeline in terms of coverage over future periods? Thanks.

Remo Canessa: I mean, I’ll start and maybe Jay could contribute also. Ramp was a headwind about 1% for us. Four larger deals that we’re doing, as we talked about in the past, is that we use ramp with our customers to basically ramp into the full suite of products that we have. What we’re seeing is we’re seeing customers buy more of our platform upfront. We’re seeing also existing customers expanding their platform with ZIA, ZPA, ZDX and data protection. So when they’re buying the full suite of our products, basically, we use it as a vehicle to allow our customers to ramp into our products and we get that type of pricing. I would expect ramps just to kind of follow into fiscal ‘24. I’d expect the same level of ramps in fiscal 2024 at this point.

The ramps do give us better visibility into billings because basically they’ll start off with lower billings and then ramp up their billings in future periods. But, it is a vehicle that we use. It’s been very effective. And so we’ll continue to use it. And, Jay?

Jay Chaudhry: Yeah, if I may add. The bigger the platform we sell, the more likely you need to provide ramp because the more pieces to be done. Number two, there’s some of the tighter macro environment bigger deals scrutiny. Ramp did pick up in the past year or so as compared to two years ago. We factor that in as a part of doing business, and it’s not a bad thing. We just have to manage it right way.

Brian Essex: Great. Thank you very much.

Operator: Thank you. One moment please. Our next question comes from the line of Gray Powell of BTIG. Your line is open.

Gray Powell: Okay. Great. Yeah, Gray Powell from BTIG. Thanks for taking the question and, congrats on the good results. So, a couple of related questions on my side. Can you talk about the visibility you have on late stage pipeline today relative to this time last year? And I guess I’m just trying to get your confidence in billings. Does the higher percentage of brand deals today, does that help give you better visibility on the growth outlook?

Jay Chaudhry: Our visibility is good. So, as we talked about, we’ve had, a record pipeline and our execution also in Q4. So I would say, visibility for us is good and supports our guidance. Certainly the billings, with the ramps, give us also a good visibility too. So, our guidance, I feel, 24% to 26% is very good guidance, and takes into account our visibility and all factors. And also, if I may add, we have a record pipeline, and we’re seeing pretty good momentum on our business. We were in Vegas doing our sales kickoff a couple of weeks ago. The energy and excitement in the room could be felt. Actually, it was very good because our sales team have a lot of confidence. We talked about the record pipeline, the record deals out there. We talked about the new momentum the channel is adding to us. So we feel very good about our fiscal ‘24 business.