自動資料處理 (ADP) 2017 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is Kevin, and I'll be your conference operator. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to ADP's Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2017 Earnings Call. I would like to inform you that this conference is being recorded. (Operator Instructions) Thank you. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Christian Greyenbuhl, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

早安.我叫凱文，我將擔任你們的會議接線生。此時此刻，我謹代表ADP公司歡迎各位參加2017財年第四季財報電話會議。我想告知各位，本次會議正在錄影。（操作說明）謝謝。現在我將把會議交給投資者關係副總裁克里斯蒂安·格雷恩布爾先生。請繼續。

Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. This is Christian Greyenbuhl, ADP's Vice President, Investor Relations. And I'm here today with Carlos Rodriguez, ADP's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Jan Siegmund, ADP's Chief Financial Officer. Thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter fiscal 2017 earnings call and webcast.

謝謝你，凱文，大家早安。這是ADP公司投資者關係副總裁克里斯蒂安‧格雷恩布爾。今天我與 ADP 總裁兼首席執行官卡洛斯·羅德里格斯以及 ADP 首席財務官簡·西格蒙德一起出席了會議。感謝您參加我們2017財年第四季財報電話會議和網路直播。

Before we begin, you may have noticed in the slide presentation posted on our website that we included the detail of our client funds available for sale portfolios as of June 30, 2017, which shows the embedded book yields of the portfolio by year of maturity. This chart is in the appendix of the presentation and is provided for your information.

在開始之前，您可能已經註意到，在我們網站上發布的幻燈片演示中，我們包含了截至 2017 年 6 月 30 日可供出售的客戶資金投資組合的詳細信息，其中顯示了按到期年份劃分的投資組合的內含賬面收益率。此圖表位於簡報的附錄中，僅供參考。

During our call today, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe to be useful to investors. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to their comparable GAAP measures is included in the earnings release and in the supplemental slides on our Investor Relations website.

在今天的電話會議中，我們將提及一些非GAAP財務指標，我們認為這些指標對投資人是有用的。這些非GAAP財務指標與其對應的GAAP指標的調節表包含在獲利報告和我們投資者關係網站上的補充幻燈片中。

This quarter, you may have also noticed that we included more expansive disclosure regarding our definition of organic revenue, so as to exclude the impacts of foreign currency translation and M&A activity. We believe this best reflects the underlying operating performance of our business, and I encourage you to review our earnings release for additional details.

本季度，您可能也注意到，我們對有機收入的定義進行了更全面的揭露，以排除外幣折算和併購活動的影響。我們認為這最能反映我們業務的基本經營業績，我建議您查看我們的獲利報告以了解更多詳情。

I'd also like to remind everyone that today's call will contain forward-looking statements that refer to future events and as such, involves some risk. We encourage you to review our filings with the SEC for additional information on risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations.

我還要提醒大家，今天的電話會議將包含有關未來事件的前瞻性陳述，因此存在一定的風險。我們建議您查閱我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件，以獲取有關可能導致實際結果與我們目前預期存在重大差異的風險因素的更多資​​訊。

Now let me turn the call over to Carlos.

現在我把電話交給卡洛斯。

Thank you, Christian, and thank you all for joining our call this morning. We appreciate your interest in ADP. This morning, we reported our fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2017 results with revenue growth up 6%, both for the quarter and the year. Revenue for the year was up 7% on an organic basis, benefiting from a solid 6% client growth and from the continued strong performance of our downmarket, PEO and multinational solutions.

謝謝你，克里斯蒂安，也謝謝各位今天早上參加我們的電話會議。感謝您對ADP的關注。今天上午，我們公佈了 2017 財年第四季和全年業績，季度和全年營收均成長了 6%。本年度營收以有機成長計算成長了 7%，這得益於客戶數量穩步增長 6%，以及我們的低端市場、PEO 和跨國解決方案的持續強勁表現。

In line with expectations, our new business bookings declined 7% this quarter and 5% for the year. While we are disappointed with this year's overall bookings performance, it's important to look at the underlying dynamics. The clients were concentrated in our mid and upmarkets and the challenges were due in large part to growing over the strong fiscal 2016 sales of solutions that assist our clients in complying with the Affordable Care Act. Despite these challenges, the sales opportunities within the mid and upmarket continue to demonstrate a solid environment with positive growth prospects. We continue to be very pleased with the momentum and performance of our downmarket and the PEO, both of which continue to demonstrate the value of a broad-based portfolio of solutions.

與預期一致，本季我們的新業務預訂量下降了 7%，全年下降了 5%。雖然我們對今年的整體預訂感到失望，但重要的是要了解背後的動態。客戶主要集中在中高端市場，面臨的挑戰很大程度上是由於 2016 財年幫助客戶遵守《平價醫療法案》的解決方案銷售額大幅成長。儘管面臨這些挑戰，中高端市場的銷售機會仍展現出穩健的環境和正面的成長前景。我們對下行市場和 PEO 的發展勢頭和業績感到非常滿意，這兩項業務都繼續證明了廣泛的解決方案組合的價值。

During fiscal 2017, we increased our headcount investments in our sales organization to better position us for growth during fiscal 2018 and beyond. As the tightening labor market creates additional demand for human capital management solutions, we expect these investments to help us further grow through the effects of the regulatory uncertainty that prevailed within the mid and upmarket since the November U.S. election.

在 2017 財年，我們增加了對銷售組織的人員投入，以便更好地為 2018 財年及以後的成長做好準備。隨著勞動市場趨緊，對人力資本管理解決方案的需求增加，我們預計這些投資將幫助我們克服自 11 月美國大選以來中高端市場普遍存在的監管不確定性的影響，以實現進一步增長。

Accordingly, as a return to a more normalized growth trend, we expect fiscal 2018 new business bookings to grow 5% to 7%, gradually expanding back to pre-ACA growth levels as we progress through the year. We remain confident in the strength of our distribution capabilities and the competitiveness of our products and in turn, our ability to execute on our pipeline of market opportunities.

因此，隨著成長趨勢回歸正常化，我們預計 2018 財年新業務預訂量將成長 5% 至 7%，並隨著時間的推移逐步恢復到 ACA 實施前的成長水準。我們對我們的分銷能力和產品競爭力充滿信心，進而對我們掌握市場機會的能力充滿信心。

Client satisfaction continues to improve but tensure to remain high on our strategic platforms, and we are pleased with our progress in upgrading our clients to our latest cloud-based solutions. This quarter, we are also pleased to see retention improvements across all our market segments with retention improving by 60 basis points and finishing ahead of our expectations.

客戶滿意度持續提高，但我們的策略平台仍保持高位，我們對將客戶升級到我們最新的雲端解決方案的進展感到滿意。本季度，我們也很高興看到所有市場領域的客戶留存率均有所提高，提高了 60 個基點，超出了我們的預期。

Our full year retention was down 50 basis points to 90%, which also includes a 20 basis point impact from the loss of the Office of Personnel Management contract in the first quarter of fiscal 2017. Please note that this contract was part of the CHSA business that was subsequently disposed of during the second quarter of fiscal 2017.

我們全年的員工留任率下降了 50 個基點至 90%，其中還包括 2017 財年第一季失去人事管理辦公室合約所帶來的 20 個基點的影響。請注意，該合約是 CHSA 業務的一部分，該業務隨後在 2017 財年第二季被處置。

I would also like to remind you that the losses contributing to our annual decline in retention remain concentrated on our legacy platforms in the mid and upmarkets. Our excellent retention performance in the downmarket and improving performance in the midmarket reinforces our core belief that our focused and steady upgrade strategy is the right thing to do for our clients as well as for ADP in the long term.

我還想提醒各位，導致我們年度客戶留存率下降的損失仍然集中在中高端市場的傳統平台。我們在低端市場中表現出色，在中端市場中表現不斷提升，這更加堅定了我們的核心信念，即我們專注而穩健的升級策略對於我們的客戶以及 ADP 的長期發展而言都是正確的選擇。

Core to our philosophy and value proposition is our commitment to developing innovative ways to enhance not only our clients, product and service experience but also that of our strategic partners. Last quarter, we mentioned the introduction of ADP Accountant Connect, where we are leveraging the scale of our strong 510,000-plus client base downmarket to create a compelling value -- to create compelling value for our referral partners.

我們理念和價值主張的核心在於，我們致力於開發創新方法，不僅提升客戶、產品和服務的體驗，也提升我們策略夥伴的體驗。上個季度，我們提到了 ADP Accountant Connect 的推出，我們利用我們強大的 510,000 多個客戶群的規模優勢，為我們的推薦合作夥伴創造引人注目的價值。

This unique solution provides our accountant channel partners with a unified view of payroll, including reporting intact information for our shared clients. It also enables our accountant partners to deepen their relationships with our shared clients by giving them greater insight into payroll data and helps them plan and manage labor costs more efficiently. Adoption of Accountant Connect has been strong. We now have more than 8,000 accounting firms using the platform, which is making life easier for the accountants and the clients we share.

這個獨特的解決方案為我們的會計通路合作夥伴提供了統一的薪資視圖，包括向我們的共同客戶完整報告資訊。它還能讓我們的會計合作夥伴更深入地了解薪資數據，從而加深與共同客戶的關係，並幫助他們更有效地規劃和管理勞動成本。Accountant Connect 的普及率很高。目前已有超過 8,000 家會計事務所使用該平台，這讓會計師和我們共同的客戶的工作變得更加輕鬆。

This is helping to deepen relationships with an important source of referral business while increasing our value proposition for RUN clients. We are incredibly pleased with the adoption of the platform by our accountant partners, and we're also especially pleased that we recently received the Accounting and Tax Technology Innovation Award by CPA Practice Advisor.

這有助於加深與重要轉介業務來源的關係，同時提高我們為 RUN 客戶帶來的價值。我們非常高興我們的會計合作夥伴採用了該平台，尤其高興的是，我們最近獲得了 CPA Practice Advisor 頒發的會計和稅務技術創新獎。

ADP's success is rooted in part on our ability to help clients manage through regulatory change. This is especially true from our PEO, ADP TotalSource, which served more than 485,000 average worksite employees this quarter. The value proposition of the PEO gets stronger as the complexities of managing the workforce increase and expectations of employees evolve. Great PEOs are great to adapt to these dynamics and help client navigate these changes. And we believe that our PEO is the clear market leader in both the breadth and depth of service.

ADP的成功部分源自於我們幫助客戶應對監管變化的能力。我們的 PEO 服務商 ADP TotalSource 尤其如此，本季為超過 485,000 名普通工作場所員工提供了服務。隨著勞動力管理複雜性的增加和員工期望的不斷變化，PEO（專業雇主組織）的價值主張也越來越強。優秀的PEO公司能夠很好地適應這些動態變化，並幫助客戶應對這些變化。我們相信，我們的 PEO 在服務廣度和深度方面都是明顯的市場領導者。

In June, Internal Revenue Service named ADP TotalSource one of the first certified professional employer organizations. We're proud to be among the first PEOs to receive this important new designation, which certify that ADP adheres to the highest standards. Becoming a certified PEO further distinguishes ADP and is another example of the lengths to which we are willing to go to ensure our clients know they are working with a trusted partner.

今年6月，美國國稅局將ADP TotalSource列為首批認證的專業雇主組織之一。我們很自豪能成為首批獲得這項重要新頭銜的 PEO 之一，這證明 ADP 符合最高標準。成為認證的 PEO 進一步彰顯了 ADP 的獨特優勢，也再次體現了我們為確保客戶知道他們正在與值得信賴的合作夥伴合作而願意付出的努力。

As our clients' needs have grown globally, so have our capabilities and our reach. And today, we are supporting clients in more than 110 countries around the world. Success in the HCM market on a global scale is not easy to achieve given the complexities of doing business in many different countries and the local knowledge and understanding that is required to support clients.

隨著全球客戶需求的成長，我們的能力和業務範圍也隨之擴大。如今，我們為全球 110 多個國家的客戶提供支援。鑑於在許多不同國家開展業務的複雜性以及支援客戶所需的本地知識和理解，在全球範圍內的 HCM 市場取得成功並不容易。

Constellation Research, a strategic advisory firm, recently recognized this by naming ADP GlobalView HCM to the Constellation ShortList for human capital management suites for the second consecutive quarter. Constellation evaluated more than 25 global HCM platforms to determine the top 5 best-of-breed vendors.

策略顧問公司 Constellation Research 最近認可了這一點，連續第二個季度將 ADP GlobalView HCM 列入 Constellation 人力資本管理套件候選名單。Constellation 對 25 多個全球 HCM 平台進行了評估，以確定排名前 5 名的最佳供應商。

In naming ADP to the ShortList, Constellation recognized us for the depth of our global compliance expertise, noting that behind the GlobalView product, we're local compliance experts on the ground monitoring and interpreting legislative changes that affect the more than 14 million clients we support outside the U.S. This global reach remains a truly differentiating capability for ADP

Constellation 將 ADP 列入候選名單，是對我們深厚的全球合規專業知識的認可。他們指出，GlobalView 產品背後，是我們在當地擁有專業的合規團隊，負責監控和解讀影響我們在美國以外地區 1,400 多萬名客戶的法規變更。這種全球覆蓋能力仍然是 ADP 的一項真正差異化優勢。

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upgrades are helping to drive improvements in retention. At the same time, we are beginning to see some signs of stabilization in our mid and upmarket new business bookings performance as we lap the difficult fiscal 2016 compares and the fiscal 2017 effects of regulatory uncertainty following the U.S. election.

升級有助於提高用戶留存率。同時，隨著我們逐漸擺脫 2016 財年艱難的業績比較以及 2017 財年美國大選後監管不確定性的影響，我們開始看到中高端新業務預訂業績出現一些企穩跡象。

These dynamics, together with the continued strong performance of our multinational solutions, downmarket offerings and the PEO, give us confidence heading into fiscal 2018.

這些動態，加上我們的跨國解決方案、面向低端市場的產品和 PEO 業務的持續強勁表現，讓我們對 2018 財年充滿信心。

ADP is built for the long haul. Consistent with our long-term objectives and consistent with conversations we've had with shareholders, we will continue to leverage the strength of our business model and our proven ability to execute by making smart investments that enhance our service capabilities, our sales force and deliver best-in-class cloud solutions. We believe these efforts will continue to drive sustained long-term success for our clients, our associates and our shareholders.

ADP 是為長期發展而打造的。為了實現我們的長期目標，並與我們和股東的對話保持一致，我們將繼續利用我們商業模式的優勢和我們久經考驗的執行能力，進行明智的投資，以增強我們的服務能力、銷售團隊，並提供一流的雲端解決方案。我們相信這些努力將繼續為我們的客戶、合作夥伴和股東帶來持續的長期成功。

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Jan who will review our fiscal 2017 results in more detail and share our fiscal 2018 outlook.

接下來，我將把電話交給 Jan，他將更詳細地回顧我們 2017 財年的業績，並分享我們 2018 財年的展望。

Thank you very much, Carlos, and good morning, everyone. During the quarter, we took a restructuring charge of about $49 million related to our Service Alignment Initiative, which brings our total related charges for fiscal year 2017 to $90 million, which were in line with our estimates for the year. Certain non-GAAP measures in my commentary to follow exclude the impact of these charges as well as certain other onetime items recognized earlier in the fiscal year and in fiscal year 2016.

非常感謝卡洛斯，大家早安。本季度，我們提列了約 4,900 萬美元的重組費用，與我們的服務調整計畫相關，這使得我們 2017 財年的相關費用總額達到 9,000 萬美元，與我們對該年度的估計相符。接下來我將評論中的某些非GAAP指標不包括這些費用以及本財年早些時候和2016財年確認的某些其他一次性項目的影響。

As Carlos mentioned, fiscal year 2017 was a challenging year for ADP as we worked to further stabilize retention and build upon the strong new business bookings from fiscal year 2016. As a result, for fiscal year 2017, ADP revenues grew 6% on a reported basis to $12,400,000,000, 7% organic.

正如卡洛斯所提到的，2017 財年對 ADP 來說是充滿挑戰的一年，因為我們努力進一步穩定客戶留存率，並在 2016 財年強勁的新業務預訂基礎上繼續發展。因此，2017 財年，ADP 的營收按報告計算成長了 6%，達到 124 億美元，有機成長 7%。

Pretax earnings from continuing operations before income taxes grew at 13% on a reported and constant dollar basis. Net earnings grew 16% to $1.7 billion on a reported and constant dollar basis. Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes or adjusted EBIT grew 8%, while 7% on a constant dollar basis to $2.4 billion despite about 1%

以報告匯率和固定匯率計算，持續經營業務稅前利潤成長了 13%。以報告美元和固定美元計算，淨利潤成長16%，達到17億美元。經調整後的息稅前利潤（調整後 EBIT）成長 8%，以固定匯率計算成長 7% 至 24 億美元，儘管受到約 1% 的影響。

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percentage points of combined pressure from our second quarter business disposition and our fiscal year 2017

第二季業務處置及2017財年綜合壓力的百分比

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and product services margin increased about 20 basis points for the fiscal year. The main drivers of our margin performance this year include operational efficiencies on lower revenue growth, offset by continued investments into products and service, including dual operations related to our Service Alignment Initiative.

本財年產品服務利潤率成長約 20 個基點。今年我們利潤率表現的主要驅動因素包括營運效率的提高以及收入成長的放緩，但同時也被對產品和服務的持續投資所抵消，包括與我們的服務調整計劃相關的雙重運營。

We are pleased with the continued strong performance of our PEO, which grew to serve more than 485,000 average worksite employees during the quarter and posted revenue growth of 13% for the year. You may have noticed the acceleration of our PEO revenue growth in the fourth quarter, which trended at 16%. The PEO benefited this quarter from higher growth and pass-throughs as we began to lap the easier compare in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2016. PEO margins continued to expand through operational efficiencies, which helped drive approximately 80 basis points of margin expansion in the year, which were slightly below our guidance of about 100 basis points.

我們對 PEO 的持續強勁表現感到滿意，該業務在本季度為超過 485,000 名平均工作場所員工提供服務，並且全年收入增長了 13%。您可能已經注意到，我們 PEO 業務的收入在第四季度加速成長，達到了 16%。由於我們開始超越 2016 財年第四季相對較低的基數，PEO 本季受益於更高的成長和收益傳遞。透過提高營運效率，PEO 利潤率持續擴大，這推動了年內利潤率成長約 80 個基點，略低於我們先前約 100 個基點的預期。

Our growth in 0-margin pass-throughs was the main contributor to our stronger-than-expected revenue performance in the fourth quarter and the resulting full year effect means that we experienced the opposite impacting our margin expansion. However, we remain pleased with the -- that the PEO continues to demonstrate solid growth as evidenced by the strong double-digit growth in worksite employees.

第四季零利潤轉嫁業務的成長是我們營收表現強於預期的主要原因，但由此產生的全年影響卻恰恰相反，影響了我們的利潤率擴張。然而，我們仍然對 PEO 繼續保持穩健成長感到滿意，工作場所員工人數的強勁兩位數成長證明了這一點。

Overall, I'm also pleased with our performance for fiscal year 2017 following our midmarket retention difficulties in fiscal year 2016, and a lower-than-expected new business bookings performance in our mid and upmarkets in fiscal year 2017, which together, yielded a slowing in our overall organic revenue growth this year. Despite this top line pressure, we maintained our focus on the long-term strategy and expanded margins while we continue to make these important additional investments.

整體而言，我對我們 2017 財年的業績感到滿意。在此之前，我們在 2016 財年中端市場客戶留存方面遇到了困難，而且 2017 財年中高端市場的新業務預訂量低於預期，這些因素共同導致我們今年的整體有機收入增長放緩。儘管面臨營收壓力，我們仍專注於長期策略，並在繼續進行這些重要額外投資的同時擴大了利潤率。

With that, I will now take you through our expectations for fiscal year 2018. As Carlos mentioned, for fiscal year 2018, we are expecting new business bookings growth of 5% to 7% from the $1.65 billion sold in fiscal year 2017. While we have some improving signs -- have seen some improving signs in the fourth quarter, we expect this growth to accelerate to a more normalized pre-ACA level as we progress throughout the year.

接下來，我將向大家介紹我們對 2018 財年的期待。正如卡洛斯所提到的，我們預計 2018 財年的新業務預訂將比 2017 財年的 16.5 億美元成長 5% 至 7%。雖然我們看到了一些改善的跡象——在第四季度也看到了一些改善的跡象，但我們預計隨著今年的推進，這種增長將加速到更正常的、ACA實施前的水平。

As a result of the above and the impact from our bookings in the latter part of fiscal year 2017, we anticipate total revenue growth of 5% to 6% for fiscal year 2018 and expect to be at the lower end of this range during the first half of the year. This forecast assumes 2% to 3% revenue growth in our Employee Services segment and growth in pays per control of 2.5%. Revenue growth in the PEO is expected to be 11% to 13%. ADP's adjusted EBIT margin is expected to contract 25 to 50 basis points from the 19.8% in fiscal year 2017, and I will now walk you through a few key factors regarding this guidance.

鑑於上述情況以及我們在 2017 財年下半年的預訂情況，我們預計 2018 財年的總收入增長為 5% 至 6%，並預計上半年將處於該範圍的下限。此預測假設我們的員工服務部門營收成長 2% 至 3%，每位控制人員的薪酬成長 2.5%。PEO的營收成長預計為11%至13%。ADP 的調整後 EBIT 利潤率預計將比 2017 財年的 19.8% 下降 25 至 50 個基點，接下來我將帶您了解有關此預期的一些關鍵因素。

While we expect our revenue growth to be stronger in the second half of fiscal year 2018 with growth at the lower end of the range in the first half, we believe that it remains important for us to maintain our planned strategic investments into innovation, service and sales as we grow through the short-term pressure. Accordingly, we expect to see continued margin pressure in fiscal year 2018 with our margin declines concentrated in the first half of the year. Despite this pressure, we expect to continue to drive further operating efficiencies as we leverage our platform strategy to reduce expenditures on nonstrategic products and leverage the scale of our operations through the productivity improvements.

雖然我們預計 2018 財年下半年的營收成長將更加強勁，而上半年的成長將處於預期範圍的下限，但我們認為，在應對短期壓力的同時，繼續按計畫對創新、服務和銷售進行策略性投資仍然至關重要。因此，我們預計 2018 財年利潤率將持續承壓，利潤率下降將集中在上半年。儘管面臨這種壓力，我們仍期望繼續提高營運效率，利用我們的平台策略減少非策略產品的支出，並透過提高生產力來發揮我們營運的規模優勢。

We are now approximately halfway through our Service Alignment Initiative. And for fiscal year 2018, we anticipate a slight incremental pressure to margins from dual operations as compared to the 20 basis points of pressure that we experienced in fiscal year 2017.

我們的服務調整計劃目前已完成約一半。對於 2018 財年，我們預期雙重營運將對利潤率造成略微遞增的壓力，而 2017 財年我們則經歷了 20 個基點的壓力。

Overall, we believe that making these investments will help solidify our long-term success. On a segment level, we anticipate margin contraction in the Employee Services sector, a segment of 50 to 75 basis points. For the PEO, we expect continued operating efficiencies offset by pressure from our pass-through revenue growth to drive margin expansion of 25 to 50 basis points.

總而言之，我們相信這些投資將有助於鞏固我們的長期成功。從細分市場來看，我們預期員工服務業的利潤率將收縮 50 至 75 個基點。對 PEO 而言，我們預期持續的營運效率提升將被轉嫁營收成長帶來的壓力所抵消，從而推動利潤率擴大 25 至 50 個基點。

We are expecting growth in client funds interest revenue to increase about $40 million to $50 million in fiscal year 2018. The total impact from the client funds' extended investment strategy is expected to be up about $30 million to $40 million. The details of this forecast can be found in the supplemental slides on our Investor Relations website.

我們預計 2018 財年客戶資金利息收入將增加約 4,000 萬至 5,000 萬美元。客戶資金擴大投資策略的總影響預計將增加約 3,000 萬至 4,000 萬美元。此預測的詳細內容可在我們投資者關係網站的補充幻燈片中找到。

As a reminder, this year's tax rate included an incremental $0.04 per share software development related tax benefit and a $0.07 per share benefit related to the adoption of a new stock-based compensation accounting guidance. Because these 2 items are not expected to recur, we estimate our adjusted effective tax rate for fiscal year 2018 to be 33.0%. As such, adjusted diluted earnings per share is expected to grow 2% to 4% compared with the $3.70 in fiscal year 2017.

提醒一下，今年的稅率包括每股 0.04 美元的軟體開發相關稅收優惠，以及每股 0.07 美元的採用新的股票選擇權激勵會計準則帶來的收益。由於預計這兩項不會再發生，我們估計 2018 財年的調整後有效稅率為 33.0%。因此，預計調整後的稀釋每股收益將比 2017 財年的 3.70 美元增加 2% 至 4%。

So with that, I will turn the call back over to the operator to take your questions.

那麼，我將把電話轉回給接線員，由她來回答您的問題。

(Operator Instructions) We will take our first question from the line of David Togut with Evercore ISI.

（操作員說明）我們將接受來自 Evercore ISI 的 David Togut 的第一個問題。

Could you talk a bit about customer buying intentions? What is the sales force seeing downmarket, midmarket and upmarket in terms of sales cycles and demand patterns as you look out to FY '18?

能談談顧客的購買意願嗎？展望 2018 財年，銷售團隊對低端市場、中階市場和高端市場的銷售週期和需求模式有何看法？

I think as we said in the -- in our comments, the midmarket, the PEO, multinational have all been quite strong. And really, especially, in a downmarket, as we've mentioned, there's been really no impact from this grow-over issue with ACA. So we've, I think, had what I would consider to be the best results in several years in those -- in that space, in the downmarket. In the midmarket, obviously, we had a very significant grow-over given the strong sales for ACA products in '16. But as we've kind of checked in with the sales force throughout the year and frankly continue to make investments to keep their heads in the game, we've maintained our turnover at almost exactly the same rate it was in the prior year, which is, I think, a very encouraging sign because obviously, it is a very tight labor market. And so my worry was that given our performance, we might lose some of our sales force. But I think it's a sign of, I think, optimism on the part of the sales force that there is really no issue with the economy or with our products or competitively or with pricing that it's really just unfortunately a mathematical issue that got aggravated by some of this uncertainty that came out of Washington, which really stopped people from buying not only -- or slowed the sales of ACA to a much lower level than we had planned, but I think just created some kind of short-term uncertainty after November. I think in the upmarket, we did, I think, feel -- after November that there was some elongation in terms of decision-making, which is a little more logical because you have relatively sophisticated buyers there. And I think some were probably waiting to see what would happen with the regulatory environment given that there were -- there was talk of repealing ACA and repealing a number of other regulations within weeks. As we all know, that hasn't happened. And so I think gradually, things feel like they've gotten a little bit better and things have loosened up a bit. But as we know from what's going on in Washington yesterday and today, I think in that space in particular, I think there's still, I think some probably some wait and see on the part the buyers, at least in our experience with our products.

我認為正如我們在評論中所說，中端市場、PEO（專業雇主組織）、跨國公司都表現得相當強勁。而且，正如我們之前提到的，尤其是在市場低迷的情況下，ACA 帶來的成長問題實際上並沒有產生任何影響。所以，我認為，我們在低端市場領域取得了近幾年來最好的成績。顯然，在中端市場，鑑於 2016 年 ACA 產品的強勁銷售，我們實現了非常顯著的成長。但是，由於我們全年都在與銷售團隊保持溝通，並且坦率地說，我們一直在進行投資以保持他們的積極性，我們的員工流動率幾乎與上一年完全相同，我認為這是一個非常令人鼓舞的跡象，因為很明顯，這是一個非常緊張的勞動力市場。因此，我擔心的是，鑑於我們的業績，我們可能會失去一些銷售人員。但我認為這表明銷售團隊抱持樂觀態度，他們認為經濟、產品、競爭力或定價方面都沒有真正的問題，這真的只是一個數學問題，不幸的是，這個問題因華盛頓的一些不確定性而加劇，這不僅阻止了人們購買，而且使《平價醫療法案》(ACA) 的銷售額遠低於我們的預期，而且我認為在 11 月之後造成了一些短期不確定性。我認為在高檔市場，我們確實感覺到——11 月之後——決策過程有所延長，這更合乎邏輯，因為那裡的買家相對來說比較成熟。我認為有些人可能在觀望監管環境將會發生什麼變化，因為當時有傳言說要在幾週內廢除《平價醫療法案》和其他一些法規。我們都知道，這種情況並沒有發生。所以我覺得漸漸地，情況似乎好轉了一些，事情也變得寬鬆了一些。但正如我們從昨天和今天華盛頓發生的事情中所了解到的，我認為尤其是在這個領域，我認為買家方面仍然會持觀望態度，至少根據我們對產品的經驗來看是如此。

Understood. And then just a quick follow-up on the Service Alignment Initiative. What is the incremental spending on that in FY '18, basically the delta between the adjusted and the diluted EPS guidance?

明白了。最後，簡單跟進一下服務協調計畫。2018 財年這方面的增量支出是多少？基本上就是調整後每股盈餘預期與稀釋後每股盈餘預期之間的差額。

So our non-GAAP charges for the year, I think, is expected to be $30 million to $35 million. And it's really a very small margin impact incremental to the 20 basis points that we had in '17. So I think a few basis points more but more or less between 20 and 25, if I give you a range. I think I would expect pressure, so the incremental is very little.

因此，我認為我們本年度的非GAAP費用預計為3000萬美元至3500萬美元。而且，與 2017 年的 20 個基點相比，利潤率的變化幅度非常小。所以我認為會多幾個基點，但大致在 20 到 25 之間，如果我給你一個範圍的話。我認為壓力應該會很小，所以增量非常小。

Yes. I think if you stick to like looking at quarter-on-quarter our adjusted results, then there's -- you shouldn't even worry about it for next year because the dual ops incremental expenses, there's minimal. So there's really nothing to worry about. Both -- by the way, those -- that will be 2 years of -- so we had a step up of -- and it was a 20 basis point impact of dual ops this year. Next year, it's about the same level of expense and then it should fall off, obviously, in the following year. But the restructuring cost themselves for the Strategic Alignment Initiative are non-GAAP. And so you shouldn't have to, I think, worry too much about trying to figure out the analysis there because it should not be -- it should not enter into the picture. Other than, obviously, we're incredibly excited about what is going to be the outcome of the Strategic Alignment Initiative down the road.

是的。我認為，如果你堅持按季度查看我們調整後的業績，那麼——你甚至不必擔心明年的情況，因為雙重運營的增量支出微乎其微。所以真的沒什麼好擔心的。順便說一下，這兩項——都將持續兩年——所以我們取得了進步——今年雙重營運的影響為 20 個基點。明年費用水平大致相同，然後顯然，後年應該會下降。但策略調整計劃的重組成本本身屬於非GAAP成本。所以，我認為你不必太擔心去弄清楚那裡的分析，因為它不應該——它不應該被考慮。除此之外，我們當然也對策略協調計畫未來的成果感到無比興奮。

Have you seen an impact from it yet?

你已經看到它產生的影響了嗎？

Well, I think that it's obviously very early. We're about halfway through in terms of the hiring plans. So I would say that -- I think we joke around that I think this is the easy part. So putting buildings up and hiring people, we definitely accomplished it, and we're right on track in terms of -- and on schedule in terms of our objectives. We feel like we've done some great people. We've got great engagement. Obviously, they're in the process of being trained. So I think all systems -- so far, we haven't seen anything to indicate that our expectations that we had of the project are going to be anything other than what we expected. So we're very excited that we've been able to kind of stay on track. But I think it's a little early to really declare victory. But we're very optimistic as this obviously is going to create a much enhanced experience for our clients given that we're putting teams in large locations that are what we call intact and they're able to deliver service across multiple modules rather than just in silos. Not to mention, obviously, the consolidation effect of having large groups of associates, which we've seen already in 2 locations that we've had for several years. El Paso and Augusta creates very, very high engagement, better MPS cores, better client experience and better associate experience as well. So we're very excited. It's obviously a big investment and fortunately, it's on track as of now.

嗯，我覺得現在顯然還為時過早。我們的招聘計劃已經完成了一半左右。所以我想說——我們開玩笑說，我覺得這是最簡單的部分。所以，在建造建築物和招募人員方面，我們絕對做到了，就我們的目標而言，我們正按計劃順利進行。我們覺得我們培養了一些非常優秀的人才。我們獲得了很高的參與度。顯然，他們正在接受訓練。所以我覺得所有系統——到目前為止，我們還沒有看到任何跡象表明我們對該項目的預期會與預期不符。所以我們很高興能夠基本上保持正軌。但我認為現在就宣布勝利還為時過早。但我們非常樂觀，因為這顯然會為我們的客戶創造更好的體驗，因為我們將團隊安置在大型場所，這些場所我們稱之為“完整無缺”，他們能夠跨多個模組提供服務，而不是僅僅在孤立的環境中提供服務。更不用說，擁有大量員工帶來的整合效應了，我們在兩個已經營運數年的地點已經看到了這種效應。埃爾帕索和奧古斯塔創造了非常非常高的客戶參與度、更好的 MPS 核心、更好的客戶體驗以及更好的員工體驗。所以我們非常興奮。這顯然是一筆巨大的投資，幸運的是，目前一切進展順利。

The next question comes from Tien-tsin Huang with JPMorgan.

下一個問題來自摩根大通的黃天進。

Just looking at the slides here. I was hoping maybe on just the -- to help unpack the margin investments you're making in ES again, just -- is there a way to maybe break it up to think how much of the margin investment is in, say, sales investments and product whatnot versus investments in retention? Or if there's any investments in pricing, for example? Is there a way to simplify it that way?

我只是在看這些投影片。我希望能夠再次幫助您分析在 ES 中進行的利潤投資，有沒有辦法將其分解，以便思考有多少利潤投資用於銷售投資和產品等方面，又有多少用於客戶留存等方面？或者，例如，是否有任何定價方面的投資？有沒有辦法簡化一下？

Yes, it's -- let me start at the enterprise level to give you a little insight about the margin dynamics that we are experiencing compared to -- between '18 and '17, and then I can give you some pointers on the segment level. So the pass-throughs are the most important factor that are very transparent really. And if you decompose the margins for '17, you will identify that our overall EBIT margin expansion was about 30 basis points, but we faced about 120 basis points of pressure on our overall margins just from the fast growth of our pass-throughs. And so that's the starting point of our business dynamic between the 2 segments. And so to offset that, we had basically about operational scale and contributions to margins of approximately 100 to 120 basis points, if you like. And that's kind of the dynamic. Sales was flat to margins this year. And so operational scale is basically contributing about net 30 basis points to our margin expansion, offset by the pressure from the pass-throughs. And next year, we kind of anticipate a similar momentum relative to the pass-through development. So we're starting already with more than 100 basis points of pressure. And what you now will see, well, slightly down and largely, what will happen is this lowering of the revenue growth will make the operational scale a little bit harder to achieve because we kind of set our cost base to grow, so to speak, into a growing revenue base and right-sized for our service levels throughout the fiscal year. So we have a little bit of a higher cost base in the first half of the year where you basically see operations basically being flat to margin contribution and then the second half to kind of return to a more normalized level. So net-net, the margin pressure from the pass-throughs is only partially offset by the operational scale to the operations. And sales throughout here, for all intents and purposes, is kind of more or less flattish contribution to margins this year. I hope that's helpful.

是的，讓我先從企業層面入手，向您簡要介紹一下我們目前所經歷的利潤率動態，與 2017 年和 2018 年相比有何不同，然後再從細分市場層面給您一些建議。因此，轉嫁費用是最主要的因素，而且這些因素實際上非常透明。如果你對 2017 年的利潤率進行分解，你會發現我們的整體 EBIT 利潤率擴張了約 30 個基點，但僅僅是由於我們的轉嫁業務快速增長，我們的整體利潤率就面臨著約 120 個基點的壓力。這就是我們兩個業務板塊之間業務動態的起點。因此，為了彌補這一點，我們的營運規模和利潤貢獻基本上達到了 100 到 120 個基點左右。這就是目前的動態。今年銷售額與利潤率持平。因此，營運規模基本上為我們的利潤率擴張貢獻了約 30 個基點，但被轉嫁成本帶來的壓力所抵消。明年，我們預期過戶業務的發展動能將與此類似。所以，我們一開始就面臨超過 100 個基點的壓力。現在你會看到，收入成長略有下降，而且總體而言，收入成長的降低將使營運規模更難實現，因為我們設定了成本基礎，使其能夠隨著收入基礎的增長而增長，並在整個財政年度根據我們的服務水平進行適當調整。因此，今年上半年我們的成本基礎略高，營運成本與利潤貢獻基本持平，而下半年成本將恢復到更正常的水平。因此，總而言之，轉嫁成本帶來的利潤壓力只能部分被營運規模所抵銷。就各方面而言，今年所有銷售額對利潤率的貢獻基本上持平。希望這能幫到你。

And I think the last thing you mentioned, which we should also, I think, address is, is it related to pricing, and the answer is it's not. We, for the last several years, have been trying to gradually bring down our "price increase," And we've done that again this year, but it's $5 million to $10 million. It's not a big deal on the "overall gross and net price increase" that we passed through to our clients. So -- but there's no change in pricing in terms of new business or the competitive environment or anything to that effect. I think it's really related to the factors that we're seeing that Jan was talking about in terms of some of the revenue growth issues. The good news for us is that the scale really starts to pick up again for us in the second half. So if you look at the way this issue has worked with the grow-over, part of the confusion might be related to the fact that our fiscal year is in the middle of -- obviously, in the middle of the year, and the impacts are really calendar year impacts. So if you go back and you look at quarterly numbers, you'll see that we had 2 strong quarters the first half of this fiscal year. And then now we just had 2 relatively weak quarters because of the grow-over issue. So we will have another 2 weak quarters because of the grow-over issue at the beginning of fiscal '18. And then our plans are that our sales return to near pre-ACA levels in the second half as well as our revenue growth begins to, once again, gradually accelerate. Now of course, that means that we have to hit our plans in retention and new business bookings. But that's the way the math -- the math does work. Everything we've been telling you, I think, is accurate about the impacts of the grow-over of this ACA issue, which were significant. We've mentioned that the business itself is about $175 million in revenue, which means that we sold about $175 million. And so that affected our new business bookings, which is what's causing the grow-over for new business bookings. And likewise, the $175 million of revenue, even though it didn't come all in 1 year, a lot of it did come in, in January of '16, which means that from a revenue standpoint, you also have, call it 1 point or so of incremental growth that you picked up from ACA. And then, obviously now, from a comparison standpoint, you lose 1 point. And that's right about how the math works because on an organic basis, we're at about 7% growth for this year. And we were about 8% last year. And so our hope is that once we get past the next couple of quarters that we get back here to business as usual.

我認為你提到的最後一點，也是我們應該討論的，就是它是否與價格有關，答案是否定的。過去幾年，我們一直在努力逐步降低“價格上漲幅度”，今年我們也再次做到了，但漲幅在 500 萬到 1000 萬美元之間。我們轉嫁給客戶的「整體毛價和淨價上漲」並不算什麼大事。所以——但是就新業務、競爭環境或任何類似方面而言，價格都沒有變化。我認為這確實與 Jan 剛才提到的一些收入成長問題有關。對我們來說的好消息是，下半年我們的規模真的開始再次擴大了。因此，如果你看看這個問題是如何隨著增長而發生的，部分困惑可能與我們的財政年度處於年中有關——顯然，是在年中，而影響實際上是日曆年的影響。所以，如果你回顧一下季度數據，你會發現我們在本財年上半年有兩季業績強勁。然後，由於成長放緩問題，我們剛剛經歷了兩個相對疲軟的季度。因此，由於 2018 財年初的成長問題，我們將迎來另外兩個疲軟的季度。然後，我們的計劃是，下半年銷售額恢復到接近《平價醫療法案》實施前的水平，同時收入成長再次開始逐步加速。當然，這意味著我們必須在客戶留存率和新業務預訂方面實現我們的計劃。但數學就是這樣——數學確實有效。我認為，我們一直以來告訴你們的關於ACA問題演變的影響都是準確的，這些影響是巨大的。我們之前提到過，公司本身的收入約為 1.75 億美元，這意味著我們銷售額約為 1.75 億美元。因此，這影響了我們的新業務預訂，這也是導致新業務預訂成長放緩的原因。同樣，1.75 億美元的收入，雖然不是一年內全部到賬，但其中很大一部分是在 2016 年 1 月到賬的，這意味著從收入的角度來看，你也從《平價醫療法案》(ACA) 中獲得了大約 1 個百分點的增量增長。那麼，很顯然，從比較的角度來看，你就會損失 1 分。沒錯，數學計算就是這樣，因為從自然成長的角度來看，我們今年的成長率約為 7%。去年我們的佔比約為 8%。因此，我們希望，一旦度過接下來的幾個季度，一切就能恢復正常。

Yes, that's all great. That's really helpful. So just a quick follow-on, given everything you guys just said there. So as we move into the second half, and I appreciate you guys are spending through the cycle for the long term, is it fair to say then that you'd be through the transition and will -- you should get closer maybe going into fiscal '19 to your longer-term targets on top line and margin expansion? Is there anything else that could derail you from doing that?

是的，那太好了。這真的很有幫助。鑑於你們剛才所說的一切，我再補充一點。進入下半年，我知道你們正在為長期發展進行週期性支出，那麼是否可以說，你們已經度過了過渡期，並且在進入 2019 財年時，應該能夠更接近你們在營收和利潤率擴張方面的長期目標？還有什麼其他因素會阻礙你做這件事嗎？

That's exactly the plan. And obviously, recessions or conflicts with Korea, the -- but that's exactly what the plan is. And I think that the second half of this fiscal year starts to pave a path for us to be there based on our -- obviously, we don't guide and we don't give you quarterly guidance. But we have that in front of us here, we're looking at it. That is exactly the picture we're seeing.

這正是計劃。顯然，經濟衰退或與韓國的衝突——但這正是該計劃的內容。我認為，本財年下半年將開始為我們實現目標鋪路——當然，我們不提供業績指引，也不會給出季度業績指引。但我們眼前就有，我們正在看著它。我們看到的正是這樣的景象。

Our next question comes from Rick Eskelsen with Wells Fargo.

下一個問題來自富國銀行的里克·埃斯克爾森。

I just wanted to follow-up on Tien-tsin's question and hone in on the sales impact. I believe you said it was sort of flattish on the margins. But can you talk about what impact the declining new business bookings had on the incentive compensation? Was that offset by new sales hiring? And how are you building that into the plan for next year as you assume it goes back to growth?

我只是想跟進一下田進的問題，並專注於銷售影響。我記得你說過它的邊緣比較平坦。但您能否談談新業務預訂量下降對激勵性薪酬的影響？新招募的銷售人員是否抵銷了這項損失？假設明年經濟將恢復成長，您打算如何把這一點納入明年的計畫中？

Yes. Delighted to give you a little bit more background. As Carlos mentioned in his comments throughout this more difficult year on new business bookings in 2017, we continued to make, in particular, new sales higher. So our quota carrier count increased, actually, this fiscal year by 8%, which is about twice the rate of what we would typically -- Christian tells me it's 9%. So it's higher than our typical rate. As you know, we're trying to grow our sales -- new business bookings by approximately half through quota carrier growth and half through productivity and new product additions. And so this year, we overinvested, if you like, in headcount. And so part of the lack of spend on commissions for product sales were offset by: a, incremental incentives to our sales force to retain our existing sales force and investments into new sales people that are now hired and gaining productivity. And part of the lift that we're seeing on sales productivity next year is driven by these new quota carriers becoming more productive and making a contribution. So when you think about sales cost as part of our overall margin development throughout the year, it looks like that we have -- that it's about flat. It's about flat to margins, for all intents and purposes, for a position that we know. In comparison, we had a little bit more margin pressure for sales in '17 in the second half versus the first half because the first half in '17 started kind of good. So you see this balancing out basically in '18, where it is, for all intents and purposes, throughout the year, more or less flat, slightly improving towards the back end of the year.

是的。很高興能為您提供更多背景資訊。正如卡洛斯在 2017 年新業務預訂方面所提到的那樣，儘管這一年更加艱難，但我們仍然繼續提高新銷售額。因此，本財年我們的配額承運商數量實際上增加了 8%，大約是我們通常成長速度的兩倍——克里斯蒂安告訴我，通常是 9%。所以它比我們通常的費率要高。如您所知，我們正在努力提高銷售額——透過配額承運商的成長實現新業務預訂量約一半的成長，並透過提高生產力和增加新產品實現另一半的成長。所以今年，我們在人員配置上投入太多了。因此，產品銷售佣金支出不足的部分被以下措施所抵消：a. 為留住現有銷售人員而增加的銷售激勵措施，以及對新招聘並正在提高生產力的銷售人員的投資。明年銷售效率的提升部分原因是這些新的銷售配額承擔者提高了工作效率並做出了貢獻。因此，當我們把銷售成本作為全年整體利潤率發展的一部分來考慮時，看起來我們的利潤率基本上持平。就我們所了解的情況而言，這實際上意味著與邊際持平。相較之下，2017 年下半年的銷售利潤率壓力比上半年略大，因為 2017 年上半年的開局還不錯。因此，您可以看到這種情況在 2018 年基本上趨於平衡，全年整體上基本保持平穩，在年底略有改善。

That's very helpful. Just following up also. Earlier, you talked several times about the strength in international and multinational. Maybe if you can go into a little more of the dynamics on what you're seeing there?

那很有幫助。我也想跟進一下。之前，您多次談到國際化和跨國化的力量。或許您可以更詳細地談談您在那裡看到的現象背後的動態？

I think our strength in particular, and we think we've talked about this for several years, is really our multinational solutions really do appear to be highly differentiated. And again, multinationals is both very, very large companies with very large populations of employees. But we also have multinational solutions for a company that maybe headquartered somewhere in Europe and has 20 employees in 4 countries in Europe. So we really go all the way from very, very large Fortune -- or World Fortune 100 companies all the way to what I would call local multinationals, if you will, or regional multinationals. And so it's a highly differentiated product. We've had good sales growth over multiple years. Double-digit revenue growth, generating great margins because now we've got scale, and the business is, I would just call it, humming along.

我認為我們最大的優勢，也是我們已經討論過好幾年的一點，就是我們的跨國解決方案確實具有高度差異化。再次強調，跨國公司是指規模非常非常大、員工人數非常多的公司。但我們也為總部設在歐洲某地，並在歐洲 4 個國家擁有 20 名員工的公司提供跨國解決方案。所以，我們實際上涵蓋了從規模非常非常大的財富 100 強公司，到我稱之為本地跨國公司或區域跨國公司的所有公司。因此，這是一款差異化程度很高的產品。我們多年來一直保持著良好的銷售成長。兩位數的收入成長，帶來了豐厚的利潤，因為我們現在有了規模，而且業務發展非常順利。

Our international business, I think, has gotten better on what I'll call a relative basis because it's been a difficult backdrop in Europe, which is our largest international business. We also have a business in APAC, in Latin America, but our largest concentration other than Canada in North America is in Europe. And so that European business on a relative basis, slight improvement in the underlying pays per control. It looks like GDP is starting to pick up a little bit there. Sales, a little bit better this year than we have for the last several years. But I wouldn't say that, that business is at the same performance level as the multinational business. We hope it will be at some point in the near future. But the international business has a good solid performance and really good margin performance as well where that business 10, 15 years ago, my predecessor, we struggled for years to really get that business to perform as well as the rest of the ADP from a margin and "retention" standpoint. And I think we're kind of there now. So we've got good leadership and I think the business is performing very well. Very happy with our international and multinational business.

我認為，從相對意義上講，我們的國際業務有所好轉，因為歐洲市場（我們最大的國際業務市場）一直處於艱難的背景下。我們在亞太地區和拉丁美洲也有業務，但除了北美的加拿大以外，我們最大的業務集中在歐洲。因此，從相對意義上講，歐洲企業的基本收益控制略有改善。看來那裡的GDP開始稍微回升了。今年的銷售額比過去幾年略好。但我不會說，這家企業的業績水準與跨國企業處於同一水準。我們希望在不久的將來能夠實現。但國際業務表現穩健，利潤率也非常好。而 10、15 年前，我的前任為了讓這項業務在利潤率和「留存率」方面達到 ADP 其他業務的水平，我們奮鬥了多年。我覺得我們現在已經差不多達到目標了。所以我們擁有優秀的領導團隊，我認為公司業績非常好。我們對我們的國際和跨國業務非常滿意。

And international is about 20% of the total. How big is the multinational piece?

國際業務約佔總數的20%。這家跨國公司佔比有多大？

Multinational, sorry, I think in total is about $500 million, Jan? Is that...

跨國公司，抱歉，我想總額大約是5億美元，Jan？那是…

It's a 5 -- a little bit more than $500 million, approaching $600 million actually. And Carlos' description is correct. That's very good and strong, solid double-digit growth for many years. And Europe, a little bit lower, more mature business, but both components really showing nice margin expansion business characteristics.

是 5——略高於 5 億美元，實際上接近 6 億美元。卡洛斯的描述是正確的。這是非常好的、強勁的，多年來一直保持著兩位數的穩健成長。歐洲市場略低一些，業務也更成熟一些，但這兩個市場都展現了良好的利潤率擴張業務特徵。

And then what we call international, so multinational is $500 million. For rounding purposes, call international $1 billion, and then Canada, another $400 million. So that's how you get to approximately 20%.

然後，我們所說的國際，也就是跨國公司，規模為 5 億美元。為了方便計算，國際收入計為 10 億美元，加拿大收入計為 4 億美元。所以，這就是得出大約 20% 的方法。

Our next question comes from Lisa Ellis with Bernstein.

下一個問題來自伯恩斯坦的麗莎·艾利斯。

Can you give an update on the migrations? Are you still on track to finish the midmarket migration to Workforce Now by the end of the year? And where are you sort of seeing clients interest or demand in shifting to Vantage in the upmarket?

能否提供一下遷移工作的最新進展？你們是否仍按計畫在年底前完成中階市場向 Workforce Now 的遷移？那麼，您認為高端市場的顧客對Vantage的興趣或需求體現在哪些方面呢？

We are on track on the migrations. I think we did about a couple of thousand this quarter, probably 2,500 to 3,000 the previous quarter to that. So we're kind of in the same general ballpark, which just as a reminder, is much lower than it was at its peak when we were in the middle of ACA because we were -- we had a lot of accelerated migrations in order to get clients on the right platform to be able to do ACA compliance for them. And with the benefit of hindsight, that was an issue for us that caused some of our retention challenges. But fortunately, that's all behind us now. And now we're back to what we were doing all along for several years, which is migrating clients at the right pace, with the right attention and the right, what we call now, white glove service. We have, I think, it's 5,000 to 6,000 clients left in the midmarket. I'm checking for...

我們的遷移工作進展順利。我認為我們這季度做了大約兩千件，上個季度大概做了兩千五百到三千件。所以我們現在的情況大致相同，需要提醒的是，這比我們在實施《平價醫療法案》(ACA) 期間的峰值要低得多，因為當時我們進行了大量的加速遷移，以便讓客戶使用正確的平台，從而能夠為他們執行《平價醫療法案》(ACA) 的合規性要求。事後看來，這確實是我們面臨的問題，也是導致員工留任率下降的原因之一。但幸運的是，這一切都已成為過去。現在我們又回到了我們過去幾年一直在做的事情，那就是以合適的速度、給予合適的關注和提供我們現在稱之為「白手套服務」的服務來幫助客戶遷移。我認為，我們在中端市場還剩下 5000 到 6000 個客戶。我正在查看…

Approximately, yes.

差不多吧。

About 5,000 to 6,000 clients left. And so you can see that at the pace that we're on now, we have a shot of getting it done by year-end. We might have, whatever, 500 clients, 1,000 clients left at year-end. That doesn't obviously concern me because we would have done, I think, 60,000 clients so if we have to -- and again, the way our business works is everything has to stop in the middle of November because of year-end, and everything starts again in February. In other words, the company has become focused on getting through the year-end process. So it could be that we have 500 to 1,000. But it's obviously helping us on a number of fronts because our retention on our strategic platform is much higher than our legacy platform. So as the number of clients get smaller and smaller, we get a mathematical lift, if you will, just because of the mix issue. So I think it's -- I would say that it's probably not something that would be an enormous amount of focus for all of you going forward. But it is an incredible accomplishment because I was talking to the person who runs R&D for that organization about 1 week ago, and he named all the platforms that we had 10 years ago when he first went to that business. And we're down to one platform here. And we're close -- we're almost across the finish line. So the power that, that business is going to have now, the focus -- and to focus on the competition and to focus on execution and NPS scores and retention is going to be, I think, equal to what we've done in the downmarket on RUN, and that gets me excited.

大約有 5000 至 6000 名客戶離開了。所以你可以看出，以我們目前的速度，我們很有可能在年底前完成這項任務。到年底，我們可能還剩下 500 個客戶，也可能剩下 1000 個客戶。這顯然不會讓我擔心，因為我認為我們已經服務了 6 萬名客戶，所以如果必須這樣做——而且，我們的業務運作方式是，由於年末，所有業務都必須在 11 月中旬停止，然後在 2 月重新開始。換句話說，該公司已將重心轉移到完成年終結算流程。所以，數量可能在 500 到 1000 之間。但顯然，這在許多方面都對我們有所幫助，因為我們策略平台的用戶留存率比傳統平台高得多。因此，隨著客戶數量越來越少，由於客戶組合問題，我們獲得了數學上的提升。所以我覺得──我覺得這可能不會是你們今後需要重點關注的事情。但這確實是一項了不起的成就，因為大約一週前我和該組織的研發負責人談過，他列舉了10年前他剛加入這家公司時我們擁有的所有平台。現在我們只剩下一個平台了。我們離目標很近了——我們幾乎就要衝過終點線了。所以，這家公司現在將擁有的力量，以及專注於競爭、專注於執行、NPS 分數和客戶留存率的能力，我認為，將與我們在 RUN 的低端市場所取得的成就相當，這讓我感到興奮。

Sure. And just a quick follow-up. Can you articulate what macroeconomic outlook is embedded in FY '18 guidance? And kind of what's the latest temperature check on U.S. macro environment?

當然。還有一個後續問題。能否詳細說明一下2018財年業績指引中蘊含的宏觀經濟前景？那麼，美國宏觀環境的最新情況如何？

The -- as you can see and kind of read from our pays per control metrics and deduct from our money -- from our client fund interest rate forecast, which are the most explicit components in our forecast, we anticipate that the economy is going to continue on a steady path that we have seen over the last 12 months. So -- which, I think, is probably the best bet that we have today. The labor market is in full employment and we have seen -- and we are shifting our focus on delivering ACM solutions to our clients that help our clients to attract and retain their employees in a better way. So there's a slight shift in focus as you have full employment. The fight for talent and recruiting becomes more important and we're prepared to offer great solutions for this. And on the interest rate environment, obviously, the forward curves predict rate increases and other rate increase towards the end of year by the Fed. And rates are creeping up over time for a modest contribution on their client fund balances. So I think it's a steady state in a slight rate increasing environment going forward that we have baked into our plan.

正如您從我們的按控制指標付費以及從客戶基金利率預測中扣除的資金（這是我們預測中最明確的組成部分）所看到和讀到的那樣，我們預計經濟將繼續沿著過去 12 個月我們看到的穩定路徑發展。所以——我認為這可能是我們目前最好的選擇。勞動力市場已實現充分就業，我們已經看到——並且我們正在將重點轉移到向客戶提供ACM解決方案，以幫助我們的客戶更好地吸引和留住員工。因此，隨著充分就業，關注點會發生輕微轉變。人才競爭和招募變得越來越重要，我們已準備好為此提供絕佳的解決方案。至於利率環境，顯然，遠期曲線預測聯準會將在年底前升息，並進一步升息。隨著時間的推移，客戶對其基金餘額的少量投入所對應的利率也不斷上漲。所以我認為，未來利率略有上升，我們將保持穩定，而這已經納入了我們的計劃之中。

Our next question comes from David Grossman from Stifel Financial.

下一個問題來自 Stifel Financial 的 David Grossman。

I just wanted to ask a quick question about the competitive environment. And just some rough math. If we assume that, basically, 2/3 of your ES business is mid and upmarket and those (inaudible) in the aggregate shrink at about 5% annually, is it correct to assume that business as usual, if you will, for ADP creates about $300 million of opportunity, if you will, for your competitors each year? And then second, are there any other internal statistics that you can share with us that would give us some insight into how you've been faring competitively, let's say over the last 12 to 18 months?

我只想問一個關於競爭環境的問題。還有一些粗略的計算。如果我們假設您的 ES 業務基本上有 2/3 屬於中高端市場，而這些（聽不清楚）業務總體上每年萎縮約 5%，那麼假設 ADP 的正常業務每年會為您的競爭對手創造約 3 億美元的機會，這種假設是否正確？其次，您能否與我們分享一些其他內部統計數據，以便我們了解您在過去 12 到 18 個月中的競爭表現？

Sure. I think your math is probably pretty close, directionally close. And that's been, obviously, why we keep focusing so hard on our service experience and our retention rates because, obviously, every $10 million that we keep is $10 million less for the competition. So that's why you hear us being so keenly focused on retention over the last several quarters. In terms of competitive information, we said before that we really don't have any one competitor who takes more than 10% of our business, if you will. So there's really not, and as been consistent for a long, long time, so just a lot of -- there is a lot of competition. So we have a lot of competitors who operate in multiple segments. The competitors in the downmarket are different from the midmarket. The midmarket are different from the upmarket. Some of them bleed across some of those segments. But in general, we have competitors that tend to be more focused on a particular part of the market than us, which are broadly focused. I think that gives us some advantages which we leverage in terms of products and service capability, et cetera. But at the end of the day, we are very large and we obviously are the target for a lot of competition. In terms of specifics, we do look very deeply on a quarterly basis at win/losses, both head-to-head in sales and also in the book. In other words, clients that we lose to a particular competitor and clients we take away from a particular competitor, in addition to looking at the head-to-head competition from a sales standpoint. And again this quarter, unfortunately it's the same story as other quarters, which is there is no discernible pattern other than there were a couple of competitors in particular that we were able to reverse the tide on, which I'm incredibly proud of because, as you point out, we have -- some of our -- there's a few of our competitors that aren't even at the size that you mentioned, the $300 million. And obviously, we are several billion. So whenever you can take the net balance of trade and improve it, it's a big accomplishment. It shows competitive strength in the products. And it shows execution ability in the sales force as well as on the implementation and on the service side. So some glimmers of hope in this last couple of quarters that when we put our minds to it, we can push back. And I think that having clients all in one platform, having ACA behind us, there's a number of factors that I think give me confidence that, that focus will be even more heightened on a go-forward basis, and that we'll be able to hopefully make that $300 million, $250 million or $200 million and hopefully slow down some of our competitors.

當然。我認為你的計算結果應該相當接近正確答案，方向基本上也正確。很顯然，這就是我們一直如此努力地關注服務體驗和客戶留存率的原因，因為很明顯，我們每留住 1000 萬美元，競爭對手就少賺 1000 萬美元。所以，這就是為什麼在過去的幾個季度裡，我們如此重視客戶留存的原因。就競爭資訊而言，我們之前說過，我們實際上沒有任何一個競爭對手能夠搶走我們超過 10% 的市場份額。所以實際上並沒有，而且長期以來一直如此，所以競爭非常激烈。因此，我們有許多競爭對手在多個領域開展業務。低端市場的競爭對手與中端市場的競爭對手有所不同。中端市場與高端市場有所不同。其中一些內容跨越了這些部分。但總的來說，我們的競爭對手往往更專注於市場中的特定部分，而我們則專注於更廣泛的市場。我認為這給我們帶來了一些優勢，我們可以在產品和服務能力等方面加以利用。但歸根究底，我們規模非常大，顯然也是許多競爭對手的目標。具體來說，我們會按季度深入研究輸贏情況，包括銷售方面的直接比較以及帳面上的比較。換句話說，除了從銷售角度看待直接競爭之外，還要考慮我們流失到特定競爭對手的客戶以及我們從特定競爭對手那裡搶走的客戶。不幸的是，本季的情況與其他季度一樣，除了我們扭轉了幾個競爭對手的頹勢之外，沒有其他明顯的規律。對此我感到非常自豪，因為正如你所指出的，我們的一些競爭對手甚至沒有達到你提到的 3 億美元的規模。顯然，我們的人口有數十億。所以，只要能改善貿易淨收支，就是一項龐大的成就。這展現了產品的競爭優勢。這展現了銷售團隊在執行、實施和服務方面的執行能力。所以，在過去的幾個季度裡，我們看到了一些希望的曙光，只要我們齊心協力，就能扭轉局面。我認為，將所有客戶集中在一個平台上，再加上《平價醫療法案》(ACA) 的支持，諸多因素讓我相信，未來我們將更加專注於此，並有望實現 3 億美元、2.5 億美元或 2 億美元的目標，並有望減緩一些競爭對手的發展速度。

All right, great. It's very helpful. And just one other question. And I know you don't like to give or you don't give quarterly guidance. But given the margin and revenue headwinds that we talked about that you're going to have in the first half are somewhat uncharacteristic, can you give us any incremental insight into how we should think about the quarterly EPS cadence for the year versus historical patterns?

好的，太好了。這很有幫助。還有一個問題。我知道你不喜歡給出季度業績指引，或者說你根本不給季度業績指引。但考慮到我們之前討論過的利潤率和收入方面的不利因素，以及上半年您將面臨的一些不尋常的情況，您能否就我們應該如何看待今年的季度每股收益節奏與歷史模式進行比較，提供一些新的見解？

Yes. We would like to try to help there. So -- and I'll be careful and I'll let Jan do the closing here. Because of the way our business works, it's a recurring revenue business and events tend to take place at calendar year-end like they did with ACA. So the first 2 quarters of this fiscal year should not look that different from the first 2 quarters of this fiscal year from a revenue growth standpoint. If our sales forecast and our retention forecast hold true, by the second half of this fiscal year, it will be gradual improvement on the revenue growth. Likewise when you look at margins. Now clearly, as Jan said, we've been "adjusting" our expense base to a lower revenue. We just didn't want to do it too quickly because we're trying to focus on retention as well. And we mentioned that we're making investments in sales, but there should be some gradual relief of pressure on the margin in the first half of this fiscal year compared to the second half of last fiscal year. But even more "relief" and improvement in the second half. And I would call it significant improvement and relief in the second half. And again that's all mathematical and it all works that way. And I think that's probably, I've said probably more than I should say. And I'll let Jan...

是的。我們想盡力提供協助。所以——我會小心行事，我會讓 Jan 來做最後的收尾工作。由於我們的業務運作方式，這是一個經常性收入業務，而且事件往往發生在日曆年末，就像 ACA 一樣。因此，從營收成長的角度來看，本財年的前兩個季度應該不會與本財年的前兩季有太大不同。如果我們的銷售預測和客戶留存預測成真，到本財年下半年，營收成長將逐步改善。同樣，在查看利潤率時也是如此。正如 Jan 所說，很顯然，我們一直在「調整」我們的支出基礎以適應較低的收入。我們只是不想操之過急，因為我們也在努力提高客戶留存率。我們提到過，我們正在增加對銷售的投資，但與上個財年下半年相比，本財年上半年利潤率的壓力應該會逐步緩解。但下半場情況更加“好轉”，進步也更大。下半場的情況有了顯著改善和緩解。這一切都是數學上的，而且一切都按數學原理運作。我覺得我可能說得有點多了。我會讓簡…

No. I think a few more pointers. I think the risky part in building the quarterly model is to go and compare to the quarters 1 to 1, first quarter versus first quarter, because of this grow-over issue that we had in the first half of fiscal year 2017. So we grew our earnings in fiscal year -- first half of the fiscal year between 20% and 26% because of this revenue boost that we received. So I think the sequential analysis is more meaningful because the cost base that we have in our business in the fourth quarter is likely to be smoothly continuing on until you make a revenue assumption. And then it's going to be very steadily improving with kind of acceleration towards the end of the year. That will be kind of my -- like I said, I look at this, it really develops very smoothly. And then maybe one point is important. I tried to isolate it in my remarks. But part of the earnings pressure, of course, is that the tax rate is jumping up back to 33%. And I kind of want to remind everybody that the $0.07 benefit that we had for the accounting of the equity-based employee compensation is not contemplated in the 33%. But likely we're going to have option exercises. It's very hard to forecast those benefits. So we had $0.07 last year. And that's about 2% of earnings growth, roughly. So you can make your own assumptions on the tax rate also. So the 33% is the number that is our forecast excluding that. And that would be -- we anticipate some benefit, but it's very hard because share price and employee behavior will dictate it. But you may be more bold in the forecast.

不。我認為還有幾點要注意。我認為建立季度模型的風險在於，由於我們在 2017 財年上半年遇到的成長問題，需要將季度與第一季進行比較，即第一季與第一季進行比較。因此，由於我們獲得了這筆收入成長，本財年上半年的收益成長了 20% 至 26%。所以我認為順序分析更有意義，因為我們業務在第四季度的成本基礎可能會平穩地持續下去，直到你做出收入假設為止。然後情況會穩定好轉，並在年底前加速好轉。那將是我的——就像我說的，我看著它，它的發展真的非常順利。也許其中一點很重要。我在發言中試圖將它單獨列出來。當然，獲利壓力的一部分原因是稅率回升至 33%。我還要提醒大家，我們先前在股權激勵員工薪酬會計中獲得的 0.07 美元收益並未計入 33% 的收益中。但我們很可能需要行使選擇權。這些收益很難預測。所以去年我們只有 0.07 美元。這大約相當於獲利成長的2%。所以你也可以自己對稅率做假設。所以，33%是我們排除該因素後的預測數字。我們預計會有一些好處，但這非常困難，因為股價和員工行為將決定最終結果。但你的預測或許可以更大膽一些。

Our next question comes from James Berkley with Barclays.

下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的詹姆斯·伯克利。

And it's nice to see bookings turning around in fiscal '18. And could you just touch on the percentage of new bookings coming from the PEO side versus the Employer Services side historically? And how that compares to what you're seeing now? Or providing the bookings growth rate for each as well if possible?

很高興看到 2018 財年的預訂量回升。能否簡單介紹一下歷史上來自 PEO 方和雇主服務方的新訂單佔比是多少？那和您現在看到的情況相比如何？或者，如果可以的話，能否也提供每個項目的預訂成長率？

Well, as like the mechanics of revenue growth indicate to you, obviously, that sales growth is driving those revenue growth numbers. So we have strong growth, that strong double-digit revenue growth in the PEO. We have strong double-digit revenue growth in multinationals. Those businesses we have great performance in the SBS space. Those business obviously have disproportionate growth in our new business bookings. And so reverse engineering tells you if we're anticipating kind of about the same type of revenue growth in the PEO, that the growth of our new business bookings goes in parallel. So we have provided those are the faster-growing business also on the new business bookings side.

正如收入成長機制所表明的那樣，顯然，銷售成長正在推動這些收入成長數字。因此，我們在 PEO 業務方面實現了強勁成長，收入實現了兩位數的強勁成長。我們在跨國公司業務中實現了強勁的兩位數營收成長。這些企業在SBS領域表現出色。這些企業在我們新增業務預訂量中明顯呈現不成比例的成長。因此，逆向工程可以告訴我們，如果我們預期 PEO 的營收成長大致相同，那麼我們新業務預訂的成長也將與之同步。因此，我們在新業務預訂方面也提供了這些成長較快的業務。

And I think in terms of the relative size of the PEO bookings, I don't know. We don't really give that guidance, but I don't think there's anything wrong with giving you a range of the sales dollars for TotalSource are somewhere around, call it, 20% to 25% -- 20-ish percent, if you will, of the total bookings, somewhere in that range, maybe a little higher than that? And again, with really -- with good growth, obviously, that's driving the top line revenue growth.

至於 PEO 預訂的相對規模，我不太清楚。我們通常不會給出具體的指導，但我認為給出一個範圍也沒什麼問題，例如 TotalSource 的銷售額大約佔總預訂量的 20% 到 25%——如果你願意的話，大概是 20% 左右，在這個範圍內，也許會略高一些？再次強調，良好的成長動能顯然推動了營收成長。

I'd just like to remind everybody, the new business bookings for our PEO business at the 20% to 25%, 22%, whatever, does exclude the pass-throughs. So you have to make them comparable. So that's why we don't really like to give out these details because it's going to be more confusing than not, but...

我只想提醒大家，我們 PEO 業務的新業務預訂佣金為 20% 到 25%、22% 等等，但不包括轉嫁費用。所以你必須讓它們具有可比性。所以這就是為什麼我們不太願意透露這些細節，因為只會讓人更困惑，但是…

Yes. I shouldn't have done that because Jan is right. If you took the sales at the gross level, including the pass-throughs, they would be probably almost as much as our total bookings because other PEOs probably may report their sales or the new business bookings that way. But obviously, we, for the sake of comparability and to make sure that it looks like other ADP businesses, we do exclude the pass-throughs in the way we count it.

是的。我不應該那樣做，因為簡說得對。如果以毛額計算銷售額，包括轉嫁費用，那麼銷售額可能幾乎與我們的總預訂量一樣多，因為其他 PEO 可能會以這種方式報告他們的銷售額或新業務預訂量。但顯然，為了便於比較，並確保它看起來與其他 ADP 業務一樣，我們在計算時確實排除了轉嫁費用。

Okay, great. That's helpful. And then just a quick follow-up. And if you could just discuss what you think is driving the record-high retention you're seeing in the downmarket and provide any additional comments in how the midmarket is tracking. And where you think that could go after what -- the work you've done in the downmarket and given what you're doing in the midmarket now?

好的，太好了。那很有幫助。然後還有一個簡短的後續問題。如果您能談談您認為是什麼因素導致了低端市場用戶留存率創歷史新高，並就中端市場的發展提供一些補充意見，那就太好了。那麼，考慮到您在低端市場所做的工作，以及您目前在中端市場所做的工作，您認為未來會如何發展？

So I'll add that we had record retention in a couple of other places as well. So the PEO had record retention. The SBS business, the downmarket had record retention. We had a couple of other places that had record retention as well. And I think that in most of those cases, the only thing I can put my finger on is execution because they are good businesses and there's a good backdrop. But with the benefit of hindsight that's kind of always been true, and I think what the one variable seems to be execution. So if we really deliver great products and great service, the clients stay in all of the segments. So the retention in SBS, for example, now, in the downmarket is 3 to 4 percentage points, not basis points, higher than it was 5 or 6 years ago and higher than -- and that much higher than we thought we would ever be able to achieve. And again, I think it's getting all the clients on one platform. So you make all your investments and put all your focus and all your R&D on one platform. You heard what we're doing with things like Accountant Connect. It's very hard to do those things when you have 3 or 4 platforms. So having everyone on one platform, going after kind of the friction and the things that create that service experience and just good execution, all those things, I think, you put them together and it's really created a really great story for us that, obviously, is translating not only to great retention, but great retention in these businesses leads to really great margin performance and really good revenue growth.

所以我還要補充一點，我們在其他幾個地方也有記錄保存。所以PEO有記錄保存機制。SBS業務，尤其是低端市場，擁有極高的留存率。我們還有其他幾個地方也有檔案保存制度。我認為在大多數情況下，唯一能指出的問題就是執行力，因為它們都是優秀的企業，而且有很好的市場環境。但事後看來，這種情況一直都存在，我認為唯一可能起作用的因素就是執行力。所以，如果我們真的提供優質的產品和優質的服務，客戶就會留在所有細分市場。例如，現在 SBS 在低迷市場中的客戶留存率比 5 或 6 年前高出 3 到 4 個百分點，而不是基點，而且比我們之前認為能夠達到的水平高出這麼多。而且，我認為關鍵在於將所有客戶集中到一個平台。所以你把所有的投資、所有的精力和所有的研發都集中在一個平台上。你聽過我們正在做的，像是利用 Accountant Connect 之類的平台。當你有三、四個平台時，很難做到這些。因此，讓所有人都在一個平台上，消除摩擦，解決影響服務體驗的問題，並做好執行，我認為，所有這些因素結合起來，就為我們創造了一個非常棒的故事，這顯然不僅轉化為良好的客戶留存率，而且在這些業務中，良好的客戶留存率還會帶來非常好的利潤率和非常好的收入增長。

And maybe I'll add, the midmarket experience, we have seen improvement in retention in fiscal year '17 in the midmarket. And it was paralleled by a very significant improvement in our service levels and a meaningful improvement in our client satisfaction scores. So we feel encouraged about the development in the midmarket.

我或許還要補充一點，關於中端市場體驗，我們在 2017 財年中端市場的顧客留存率有所提升。同時，我們的服務水準和客戶滿意度評分也得到了顯著提高。因此，我們對中端市場的發展感到鼓舞。

Our next question comes from Jim Schneider with Goldman Sachs.

下一個問題來自高盛的吉姆·施耐德。

Maybe could you talk a little bit about the bookings outlook in your visibility as you see it throughout the year? I mean, I guess it kind of implies in the back half, you could probably be back to solid, maybe even double-digit bookings growth in the March and June quarters. Can you maybe talk about the visibility you have on that and whether that's the correct assumption about the numbers there?

您能否談談您眼中全年的預訂前景？我的意思是，這大概意味著在下半年，3 月和 6 月的預訂量可能會恢復到穩健成長，甚至可能達到兩位數。您能否談談您對這方面的了解程度，以及您對相關數據的假設是否正確？

So the visibility that we have is related to the number of sales people that we have and their productivity, what we call annual sales productivity. So we have a lot of data, many years of data around that. And we know that our productivity jumped dramatically when we had ACA sales, and obviously, came back down when we didn't have that tailwind. But we have ways of getting at the numbers. Having said that, we've said multiple times whether it's retention or new business bookings, the amount of visibility we have to that is less than things like revenue next quarter because it's a completely different issue in terms of the recurring revenue nature of the business mix of revenues and the margins. So it's somewhat predictable. So new business bookings and retention have less visibility. But we have ways of getting at the -- at what we think are the right targets, which I think as you mentioned, are much better obviously in the second half. Again, all things being equal, if the economy cooperates and we continue to execute well and the math holds up historically for ADP, we should be able to get to those numbers. And obviously, it doesn't happen in a vacuum. You got to have great products. You got to keep sales force turnover down. Those are the kind of the controllables that we focus on that I think we're doing, frankly, exceptional job on right now.

因此，我們所擁有的可見度與我們的銷售人員數量及其生產力有關，也就是我們所說的年度銷售生產力。所以我們有很多數據，很多年的相關數據。我們知道，當 ACA 法案生效並帶來銷售成長時，我們的生產力大幅提升；而當這項利好因素消失後，生產力顯然也隨之下降。但我們有辦法取得這些數據。話雖如此，我們已經多次說過，無論是客戶留存率還是新業務預訂量，我們對這些的可見性都不如對下個季度收入等情況的可見性，因為就經常性收入的業務組合和利潤率而言，這是一個完全不同的問題。所以這在某種程度上是可以預見的。因此，新業務預訂和客戶留存情況的可見度較低。但是我們有辦法達到我們認為正確的目標，正如你所提到的，顯然在下半場會好得多。再說一遍，在其他條件相同的情況下，如果經濟狀況配合，我們繼續有效執行，並且從歷史數據來看，ADP 的獲利能力也符合預期，那麼我們應該能夠達到這些數字。顯然，這件事並非孤立發生的。你必須擁有優質的產品。必須降低銷售人員流動率。這些都是我們重點關注的可控因素，坦白說，我認為我們目前在這方面做得非常出色。

I think one point of information is, remember in the first quarter of 2017, we did still have some ACA sales, this was prior to election, and we had a pretty good performance, actually, relative to our expectations in the first quarter. So we still have -- we have no material sales assumptions for the Affordable Care Act this fiscal year, but we still have a little bit of grow-over challenge in the first quarter. So that's going to be a little bit more difficult but (inaudible) then Carlos' words hold of course the truth.

我認為需要指出的一點是，請記住，在 2017 年第一季度，我們仍然有一些 ACA 的銷售額，這是在選舉之前，而且實際上，相對於我們第一季度的預期，我們的業績相當不錯。因此，我們仍然－本財年我們對《平價醫療法案》沒有實質的銷售假設，但第一季我們仍面臨一些成長方面的挑戰。所以這會有點困難，但是（聽不清楚）卡洛斯的話當然是有道理的。

And maybe just a clarification. In terms of the capital allocation strategy, is there any buyback assumption embedded in your fiscal '18 guidance? I know there was one explicitly called out in fiscal '17 guidance. I wonder if one was for '18, if any.

或許還需要澄清一下。就資本配置策略而言，貴公司 2018 財年的業績指引中是否包含任何股票回購假設？我知道在 2017 財年的業績指引中明確提到了這一點。我想知道其中是否有 2018 年的。

As you're a very correct observer, Jim. So as an exception in fiscal year 2017, we guided for incremental share buybacks because we wanted to make it clear that our intent was to return the proceeds of our debt offering in 2016, which has been completed. So we're now returning to our normal practice, which is we are anticipating to offset equity-based dilution for our employee compensation, which is about $400 million or so. And then we should expect a long-term backed -- we're aiming to be back at our long-term model that we have shared, and I think the long-term model includes, not that we guide to it, but the long-term model anticipates the return of excess cash to our shareholders of approximately 1 -- resulting into approximately 1% of share count reduction. That would be our long-term model, and pending on market conditions, obviously.

吉姆，你的觀察非常準確。因此，作為 2017 財年的例外情況，我們預計會逐步回購股票，因為我們想明確表示，我們的意圖是返還 2016 年債務發行所得款項，而該發行已經完成。所以我們現在恢復了正常做法，即我們預計透過股權稀釋來抵消員工薪酬，金額約為 4 億美元左右。然後我們應該期待一個長期的支持——我們的目標是回到我們分享過的長期模式，我認為長期模式包括（雖然我們並沒有明確指出），長期模式預計向股東返還約 1% 的超額現金——這將導致股份數量減少約 1%。那將是我們的長期模式，當然，這取決於市場情況。

Our next question comes from Gary Bisbee with RBC Capital Markets.

下一個問題來自加拿大皇家銀行資本市場的 Gary Bisbee。

This is actually Jay Hanna on for Gary today. Just a quick question with regard to bookings guidance. You're guiding for 5% to 7% in fiscal '18. And that's coming off a reduction of 5% last year. So that really only implies flattish to 2% over 2 years. And on a 4-year CAGR, if I'm doing the math right, that implies about 6%, which should remove for most of the ACA-related noise. And this just falls a bit below the 8% to 10% long-term model you've given. So I was just wondering if you had any comments with regard to that? And maybe we should think about it through a different lens now?

今天為加里主持節目的是傑伊漢納。關於預訂指南，我有個小問題。你們預計 2018 財年增長率為 5% 至 7%。而且這還是在去年下降了5%之後。所以實際上只意味著兩年內成長率將維持在2%左右。如果以 4 年複合年增長率計算，如果我的計算沒錯，這意味著大約 6%，這應該可以消除大部分與 ACA 相關的噪音。這比您給出的 8% 到 10% 的長期模型略低一些。所以我想問您對此有何看法？或許我們現在應該換個角度來思考這個問題？

I think the -- it depends on how you calculate your averages and where you have your starting point. Clearly, our sales guidance for '18 signals our optimism into our success of our sales force and the competitiveness of our products. And clearly, we're anticipating to grow out of that grow-over challenge that we had. And the way I think our guidance works is what we are kind of returning over the year back to our long-term expectations. And as Carlos confirmed in his initial remarks and in the questions, we are sticking to our long-term expectation model that we have set in our Investor Days a couple of years ago.

我認為——這取決於你如何計算平均值以及你的起點在哪裡。顯然，我們對 2018 年的銷售預期表明了我們對銷售團隊的成功和我們產品的競爭力的樂觀態度。顯然，我們期待能夠克服之前所遇到的成長瓶頸。我認為我們的指導方針運作方式是，我們一年來逐步回歸到我們的長期預期。正如卡洛斯在開場白和問答環節中所確認的那樣，我們堅持幾年前在投資者日上製定的長期預期模型。

Okay. And then just another quick follow-up. Are you including in guidance any uptick in sales commissions related to the return to growth in bookings for the year?

好的。然後，我再快速跟進。你們的業績指引中是否包含了與年度預訂量恢復成長相關的銷售佣金成長？

Yes. Our operating model and operating plan fully contemplates the sales cost related to new business bookings. We had a dynamic twofold, as I tried to explain, in '17 accelerated investments into headcount staffing, which kind of elevated our sales costs and distribution costs a little bit and incremental sales incentives to get us through a difficult year. And next year, we have a distribution cost planned for a more normalized headcount growth of approximately 4%. And obviously, we're matching commission expense to our expected sales results.

是的。我們的營運模式和營運計劃充分考慮了與新業務預訂相關的銷售成本。正如我試圖解釋的那樣，我們在 2017 年採取了雙重策略：一方面，我們加快了對員工人數的投資，這在一定程度上提高了我們的銷售成本和分銷成本；另一方面，我們增加了銷售激勵措施，以幫助我們度過艱難的一年。明年，我們計劃根據約 4% 的較為正常的員工人數增長來製定分銷成本計劃。顯然，我們的佣金支出與預期的銷售業績相符。

Our next question comes from Danyal Hussain of Morgan Stanley.

下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的丹尼爾·侯賽因。

Just a quick follow-up on bookings. The fourth quarter came in a bit better than your expectations. Could you -- would you attribute more of that to client behavior inflecting more positively or just your investment in sales? And then likewise for fiscal 2018, could you talk maybe about your -- the degree of conservatism in your outlook, just in the context of what happened last year?

關於預訂事宜，簡單跟進一下。第四季的表現比你預期的要好一些。您認為這更多是客戶行為的正面改變所造成的，還是只是您在銷售上的投入所造成的？那麼，對於 2018 財年，您能否談談您的保守程度，尤其是在去年發生的情況背景下？

I think it's really too early to read anything into the fourth quarter sales results because we, as Jan just said, we put incentives to try to get people over the finish line. We, frankly, also implored the sales force to "not give up" because we don't want to send the wrong signal to the market or to our competitors. And so there's a lot of moving parts here that I think may have contributed. But it's better than the alternative. So we're happy that we had the finish that we had. But I don't think that there's really anything you can scientifically read into it other than maybe underneath the surface there's some better environment in terms of the -- because some of the uncertainty, I mean, at some point people have to get back to business as usual despite what's going on in Washington with regulation and with ACA and so forth. So maybe there's a little bit of that. But we can't -- I can't put my finger on it. I wish I could, but our optimism and to your point about why are we optimistic, it relates back to my previous comments around ADP's historical ability to execute in sales related to having the right headcount, having the right products, the right sales support, the right incentives and the right execution. I think with the right economic backdrop, I think, should give me, and it does, a high level of confidence and optimism.

我認為現在就對第四季度銷售業績做出任何判斷還為時過早，因為正如 Jan 剛才所說，我們採取了激勵措施來幫助人們完成目標。坦白說，我們也懇請銷售人員“不要放棄”，因為我們不想向市場或競爭對手發出錯誤的信號。所以這裡有很多因素在起作用，我認為這些因素可能都起到了作用。但這總比另一個選擇好。所以我們很高興取得了這樣的成績。但我認為，除了表面之下可能存在一些更好的環境之外，你無法從科學的角度真正解讀出什麼——因為有些不確定性，我的意思是，儘管華盛頓在監管和《平價醫療法案》等方面發生了一些事情，但在某種程度上，人們還是必須恢復正常營業。所以，或許其中確實有一點點這樣的成分。但是我們做不到──我說不上來。我希望我能做到，但我們的樂觀態度，以及你提到的我們為什麼樂觀，都與我之前關於 ADP 在銷售方面的歷史執行能力的評論有關，即擁有合適的人員配置、合適的產品、合適的銷售支持、合適的激勵措施和合適的執行力。我認為，在良好的經濟環境下，應該會帶給我高度的信心和樂觀情緒，而事實也的確如此。

Got it. And then your biggest competitor called out elevated pricing. Competition in the midmarket, did you see any of that? Or is it just not material?

知道了。然後，你最大的競爭對手宣布提高價格。你看到中階市場有競爭嗎？或者說，它根本就不是物質性的？

Yes, we haven't -- good question. So we monitor 2 components of our pricing. Number one is our discount versus book pricing in new sales, and we are monitoring our pricing levels and concessions in the base, and both are good indicators of the pricing competition. And we have not seen any material change in both indicators. So we view the pricing environment as unchanged. It is dynamic though. There are ups and downs each quarter in different regions pending on the competitive action that we take and our competitors take. But if you take the aggregate and you look at the lines, we cannot advise a specific trend to increase pricing pressure or the opposite to that matter. So we feel good about the pricing environment.

是的，我們還沒有──問得好。因此，我們會監控定價的兩個組成部分。第一點是我們在新銷售中相對於書籍定價的折扣，我們正在監控基礎產品的價格水平和優惠，這兩點都是衡量價格競爭的良好指標。這兩個指標均未出現實質變化。因此，我們認為定價環境沒有改變。但它是動態的。每個季度，不同地區的業績都會波動，這取決於我們和競爭對手採取的競爭行動。但是，如果你從整體上看這些趨勢，我們無法預測哪種趨勢會增加價格壓力，或相反的情況。因此，我們對目前的定價環境感到滿意。

Our next question comes from Jeff Silber with BMO Capital Markets.

下一個問題來自 BMO 資本市場的 Jeff Silber。

I'm just curious. Shifting gears back down to what's going on in Washington, D.C., have you heard anything on the discussion in terms of tax reform that either might help or hurt your business?

我只是好奇而已。回到華盛頓特區正在發生的事情，您有沒有聽到任何關於稅收改革的討論，這些討論可能會對您的企業有利或不利？

I think other than the realization that we have a high effective tax rate and that we view us of a net beneficiary of any corporate tax reform in all scenarios, we have no further comment. Because I think you can better assess the likelihood of success in the tax reform to it.

我認為，除了意識到我們實際稅率很高，並且我們認為在任何情況下，我們都是企業稅改革的淨受益者之外，我們沒有其他評論。因為我認為你可以更好地評估稅制改革成功的可能性。

So besides that, I guess, I was more curious in terms of from a client impact or a product impact.

所以除此之外，我更想知道這對客戶或產品會產生什麼影響。

Again, we haven't heard anything in terms of any -- that would change, for example, the way taxes are collected in this country or would affect our flow. I'm trying to -- I'm not sure exactly -- maybe if you have something you think or you know that we don't know, we're happy to hear about it or address it. But we're not aware of anything other than they're trying to reduce the corporate tax rate. And obviously, there are some, I guess, preferences and benefits that are going to be taken away in order to do that. But those generally apply to like the energy sector, the manufacturing sector and other. That's why we have a high effective tax rate. So there -- in theory, there are going to be winners and losers. People with a very low effective tax rate are going to probably get an increase in their effective tax rate. And the people who have a high effective tax rate are going to see a decrease because the statutory corporate tax rate is going to -- not going to, they're saying they're going to take it down. So whether it's 25% or 20% or 30%, that can only help us. And we don't have any significant tax preferences that we take advantage of that would go the other way. From a client standpoint, we do have a tax credit business. It's not -- it's relatively small. We haven't heard any talk about -- those are targeted job credit type taxes that are -- tax breaks that are very popular. So we haven't heard any talk about that, those being repealed. But I think I would say it's very likely that if there's any tax reform, that it would be very positive for ADP. It could be significantly positive but obviously, as Jan said, we have no sense on the likelihood of that.

再說一遍，我們還沒有聽到任何關於會改變這個國家稅收徵收方式或影響我們資金流動的事情。我正在嘗試——我不太確定具體該怎麼做——也許如果您有任何想法或知道我們不知道的事情，我們很樂意聽取或討論。但除了他們試圖降低企業稅率之外，我們一無所知。顯然，為了做到這一點，一些偏好和利益將會被剝奪。但這些通常適用於能源產業、製造業等產業。這就是我們實際稅率高的原因。所以，理論上來說，會有贏家和輸家。實際稅率很低的人，其實際稅率很可能會提高。而那些實際稅率較高的人將會看到稅負減輕，因為法定企業稅率將會——不是將會，他們說要降低它。所以無論是 25%、20% 還是 30%，只會對我們有幫助。而且我們也沒有任何可以利用的重大稅收優惠，否則情況就會朝著相反的方向發展。從客戶的角度來看，我們確實有稅收抵免業務。不是的——它相對較小。我們沒有聽到任何關於——那些有針對性的就業稅收抵免——的討論，這些稅收減免非常受歡迎。所以我們沒有聽到任何關於廢除這些條款的討論。但我認為，如果進行任何稅制改革，很可能對ADP來說都是非常有利的。這可能是一個非常重要的正面結果，但顯然，正如 Jan 所說，我們無法判斷這種可能性有多大。

It was more of the credit-relating aspect that I was referring to.

我指的是與信用相關的面向。

Our last question comes from Karkik Mehta with Northcoast Research.

最後一個問題來自 Northcoast Research 的 Karkik Mehta。

I know you've talked about pricing and not seeing pricing pressure. But I was wondering on the downmarket, your ability to achieve price increases. Have you seen any change in the marketplace that would -- that changes this dynamic from, let's say, 1 year ago?

我知道你們討論過定價問題，但並沒有感受到價格壓力。但我很好奇，在低端市場，你們能否實現價格上漲。您是否觀察到市場發生了任何變化，使得這種格局與一年前相比有所改變？

The downmarket has been actually performing beautifully and the competitive strength that the product has, has translated in a very good price realization.

低端市場表現非常出色，該產品所具有的競爭優勢轉化為非常好的價格實現。

And then just the last question, Carlos. I know you talked about competition and you have not seen much difference in competition. But if you could just look at the marketplace as a whole. Have you seen anything different in the last 12 months, that being competition you anticipated that only stayed on the high end coming down to the midmarket, or a competition that was just at the midmarket coming down to the low end, or competitors leaving the marketplace. Anything that's changed in your opinion in the last 12 months?

最後一個問題，卡洛斯。我知道你談到了競爭，但你並沒有看到競爭有太大的變化。但如果你能從整體來看市場就好了。在過去的 12 個月裡，您是否觀察到任何變化，例如您預期的只在高端市場存在的競爭下降到中端市場，或者原本只在中端市場存在的競爭下降到低端市場，或者競爭對手退出市場。在過去12個月裡，你的看法有任何改變嗎？

Just to clarify. And I don't want to be misquoted as saying not seeing much change in the competition, because we have lot of competition. And it feels like we have more of it than we had 3 years or 5 years ago or 10 years ago. That's probably happens to every CEO, they always think that they have more competition than the previous person. So we have an enormous amount of respect for the market and for the competition because there's a lot of it. And we know that we have to earn our place everyday in the marketplace by having competitive products and great service. And whenever we slip or trip, they take advantage; and whenever they slip or trip, we take advantage. So it's very important for us to stay on top of it. But if you're asking about 12 months specifically, there are definitely competitors who have gone -- who have kind of come down segments or gone up segments. But I think to -- based on my experience at ADP, nothing different from what's been happening for decades, where a competitor decides that they're in the downmarket, that they can go up into the midmarket and they try it, and then maybe 3 years later, they go back or sometimes they stay. Likewise, we've had -- we've always had enterprise size competitors that are in the upmarket who decide to come downmarket a little bit into the midmarket. Sometimes they stay, sometimes they go away. So I don't think I've seen anything worth, I guess, reporting. But plenty of that type of stuff that you just mentioned. But I think it's normal competitive actions by competitors.

澄清一下。我不想被誤解為認為我沒有看到競爭格局發生太大變化，因為我們面臨激烈的競爭。感覺我們現在擁有的比 3 年前、5 年前甚至 10 年前還要多。這種情況可能每個CEO都會遇到，他們總是覺得自己的競爭對手比前任更多。因此，我們對市場和競爭抱持著極大的尊重，因為市場和競爭非常激烈。我們知道，我們必須每天透過提供有競爭力的產品和優質的服務來贏得市場中的地位。每當我們失足跌倒時，他們就會趁虛而入；每當他們失足跌倒時，我們就會趁虛而入。所以，密切注意此事對我們來說非常重要。但如果你具體問的是過去 12 個月的情況，那麼肯定有一些競爭對手已經——有的降級到某個細分市場，有的則升級到另一個細分市場。但我認為——根據我在 ADP 的經驗——這與幾十年來發生的事情並沒有什麼不同，競爭對手決定他們身處低端市場，他們可以進軍中端市場，然後他們嘗試一下，然後可能 3 年後，他們又回到低端市場，或者有時會留在低端市場。同樣，我們一直以來都有一些高階企業級競爭對手，他們決定稍微下沉一下市場，進入中端市場。有時它們會留下，有時它們會離開。所以我覺得我還沒看到任何值得報道的事。但像你剛才提到的那種東西確實很多。但我認為這是競爭對手之間正常的競爭行為。

This concludes the Q&A portion for today. I am pleased to hand the program over to Carlos Rodriguez for closing remarks.

今天的問答環節到此結束。我很高興將節目交給卡洛斯·羅德里格斯，請他致閉幕詞。

We appreciate your time today. As you can see, I think the strategic initiatives that we've laid out over the last several years, I think, are beginning to deliver on some of the objectives we have around not just shareholder value but also around delivering world-class solutions to our clients. I'm very proud. It's year-end, so I think I should say that I'm very proud of the hard work and dedication of our associates who obviously have been able to help us deliver these results, including the improvements in the service experience and improvements in retention this quarter. Obviously, we continue to be excited about the prospects ahead of us. We definitely have challenges in '18 with the softer bookings performance. And as you can tell, we're incredibly bullish and confident still. Otherwise, we wouldn't be making the kinds of investments that we're making, so we believe that these investments, along with our ability to execute, I think really give us the right formula for sustained continued success for many years to come. So thanks again for your interest in ADP, and thank you for joining us on the call today.

感謝您今天抽出時間。正如你所看到的，我認為我們在過去幾年中製定的策略舉措，已經開始實現我們的一些目標，這些目標不僅圍繞著股東價值，而且圍繞著為我們的客戶提供世界一流的解決方案。我感到非常自豪。時值年末，我想說，我為我們同事們的辛勤工作和奉獻精神感到非常自豪，他們顯然幫助我們取得了這些成果，包括本季度服務體驗和客戶留存率的提高。顯然，我們對未來的前景依然充滿期待。2018年，由於預訂量疲軟，我們確實面臨一些挑戰。正如你所看到的，我們仍然非常看好市場，充滿信心。否則，我們就不會進行現在這種類型的投資，所以我們相信，這些投資加上我們的執行能力，我認為真正為我們提供了在未來多年持續成功的正確方法。再次感謝您對ADP的關注，也感謝您今天參加我們的電話會議。

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's presentation. You may now disconnect, and have a wonderful day.

女士們、先生們，今天的演講到此結束。現在您可以斷開連接了，祝您度過美好的一天。