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spk01: Welcome to the Hackett Group Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Your lines have been placed in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session. Please be advised, the conference is being recorded. Hosting tonight's call are Mr. Ted Fernandez, Chairman and CEO, and Mr. Rob Ramirez, Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Ramirez, you may begin.
spk02: Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss the Hackett Group's fourth quarter results. Speaking on the call today and here to answer your questions are Ted Fernandez, chairman and CEO of the Hackett Group, and myself, Robert Ramirez, CFO. A press announcement was released over the wires at 4.05 p.m. Eastern Time. For a copy of the release, please visit our website at www.thehackettgroup.com. We will also place any additional financial or statistical data discussed on this call that is not contained in the body of the release on the investor relations page of our website. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that in the following comments and in the question and answer session, we will be making comments about expected future results, which may be forward-looking statements for the purposes of the federal securities laws. These statements relate to our current expectations, estimates, and projections and are not a guarantee of future performance. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that are difficult to predict and which may not be accurate, especially in light of COVID-19. Actual results may vary. These forward-looking statements should be considered only in conjunction with the detailed information, particularly the risk factors contained in our SEC filings. At this point, I would like to turn it over to Ted.
spk03: Thank you, Rob, and welcome, everyone, to our fourth quarter earnings call. As we normally do, I will open the call with some overview comments on the quarter. I will then turn it back over to Rob to comment on detailed operating results, cash flow, as well as to comment on outlook. We will then review our market and strategy-related comments, after which we will open it up to Q&A. When we started 2020, We were aggressively ramping headcount in anticipation of increased demand, only to be disrupted by the COVID pandemic. Although the disruption was significant and swift, we have experienced increased client engagement since Q3 of 2020. Consistent with our pre-COVID expectation, we are experiencing strong demand for our services. It is clearly evident that organizations have recognized the need to embrace digital transformation as a requirement to remain competitive, and the rate of digital innovation and related change is clearly unprecedented. Before I move to our quarterly results, let me start by congratulating our associates for their outstanding 2021 performance. Our revenues were up 18%, but more impressive was our record pro forma EPS of $1.31, which exceeded our prior year results by 90%, and our 2019 pre-COVID results by 31%. Given the circumstances, I wanted to acknowledge their performance at the onset of our call. Moving on to our quarterly results, this afternoon we reported net revenues of 69.8 million and pro forma earnings per share of 33 cents, both above our quarterly guidance and up strongly on a year-over-year basis. All our groups experienced strong demand and contributed to our results. U.S. results were up 18% driven by the strong performance of both our SMBT and EEA groups nearly across all of our U.S. practices. Our SBT group was up sequentially for the sixth consecutive quarter with improving rates, utilization, and gross margins on a year-over-year basis. Additionally, our IP-based higher margin executive advisory offerings grew at a higher rate than our SMBT consulting services and are expected to continue to grow at a higher rate into 2022. Our EEA growth was driven by strong Oracle and OneStream growth. We also saw improved European performance which is expected to carry over into the first quarter of 2022 as well. Strong demand for our services along with increasing leverage of high-margin IP-based benchmarking, executive advisory, and IPaaS offerings, as well as the efficiencies from our virtual sales and delivery business model are expected to continue to contribute to our performance. This increased momentum should allow us to perform at the higher end of our long-term growth and profitability targets. Additionally, the investments we have made to fully digitize all of our IP and the development of our digital platforms, which include Quantum Leap, our state-of-the-art global benchmarking platform, and our proprietary Hackett Digital Transformation Platform, or DTP, are allowing us to highly differentiate and expand our offerings and are important drivers of our long-term growth. These platforms are allowing us to develop new relationships and invest in rapidly growing cloud workflow automation and process mining technology providers across all areas of the enterprise. We believe these new and potential relationships are key to our digital transformation strategy and are important components of our growth strategy. It is worth noting that our reported results were achieved without any additional IPaaS relationships in the quarter, which we believe should benefit our future results. On the balance sheet side, our ability to generate strong cash flow from operations has allowed us to increase our dividend in our buyback program. We also plan to expand our current credit facility to fund acquisitions we identified and to buy back stock while continuing to invest in our business. With that said, let me ask Rob to provide details on our operating results, cash flows, as well as outlook. I will make additional comments on strategy and market condition following Rob's comments.
spk02: Rob? Thank you, Ted. As I typically do, I'll cover the following topics during this portion of the call. An overview of our 2021 fourth quarter results, along with an overview of related key operating statistics, an overview of our cash flow activities during the quarter, and I will then conclude with a discussion on our financial outlook for the first quarter of 2022. For purposes of this call, I will comment separately regarding the financial results of our Strategy and Business Transformation Group, or SMBT, our EPM, ERP, and Analytics Solutions Group, or EEA, our international group, and the total company. Our SMBT group includes the results of our North America IP as a Service offerings, our executive IT programs and benchmarking services, and our business transformation practices. Our EEA Solutions Group includes the results of our North American Oracle, SFP Solutions, and OneStream practices. Our International Group includes the results of our SMBC and our EEA resources that are based primarily in Europe. In addition, please note that all references to net revenues represent revenues excluding reimbursable expenses. Reimbursable expenses are primarily project travel-related expenses passed through to our clients that have no associated impact to our margin of profitability. Given the limited amount of business travel resulting from the pandemic, we encourage investors to continue to focus on net revenues to assess revenue growth and margin trends. During our call today, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide useful information to investors. We included reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures in our press release filed earlier today. Additionally, my comments today are all based on results from continuing operations. Before I move to our fourth quarter results, I would like to discuss a few highlights regarding our annual performance for fiscal 2021. Annual net revenues from continuing operations totaled $277.6 million, an increase of 18% over the prior fiscal year. Annual pro forma earnings per diluted share were $1.31, an increase of 90% over the prior fiscal year, and an increase of 31% when compared to the pre-COVID 2019 fiscal year. Pro forma EBITDA for the fiscal year was $61 million, an increase of 88% over prior year and represented 22% of net revenues for fiscal 2021. For the fourth quarter of 2021, our net revenues increased to $69.8 million, up 18% when compared to the prior year, which is above the high end of our revenue guidance range. as we continue to see strong demand for our services throughout the quarter. This is also up 9.5% when compared to the pre-COVID fourth quarter of 2019. The Q4 2021 reimbursable expense ratio on net revenues was 0.7% as compared to 0.1% when compared to the prior year. Reimbursable expenses have been significantly reduced in 2020 and 2021, due to our transition to a remote service delivery model. Our US operations, which represents 91% of our total company net revenues in the fourth quarter, were also up 18% when compared to the fourth quarter of the prior year. This is also up 12% when compared to the pre-COVID fourth quarter of 2019. Net revenues for our SMBT group were $28.4 million, an increase of 22% when compared to the same period in the prior year, reflecting the continued demand for our enterprise digital transformation initiatives. Net revenues for our EEA Solutions group were $34.8 million, an increase of 16% when compared to the fourth quarter of the prior year. The year-over-year increase was driven by the growth in our Oracle and OneStream implementation service offerings. The fourth quarter also had higher than expected SAP software sales. Net revenues for our international group were 6.6 million, an increase of 14% on a year-over-year basis. This momentum, as Ted mentioned, is expected to continue until the first quarter of 2022. Total company international net revenues accounted for 9% of total company net revenues as compared to 10% in the fourth quarter of the prior year. Our recurring revenues, which include our executive advisory, IP as a service, multi-year benchmarks, and AMS groups accounted for approximately 21% of our total company net revenues and approximately 28% of our total company practice contribution of the quarter. Total company pro forma cost of sales, which exclude reimbursable expenses, totaled 40.8 million, or 58.5% of net revenues in the fourth quarter of 2021, as compared to $36.8 million or 62.1% of net revenues in the previous year. Total company consultant headcount was 1,072 at the end of the fourth quarter as compared to total company consultant headcount of 1,049 in the previous quarter and 928 at the end of the fourth quarter of 2020. The year-over-year increase was primarily a result of higher activities and increased utilization of subcontractors resulting from higher demand. Total company pro forma gross margin on net revenues was 41.5% in the fourth quarter of 2021, up when compared to the prior year of 37.9%. S&VT gross margins on net revenues were 51.4% in the fourth quarter of 2021, up as compared to 44.8% in the fourth quarter of the prior year. The mortgage increase is primarily due to increased revenues resulting from higher rates, higher utilization, and revenue mix from our higher margin IP service offerings, partially offset by increased headcount and incentive compensation accruals commensurate with improving demand. EEA gross margins on net revenues were 32.5% in the fourth quarter of 2021, up as compared to 31.7% in the fourth quarter of the prior year. The margin increases primarily due to increased revenues, partially offset by the incremental use of subcontractors, and increased headcount commensurate with improving demand. International gross margins on net revenues were 46.2%, up as compared to the prior year of 42.7%, primarily due to increased revenues. Performa SG&A was $14.4 million, or 20.6% of net revenues in the fourth quarter of 2021 as compared to 12.5 million or 21.2% of net revenues in the prior year. The year-over-year absolute dollar increases primarily due to increase in set of compensation accruals associated with increased company performance. Pro forma EBITDA was 15.4 million or 22% of net revenues in the fourth quarter of 2021 as compared to 10.8 million or 18.3% on net revenues in the previous year, primarily resulting from increasing revenues. Total company pro forma net income for the fourth quarter of 2021 totaled 10.9 million or 33 cents per diluted share, which represents a year-over-year increase of 43% in pro forma diluted earnings per share and is above the high end of our earnings guidance range. This compares to pro forma net income of $7.4 million or $0.23 per diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2020. Performant diluted earnings per share in the fourth quarter of 2021 is up 38% when compared to the pre-COVID fourth quarter of 2019. GAAP diluted earnings per share were $0.50 for the fourth quarter of 2021 as compared to GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.03 in the same period in the prior year. GAAP results for the fourth quarter of 2021 included a $7.7 million, or $0.23 per diluted share, tax benefit related to the exercise of outstanding share appreciation rates. GAAP results for the fourth quarter of 2020 included a $5.5 million, or $0.12 per diluted share, restructuring and asset impairment charge primarily related to the reduction in the company's global office space requirements resulting from the emerging work-from-home delivery model. The company's cash balances were 45.8 million at the end of the fourth quarter, as compared to 52.9 million at the end of the previous quarter. Net cash provided by operating activities in the quarter was 19.9 million, primarily driven by net income adjusted for non-cash activity, increases in accounts payable and accrued expenses and contract liabilities, partially offset by decreases in income taxes payable and increases in accounts receivable. Our DSO, or day of sales, outstanding at the end of the quarter was 66 days as compared to 63 days at the end of the previous quarter. The company's $45 million credit facility remained unused during the fourth quarter of 2021. During the quarter, we repurchased 1 million shares of the company stock for an average of $19.83 per share at a total cost of approximately 20 million, primarily driven by the net settlement of tax obligations associated with the exercise of stock appreciation rights that we discussed last quarter. Our remaining stock repurchase authorization at the end of the quarter was 11.2 million. In November 2021, the board declared a quarterly dividend of 10 cents per share, which was paid in December 2021, making this the second dividend payment made in the fourth quarter. At its most recent meeting, the company's board of directors authorized a 10% increase in its annual dividend from 40 cents to 44 cents per share to be paid quarterly and declared the first quarterly dividend of 11 cents per share for shareholders of record on March 25th to be paid on April the 8th, 2022. Before I move to guides for the first quarter of 2022, I would like to remind everyone of the seasonality of our business relative to costs as we move sequentially from Q4 to Q1. Specifically, consistent with our first quarter guidance provided in previous years, our first quarter guidance for 2022 will reflect the sequential increase in U.S. payroll-related taxes and the sequential buildup of our vacation accruals. As Ted mentioned in his comments, demand continues to be strong. The company estimates total net revenue for the first quarter of 2022 to be in the range of $70 to $72 million. We expect year-over-year total revenues to be up 10%, 13%, with increases across all three groups. We estimate pro forma diluted earnings per share in the first quarter of 2022 to be in the range of 31 to 33 cents. At the midpoint, this would represent an increase of 19% over the first quarter of the prior year. We expect pro forma gross margin on net revenues to be approximately 38 to 39%. We expect pro forma SG&A and interest expense for the first quarter to be approximately 13.8 million. We expect first quarter pro forma EBITDA on net revenues to be in the range of approximately 20% to 21%. We expect cash balances, excluding the impact of share buyback activity, to be tempered due to the payment of 2021 performance-related bonuses and the payment of employee income tax withholdings triggered by net vesting of restricted shares. At this point, I would like to turn it back over to Ted to review our market outlook and strategic priorities for the coming months. Thank you, Bob.
spk03: As we look forward, let me share our thoughts on the near and long-term demand environment and on the growth opportunity it offers our organization. As I have mentioned, although the pandemic created unprecedented demand disruption, it also created heightened awareness that accelerated the demand for digital transformation initiatives. This means that digital innovation in enterprise cloud applications, analytics, and infrastructure, workflow automation, and process mining are dramatically influencing the way businesses compete and deliver their services. Digital transformation is redefining all activities at an accelerated pace, forcing organizations to fundamentally change and adopt these new capabilities in order to remain competitive. The strong digital transformation demand that I have mentioned is also resulting in increased competition for experienced talent, unlike we have seen in a very long time. We believe that the emerging service delivery model should help us address the short-term recruiting and retention concerns as we hope to be able to attract associates from a broader pool of global candidates. The emerging service delivery model I'm mentioning is our ability to deliver our service virtually the way we have for the last couple of years. We are also hopeful that we are now finally on a path to our next normal. which results in a highly engaged client base with a sales and delivery model which provides our clients and our associates with greater personal flexibility to perform their defined responsibility. This will allow us to attract and retain talent that we struggled to retain many times because of the demanding travel requirements of our industry. We believe this is changing. In order to increase our revenues across all of our IP-led offerings, We will continue to invest in our IP platforms and increase our sales and marketing resources dedicated to this area. This will include our IPS service offerings to partners that desire to license our IP and brand permission to bolster their business case development and value selling and delivery efforts. As we've said, we have over 10 such opportunities with formal proposals, pilots launching, and or contract negotiations. We believe these opportunities should further benefit our 2022 results. We also expect to leverage our brand IP and platforms to launch a series of new vendor intelligence programs that will help assess and highlight the unique capabilities of technology and service providers across selected categories. This is another key initiative that we believe has great potential to add high margin recurring revenue over the next few years. Strategically, our focus will remain the same, which is to continue to build our brand with our new offerings and capabilities focused on digital transformation around our fully digitized and unmatched IP. This should allow us to serve our clients strategically, increasingly remotely, and whenever possible, continuously. Specifically, we will continue to redefine our global benchmarking leadership through enhancements in Quantum Leap, our digital benchmark software as a service solution. This platform allows us to deliver more information with significantly less client effort. It also allows our clients to leverage our IP to track the transformation initiatives over the life of their respective efforts. We believe there is no comparable platform in the market. We also know that it is a critical component of our IPaaS offerings. We will also continue to enhance our digital transformation platforms to further differentiate our unique IP and related solution design capabilities. DTP allowed us to fully digitize our IP and align proven software configuration and organization solutions to help our clients drive transformational change. DTP is a core asset to our benchmarking, executive advisory, IPaaS, digital transformation, and cloud application implementation offerings. We are now seeing some of the targets that we've been discussing on the IPaaS side consider some of the solutioning capabilities to be a unique element of some of the relationships we're trying to define. As I mentioned on our last few calls, we have added a 20-minute demo to our investor relations page of our website so that investors can become more familiar with the capabilities of our two platforms. Lastly, even though we believe that we have the client base and the offerings to grow our business, we continue to look for acquisitions and alliances that strategically leverage our IP and at scope, scale, or capability, which can accelerate our growth. As always, let me close by congratulating our associates on our outstanding year and by thanking them for their tireless efforts and always urge them to stay highly focused on our clients, our people, especially in light of any short-term challenges we may encounter. Those conclude my comments. Let me turn it over to the operator and let us move on to the Q&A section of our call.
spk01: Thank you, sir. Our first question comes from George Sutton with Craig Hallam Capital Group. Yes, sir, your line is open.
spk00: Hey, guys. This is James on for George. Great quarter. So every day, obviously, we're seeing a lot of headlines, labor shortages, supply chain issues, inflation, just a bunch of challenges that businesses are now facing. And I would just be kind of curious to hear sort of what some of the top challenges newer existing clients are coming to you to help them solve, because I think you guys are sort of in a unique position to help within the current environment.
spk03: Well, as you can imagine, supply chain issues, retention, higher wages, all place pressure on our clients' operating performance. So, as we always say, the way you address those performance issues, we've always said we believe 75% of that answer comes from the deployment of technology, workflow automation, of which we're seeing an unprecedented pace of such a technology being introduced into the marketplace. The other remaining piece is for the clients to properly consider if they're properly organized in order to take full advantage of the technology that they decide to implement. Our job is to help clients understand what's myth, what's being oversold, in what is technology and organizational changes which can be considered and implemented to help our clients remain competitive. We think we do that incredibly well. So these kinds of pressures with this kind of technology innovation just creates a very strong demand environment for us. But those are the primary ways, James, that we do that. They come in a lot of different tactical type requests, but it's productivity pressures that are then addressed by digitizing your business, leveraging new technology, and understanding how to organize to make sure you've taken advantage of those investments.
spk00: Very helpful. And then very encouraging growth across the entire business, obviously compared to last year and 2019. I guess, could you just provide sort of some color on whether that growth is coming from existing clients, new clients, larger deal sizes or just some more color there would be helpful.
spk03: Well, you know, we first start by telling people that we work with clients a lot of different ways, but there's something we call the Hackett Network Effect, and these are the clients that utilize our benchmarking or advisory and consulting services. We touch a lot more corporate executives, believe it or not, through our benchmarking and advisory services than our implementation services because they are spread globally and and they just always seem to be a little broader across the enterprise. We believe that the number of people in that network is in excess of 80,000 that we track back over the last five to ten years. So a majority of our business comes from what we call that Hackett network. So if it's not from someone who's been directly exposed to Hackett through one of our offerings, It's normally someone who then picks up the phone or responds to somebody who asks a question on how you're addressing some of these issues. Tell me what the art of the possible is. What's the most efficient way to get a good, trusted, credible answer? And we believe that's the way then we attract new clients. The last way we attract clients, as you know, we put out research that talks about the performance improvements that we're seeing around our global client base, and we've come out with research that defines what we call digital world class. And that research has picked up across all types of different mediums throughout the year. We will be mentioned in any single year, we believe, in excess of 365 times. So we think that when we are continuously putting that information out and it's being picked up by all sorts of different, both business, technology, economic mediums around the world, that that allows us to also be able to promote our business pretty efficiently. So a combination of all of the three, but the base is The big, big base are those that have been directly exposed to Hackett, have had a favorable experience, know that it's an efficient, highly collaborative way to work with someone, and they return to us.
spk00: Gotcha. And then just last one for me. Would you be able to quantify the contribution from the Oracle practice in one stream in the quarter?
spk03: I can't quantify it since we don't provide information at that level, but suffice to say that it grew very strongly, high level, probably consistent with the growth that we reported in the overall quarter. And then just to provide a little bit more color, as you know, our SAP business has just been on fire for, you know, even throughout the pandemic, but clearly since the middle of 2020, throughout that year, that business took a little bit of a breather this quarter, and so the performance in EA is primarily driven from the growth from Oracle and OneStream, so you know it's very substantial.
spk00: Thanks, guys. Congrats again. Thank you.
spk01: At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad and record your name at the prompt. Again, that is star 1 if you would like to ask the question. Our next question comes from Vincent Colicchio with Barrington Research. Your line is open, sir.
spk05: Yeah, Ted, did you increase your offshore mix in the quarter? And, you know, what does the labor dynamic look like now? I know India and South America, I think Uruguay are two offshore markets you're looking to expand in. What's the labor dynamic looking like? Are you able to easily get the right people in those markets?
spk03: The answer is if you go back to the beginning of 2020, approximately 25% of our consulting or billable resources were offshore. or near shore, but outside the US and Western Europe. That number is now approximately 40%. So the move over the last two years has been very significant. Bringing that resource on fold has allowed us to be very competitive in engagements that are a little bit more pricing sensitive. And it's also helped us in competing for and winning larger engagements across those businesses that are leveraging those offshore resources. So it's been a meaningful part of our strategy and clearly contributing to some of the success that we're reporting on today.
spk05: And are you able to pass through any of your cost increases through increased pricing? And also part of that, are you thinking about building inflation escalators in some of your contracts?
spk03: No, we've, over that same period that I just mentioned, we've put through two price increases and we believe we are realizing some portion of those increases. So it's been part of that improvement that you've seen since the middle of 2020 and clearly in 2021. So no, the marketplace understands that in order to get talented people is costing more, they realize it in their own if you want to call it environments. So we've had, let's put it, pricing has been favorable in light of those circumstances for us, so it's another one of the contributors to our performance.
spk05: And your longer-term financial targets, the revenue, I believe, is 5% to 10%, and if I remember correctly, the earnings is... 10 to 20 percent. You had mentioned that you should be able to achieve your financial targets in 22. Were you just referring to revenue or were you referring to EPS? And if you were to refer to EPS, do I have that number right on the high end?
spk03: Yeah, the comment, what I wanted to make sure people knew in light of what we've reported and the guidance we provided in Q1 is that the indications are that we we should be performing at the higher end of that. And if you, so if you drive that to the higher end of that five to 10, then you can go back and then take a look at the leverage that it drives into our business model. So then it would move the EPS targets to that upper side as well. Just as a word of, just a comment so that we don't forget, I recall that our overall results benefited in the second quarter from that large Moderna sale, which we reported that way so that people knew the with and without. But look, the growth we experienced in this quarter, what we're guiding, I mean, is a combination of all the things we're discussing today, strong demand, improved execution, more leverage of our IP in the services, in our IP-based services, For example, our executive advisory business, which, as you know, is a recurring part of our strategy and business transformation group. The annual contract value sales increases during the year. We're in excess of 20%. So we're just seeing favorable activity, and that's why we made that comment, Vince.
spk05: Thank you. Nice quarter, Ted. Thank you, Vince. Thank you, Vince.
spk01: Our next question comes from Jeff Martin with Roth Capital Market. Your line's open.
spk04: Hey, guys. This is Ray on for Jeff here today. Just had a couple questions. So it seems like client engagement has been a key trend this year, and you mentioned in the third quarter that it rose 7% over 2019, I believe it was. Can you talk a little bit to how that has trended and are there specific drivers beyond the broader trend of digital transformation that you've been experiencing?
spk03: First of all, you're correct on the 7%, and just to put some context on that trend when we go from third to fourth quarter, if you'll recall, when we provide guidance, we talk about the fact that given the holidays, primarily in the U.S., 91% of our revenues are in the U.S., between Thanksgiving and New Year's, that we lose, and I'll ask Rob to check me, approximately 9% of the available days in the quarter. Rob is double checking, so if that number's wrong, he'll stop me. But it's gonna be some number in the seven to 9% range. I think it's gonna be closer to nine, but he'll confirm it. So when you look at the sequential revenue that we experience with the loss of those available days, what it basically infers to us is that the the demand and trend that we were experiencing that you mentioned into the third quarter continued into the fourth quarter. And given our guidance into Q1, it looks like that momentum we're able to carry over into 2022. So, look, it's been favorable. So, client engagement, which we've talked about it as a way of describing the recovery of the client activity from mid- from the third quarter of 2020 through the end of 2021. We specifically have changed that commentary from, if you want to call it, recovery of client engagement to really just simply describe that as a favorable or strong demand environment since we believe we're now beyond recovery, even though, obviously, most of our clients and ourselves, we're not in offices But that virtual delivery model and client engagement remains very high. Does that answer your question, Ray?
spk04: Yeah, that definitely helped. Thank you. And actually, are there any strategic initiatives that could accelerate that trend going into 2022 and 2023?
spk03: Well, to us, the ones that – one, the one that we've been working very hard and we expect we expected to contribute in 22 has been the IPAS-related relationships, which, as I mentioned, we have many, I'll use the word percolating, but they're in all stages, so that's why we continue to speak to the fact that we expect those relationships to start materializing in 2022. The second one that I think it's important to note, which was, I think, rather new commentary, Our research advisory business has been focused on corporate or enterprise clients historically. And if you recall, we had a significant relationship with one of the large cloud infrastructure companies, which came in in the latter part of the year. And as a result of the feedback we got from that very significant client, which was they wanted our help with research and support with client-related initiatives. Their feedback was that they believe that our ability to provide research to support vendor-related initiatives to evaluate technology and competencies and take that to the marketplace is really very significant. So you will see us make a very significant, we are and have started to make an investment in hiring individuals and you'll see us launch a series of new programs in that vendor intelligence space throughout 2022, which we believe could be very significant as I mentioned in my comments. I would say those are two. A third one could be the fact that we continue to add some cloud implementation partners. I think you may have seen in our release the announcement of a relationship with Anaplan. That is new. We're also evaluating a couple others, some on the strategic enablement side, some on the implementation side. So just think about it. We've got two sides of our business. So we think all these activities are important growth drivers, and that's why I mentioned them on our script and have been mentioning them over the last few quarters. But the vendor intelligence ones, which I hired for the first time this time, is a new one and we believe has meaningful potential.
spk04: Great. Thank you. That's super helpful. Thank you. And then I did hear something mentioned in the call. Unfortunately, I got dropped from the call. I had to dial back in. But can you talk a little bit about the strategies that you're employing to both acquire and retain talent? Sure. And then also, with the current pricing environment, are you seeing opportunities to offset any wage inflation with the improved pricing?
spk03: Well, if you didn't hear me a little earlier, Ray, we did mention that pricing was favorable and that over the last 18 months we had put through a couple, and we think we're realizing some of those pricing increases. On the employee retention and ability to attract, Look, we are facing more competition for talent than we ever have. I said that in the comments. But I think it's equally important to understand that we had some headwinds that were structural pre-COVID, and those headwinds were significant. The primary reason that we had turnover or ability to retain people for a longer period of time were the travel requirements that were imposed by our business, where the majority of our people, or a large number, would get on an aircraft on a Monday and come back on a Thursday and work from home on a Friday. And that becomes pretty significant and in some cases becomes an issue as some of our individuals start a family or the family expands or who knows what responsibilities change at home. We think that we will come out of this post-COVID environment, this next normal, will not have nearly the same travel requirements that we experienced pre-COVID for a combination of reasons. One is that clients will not want to pay the reimbursable client expenses that come primarily when we deploy people on site. But I think also we've learned that we can have a very effective meeting virtually and I think the number of meetings or the number of people that attend a meeting will actually come through in a more efficient manner. What that means to our people is, one, they can utilize the time that they were spending getting on flights and making arrangements, getting to and from clients to serve clients. Same for those who may not have had travel but may have come to an office to do their work. Again, some of those benefits will accrue to them as well. We've tried to be very flexible with our people that we want to find the best and optimal way to serve clients as well as be responsive to their individual personal and family requirements. We think that provides significant opportunity for us to, one, attract globally, attract a talent pool and deploy it globally. And I mentioned the increase of our offshore and nearshore resources, how much that had increased over the last eight years. The combination of those things are favorable. We expect to fight for talent, but we think we provide an outstanding work environment with great flexibility, ability to work with great clients, and a great team of people. And we're not too big where you're lost, you're playing a meaningful role in a client, you know people know each other. And if they don't personally, they know they can reach me or some of the other leaders and hear back immediately virtually on any question that they have. We think all those things will accrue to us and that we will be able to deal with the talent demands both in terms of cost and as well as ability to provide a flexible and favorable work environment that allows to attract and obtain talent more favorably than it was pre-COVID. We hope we're correct because it's absolutely critical to our success, but so far so good.
spk04: Great, thank you. And then one more question if I can. IP as a service offering has seen pretty strong interest over the past 18 months. Are there any recent developments or maybe any anticipated developments that you can share with respect to the potential contribution from IP as a service?
spk03: Well, first I said on the call that in the increased results from this quarter and just in the recent quarter, remember we had the significant infrastructure, cloud infrastructure client that came in during the third quarter that impacted our third quarter, but we didn't have any new IPS service clients in the quarter. But when we look at the activity that we're having across those that we've been working with over the last year, or so, and those that are new, since we have new inquiries coming in, I'm going to say, you know, a couple per quarter. I was going to say one per month, but let's just say no. Let's say, you know, two per quarter. We believe that IPS service revenue contribution relationships will expand throughout 2022. Great.
spk04: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
spk03: Thank you, Ray.
spk01: There are no further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Fernandez.
spk03: Thank you, operator. Let me first again congratulate our associates on an outstanding 2021 and thank everyone for participating on our fourth quarter earnings call. We look forward to catching up with everyone again when we report the first quarter. Thank you and good night.
spk01: That concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at this time.
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