Zuora, Inc. (NYSE:ZUO) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Todd McElhatton: So I don’t expect to see anywhere, I wanted to point that out that we’re seeing our retention levels, they’ve improved. They continue to improve year-over-year. So we don’t have the challenges that we had in retention when you went back a couple years ago during COVID. I think that’s a real in differentiation.

Andrew DeGasperi: Thanks for that. And then, if I may add a follow up to Adams question earlier on the 2024 outlook. I guess, number one, why did — why provide it now before the end of the probably was seasonally a stronger quarter? Was it a question of trying to provide a floor to people’s assumptions for next year. And then, secondly, if we could talk about the high-end of the guidance, the 14%. What does that assume relative to the bear case is kind of a continuation of current conditions or something better than that. And then in terms of the margin expansion comment is, if you get up above that low end of the range, could we see those margins be above the 6%?

Todd McElhatton: So thanks a lot, Andrew. So maybe let me take you through, talk a little bit about how we got to the low case really sat there and ran the different scenarios from a standpoint of what happens. If we continue with what we’re seeing in the second half of this year, not only that continued throughout the fall of next year, but it actually gets a little bit worse. On the high end, what we would see is that we continue to see the first half being a bit of a challenge, and things getting slightly improving as we move out through the second part of next year. I don’t want to get over my skis and get overly optimistic on what next year looks like. I’m not an economist, but we certainly have the quota carrying capacity in place that when things change, we’ll be able to move very quickly.

We talked about having a really tough decision to make on realigning what our workforce look like. We went ahead and we took those actions. And what we said is, at a minimum, we will deliver 6% non-GAAP operating profit next year. If it continues to be a tight year, and it doesn’t make sense to invest in top-line growth, I’ll put more dollars towards the bottom-line and you’re absolutely right. We can see the bottom-line get better. If we think we can get a good return and accelerate that growth to the 14% or higher, we’ll certainly direct those dollars there. But that time thinking about it at this time, and we felt like our business is relatively resilient. We certainly have good visibility with our SI Partners and what our pipeline looks like.

And the different scenarios we could run. We felt like, it would be a good day to give people a point of view on how we’re thinking about the business, and we will more completely update you when we do the call in 90 days.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Brent Thill with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Luv Sodha: Thank you, Tien, Todd and Robbie for taking my questions. This is Luv Sodha on for Brent Thill. Maybe you just want to start out with, again, going back to that dollar-based net retention, moderation that you’ve seen, I guess. Could you just remind us how much of that expansion is driven by volumes? And just give us a sense of the pricing mix?

Todd McElhatton: Yes, as we’ve talked about, Luv, over the last several quarters, I would say it’s relatively evenly based between three things. It’s making sure we continue to improve the absolute retention rate of our customers. The next is up sales of products and the third is volume. And so, it’s relatively balanced quarter-over-quarter, we were probably a little bit less on the volume this quarter as customers were a bit more cautious on what they were committing.

Tien Tzuo: Yes. From the full year basis do you remember, we continued have FX headwinds. So there’s going to be headwind baked into that number, when a non-U.S. dollar deal renews. At the base level, you’re taking a loss right there, right, that’s just the way the currencies work.

Luv Sodha: Got it. I wanted to ask one on, Todd, you mentioned that the top of the funnel is still pretty strong, I guess, what is driving the strength and I’m guessing the close rates are — have moderated quite a bit. So any color as to like, are these qualified leads or any color into, what drives the strength to the top of the funnel.

Todd McElhatton: So I’ll start maybe with that, and let Robbie finish it off. And anything that we’ve got in the funnel has actually been qualified. So when we talk about funnel, it’s not an opportunity that has not been qualified and accepted by our sales teams. But what we’re seeing being very strong is, we’ve talked about certain businesses that have an existential requirement for a subscription business. So we talked about what we’re seeing in manufacturing. We’ve talked about what we’ve seen in media. The other areas, we have several of our solutions, I think both collect and revenue, do a really good job of helping companies in times like this, improving their overall collection rates, automating their revenue recognition, being able to save time and money for companies. So those are things that I’ve seen that have certainly been helpful in driving the top of the pipeline, but maybe I’ll let Robbie, kind of finish that off for you.

Robert Traube: Yes. We continue to be the leader on a bidding perspective. And you see that we just saw the MGI reports as Tien mentioned, the IDC marketplace reports where we are a leader in those. And as of the tracks also the best-in-class and leader in the space and so on the natural list of people but they — the people will look at. I think the other points we talked is, with the growing maturity of our multi products around revenue and collect is giving us more places to go into to land. And then to be able to do what we’ve done very successfully, which is then expand across the entirety and not now just the auditor cache, but also the subscriber experience base.

Tien Tzuo: Yes. And I think, this is Tien. Maybe I’ll just cap it off. Maybe that’s what we’re trying to communicate is the interest level and the need for companies to move the subscriptions remains absolutely there. The question is, really, are some industries under pressure, and it’s going to take a little pause of where they move the projects. And are other industries like the media industry moving forward fast. I mean, the manufacturing industry, I just came back from Berlin, at Bosch world is connected world, it’s all about IoT. And I don’t sense a slowdown there, but a lot of these projects are more innovation projects to create new services, that that they’re monetizing.