Capgemini Se Ord

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the CAP Gemini full year 2022 results webcast and conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message that lies in your hand is raised. To answer your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Ayman Azad, CEO. Sir, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for this full year 2022 results call. I'm joined today by Carol Ferrand, our CFO, and Olivier Sevilla, our COO. So we achieved a great performance in 2022. The results are either above or in line with our targets. With 16.6% constant currency growth and 15.3% organically, we delivered another record year. This comes after 15.1% in 2021, and this is largely ahead of market growth and our midterm CAGR of 7% to 9% constant currency. So we are clearly gaining market share, and we are well positioned to address the strategic needs of our clients. I'm also very proud of our team and would like to thank the 360,000 group talents who delivered this remarkable performance. Our bookings are robust, with growth of 16.8% at constant exchange rates, and this represents a book to build of 1.08%. The operating margin increased by 22% in value. At 13%, the operating margin rate is improving by 10 basis points year-on-year. This strong performance demonstrates the resilience of the group, considering inflation, talent scarcity, and the post-pandemic return of some operating costs. This results, of course, from our big shift towards more innovative and value-created offering. The normalized EPS increased by 25% year-on-year. Based on this performance, the board of directors is proposing a dividend of 3.25 euros per share, of course, to be approved at the annual general meeting. Finally, organic free cash flow at 1.85 billion is above the 1.7 billion as targeted for 2022. So we exit 2022 with a strong momentum, and in 2022, we demonstrated our agility, delivering a strong performance while investing in our people and portfolio. Now, when you look at the performance in 2022, it's strong across the board. We report solid double-digit growth across all regions, businesses, and almost every sector. All geographies report double-digit growth at constant exchange rates, the strongest being in Asia Pacific and Latin America at 31%, fueled by our acquisition, but also a strong underlying momentum. All group businesses delivered double-digit top-line progression, strategy and transformation, services reporting an impressive 28.2%, revenue growth confirming the group's strategic positioning, and our clients' continued appetite for digital transformation. And finally, on the sector side, growth was also broad-based. Of course, it's worth highlighting the 21% growth in manufacturing, where we are reaping the benefits of our leadership and investment in intelligent industries. In a more demanding economic environment, the Q4 growth as anticipated is lower than in previous quarter, but with constant currency growth rate ranging from 12% to 20% across region, and an exit rate is stronger than expected at 12.8% organic. Bookings grew at 11.4% as constant exchange rates in Q4, corresponding to a book-to-bill ratio of 1.16%. This strong sales dynamic also reflects the continued willingness of clients to invest in their technology-driven transformation. Now, this result, of course, illustrates the relevance of our strategy and market positioning. We have a clear plan. We are executing well, and it's paying off. This is outcomes of years of investment, but let's highlight a few items. First, it's about our journey to a fully centric client organization. We repositioned Capgemini as a strategic partner of CXOs, enabling us to shape transformational deals. It's also about the business and technology solution that match our client needs in this transition to a digital economy driven by digital and cloud. We deliver end-to-end industry-specific solutions from consulting to engineering through IT and digital. the latest being our investment in sustainability to address our client challenges in the transition to net-zero. On talent, we drove significant growth in the tight-skilled labor market thanks to our ability to attract, train, and upskill our people, and of course, providing them with an exciting growth path. We also play an increasing role in building the new talent for the digital economy. Finally, a word on our operation. Our delivery is recognized for its excellence and we strive to build an agile organization able to fully leverage our global footprint and continuously adapt to rapid changes in the environment. We are ultimately driven by one thing. It's creating substantial value for our clients. And the success goes beyond financial performance. We achieve significant progress as well during the year in terms of ESG, so some highlights. Regarding environmental sustainability, we were one of the first companies globally to have its net zero emission targets validated according to the new SBTI title standards published at the end of 2021. We are on the right trajectory. At the end of 2022, our carbon emissions fell by 46% per employee and 29% in absolute value against the 2019 baseline set by the SBTI. That's the result of many initiatives, of course. Let me highlight one. Thanks to an IoT-based architecture and data-driven approach, our energy command center has enabled a 29% reduction in energy consumption across our Indian campuses versus the 2019 baseline. It's an example that shows that digital transition and environmental transition go hand in hand. An increasing number of clients are interested by some of the solutions we implement. On the other pillars, we have some good progress as well. I highlighted a few minutes ago our capacity to invest in human capital development. With 51.4 hours per employee, we increased the average number of training hours by 12% in 2022, well above our commitment of annual increase of 5%. And regarding gender diversity, the proportion of women in the total workforce stood at 37.8 at the end of 2022. With two points improvement again this year, we are one of the fastest-moving companies in our industry. Progress is also visible on diversity among executive leaders, where we stand at 24.4%. This represents an eight-point increase compared to 2019, and we are aiming to reach 30% by 2025. So overall, let's now move and see a bit what's ahead of us. So as we enter 2023, on one side, the economic environment is obviously less supportive than in 2022, and we recognize that it might still evolve in the coming quarters. On the other side, the trajectory towards a more digital and sustainable economy cannot be reversed. So the world is transitioning to a digital economy. Digital and technology are reshaping businesses. Within and across industries, at lightning speed, the rules of the games are changing around how value is created and hence the business of our client, the way they innovate, the way they produce, the way they operate, and the way they engage with their customers. Also, sustainability is a challenge of our generation. The topic is at the top of all leaders' agenda. Being able to do business in a sustainable way is becoming more and more a question of survival for one's company. Now, these two transitions are intertwined. We are well positioned as a business and technology transformation partner of CXOs. We enable our clients to accelerate their transition towards a digital and sustainable world. This transition will result in a strong structural demand for years to come and hence a strong growth potential for the group. Now, of course, in the context of the economic environment for 2023, We target a revenue growth of 4% to 7% at constant currency, with 0.5 point scope impact at the bottom end and one point at the top end. An operating margin of 13% to 13.2%, so a 0 to 20 basis point improvement year on year, and an organic free cash flow around 1.8 billion euros. Thank you for your attention. I now leave the floor to Olivier Sevilla, our COO.

Thank you, Ayman, and good morning. everyone. First of all, like Ayman, I am very proud of what Capgemini teams achieved in 2022. Capgemini's 2022 results and our Q4 bookings and revenues have been excellent, despite the weakening global economic conditions. This illustrates once again our strength, the strength of our portfolio of authors, the strength of our partners' relationship, and the strength of our relationships with large clients in the global Fortune 500. I would like to highlight the traction that our offerings in customer-first and in intelligent industry created in 2022. This impacts in a visible manner many of our sectors, but I would like to call out Our growth in manufacturing in particular, where our intelligent industry offers, has today a very big and visible impact. In 2022, we enjoyed double-digit growth in almost all our sectors, illustrating our growing industry relevance. This success is also linked, as discussed before, to our focus on higher growth and selected large clients in each sector, for whom we deploy consistently our plans to become their business and technology strategic partner at CXO level. As anticipated, Q4 came a bit lower than the high-level growth enjoyed in the previous quarters. As previously discussed, it reflects a certain level of cautiousness of some of our clients regarding discretionary spend or transformation projects with longer ROI. However, It also came above our expectation, as we see that our clients are not slowing down their strategic digital transformation initiatives, which is our focused market and position. Looking a bit at bookings, Q4 was a record high for bookings. As in Q3, we experienced some slippage of deals at some clients, but as you can see from our results, it was not material. With close to 6.7 billions of bookings, the year-on-year constant currency growth stands at 11.4%, and the book-to-bill reaches a very solid 1.60%. This brings the full-year bookings growth to almost 17% on our book-to-bill, to a high of 1.08, which indicates a positive momentum as we enter 2023. Looking backwards a minute, those last eight quarters of sales and book-to-bill really illustrate both the relevance of our strategy and also our execution capabilities in transforming our go-to-market accordingly. Looking forward, our sales funnel remains strong, We see in particular that the demand for Intelligent Industry data and cloud remains high and that sustainability is really growing in importance. Let's talk a bit about emblematic wins over recent months. Q4 was again a strong quarter for emblematic and landmark wins that give a concrete illustration of our strategic journey. Our main wins are very well aligned with the various dimensions of our strategic framework, which proves, again, that the execution of our strategy is well underway. I would like to call out two examples to put those in context of our overall strategy. Starting with Becker-Hughes. Capgemini closed a strategic multi-year partnership with Becker-Hughes. The purpose is to enable Becker-Hughes oil and gas business accelerate their software products business that offers a set of specialized software products complementing their manufactured products and solutions. For this, Capgemini brings a combination of industry, software product engineering, and digital capabilities. Such a partnership is steered at CEO and chief digital officer level, a very good example of our intelligent industry value proposition. Another example is is Credit Agricole. We signed mid-2022 a very large multi-year partnership to support and accelerate their IT transformation. The partnership is built around the co-creation of three main assets. The platform and automation factory to increase efficiency of existing digital platforms while reinforcing security and resilience. The decarbonization platform. using multi-data sources to help their clients internally to track carbon consumption by services, by IT application, and reduce it. And the creation in several locations of centers of expertise supported by calcium and iron oil experts to develop skills and stimulate innovation. This industry landmark partnership will deliver tangible and measurable business outcomes and is still, again, at top executive level. So, thank you. I am over to Carla.

Thank you, Olivier, and good morning, everyone. I am pleased to share with you now the financial highlights of our 2022 results. Capgemini delivered another record performance in 2022, in spite of a very demanding baseline and a much more challenging context during the year. Group revenues reached €21,995,000,000 for the full year. This represents a reported growth of 21.1%. At constant rates, the growth reached 16.6% above the upper end of the 14 to 15 targeted range. Our operating margin amounting to €2,867,000,000 and up 10 basis points, to 13% of our group revenues. This is in line with the targeted range of 12.9% to 13.1%. After the operating expenses, financial and tax expenses, which I will further comment in a moment, the net profit for 2022 reached €1,547,000,000, up 34% year-on-year. The normalized EPS, as adjusted for transitional tax expenses, climbed to €11.52 at 25% year-on-year. Finally, we generated a strong organic free cash flow of €1,852,000, largely exceeding the €1.7 billion as targeted for 2022. Our quarterly revenue growth clearly reflects our strong traction throughout the year. Notably, despite a weakened macro, we posted another quarter of strong organic growth, plus 12.8% in Q4. As anticipated, this is lower than what we had recorded in Q3, but this Q4 clearly came in above our expectations. This brings the full-year organic growth to 15.3%. Taking into account a scope impact of 1.3 points for the full year, our growth at constant currency reached 16.6% in 2022. A fix remained a visible tailwind in Q4 with a positive impact of 3.5 points despite the strengthening of the euro during the last month of the year. This brings the cumulative impact from currency variations to 4.5 points for the full year. As a result, Capgemini's reported growth reached 17.5% in Q4 and 21.1% for the full year. With recent currency movements, ethics is now turning into a headwind. This impact should not be material in Q1, but could reach around minus 2 points for the full year 2023. Let's now look at our revenues by region. All group regions precede another year of double DJOs at constant exchange rates. And my previous comments on Q4, very dynamic and better than anticipated, is also pretty much applicable to each of our regions. Growth was fueled by continued tractions in almost all sectors, as already exposed by Olivier. more specifically for the full year at constant currency. Revenues in North America increased by 15%, supported notably by a robust momentum in financial services as well as in the TMT and manufacturing sectors. The UK and Ireland region reported another very strong year with revenues growth of 19.4%. The public sector remained buoyant in 2022, followed by the consumer goods and retail and energy and utility sectors. France reported revenue growth of 12.5%, mainly driven by strong dynamics in the manufacturing sectors, as well as in the consumer goods and retail sector to a lesser degree. The rest of Europe region grew 16.1%, manufacturing and consumer goods and retail sectors contributing the most to this performance. Finally, revenues in the Asia-Pacific and Latin America region increased sharply by 30.6%. The strong underlying organic momentum, most notably in the financial services and the manufacturing sectors, was supplemented by group acquisitions, which had been completed in the course of 2021. Continuing now are revenues by business lines. All group business lines also maintained a solid momentum in Q4 2022. Consequently, they all reported double-digit growth for the full year at constant exchange rates. This broad-based traction is driven by digital transformation projects that are progressively expanding across the value chain of our clients. Strategy and transformation, our consulting services and applications and technology services continue to benefit from a broad-based demand. They reported a record growth of 28.2% and 18% in 2022, respectively. Operations and engineering total revenue grew 13.4%, primarily driven by a strong demand for engineering services. in addition to a solid growth in infrastructure and cloud services. Moving now to the headcount evolution. Our total headcount reached almost 360,000 employees at the end of 2022, which represents a net addition of 35,000 employees year on year. In a talent market that remains tight throughout the year, This 11% increase demonstrates Capgemini's ability to attract skilled resources to fuel its growth. The offshore leverage is up by half point to 58.5% after the strong progression recorded last year, four points additions. Lastly, as anticipated, attrition cooled further down in the last three months of the year, quite visibly on a year-on-year basis. As a consequence, Under the last 12 months, the attrition is now up by only two points. Let's turn to the operating margin by regions for 2022. First of all, I'm pleased to report a strong improvement of our operating margin in France by 190 basis points year-on-year. In North America, our operating margin is virtually stable, down by 30 basis points year-on-year, but still well above a group average. The operating margin in UK and Ireland remains at a record level of 18%, similar to 2021, on the back of a favorable mix in this region. The rest of Europe region margin is down by 70 basis points to 11.6%. After the one-off item recording in Yinchuan, the operating margin was back up year-on-year in H2 as anticipated. Finally, the operating margin of the Latin America and Asia Pacific region stands at 10.6% versus 11.5% in 2021. Moving on to the analysis of our operating margin. Our gross margin improved by 10 basis points in 2022, while the increase in sales marketing was compensated by the operating leverage on G&A costs. Overall, This means that the evolution of our project means in favor of more innovating and value-creating offerings as more than half set, notably the two following items, not only the higher costs of growing and training talents, but also the returns of some costs, notably the travel costs across our P&R. Moving on to the next slide. Net financial expenses are visibly down to €129 million in 2022 versus €159 million in 2021, reflecting mainly the higher interest income. Conversely, interest income tax expenses increased from €526 million in 2021 to €710 million in 2022. This amount includes exceptional taxes expensive of 73 million euros compared to 36 million euros last year coming from the transitional impact of 27 tax reform in the U.S. Setting aside this item, the underlying effective tax rate stands at 28.1% versus 29.2% in 2021. Now a quick recap of our P&L from the operating margin to net income. The other operating income and expenses representing the net expense of 474 million euros down 27 million euros year-on-year. The mechanical increase of share-based compensation costs over years due to capgemini share price increase was more than offset by a substantial decrease in the restructuring and acquisition-related costs. As a consequence, the operating profit for 2022 climbs to 2,393,000,000 euros or 10.9% of group revenues, up by 80 basis points year on year. After financial expenses and taxes, the net profit amounts to 1,547,000,000 euros, up 34% compared to 21. It represents 7% of all revenues. This translates into a 32% increase of the reported basic EPS, which stands at 9 euros and 9 cents. Excluding the exceptional tax expenses previously discussed, the normalized EPS is at 25% to 11 euros and 52 cents. Finally, looking now at the evolution of our organic free cash flow and net debt. We managed to generate in 2022 an organic free cash flow of 1 billion euros 852 million euros, almost similar to 2021 record level, and well above the 1.7 billion euros targeting for the year. This is truly an outstanding achievement, considering that in 2022 we had a much higher working capital requirement to fund the 21% growth in huge port terms, and the liquidity environment was much tighter than in 2021. The net Cash outflows for acquisition amounted to €204 million, while we returned to shareholders more than €1.2 billion in dividends and buybacks. On the other hand, our 2022 employee share ownership plan led to a net share capital increase of €507 million. Overall, our net debt further decreased to reach €2.6 billion at the end of 2022, compared to €3.2 billion one year before. Amen. Back to you for closing remarks.

Thank you, Carol. So let me wrap up. So 2022, we delivered record financial performance that illustrates the relevance of our strategy and market positioning. We also made substantial progress towards the 11 objectives of our ESG policy. For 2023, the comparison basis is therefore more demanding. The economic environment is also obviously less supportive than in 2022. And we recognize it might still evolve in the coming quarter. Therefore, our growth outlook embeds at the bottom end at 4% constant currency, some potential further deterioration in the environment versus our scenario. And at the top end, 7% constant currency, a return to positive momentum in Q4. With this in mind, I'm confident about 2023 and what lies beyond. We close the year with a stronger momentum than anticipated and therefore enter 2023 on a solid footing. It's also about the secular trends, the trajectory towards a more digital and sustainable economy cannot reverse. And finally, I'm convinced that the group's transformation over the past few years enables us to be clearly recognized by our clients as a strategic business and technology partner. Therefore, we maintain an ambitious trajectory and continue our investment to further strengthen our position. Let's now open the Q&A, and to allow a maximum number of people in the queue to ask questions, may I kindly ask you to restrict yourself to one question and one single follow-up. Operator, could you please share the instructions?

Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. We will now take the first question. One moment, please. It comes from the line of Amit Hartsandani from Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning, all. Amit Hartsandani from Citi. I have a question. Thank you, Iman. I'll limit myself to one question. So if I could kindly ask my one question, which is around the free cash flow evolution in 2023. You've clearly delivered better than expected outcome for 2022. So if you could talk about the moving parts that allowed you to get to that number in 2022 in terms of liquidity elements, factoring, any other puts and takes, and then whether that has influence potentially the way you're thinking about 2023 in terms of working capital moves and other parts. Thank you.

Thank you for your questions. Indeed, as you mentioned, the 2022 amount is quite similar to the 2021 amount, but the makeup is very different. As you can see, we have an operating margin that is much higher in 2022 by €0.5 billion as a result of the strong growth as well as the increased margin expansion. So that's a positive element, but as expected and as we reported last year, we have a huge swing in working capital. As you recall, last year we had a positive one-off impact, positive impact of 529 million euros on our working cap, and this year it's minus 193 million. So the cumulative is a negative impact of 0.7 billion euros. And as anticipated as well, we have some one-off this year. We benefit from a lower cash tax rate at 20%, which leads to a stable tax cash out in 2022 compared to 2021. And the rest of the balance, the 0.2 balance, is offset primarily by elements like the other income and expenses, which are lower, and the net interest expenses, that is also lower. And it is indeed, as you mentioned, a tremendous result. It's above our expectations. As we discussed, you know, further in Q3 results, we anticipated that we had some tailwinds in 21, so that was disclosed and well-expected, was not anticipated earlier. is, of course, the 21% reported growth and the impact on the working capital, because that puts a pressure. And globally, in terms of volume, it's around 300 million volume impact. So it's a demanding growth environment. And also the change in liquidity, because, as you know, with higher interest rates come, you know, a different environment from our clients with... less desire to keep their cash on their balance sheet. So all in all, very strong performances. So what we have done for 2023 is indeed an objective that is a very strong conversion of free cash flow, one of the best in the industry, and free cash flow to net income over one time. So our free cash flow for 2023 is linked to the fact that we will continue to benefit from higher operating margin, but to a less positive impact on the one-off cash tax rate that we benefit in 2022, and some pressure on the working capital. So it's a demanding and very good objective. Noted, Karen.

Thank you.

Thank you. We will now take the next question. It comes from the line of Laurence Doré from Kepler Chevrolet. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Yes, thank you. Good morning all. One question as a follow-up. The main question is if you could share with us comments about the start, the first two months of 2023 And if you have areas of worries for the coming months, and in particular, I know you are not very big in digital marketing, but if you could give us some highlight on that. And my second question is regarding headcount. The fourth quarter, you had a shy increase in headcount. What do you expect for the months to come? And what's behind this relatively softness? in the first quarter. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Laurent. So I'm not going to guide for Q1. I think we have a good momentum coming from last year, but definitely our guidance shows the cautiousness we have around 2023, considering the economic environment and the economic outlook and the fact that at the end, things might still deteriorate compared to our scenario in the second half, right? That's really what I can tell you, but in digital marketing specifically, Laurent, I don't have anything really to say. We still had good growth on what we call customer service that embeds that part at the end of last year. We did not see something sensibly moving in that direction. I don't really have a prediction for the moment on that. on 2023, but again, it depends on which sector. For example, in the retail sector, which is a bit more impacted, there might be a bit more digital marketing, and that could have some impact on the digital marketing forecast, just to give you some highlight. And then regarding headcounts, as many people, we have slowed down, of course, the headcounts intake, and we are optimizing utilization. We have in front of us a much lower attrition, And, of course, lower growth expected for 2023. And with that, we are optimizing our operation, taking advantage of the lower attrition and also factoring the fact that we have, you know, lower growth in front of us. In terms of prediction, we're not going to do prediction regarding headcount growth. But, you know, to sustain our growth in 2023, we'll have to increase headcounts.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. We will now take the next question. It comes from the line of Frederic Boulan from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning. Thanks a lot for taking the question, Fred, at Bank of America. If we can come back a little bit on the comments you made around the assumptions you've taken in your revenue growth rate target for 23. If you can clarify a little bit your assumptions you've taken at the high and low end and how we should think about phasing considering kind of 12% exit rate. How do you see that shaping up through the year? In particular, is there any specific regional segment where you expect things to taper a bit more aggressively than others? Thank you very much.

Again, here, I mean, again, I think phasing is always, I mean, definitely if you look at the low end, it's further slowed down in, if you look at the low end of the guidance, it's further slowed down in H2, okay? And if you look on the other side at the high end of the guidance is momentum coming back in Q4, right? That gives you kind of the shape for the year, but of course we enter the year with a bit stronger footing coming out of Q4, right? And then you're around basically lines and zeros, et cetera. In zeros, I don't have many comments, to be frank, on that at this stage. I think on the line of business, we already highlighted, and you probably heard it as well from some of our peers, definitely there's one sector that has been under pressure. It's the tech sector. We are less exposed than some of our peers, but we are still exposed, of course, to that sector. Retail has also been slowing down. And in financial services, we start to see some consolidation on the other side. As you can see, sectors like manufacturing with auto, aero, life sciences, sectors like consumer packaged goods for us are still doing pretty well, and we expect the public sector to remain resilient. So you have a balancing view in terms of what we see happening currently in the market, but some of these things can change in the next couple of quarters depending on the economic environment.

Okay, thanks, Alan.

Thank you very much. Thank you. We will now take the next question. It comes from the line of Michael Pries from UBS. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Yes, good morning. Congratulations on the strong finish. I guess a little bit of a follow-up to Frederic's. I mean, Olivier, I think you talked about some slippage, but Eamonn, you said the quarter was better than expected and obviously the book to bill was very strong. Do you feel better about the outlook today than maybe if you'd been standing here three months ago? Has things improved, do you think? And then just in terms of the margin progression, obviously clear guidance for this year. I'm thinking about the 2025 ambition of 14%. It does require a ramp up. Do you have particular sort of line items that are going to drive that? Is it utilization? Is it what will get you to the 14%, thanks.

Yeah. So listen, on the Q4, yes, there is some slippage. And if you didn't sleep, we'd even have a bigger bookings number. But as you can see, even with some slippage, we still perform pretty well in terms of bookings. So it shows that traction in terms of our clients' willingness to spend continues to be there. Of course, the question is going to be, you know, the start of the year and basically clients' appetite. Are we going to see further slippage? Or are clients going to make decisions? And as everybody, clients are looking at the economic environment, the volatility from one day to the other, interest rates will stop increasing. No, they will continue increasing. And this is not helping, to be frank, in terms of client decisions. So that's what we have to live with for the moment. In terms of the margin, I'm quite comfortable because, you know, in a year like 2021, we did 90 pips. You know, last year we didn't do much. This year we're planning zero on 20 bits, but also you have the environment of this year. The environment of this year is that we have inflation, salary inflation. We have clients who are going to be a bit more conservative, although we continue to push for price increases. We'll also see probably some client consolidation, et cetera, which can put pressure right and left. in some areas, so we consider continuing to show some progress this year, and then the quality of our portfolio and the continued value creation and strategic position give us ample room over the next couple of years to be able to do the 80 bips that would be missing if we get to 13.2. So I'm still quite comfortable. because there's still some operating leverage, an environment which will become a bit more supportive as well, going in 2024 and 2025, and the continued evolution of our portfolio towards higher value, which basically drives a better market.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. We will now take the next question. It comes from the line of Sven Merckx from Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Maybe a first question on wage inflation. Could you quantify broadly how much of the seller increases you can pass on to your customers at the moment and how this impacts growth in the margin in 2023? And then the second question is related to the headcount of employees under 25 years old. which increased significantly in 2021. Can you speak about the development in 2022 and how this is impacting your utilization average pricing goals going forward? Thank you.

So listen, on the wage inflation, as always, we try to pass as much as possible to our client and we have to do that at the same time as we're looking at how to increase the value you know, of our offerings. So, you know, the two play in terms of helping to sustain and improve the margin. We have, of course, you know, wage inflation this year, which remains high because of the inflation that our employees and our talents basically are incurring across the world. And, of course, that's part of what we take into account in terms of, you know, fixing the salary increases. So there is still some pressure coming from there. There is still some pricing traction in the market. And between efficiencies we expect to do and continued evolution of our offering toward more high value added, we feel quite comfortable in terms of being able to sustain a good margin and increase it a bit. On the headcounts, it was expected with a shortage of... of labor in the market in the last couple of years that the pyramid will become a bit more junior. But this is welcome because for me, it's a way to put a lot more energy in our workforce and as people gain more experience in the next couple of years, we have a very high energy, very digital and buoyant workforce. So for me, it's positive. Again, of course, depending on the project, etc., you can think that some of it is linked to experience of people in terms of pricing, but the reality more and more is based on skills. So I can have somebody with two years or three years of experience having, from my perspective, higher valued skills than somebody who has 10 years of experience. What we look at more and more is the skills of people and what they're able to deliver versus just the number of years of experience. And I think this new more young workforce has potentially capacity to evolve much faster with the right skills to address some of the needs of our clients.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We will now take the next question. It comes from the line of Nicholas David from AutoBHF. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yes. Good morning, Ayman, Karen, and Olivier. And congrats also from my side for this strong finish. My questions are the following. The first one is regarding North America. The region showed a kind of a sequential contraction beyond the traditional seasonality. Is it linked to the slowdown we see at group level in the retail or the PFSI sectors and what you see for the region in early 2023? And my follow-up is regarding M&A. What is leading you to reach a lower M&A contribution in 22 and also expect a lower contribution to this reason as your midterm ambition? It's mainly due to market condition or maybe some cautiousness or execution issue from your side. Thank you.

Listen, on North America, you know, there's not much to say. I mean, going into 2023, what I would look at in North America is this is where we'll have the biggest tech exposure, right? And that's a bit under pressure, so that might put a bit of pressure on North America, but at this stage, I won't say something significant is visible on that front. So this is just trying to estimate the potential impact based on the sector exposure. On the M&A front, You know, M&A is something speculative. You know, I mean, whether we'll make deals or not make deals and the size of the deals, you know, depends. So we have done a number of last year that basically gave us a bit more than 1%. overall in terms of inorganic growth. This year, we see between 0.5% and 1%. It might go up to 2% depending as well on what we close during the year. So for me, it's not an objective to automatically do plenty of acquisitions every year. We have the capacity. We have some needs. We have to ensure that what we find matches our needs is also at a price where we consider we can create value. And if we find the right target, then we will trigger. But we have an active pipeline on which we continue to work that will continue to drive some of the M&A activity for this year. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now take the next question. It comes from the line of Stefan Slavinsky from BNP Paribas Exxon. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Great. Yeah, thank you and good morning. I'm on call. Olivier, congrats as well on a strong 2022. I guess my first question is just a follow-up on the margins and the outlook for 2023. You talked about some of the potential headwinds, I guess, you may have in terms of consolidation and customer discussions, just wondering what the tailwinds are there. Does the slowdown in hiring lower your trading costs and hiring costs and what other things can be tailwinds to the margin this year? And then my follow-up, my second question is more of a big picture one, just around the emergence of these large language models we've been seeing in the artificial intelligence space with Microsoft, with OpenAI, with their GitHub co-pilot offering, which kind of allows for the automation of code writing. Just wondering if you're using these technologies already, and as you look forward, do you see these technologies as an opportunity in terms of helping you lower costs, or is there a risk in terms of potentially creating deflationary pressures for you? Thank you. Carol, the margin?

On the margin side, so on 2020 basis points, increase is remarkable, as you mentioned, because the environment is underlined by higher inflation. And we have tailwind. I mean, the tailwind, the first tailwind that we have is is linked to the quality of our revenues. As you know, the mix and price of our revenue is very important, and all the more that we are increasing year after year, you know, the cutting-edge capacity in digital and in the playing field of customer service and intelligent industry where we are leaders. So it's the first one. And, of course, with respect to 2023, we have some – in the utilization rates as well. So all in all, we are confident in our capacity to meet the target.

Okay. On generative AI, as they are more broadly called, which includes some of the latest hypes that we hear, just know that we have been working on this for a number of years, so it's not something new for us. Just the fact that emerging more in the market from a technology perspective and especially that it's getting put as free use in a certain way for people to touch and feel the impact. I think this is what kind of creating a lot of the hype. We are looking at some of these. We are embedding some of these in terms of code generation. It's also creating opportunities for work we do with clients. But as I say, we have been working on generative AI already for a number of years. It is interesting, and again, as like with everything, like the metaverse, like with or what you hear, there's a difference between the hype we have at the beginning and the actual applicability in terms of having an impact. And some of what people talk about, yes, some of it will happen. It will take longer, have to be more careful, because you have to ensure some of the impact. You saw the backlash on Google on something very simple, what happened. So, you know, if you embed that in some of your critical processes, you'd better make sure that it's absolutely reliable. So there's a difference between what you can see appearing through some trial or experiences, and what we can really embed behind as being something reliable, 100% bulletproof, into processes or code generation, et cetera. And here, like everybody, we have people working on that. We have a point of view. We're progressing bit by bit. I do not think it will have the impact that people expect at the speed that people expect. I think, again, there's a bit of a hype that will come down on this.

Understood. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now take the next question. This comes from the line of Toby Oak from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Yeah, hi.

Thanks for taking the question. Just on the offshoring side, obviously ticked up a little bit there year over year in 2022 and has been sort of stable, you know, over the last sort of four to five years. Should we expect that offshoring rate to start to climb now sort of over the next few years? And are you seeing sort of any change in appetite from some of those continental European customers that have perhaps been less receptive to an offshoring model historically? Thank you.

Yeah, so listen, good question. First, just to put things in perspective, actually the offshoring rate has increased quite a bit. You have to look at it with the pre-Altron, when we acquired Altron, where the much lower offshoring rate, it went down, then it went up quite a bit after that, coming out of COVID. So actually it has been a strong progression over the last couple of years. Again, yes, there is more appetite from European clients, because notably the shortage of talent that we have seen appearing as even open appetite for clients in countries like Italy and Spain. We continue to do good progress in countries like France, bit by bit. It has been over many years, but every year it increases a bit. So, you know, we are getting there. As you know, I'm not upset by the offshoring leverage because you have two things happening on one side. We continue to move more work towards global delivery center, but we also automate more and more. We just had the discussion about generative AI and some of the automation we are bringing in the operation. So these two kind of play against each other. But the shortage of talent, even if we have a better market, I think over the coming quarter, the shortage of talent will continue to push towards global delivery center. Here we are more into the optimization phase, like everybody with the talent offshore, but it will restart probably in the coming quarters because of the need to be able to find talent to be able to support the delivery. Right, thank you.

Thank you. We will now take the next question. It comes from the line of Charles Brennan from Jefferies. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Great. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I'm going to go with two quick ones if I can. Firstly, can you just say a few words on the competitive environment? You're obviously outperforming at the moment, but some of your peers are starting to do less well. I'm starting to hear suggestions of people facing utilization problems, and I'm starting to hear some pricing pressure coming through in the market. Is that something that you're seeing at all? And then secondly, just on a small financial point, if I go to the cost breakdown at the back, it looks like your subcontracting costs are going up. Does that reflect the challenge of trying to get good people, or is that you trying to build some flexibility into the cost base ahead of a more uncertain economic environment? Thank you.

Okay, I'll ask Olivier to answer your question. I would say what we see, what I see, is that most of our clients, our clients, Capgemini's clients, are continuing to invest in their digital strategic initiatives. Some of them, it's a minority, are shifting towards market scaling, vendor consolidation. And there, I would like to make two comments on this one, because it's a First, it's far from being the core demand we seek. That's my first observation. So maybe some of our competitors have different client portfolios, which I cannot comment. The second point is, even for those of our clients who may go vendor consolidation, more cost takeouts of their IT budgets, most of the time we are in a good position to consolidate. So, I think the takeaway you should have is that our positioning at the clients we have remains mainly geared towards strategic digital transformation, which helps.

And maybe on the point of subcontractors, in fact, if you look at 2022, it decreases slightly as a percentage of revenues. And if you look at our headcount increase, the 11% increase is the testimony of our good capacity to attract talent at the right pace.

Actually, we have not overleveraged subcontractors. We have been able to continue to attract talent, actually, to be able to drive quite a bit of the growth, Charles. So we haven't been as dependent on subcontractors. Absolutely, it has increased, but in percentage, of course, it actually has come down.

Perfect. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. This will be the last question. OK, so one more question then, which will be the last.

We will now take the last question. It's come from the line of Amit Archandani from CT. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

So that's your follow-up, Amit.

I wanted to ensure that the others came in. The follow-up is, I guess I'll ask a more broad-based one, please. You've probably reported, to the best of my understanding, the best organic revenue growth quarter, revenue growth year, sorry, for Capgemini last year, at least in the past two decades, which comes on top of a double-digit organic growth year in 2021. Even in 2023, you're targeting 6% organic growth at the high end despite some uncertain macro. So what do you think is the sustainable organic growth rate for this business given the positioning you have today? And I say this particularly in the context of what you had shared with us at the CMD in 2021. I'm not looking for a formal guidance. I get that. But what do you think is the underlying growth rate for the business going forward, longer term?

Yeah, you're a bit early for that discussion. You know, definitely, I think, I mean, what we see in terms of perspective is that the potential in the market is there, right? That what I call the twin transition towards digital and sustainable economies is definitely happening. So the growth potential is there for Capgemini. The question is all about the positioning we take in terms of creating value for our clients. That's why our big focus around that positioning in terms of business and technology partner to CXOs, we are way beyond the CIO, and to help them drive that transition. The more we're able to move our offering there, the more we're able to drive pretty good growth potential over the coming years. but a bit too early to talk about underlying growth rate for the coming years. But the confidence is definitely there, and the positioning is there. So it's for us now to execute well, to be able to take advantage of the growth potential that will happen over the coming years.

All right. Fair enough. Thank you.

Thank you, Amit. So that was the last question. And we see some of you over the coming weeks, if not, Our Q1 revenue and bookings will be on the 4th of May. Have a great day.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.