自動資料處理 (ADP) 2020 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is Crystal, and I will be your conference operator. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to ADP's Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2020 Earnings Call. I would like to inform you that this conference is being recorded. (Operator Instructions) I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Danyal Hussain, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

早安.我是Crystal，本次會議的接線生。現在，我謹代表ADP公司歡迎各位參加2020財年第四季財報電話會議。請注意，本次會議正在錄音。 （接線生提示）現在，我將會議交給投資人關係副總裁Danyal Hussain先生。請開始發言。

Thank you, Crystal. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining ADP's Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2020 Earnings Call and Webcast. Participating today are Carlos Rodriguez, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Kathleen Winters, our Chief Financial Officer.

謝謝Crystal。大家早安，感謝各位參加ADP 2020財年第四季財報電話會議及網路直播。今天出席會議的有我們的總裁兼執行長Carlos Rodriguez，以及我們的財務長Kathleen Winters。

Earlier this morning, we released our results for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020. The earnings materials are available on the SEC's website and on our Investor Relations website at investors.adp.com, where you will also find the investor presentation that accompanies today's call as well as our quarterly history of revenue and pretax earnings by reportable segment.

今天早些時候，我們發布了2020財年第四季的業績報告。您可以在美國證券交易委員會（SEC）網站和我們的投資者關係網站 investors.adp.com 上查閱業績報告資料。您也可以在網站上找到今天電話會議的投資者演示文稿，以及我們按報告分部劃分的季度收入和稅前利潤歷史記錄。

During our call today, we will reference non-GAAP financial measures which we believe to be useful to investors and that exclude the impact of certain items. A description of these items, along with a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to their most comparable GAAP measures, can be found in our earnings release.

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者有用，並且剔除了某些項目的影響。有關這些項目的說明以及非GAAP指標與其最接近的GAAP指標的調節表，請參閱我們的獲利報告。

Today's call will also contain forward-looking statements that refer to future events and involve some risk. We encourage you to review our filings with the SEC for additional information on factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. As always, please do not hesitate to reach out, should you have any questions. And with that, let me turn the call over to Carlos.

今天的電話會議將包含一些前瞻性陳述，這些陳述涉及未來事件，並存在一定風險。我們建議您查閱我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件，以了解可能導致實際結果與我們目前預期有重大差異的因素。如有任何疑問，請隨時與我們聯繫。接下來，我會把電話會議交給卡洛斯。

Thank you, Danny, and thank you, everyone, for joining the call. This morning, we reported our fourth quarter and fiscal 2020 results. Although we ended the year -- this year against significant headwinds related to COVID-19, we believe we executed well over the course of the last 12 months. And our product offerings remain well positioned to support sustainable long-term revenue growth as we continue to help companies and their workforces through all types of environments.

謝謝丹尼，也謝謝各位參加今天的電話會議。今天上午，我們公佈了2020財年第四季及全年業績。儘管今年我們面臨新冠疫情帶來的巨大挑戰，但我們相信過去12個月的業績表現良好。我們的產品組合依然能夠支持可持續的長期收入成長，我們將繼續在各種環境下為企業及其員工提供協助。

For the quarter, we delivered revenue of $3.4 billion, down 3% reported and 2% organic constant currency, which was better than our expectations. And for the full year, we delivered revenue of $14.6 billion, up 3% reported and 4% organic constant currency.

本季度，我們實現營收34億美元，以報告匯率計算年減3%，以有機成長（以固定匯率計算）計算年減2%，優於預期。全年來看，我們實現營收146億美元，以報告匯率計算年增3%，以有機成長（以固定匯率計算）計算年增4%。

Our adjusted EBIT margin increased 10 basis points in the quarter and increased 60 basis points for the full year, well ahead of our expectations as we managed our expense base prudently to absorb the impact of a decline in revenue in the fourth quarter while simultaneously providing an elevated level of service to our clients.

本季調整後的息稅前利潤率提高了 10 個基點，全年提高了 60 個基點，遠遠超出預期。這得益於我們謹慎地管理支出，以吸收第四季度收入下降的影響，同時為客戶提供更高水準的服務。

With this revenue and margin performance, our adjusted EPS growth was flat for the quarter and up 9% for the year. Considering the unprecedented and evolving macroeconomic situation, we are very pleased with our execution in the quarter and our current positioning as employment continues to gradually recover from the steep declines our clients have experienced.

憑藉這樣的營收和利潤率表現，我們本季調整後的每股盈餘成長與上季持平，全年成長9%。考慮到前所未有的、不斷變化的宏觀經濟形勢，我們對本季度的業績以及目前的市場地位感到非常滿意，因為就業市場正從我們客戶經歷的急劇下滑中逐步復甦。

The global health crisis from COVID-19 has clearly evolved over these past few months. And I'll start today's discussion by providing a brief update on the trends we've experienced. When we reported our fiscal third quarter results in April, we were just starting to see some preliminary signs of stabilization after weeks of rapid deterioration. More specifically, across our own data sources, including weekly payroll, clock-in volume, job postings and background screenings, there were multiple indications that we were reaching the trough.

過去幾個月，新冠肺炎疫情引發的全球健康危機顯然已經改變了。今天，我將首先簡要回顧我們所經歷的趨勢。今年四月，我們公佈了第三財季業績，當時在經歷了數週的快速惡化之後，我們剛開始看到一些初步的穩定跡象。更具體地說，從我們自身的資料來源來看，包括每週薪資、考勤量、招募資訊和背景調查等，多項指標都顯示我們已經觸底反彈。

Now 3 months later, we do believe we saw conditions bottom in late April. Whereas our pays per control was trending down mid-teens in April, it has since improved to be down about 10% as we exited the quarter. And for the full quarter, pays per control was down 10.8%, better than we had contemplated in our outlook.

三個月後，我們認為市場狀況在四月下旬觸底。四月份，我們的每位控制員的薪酬呈下降趨勢，降幅在十幾個百分點左右，但到季度末已改善至約10%。整個季度，每位控制員的薪資下降了10.8%，優於我們先前的預期。

Last quarter, we also discussed our expectation for elevated out-of-business losses in May and June. Those losses ultimately developed in line with our expectations. This yielded a decline in our retention rate of 20 basis points to 90.5% for the full year. Though if not for the elevated out-of-business losses in Q4, we believe our retention rate would have been up for the year. In fact, despite these losses in Q4, for fiscal 2020, we tied an all-time-high retention for our mid-market and hit a multiyear-high in our upmarket.

上個季度，我們也討論了5月和6月預計會出現較高的倒閉損失。這些損失最終與我們的預期相符。這導致我們全年的客戶留存率下降了20個基點，至90.5%。不過，如果不是第四季較高的倒閉損失，我們相信全年的客戶留存率會上升。事實上，儘管第四季度出現了這些損失，但在2020財年，我們的中端市場客戶留存率仍創歷史新高，而高端市場客戶留存率也達到了多年來的最高水平。

Looking ahead, while we have been encouraged by signs that the economic distress brought about by COVID-19 has started to ease in certain countries and several U.S. states, we are seeing continued or even increasing distress in others. And over the past several weeks, we've seen the pace of employment recovery slow.

展望未來，儘管我們欣喜地看到，一些國家和美國部分州受新冠疫情影響的經濟困境已開始緩解，但在其他一些地區，困境仍在持續甚至加劇​​。而且，在過去幾周里，就業復甦的步伐也明顯放緩。

Accordingly, as we set our expectations for the coming year, we believe that the worst is behind us, but the global economic recovery over the coming quarters will be gradual. Kathleen will discuss some of our specific macroeconomic assumptions in more detail.

因此，在展望來年時，我們認為最糟糕的時期已經過去，但未來幾季的全球經濟復甦將是漸進的。凱瑟琳將更詳細地討論我們的一些具體宏觀經濟假設。

I'd like to turn now to Employer Services new business bookings. We reported a decline of 21% for the year, which was in line with our revised outlook despite the limited visibility we had in making that forecast. And although this represents a significant decline, the actual execution by our sales force was better than what this reported growth rate suggests.

現在我想談談雇主服務的新業務預訂。我們報告稱，全年預訂量下降了21%，這與我們修正後的預期相符，儘管我們在做出預測時掌握的資訊有限。雖然這代表著顯著的下降，但我們銷售團隊的實際執行情況比報告的成長率所顯示的要好。

As we mentioned last quarter, there are 2 components to our bookings figure: our gross bookings we actually sold in the quarter and adjustments for previously recorded bookings. Our gross bookings sold in Q4, while down significantly, came in ahead of our forecast and most importantly exited the quarter with improving momentum. This gives us confidence that buying behavior is continuing to trend in the right direction, which we believe will drive further bookings recovery in the coming quarters.

正如我們上季所述，我們的預訂量資料包含兩部分：當季實際售出的總預訂量以及先前已記錄預訂量的調整。第四季的總預訂量雖然大幅下降，但仍高於我們的預期，更重要的是，季度末的成長勢頭有所改善。這讓我們相信，購買行為正持續朝著正確的方向發展，我們相信這將推動未來幾季的預訂量進一步回升。

Furthermore, our sales force has continued to adapt to this virtual sales environment as we've invested in training, stayed agile on sales messaging and continued to foster our channel relationships. We are also continuing to see week-on-week improvement in leading indicators, such as referrals, appointments per salesperson and demos scheduled.

此外，我們的銷售團隊持續適應虛擬銷售環境，我們加大了培訓投入，靈活調整銷售訊息，並不斷鞏固與通路的關係。同時，我們也看到一些關鍵指標每週都在穩定提升，例如客戶推薦量、每位銷售人員的預約量以及產品展示安排量。

In addition to these gross bookings, we regularly adjust bookings we have previously recognized if, for example, a client is no longer expected to start within the original estimated time frame or is starting with fewer employees than originally anticipated. These backlog adjustments are ordinarily immaterial to our bookings growth. But as we said last quarter, COVID-19 is causing some clients to delay implementations or to start with fewer employees than we originally signed.

除了這些總訂單量之外，我們還會定期調整先前已確認的訂單，例如，如果客戶預計無法在原定時間內啟動項目，或啟動時的員工人數少於預期。這些積壓訂單的調整通常對我們的訂單成長影響不大。但正如我們上個季度所述，新冠疫情導致一些客戶推遲專案實施，或啟動時的員工人數少於我們最初約定的人數。

We made a larger backlog adjustment in Q4 than previously planned. And this offset the better underlying sales performance we experienced. Looking ahead, we expect we will likely see negative bookings growth in the first half of fiscal 2021 as we are still selling into an unfavorable macro environment. But we expect growth to be flat to positive in Q3 with much more substantial growth in Q4, driving full year bookings growth of flat to up 10%.

我們在第四季度對積壓訂單的調整幅度超出了預期，這抵消了我們實際銷售業績的改善。展望未來，由於宏觀經濟環境依然不利，我們預期2021財年上半年訂單量可能負成長。但我們預計第三季訂單量將持平或成長，第四季將實現更顯著的成長，從而推動全年訂單量成長持平或成長10%。

Beyond fiscal 2021, a key priority will be getting our sales productivity back to or above its previous level. Within our control are the investments we make. And in fiscal 2021, we are planning to continue investing in product innovation, digital sales capabilities and leading-edge sales tools to drive sales productivity higher.

2021財年之後，我們的首要任務是使銷售效率恢復到或超過先前的水準。投資是我們能夠掌控的。在2021財年，我們計劃持續投資於產品創新、數位化銷售能力和前沿銷售工具，以進一步提升銷售效率。

In addition, at this point, we are planning to add modestly to the size of our sales force. And together, we believe these investments will position us well to return to our previous -- to our prior new business bookings growth trend line as client buying behavior continues to normalize. Factors beyond our control, including overall GDP trends as well as the timing and scope of workers returning to their job sites, will, in the meantime, likely continue to impact our bookings.

此外，我們目前計劃適度擴充銷售團隊。我們相信，隨著客戶購買行為逐漸恢復正常，這些投資將使我們能夠重回先前的新業務訂單成長趨勢。同時，一些我們無法控制的因素，例如整體GDP趨勢以及工人何時以及在多大程度上重返工作崗位，可能會繼續影響我們的訂單量。

Moving on, service has remained critical to our clients. Our clients look to us for support and guidance in navigating through the complexities of key HR challenges and regulatory change. And our goal has been to serve as a trusted partner as they've faced COVID-19.

展望未來，服務對我們的客戶而言始終至關重要。客戶在應對關鍵人力資源挑戰和監管變化帶來的複雜問題時，需要我們的支持和指導。我們的目標是成為他們在應對新冠疫情期間值得信賴的合作夥伴。

Our clients have responded very positively to the robust service we have provided. And that, in turn, has led to record NPS scores in June as a direct outcome of our commitment to providing this exceptional level of service. And we expect this favorable NPS trend to have positive implications for us in the years ahead.

客戶對我們提供的專業服務給予了非常正面的回饋。正因為如此，我們致力於提供卓越的服務，並在六月取得了NPS評分的歷史新高。我們預計，這種良好的NPS趨勢將在未來幾年對我們產生積極的影響。

In response to an initial surge in service volumes related to COVID-19, we redeployed hundreds of sales and implementation associates to help meet the service need. While average resolution time spent per service request remains elevated as our clients work through complex issues, we have now seen our service request volume return to more normal levels. And we are happy to report that we have now deployed most of these associates back to their sales and implementation rules. We continue to keep watch on proposed legislation that could drive another surge in client service demand. And we remain prepared for such a scenario.

為因應新冠疫情初期服務量的激增，我們重新調配了數百名銷售和實施人員，以滿足服務需求。儘管由於客戶需要處理複雜問題，每個服務請求的平均解決時間仍然較長，但我們的服務請求量目前已恢復到較正常的水平。我們很高興地宣布，目前已將大部分人員調回銷售和實施職位。我們將繼續密切關注可能再次引發客戶服務需求激增的立法提案，並做好應對準備。

We also continue to serve our clients through product innovation. During the quarter, we rolled out a range of solutions to help our clients through the crisis and prepare for the recovery. We implemented over 1,000 feature changes in response to 2,000 legislative updates in 60 countries. And we also had over 400,000 clients run over 2 million Paycheck Protection Program reports for a total loan volume of approximately $115 billion. Many of those clients have also now run the necessary reports to apply for their loans to be forgiven.

我們持續透過產品創新為客戶提供服務。本季度，我們推出了一系列解決方案，幫助客戶渡過危機並為復甦做好準備。我們根據60個國家的2000項立法更新，實施了1000多項功能變更。此外，超過40萬名客戶運行了超過200萬份薪資保護計畫（PPP）報告，涉及貸款總額約1,150億美元。其中許多客戶現已運行必要的報告，申請貸款豁免。

Looking ahead, a key product focus is enabling a safe return to the workplace. And we're offering tools, including touchless and voice-enabled clocking, health attestation and enhanced scheduling and analytics to help clients manage their workforces as they resume workplace operations.

展望未來，我們的一項關鍵產品重點是確保員工安全復工。我們將提供一系列工具，包括非接觸式和語音打卡、健康證明以及增強型排班和分析功能，以幫助客戶在恢復工作場所運作的同時管理員工隊伍。

We continue to make progress on our other major product initiatives, including the rollout of our Next Gen HCM platform and Payroll engines. 2 weeks ago, we won yet another award for our Next Gen HCM solution, the Ventana Annual Digital Innovation Award. And we remain excited about its rollout.

我們在其他主要產品項目方面也持續取得進展，包括下一代HCM平台和薪資引擎的推出。兩週前，我們的下一代HCM解決方案榮獲Ventana年度數位創新獎。我們對此解決方案的推出充滿信心。

Perhaps more importantly, despite shifting our workforce to a remote environment, we remain on track to hit our R&D development road map milestones. And just this quarter, we piloted Next Gen HCM and Payroll in Australia. Our product team also launched our new workforce management solution in the downmarket, launched a new time kiosk in the Apple App Store. And we went general availability with Wisely Direct in our mid-market and downmarket.

更重要的是，儘管我們已將員工轉移到遠距辦公環境，但我們仍按計劃推進研發路線圖，以實現既定目標。就在本季度，我們在澳洲試點推出了新一代人力資本管理 (HCM) 和薪資管理系統。我們的產品團隊也在低端市場推出了新的勞動力管理解決方案，並在蘋果應用商店上架了新的考勤終端。此外，我們也在中階和低階市場正式推出了 Wisely Direct 服務。

Now taking a step back, I'd like to say that in every challenge, there is a potential for upside and COVID-19 is no exception. We believe that the nature of this shock in which businesses of all sizes have faced major uncertainties in managing their employees has made the HCM partnership they have with ADP that much more valuable.

現在，讓我們退一步來看，我想說，任何挑戰都蘊藏著機遇，新冠疫情也不例外。我們相信，這場衝擊的本質使得各種規模的企業在員工管理方面都面臨著巨大的不確定性，也正因如此，他們與ADP的人力資本管理（HCM）合作關係才顯得更加寶貴。

And as companies emerge from this crisis, we expect them to see even more clearly the benefits of investing in robust, secure HCM offerings that include expertise and service to support their mission-critical activities.

隨著企業從這場危機中復甦，我們預計他們會更清楚地看到投資於強大、安全的 HCM 產品（包括專業知識和服務）的好處，這些產品可以支持他們的關鍵業務活動。

So although COVID-19 has created temporary headwinds in our growth, past experience has taught us to stand firm regarding our investments in strategy as part of our commitment to drive long-term sustainable growth. The strength of our business model and balance sheet allow us to do exactly that. And we are well positioned in our product, service and go-to-market strategy.

因此，儘管新冠疫情為我們的成長帶來了暫時的阻力，但過去的經驗告訴我們，要堅定不移地投資於策略，這是我們致力於推動長期可持續成長的承諾。我們強大的商業模式和穩健的資產負債表使我們能夠做到這一點。我們在產品、服務和市場策略方面也佔據了有利地位。

Last, before turning it over to Kathleen, I'd like to quickly touch on our plans for our own associates. Last quarter, we discussed having over 98% of our workforce operating virtually, including our sales force. And we've been pleased with that transition and their overall performance in this environment.

最後，在把發言權交給凱瑟琳之前，我想先簡單談談我們對員工的計畫。上個季度，我們討論了讓超過98%的員工遠距辦公，包括銷售團隊。我們對這一轉變以及他們在這種環境下的整體表現感到滿意。

While we are well positioned to continue operating this way, we are in the early stages of bringing back a small portion of our workforce to the office on a volunteer-only basis. And I'm actually pleased to join you today from our Roseland headquarters, which we opened just this Monday.

雖然我們目前完全有能力繼續以這種方式運營，但我們正處於讓一小部分員工以自願形式返回辦公室的初期階段。今天我很高興能從我們位於羅瑟蘭的總部與大家連線，這個總部就在本週一剛啟用。

Our sales force will continue to primarily engage with prospects and clients virtually. But they are beginning to conduct face-to-face meetings in some geographies to the extent that they and our clients and prospects are ready to do so.

我們的銷售團隊將繼續主要透過線上與潛在客戶和現有客戶互動。但在某些地區，如果他們、我們的客戶和潛在客戶都做好了準備，他們也開始進行面對面的會談。

And with all that said, I'd like to once again take a moment to recognize our associates for their outstanding effort and the sacrifices they've made. I understand the monumental task of managing work and home life is a complex situation. And I also know it's not easy. A heartfelt thanks to our associates and leaders for their commitment. I'll now turn it over to Kathleen.

綜上所述，我要再次感謝各位同事的傑出付出與犧牲。我深知兼顧工作和家庭是一項艱鉅的任務，而且非常複雜。我也明白這絕非易事。衷心感謝各位同事及領導的付出。現在，我將把發言權交給凱瑟琳。

Thank you, Carlos, and good morning, everyone. During the quarter, our revenues declined as we felt the full brunt of a double-digit decline in employment among our clients, combined with other recession-driven headwinds. But we believe we executed well and are well positioned to do so for the quarters ahead.

謝謝卡洛斯，大家早安。本季度，由於客戶就業率兩位數下降，加上其他經濟衰退帶來的不利因素，我們的收入有所下滑。但我們相信我們執行得當，並為未來幾季做好了充分準備。

For the fourth quarter, our revenue decline of 3% reported and 2% organic constant currency was ahead of our expectations as pays per control and PEO performance were better than we had planned. Our adjusted EBIT margin was up 10 basis points in the quarter, also well ahead of our expectations.

第四季度，我們的營收年減3%（以報告匯率計算）和年減2%（以自然成長率計算），皆優於預期，這主要得益於按控制付費和專業雇主組織（PEO）業務表現優於預期。本季調整後的息稅前利潤率成長10個基點，也遠超預期。

We took certain cost actions in the quarter, continued to benefit from cost savings related to our ongoing transformation initiatives and also benefited from lower selling expenses, which together offset the margin impact from the loss of high-margin revenues related to COVID-19.

本季度我們採取了一些成本控制措施，繼續受益於正在進行的轉型計劃帶來的成本節約，並且還受益於銷售費用的降低，這些因素共同抵消了因 COVID-19 導致的高利潤收入損失對利潤率的影響。

Our adjusted effective tax rate decreased 210 basis points to 22.9% compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019. And our adjusted diluted earnings per share was flat at $1.14 as lower year-over-year revenues were offset by modest margin expansion, a lower tax rate and a lower share count compared to a year ago.

與 2019 財年第四季相比，我們調整後的實際稅率下降了 210 個基點，至 22.9%。由於同比收入下降被利潤率的小幅增長、稅率下降以及與去年同期相比流通股數量減少所抵消，我們調整後的稀釋每股收益與去年同期持平，為 1.14 美元。

We ended fiscal 2020 with revenue growth of 3% reported and 4% organic constant currency, adjusted EBIT margins up 60 basis points and adjusted EPS growth of 9%. All-in, a solid year, particularly given the significant decline in economic activity and employment that we faced over the last few months.

2020財年結束時，我們實現了3%的營收成長（以報告資料計算）和4%的自然成長（以固定匯率計算），調整後息稅前利潤率上升60個基點，調整後每股盈餘成長9%。總體而言，這是穩健的一年，尤其考慮到過去幾個月我們面臨的經濟活動和就業大幅下滑。

As I move on to ES segment results, it's important to emphasize how resilient the business performance was in the context of unprecedented headwinds, including a 10.8% decline in pays per control and a 22% drop in client funds interest revenue. During the quarter, our Employer Services revenue declined 6% on a reported basis and 5% on an organic constant currency basis, in line with our expectations as better underlying growth was offset by incremental FX drag.

接下來我將介紹雇主服務（ES）業務板塊的績效。需要強調的是，在面臨前所未有的不利因素（包括每位控制人支付額下降10.8%和客戶資金利息收入下降22%）的情況下，該業務板塊的表現依然十分穩健。本季度，我們的雇主服務收入按報告基準下降6%，以有機成長固定匯率計算下降5%，這與我們的預期相符，因為良好的基礎成長被匯率波動帶來的額外影響所抵銷。

Our client fund balance declined 8% in the fourth quarter, reflecting lower pays per control, lower state unemployment insurance rates, payroll tax deferrals among some of our clients and the continued lapping of the closure of our Netherlands money movement operation in October 2019. Combining that balance decline with a 30 basis point decline in average yield drove our client funds revenue to decline by 22% to $115 million. For the full year, our ES revenue was up 1% reported and 2% organic [and] constant currency, a solid performance.

第四季度，我們的客戶資金餘額下降了8%，主要原因是每位持股人的收入減少、州失業保險費率下降、部分客戶延期繳納工資稅，以及2019年10月關閉的荷蘭資金轉移業務的影響持續存在。餘額下降加上平均收益率下降30個基點，導致我們的客戶資金收入下降22%至1.15億美元。全年來看，我們的ES收入按報告匯率計算成長了1%，以有機成長和固定匯率計算成長了2%，表現穩健。

Employer Services margins were flat for the quarter, well ahead of our most recent expectations. We had the impact of lower revenues at relatively high incremental margin as we discussed last quarter, offset by prudent cost control measures across all categories. ES margins were up 60 basis points for the full year.

本季雇主服務利潤率持平，遠超過我們最近的預期。如上季所述，儘管收入下降但增量利潤率相對較高，但各類別採取的審慎成本控制措施抵消了這一影響。雇主服務全年利潤率上升了60個基點。

Moving on to PEO, also solid performance, given the circumstances. Our total PEO segment revenues increased nearly 4% for the quarter to $1.1 billion and average worksite employees declined 3% to 548,000. This revenue and worksite employee growth were both ahead of our expectations, driven by better retention performance and pass-through revenue. Same-store employment at our PEO clients performed in line with our expectations of a mid-single-digit decline and, as expected, was more resilient than the average client in our ES segment.

接下來談談PEO業務，鑑於當前情勢，其表現同樣穩健。本季PEO業務總營收成長近4%，達11億美元，而平均職場員工人數下降3%，至54.8萬人。這項收入和工作場所員工人數的成長均超出預期，主要得益於更高的員工留存率和轉嫁收入。 PEO客戶的同店員工人數下降幅度符合我們先前預期的個位數中段降幅，並且正如預期，其表現優於我們ES業務板塊的平均客戶水平。

Revenues, excluding zero-margin benefits pass-throughs, declined 5%. And in addition to being driven by lower worksite employees, it continued to include pressure from lower workers' compensation and SUI costs and related pricing. PEO margin declined 450 basis points in the quarter. This included about 530 basis points of unfavorability from a net expense in ADP Indemnity of approximately $34 million, which contrasts to the $22 million benefit we had in last year's fourth quarter.

剔除零利潤率的福利轉嫁項目後，營收下降了5%。除工作場所員工人數減少外，營收下降也持續受到工傷賠償和州保險費用及相關定價下降的影響。本季專業雇主組織（PEO）利潤率下降了450個基點。這其中包括ADP Indemnity約3,400萬美元的淨支出，導致利潤率下降約530個基點，而去年第四季該支出為2,200萬美元。

As a reminder, we had experienced favorable workers' comp claim trends over the past several years, which translated to favorable reserve adjustments in ADP Indemnity. Those trends remain positive but not as much as what was factored in our most recent reinsurance agreements. And as a result, we had a slight true-up the other way this year.

需要提醒的是，過去幾年我們的工傷賠償申請趨勢良好，這轉化為ADP Indemnity公司有利的準備金調整。這些趨勢依然良好，但不如我們最近再保險協議中考慮的因素那麼顯著。因此，今年我們的準備金略有調整。

Let me turn now to our outlook for fiscal 2021. I'll start by discussing some of the specific U.S. macro-driven assumptions that underpin our guidance. The basis for these assumptions is a combination of our own trend data and third-party macroeconomic forecasts. And we believe we are utilizing a balanced outlook.

現在讓我談談我們對2021財年的展望。首先，我將討論一些支撐我們績效指引的、基於美國宏觀經濟的具體假設。這些假設是我們自身趨勢數據和第三方宏觀經濟預測的結合。我們相信，我們採用了一種平衡的展望方式。

First, our pays per control outlook. We are assuming a decline in average pays per control of 3% to 4% for the year, driven by a decline in the high single-digit range for the first half of the year, improving to a decline of mid-single-digit by Q3, followed by a rebound to positive mid- to high single-digit growth in the fourth quarter.

首先，我們來看每位控制人薪酬的預期。我們預計全年每位控制人的平均薪資將下降3%至4%，主要原因是上半年降幅接近10%，第三季降幅收窄至50%，第四季將反彈至50%至10%的正成長。

This outlook corresponds to a gradual improvement in the employment picture through the fiscal year. So it does not contemplate a full employment recovery. To help translate this trend into a single number you can anchor to, our guidance contemplates the U.S. getting to approximately 7% unemployment by June of 2021.

這項展望對應於本財年就業情勢的逐步改善，因此並未預期就業將全面恢復。為了幫助您將這一趨勢轉化為可參考的具體數字，我們預期美國失業率將在2021年6月左右降至7%。

Second, out-of-business losses. Our retention was negatively impacted by losses in this most recent quarter as we had a number of clients turn inactive that, after monitoring and assessing, we decided to write off as losses.

其次，是倒閉造成的損失。由於一些客戶轉為不活躍狀態，我們在最近一個季度中將這些損失計入虧損，導致我們的客戶留存率受到負面影響。

While we believe government stimulus programs have helped many small businesses, we continue to see some companies in an inactive state, where they are not paying employees. And we expect continued elevated losses in the early part of fiscal 2021 as restrictions and lower demand in certain industries continue to drive fallout. As a result, we're setting our expectation for ES retention to decline by another 50 to 100 basis points over this coming fiscal year.

儘管我們認為政府的刺激方案幫助了許多小型企業，但我們仍然看到一些公司處於停滯狀態，無法支付員工薪資。我們預計，由於某些產業的限制措施和需求下降持續加劇，2021財年初期的虧損將持續居高不下。因此，我們預期本財年員工持股比例將再下降50至100個基點。

Lastly, on client funds interest. As discussed last quarter, our client balance growth is being impacted by the combination of a decline in pays per control, lower new business bookings and out-of-business losses, and we had some modest pressure from companies taking advantage of the payroll tax deferral provision of the CARES Act. We are assuming a client funds balance decline of 6% to 8% for the year. And like pays per control, we expect it to be negative for the first 3 quarters and then return to growth in Q4.

最後，關於客戶資金利息。如上季所述，客戶資金餘額成長受到多方面因素的影響，包括每位控制人支付的利息下降、新業務預訂量減少以及停業損失，此外，一些公司利用《新冠病毒援助、救濟和經濟安全法案》（CARES Act）的工資稅延期繳納條款也給我們帶來了一定的壓力。我們預計全年客戶資金餘額將下降6%至8%。與每位控制人支付的利息一樣，我們預計前三個季度客戶資金餘額將為負值，然後在第四季度恢復成長。

We expect our average yield to decline as well. As a reminder, in Q4, we temporarily suspended our purchases of new securities and reinvestment of maturing securities in our client funds portfolio. And earlier this month, we resumed reinvesting. We have over $5 billion in securities maturing in fiscal 2021, yielding on average over 2%. And we expect to reinvest them at prevailing yields that are well below that level. As a result, we expect our average client funds yield to be down 50 basis points to 1.6% for the year.

我們預期平均收益率也將下降。需要提醒的是，在第四季度，我們暫時停止了對客戶基金投資組合中新證券的購買以及對到期證券的再投資。本月初，我們已恢復再投資。我們有超過50億美元的證券將於2021財年到期，平均殖利率超過2%。我們預計再投資時的收益率將遠低於這一水平。因此，我們預期全年客戶基金的平均收益率將下降50個基點至1.6%。

With this combination of lower balance and yields, we expect interest income on client funds to be $390 million to $400 million, down about $150 million versus fiscal 2020. And we expect interest income from our extended investment strategy to be $430 million to $440 million, down about $125 million versus fiscal 2020. With that said, without the benefit of our client investment strategy, which utilizes laddered maturities, we believe the headwind to fiscal 2020 would have been even greater.

鑑於餘額和收益率雙雙下降，我們預期客戶資金的利息收入為3.9億美元至4億美元，較2020財年減少約1.5億美元。同時，我們預期來自擴展投資策略的利息收入為4.3億美元至4.4億美元，較2020財年減少約1.25億美元。即便如此，如果沒有我們採用階梯式到期策略的客戶投資策略的助力，我們認為2020財年面臨的不利影響將會更大。

Having covered the major macro topics for fiscal 2021, let me share with you how we are deploying our downturn playbook to manage expenses. We've concentrated on areas where we have excess capacity and on reducing discretionary costs while maintaining investment in sales, product and our associates.

在討論了2021財年的主要宏觀議題之後，我想和大家分享我們如何運用因應經濟衰退的策略來控制支出。我們專注於產能過剩的領域，並削減可自由支配的成本，同時保持對銷售、產品和員工的投資。

And as we emphasized last quarter, we continue to have the strong cash flow profile and balance sheet strength to withstand impacts to our revenue without taking immediate actions on our investments. We said we would be thoughtful and strategic in assessing the most prudent path forward, a path that balances positioning for a recovery against near-term margin performance.

正如我們在上季度所強調的那樣，我們仍然擁有強勁的現金流和穩健的資產負債表，足以抵禦收入下滑的影響，而無需立即調整投資。我們曾表示，我們將審慎評估最穩健的發展路徑，力求在為經濟復甦做好準備和短期利潤率之間取得平衡。

We have now had a quarter to assess our business capacity and needs. And during the fourth quarter, we identified businesses across ADP, where, unfortunately, we didn't believe a recovery was likely in the near term, and therefore, had excess capacity in service and implementation. In addition to taking specific headcount actions, we have further tightened our nonessential spend, including T&E and other discretionary spend.

我們已用一個季度的時間評估了業務能力和需求。在第四季度，我們發現ADP旗下部分業務短期內難以復甦，因此服務和實施上有產能過剩。除了採取具體的人員精簡措施外，我們還進一步削減了非必要支出，包括差旅費和其他可自由支配的開支。

We are also continuing to move forward with our transformation initiatives. For the past few years, we have highlighted for you some of the discrete material initiatives that we have worked on and their estimated level of benefits. In fiscal 2019, we executed on our voluntary early retirement program, which yielded over $150 million in annual run rate benefits. In fiscal 2020, we executed on our workforce optimization program and a procurement initiative, which together yielded approximately $150 million in annual run rate savings against our original expectations of $100 million.

我們也持續推進轉型計劃。過去幾年，我們已向您重點介紹了一些我們開展的實質舉措及其預期收益。 2019財年，我們實施了自願提早退休計劃，該計劃每年帶來超過1.5億美元的收益。 2020財年，我們實施了勞動力優化計劃和採購計劃，這兩項計劃合計每年節省約1.5億美元，高於我們最初預期的1億美元。

For fiscal 2021, we have 2 important initiatives to call out. First, we are moving forward with a digital transformation initiative that leverages many of the capabilities we highlighted at our February 2020 Innovation Day, primarily to optimize our implementation and service, in addition to enhancing efficiency in other parts of the organization.

2021財年，我們有兩項重要措施要重點介紹。首先，我們正在推動數位轉型計劃，該計劃將充分利用我們在2020年2月創新日上重點介紹的多項能力，主要目的是優化我們的實施和服務，同時提高組織其他部門的效率。

As examples, we're further utilizing automation in the implementation process, deploying additional self-service features throughout our platforms, broadening the use of guided assist tools and expanding the use of chat and chatbot. We expect this to be a multiyear effort as we work to optimize large parts of our service delivery model. Our innovation agenda is running full speed ahead. And that includes innovation in our client engagement.

例如，我們正在進一步利用自動化技術來推動實施流程，在我們的平台上部署更多自助服務功能，擴大引導式輔助工具的使用範圍，並拓展聊天和聊天機器人的應用。我們預計這將是一項持續多年的工作，旨在優化我們服務交付模式的各個方面。我們的創新計畫正在全速推進，這也包括客戶互動方面的創新。

We also expanded our procurement transformation initiative and expect further benefit for fiscal 2021. We've reassessed our real estate footprint. And although we had already closed over 70 subscale locations as part of our service alignment initiative in recent years, we recently closed several additional locations, including a large office in New Jersey.

我們也擴大了採購轉型計劃，預計2021財年將取得更大成效。我們重新評估了房地產佈局。儘管近年來作為服務整合計劃的一部分，我們已經關閉了70多個規模較小的辦公地點，但最近我們關閉了幾個其他地點，包括新澤西州的一個大型辦公室。

We will continue to evaluate whether there is further opportunity for location consolidation. Between these 2 initiatives, our digital transformation initiative and the expansion of our procurement initiative, we expect to realize a combined $125 million in savings during fiscal 2021 with over $150 million in run rate savings exiting the year.

我們將繼續評估是否有進一步整合辦公地點的機會。透過這兩項措施、我們的數位轉型計畫以及採購計畫的擴展，我們預計在2021財年可實現總計1.25億美元的成本節約，並在年底實現超過1.5億美元的年度成本節約。

Let's now turn to our outlook for fiscal 2021. We'll start with the ES segment. We expect a decline of 3% to 5% in revenue for the full year, driven by our outlook for a decline in pays per control, balance and yield pressure in our client funds interest portfolio as well as pressure from new business bookings and elevated out-of-business losses.

現在我們來展望一下2021財年。首先來看ES業務板塊。我們預計全年收入將下降3%至5%，主要原因是客戶資金利息組合的每筆交易費用下降、餘額和收益率承壓，以及新業務訂單壓力和停業損失增加。

Compared to what we just experienced in the fourth quarter, we expect the first half of fiscal 2021 to experience a slightly greater revenue decline as the incremental impact from lower sales, out-of-business losses and lower client funds interest more than offset the gradual recovery in pays per control that we're anticipating.

與我們剛經歷的第四季度相比，我們預計 2021 財年上半年的營收降幅將略大，因為銷售額下降、停業損失和客戶資金利息減少帶來的額外影響將超過我們預期的按控制付費逐步恢復的幅度。

We expect revenue growth to improve modestly in Q3 and then turn positive in Q4. We expect our margin in the Employer Services segment to be down about 300 basis points for the year. And as a reminder, the revenues we lose from pays per control, out-of-business losses and client funds interest are all high margin. As with revenue, we are expecting a decline in ES margin during the first 3 quarters and an increase in the fourth quarter.

我們預計第三季營收成長將略有改善，並在第四季轉正。我們預期雇主服務業務的利潤率將全年下降約300個基點。需要提醒的是，我們因按控制付費、停業損失和客戶資金利息而損失的收入均為高利潤率收入。與營收情況類似，我們預期雇主服務業務的利潤率將在前三個季度下降，並在第四季回升。

For our PEO, we expect revenue down 2% to up 2% for the full year with average worksite employee count flat to down 3%, driven by similar factors as our ES segment, namely headwinds in same-store employment, out-of-business losses and bookings pressure. We expect average worksite employee growth to be negative during the first 3 quarters and turn positive in Q4.

對於我們的專業雇主組織（PEO）業務，我們預計全年營收將下降2%至成長2%，平均工作場所員工人數將持平或下降3%，主要受與我們的雇主服務（ES）業務類似的因素影響，即同店就業人數下降、停業損失和訂單壓力。我們預計前三個季度平均工作場所員工人數將為負成長，並在第四季轉正。

Our revenues, excluding zero-margin pass-throughs, are expected to be down 1% to 4% and we continue to expect lower workers' compensation and SUI pricing. For PEO margin, we expect to be down about 100 basis points in fiscal 2021, driven in part by drag from higher zero-margin pass-through revenues, partially offset by a favorable compare for ADP Indemnity.

剔除零利潤轉嫁收入後，我們的收入預計將下降1%至4%，我們繼續預期工傷賠償和州保險定價將走低。對於專業雇主組織（PEO）的利潤率，我們預計2021財年將下降約100個基點，部分原因是零利潤轉嫁收入增加帶來的拖累，但部分被ADP Indemnity的有利基數所抵消。

With these segment outlooks, we now anticipate total ADP revenue to decline 1% to 4% in fiscal 2021 and we anticipate our adjusted EBIT margin to be down about 300 basis points as the benefits from our continued expense management and transformation initiatives are partially offsetting the decremental impact -- margin impact of expected lost revenue due to COVID-19 as well as the investments we continue to make.

根據這些業務板塊的展望，我們現在預計 ADP 2021 財年的總收入將下降 1% 至 4%，並且我們預計調整後的 EBIT 利潤率將下降約 300 個基點，因為我們持續的費用管理和轉型舉措帶來的收益部分抵消了 COVID-19 預期收入損失以及我們持續投資帶來的負面影響。

We anticipate our adjusted effective tax rate to be 23.1%. This rate includes less than 10 basis points of estimated excess tax benefit from stock-based compensation related to restricted stock vesting in Q1 of fiscal '21. But it does not include any estimated tax benefit related to potential stock option exercises, given the dependency of that benefit on the timing of those exercises.

我們預計調整後的實際稅率為23.1%。該稅率包含不到10個基點的預計超額稅收優惠，該優惠來自與2021財年第一季限制性股票歸屬相關的股票選擇權獎勵。但該稅率不包含任何與潛在股票選擇權行使相關的預期稅收優惠，因為該優惠取決於行使時間。

Last quarter, we temporarily suspended our share repurchases as we decided it would be prudent to wait for stabilization of the overall environment. At this point, we anticipate resuming our share repurchase program at some point this fiscal year, subject to market conditions. And we have a slight net share count reduction contemplated in our guidance.

上個季度，我們暫停了股票回購計劃，因為我們認為等待整體環境穩定更為穩健。目前，我們預計將在本財年某個時間點恢復股票回購計劃，具體時間將視市場情況而定。此外，我們的業績指引中也包含了略微減少淨流通股數量的計畫。

And as a result of our outlook for lower revenue and margins and higher tax, offset partially by lower share count, we currently expect adjusted diluted earnings per share to decline 13% to 18% in fiscal 2021. As most of you are aware, we also have $1 billion in notes due September of this year. At this point, we expect to issue new debt in the coming weeks or months, depending on market conditions.

由於我們預期營收和利潤率將下降，稅收將增加（部分被流通股數量減少所抵銷），我們目前預計2021財年調整後稀釋每股盈餘將下降13%至18%。正如各位所知，我們還有10億美元的債券將於今年9月到期。目前，我們預計將在未來幾週或幾個月內發行新的債券，具體時間取決於市場狀況。

I'd like to conclude by saying that although COVID-19 is putting pressure on our financial performance, we believe this is transitory and the long-term prospects for ADP are in no way diminished and may even be enhanced by the current environment.

最後我想說，儘管新冠疫情給我們的財務表現帶來了壓力，但我們相信這只是暫時的，ADP的長期前景絲毫沒有減弱，甚至可能在當前環境下得到提升。

For fiscal 2021, we are remaining focused on opportunities for innovation and growth while taking a deliberate balanced approach to managing expenses. And we are confident in our long-term growth prospects. I look forward to updating you on our progress. With that, I will turn it over to the operator for Q&A.

2021財年，我們將繼續專注於創新和成長機遇，同時採取審慎平衡的措施來控製成本。我們對長期成長前景充滿信心。期待向您報告我們的進展。接下來，我將把問答環節交給接線員。

(Operator Instructions) And our first question comes from Mark Marcon from Baird.

（操作說明）我們的第一個問題來自 Baird 公司的 Mark Marcon。

One key one is just from a bookings perspective, as you look out over the coming year, and you gave us a bit of a sense for the cadence that you expect, which of the new solutions do you expect to see the greatest traction from? Which ones are you the most excited about? And which ones could be the most incremental from a really long-term perspective?

其中一個關鍵問題是，從預訂的角度來看，展望未來一年，您也大致描述了您預期的節奏，您認為哪些新解決方案會獲得最大的迴響？您對哪些解決方案最感興趣？從長遠來看，哪些解決方案的增量貢獻最大？

Well, I think from an incremental standpoint -- to start off with the last part of the question, from a long-term standpoint, I think some of the investments we've made in some of our Next Gen solutions I think, for me, has to be where I'm the most optimistic in terms of potentially moving the needle from an incrementality standpoint, right?

嗯，我認為從漸進的角度來看——首先回答問題的最後一部分，從長遠的角度來看，我認為我們對一些下一代解決方案進行的投資，就我個人而言，我認為應該是我最樂觀的，因為從漸進的角度來看，這些投資有可能取得進展，對吧？

Because we already have a very large, as you know, bookings number. And anything that we can add on top of that goes into the top of the funnel in terms of revenue growth. And that's really was the reason for these investments is to really move the needle competitively and to improve our position from a differentiation standpoint.

如您所知，我們目前的預訂量已經非常龐大。任何在此基礎上增加的預訂量都會直接提升收入成長。而這正是我們進行這些投資的真正目的：在競爭中脫穎而出，從差異化角度提升我們的市場地位。

And so the early signs, of course, now somewhat temporarily interrupted by COVID-19, were positive in terms of the traction we were getting both with our Next Gen HCM platform as well as with our Next Gen Payroll platform. So that's kind of where I feel the most optimistic in terms of the long term.

當然，早期跡象表明，儘管現在受到新冠疫情的暫時影響，但我們的下一代人力資本管理平台和下一代薪資管理平台都取得了積極的進展。因此，就長期發展而言，我對這方面最為樂觀。

In terms of kind of the cadence and more kind of the short to medium term in terms of next year is really the fourth quarter is an important part as we've kind of been alluding to here in our prepared comments. And some of that is really clearly the pace of the recovery. So there's -- we have an expectation, which I think is in line with generally accepted, I think, forecast, if you will.

就節奏而言，就中短期而言，尤其是明年，第四季至關重要，正如我們在先前的發言稿中提到的那樣。這其中很大一部分顯然與復甦的速度有關。因此，我們有一個預期，我認為這與普遍接受的預測是一致的。

And you heard kind of, as a proxy, the expectation that unemployment reach a certain stage by the end of the fiscal year. And those things were all proxies for GDP growth. And you guys all have plenty of access to your own firm's economic forecast and so forth.

你們也聽到了一些說法，大致意思是說，預計到本財年結束時，失業率會達到某個特定水準。這些都是衡量GDP成長的指標。你們每個人都能輕易取得自己公司的經濟預測等等資訊。

So the second half is really the key for us from a bookings standpoint. And there, aside from the incrementality question, this issue that we have around, for example, adjusting to our -- adjustments to our gross bookings is an important one. Because to the extent that the recovery continues on the pace we expect, it would help us a lot if we would be -- if we can start and continue to implement clients that were previously sold and that that --.

所以，從預訂的角度來看，下半年對我們來說才是關鍵。除了增量問題之外，我們面臨的另一個重要問題是，例如，如何調整我們的總預訂量。因為如果復甦繼續按照我們預期的速度進行，那麼如果我們能夠開始並繼續落實先前已售出的客戶，這將對我們大有幫助。

So clearly, one positive would be that that doesn't degrade any further. Because in full transparency, we mentioned that in our prepared statements, that's a concern under this kind of environment. But there's potential upside as well there. So there's downside and there's upside there as well.

顯然，一個積極的方面是情況不會進一步惡化。因為我們在事先準備好的聲明中坦誠地提到，在這種環境下，這確實是一個令人擔憂的問題。但同時也存在潛在的利多因素。所以，有利有弊。

But when you see the incredible decrease in activity in just the couple months following the beginning of the crisis, it takes a while for that -- those buckets to get filled up again in terms of leads, then turning into first appointments, then turning into presentations to clients.

但當你看到危機開始後的短短幾個月內業務活動出現了驚人的下降時，你就會明白，要讓這些「桶」重新裝滿潛在客戶，然後轉化為第一次預約，再轉化為向客戶進行演示，這需要一段時間。

So that whole process of how the sales evolution goes is critical for us in the second half. And the places that were hurt the most, which, in our case -- and some of it is perhaps just because of the nature of the crisis that the downmarket was hit very, very hard in terms of pays per control and also just declines in activity but also came back, frankly -- surprisingly, you can't call it strong because it's still down year-over-year. But I think the bookings performance in the downmarket has been, I think, gratifying.

因此，銷售演變的整個過程對我們下半年的業務至關重要。受影響最大的地區——就我們而言，部分原因可能是危機本身的性質——在單次交易付費率和整體業務活動下滑方面遭受了非常嚴重的打擊，但坦白說，也出現了復甦——但令人驚訝的是，不能說復甦強勁，因為同比仍然下降。不過，我認為低迷市場的預訂表現令人滿意。

And so if we continue on that trend, that will be good news for the second half of the year. And then we expect, based on the current trends, that the mid-market and the upmarket will then kind of follow suit as the kind of pipeline leading indicators that we mentioned translate into actual bookings and actual sales.

因此，如果我們能保持這種趨勢，這對下半年來說將是個好消息。基於目前的趨勢，我們預期中端市場和高端市場也會隨之好轉，因為我們提到的那些銷售線索領先指標會轉化為實際的預訂量和銷售量。

So I guess the short story is the things that were the hardest hit are the things that in the initial stages are the things that should have, in our opinion, the biggest rebound in the second half. And then on top of that, obviously, our new product investments, I think, are a source of optimism for us.

所以，簡而言之，那些受衝擊最大的領域，在我們看來，正是那些在初期階段應該會在下半年反彈幅度最大的領域。此外，顯然，我們對新產品的投資也讓我們充滿信心。

We've also invested in -- I think you heard us mention workforce management in the downmarket. And we have a lot of things going on. You can see it in our investments in technology over the last 4 to 5 years. And obviously, some of those things are longer term, like the Next Gen stuff. Some of it has been -- we've been in the investing phase for 6 to 12 months and we expect those things to translate now into new sales.

我們也投資了——我想您也聽到我們提到低迷市場的勞動力管理。我們有很多項目正在進行中。您可以從我們過去四、五年在科技方面的投資中看出這一點。顯然，其中一些是長期項目，例如下一代技術。還有一些項目——我們已經投資了6到12個月，我們預計這些投資現在就能轉化為新的銷售額。

So I don't know if you've heard our tone over the last several years, but we pivoted to investing more in product and particularly more around agile technology. And that hopefully gives us some firepower here in terms of our bookings incrementality going into this year but also into the following years as well.

我不知道您是否注意到我們過去幾年的策略，但我們確實加大了對產品，特別是敏捷技術方面的投入。我們希望這能為我們今年的預訂量成長帶來一些助力，並能為未來幾年的發展奠定基礎。

Mark, yes, just to add a little bit more there in terms of by each segment. For sure, we're expecting sales growth across each of the segments in fiscal '21. And as Carlos said, downmarket seems to be resilient and has trended up since we were at the low point several weeks ago.

馬克，是的，我再補充一下各個細分市場的具體情況。我們預計2021財年所有細分市場的銷售額都會成長。正如卡洛斯所說，低端市場似乎很有韌性，自幾週前觸底以來一直呈上升趨勢。

But downmarket has been trending up earlier. And then during the latter part of the year, we'd expect upmarket and international, for that matter, to continue along those lines, but for sure, expecting sales growth across all segments.

但低端市場先前一直呈現上升趨勢。我們預計，在今年下半年，高端市場和國際市場也將繼續保持這一勢頭，但可以肯定的是，所有細分市場的銷售額都將成長。

And to Carlos' point, from a long-term incremental perspective, certainly expecting Next Gen HCM to be a driver there. But our strategic platforms in the near term, RUN and Workforce Now, have been performing really well in the market. And we expect them to continue to perform really well in the market as we recover through this.

正如卡洛斯所說，從長遠來看，我們當然期待下一代人力資本管理（Next Gen HCM）能夠成為推動成長的主要動力。但就短期而言，我們的策略平台 RUN 和 Workforce Now 在市場上的表現非常出色。我們預計，隨著經濟復甦，它們將繼續保持良好的市場表現。

Great. And just as a follow-up, can you just give us an update in terms of where we stand in terms of the number of implementations on Next Gen HCM or sometimes known as Lifion? And also Next Gen Payroll, just percentage of the client base that's been converted?

好的。還有一個後續問題，您能否簡要介紹一下我們目前在下一代 HCM（有時也稱為 Lifion）的部署數量方面的情況？還有下一代薪資管理，已轉換的客戶佔比是多少？

So on Next Gen HCM, you probably appreciate, for 2 to 3 months, that wasn't really something that a lot of companies were focused on or, for that matter, us. Unfortunate, but the good news is we did actually start a client just a week ago. So that is a ray of sunshine in what was otherwise a lot of dark clouds.

所以，關於下一代HCM，您可能也知道，在過去的兩三個月裡，很多公司，包括我們自己，都沒有真正關注過它。很遺憾，但好消息是，我們一週前確實迎來了一位新客戶。這就像烏雲中的一縷陽光。

So we had a number of clients that were set to be implemented in our fourth fiscal quarter, which delayed. And one of those actually started here already in the early part of the first quarter. So that's encouraging. But we're not that different from where we were before. So call it still a handful, I think, we have like 7 or 8 clients live, somewhere in that neighborhood on Next Gen HCM.

所以我們有一些客戶原計劃在第四財季實施，但都被延後了。其中一個客戶實際上在第一季初就已經上線了。這令人鼓舞。但我們的情況和之前並沒有太大變化。所以我覺得，目前只有少數客戶在使用下一代HCM系統，大概只有7、8個左右。

On Next Gen Payroll, there, the target at the beginning from a piloting standpoint really was clients are not quite the same size of Next Gen HCM. So it's a slightly different dynamic and it's -- and we're making, in terms of numbers of clients, more progress. But it doesn't mean that the product necessarily is making more products, it's just the difference between the markets we're serving.

就新一代薪資管理系統而言，從試點角度來看，最初的目標客戶規模與下一代人力資本管理系統（Next Gen HCM）的客戶規模並不完全相同。因此，情況略有不同，而且就客戶數量而言，我們取得了更大的進展。但這並不代表該產品本身就擁有更多的客戶，只是我們所服務市場之間的差異。

Next Gen HCM is really in the early stages aimed more at the mid-market, if you will, than really the upmarket. Even though we expect it to be our Next Gen Payroll engine across our mid-market and upmarket in the initial stages, it's really mid-market. So I think we have somewhere around 100 clients sold. And I think maybe that same number implemented if I'm not mistaken?

下一代HCM系統目前仍處於早期階段，其目標市場更偏向中階市場，而非高端市場。雖然我們預計在初期階段，它將成為我們面向中階和高端市場的下一代薪資引擎，但它本質上仍然是面向中階市場。據我所知，我們目前已售出約100個客戶，如果我沒記錯的話，實際部署的客戶數量可能也差不多。

That's right.

這是正確的。

So we're making some good progress there. And there, the pace is a little bit better in the sense that we didn't come to a complete stop on Next Gen Payroll and we continue to implement clients there and kind of move forward.

所以我們在那方面取得了一些不錯的進展。而且，進展速度也更快一些，因為我們沒有完全停止下一代薪資系統的開發，我們仍在繼續為客戶實施該系統，並向前邁進。

But this is a very challenging situation for our clients. And we really need to kind of help them get through the situation and the crisis, not necessarily press them to get started as quickly as possible, although that's obviously our desire from our standpoint.

但這對我們的客戶來說是一個非常具有挑戰性的局面。我們真正需要做的是幫助他們渡過難關，而不是催促他們盡快啟動項目，儘管從我們的角度來看，這當然是我們希望看到的。

Our next question comes from Ramsey El-Assal from Barclays.

下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的拉姆齊·埃爾-阿薩爾。

Can you hear me now?

現在能聽到我說話嗎？

Yes, we can hear you. Yes. Go ahead.

是的，我們能聽到你說話。好的，請繼續。

Hello? (technical difficulty)

您好？ （技術故障）

And we'll move on to our next question. Our next question comes from David Togut from Evercore ISI.

接下來，我們將進入下一個問題。下一個問題來自 Evercore ISI 的 David Togut。

Could you characterize the gross bookings performance in the June quarter prior to the backlog adjustment?

能否請您描述一下在積壓訂單調整之前，6 月份季度的總預訂量表現？

Yes. I mean I think we're just trying to give a nod to our sales force in terms of that they were -- they performed better than we clearly had forecasted and that we gave in terms of color commentary during this same earnings call or during the earnings call of the last quarter. But they were still down significantly.

是的。我的意思是，我們只是想對銷售團隊表示認可，他們的表現確實比我們預期的要好，我們在這次財報電話會議或上一季度財報電話會議上也對此進行了詳細評論。但他們的業績仍大幅下滑。

So at the end of the day, we just want to make sure that you guys got the right impression that we weren't disappointed and that we didn't do worse than we expected. But from a mechanical number standpoint, think still down somewhere around 50%, like if that's a fair characterization. I don't know if Kathleen has any more color to add to it.

所以說到底，我們只是想確保大家明白，我們並沒有失望，也沒有比預期更糟。但從具體的數字來看，大概還是下降了50%左右，如果這樣描述比較準確的話。我不知道凱瑟琳還有什麼補充。

Yes. No, the gross bookings were slightly positive to what we had expected, the -- approximately down 50% is right, which is what we had been anticipating and then the backlog adjustment, which actually is part of our normal process, factored into the overall bookings number being down slightly more than that for the fourth quarter.

是的。不，總預訂量略高於我們的預期，大約下降 50% 是正確的，這與我們先前的預期一致。此外，積壓訂單調整（實際上是我們正常流程的一部分）導致第四季整體預訂量下降幅度略大於此。

Got it. And just as my follow-up, assuming the employment recovery proceeds, as you've laid out, Kathleen, negative 7 -- well, 7% unemployment by the end of FY '21, would you expect to be back on your sort of normalized growth path by FY '22?

明白了。我的後續問題是，假設就業復甦如您所說，凱瑟琳，到 2021 財年末失業率降至 -7%——好吧，是 -7%，您預計到 2022 財年經濟能否恢復到您所說的正常增長軌道？

Yes. Go ahead, Carlos.

好的，卡洛斯，請講。

Go ahead.

前進。

It's a great question in terms of when do we return to previous levels of growth and profitability? And as you pointed out, a lot really depends on the shape of the recovery. And look, we've taken the best view we can and tried to share with you what we're thinking about that in terms of the shape of that recovery. But it really is going to depend on that.

何時才能恢復到先前的成長和獲利水平，這的確是一個很好的問題。正如您所指出的，這很大程度上取決於復甦的形態。我們已經盡我們所能地做出了最佳判斷，並嘗試與您分享我們對復甦形態的看法。但最終結果確實取決於復甦的形狀。

Last recession, it took a couple of years for sales and retention and revenue growth to return to the prerecession levels. Now is it going to look exactly like it looked the last time? We don't know. This crisis is different. The makeup of ADP is different. So I hate to say it, but it's going to depend on a lot of factors. But returning to those previous growth rates certainly will not be in fiscal '21 based on what we see right now. And we'll update you as things change and as we go through the current year.

上次經濟衰退後，銷售額、客戶留存率和收入成長花了幾年時間才恢復到衰退前的水平。這次的情況會和上次完全一樣嗎？我們不得而知。這次的危機與上次不同，ADP 的組成也發生了變化。所以，雖然我不想這麼說，但結果將取決於許多因素。但根據我們目前觀察到的情況，2021 財年肯定無法恢復到先前的成長率。我們會隨著情況的變化以及本財年的進展及時向您報告最新情況。

I think maybe just to add a little bit of -- just in terms of my own observations from looking at the kind of the quarterly cadence, if you will, and how -- what the implications are for FY '22, it really depends on are we thinking about sales? Are we thinking about revenue? Or are we thinking about profit growth? And they're all kind of different buckets.

我想補充一點——就我個人對季度節奏的觀察而言，以及這對 2022 財年的影響，這實際上取決於我們關注的是銷售額？是收入？還是利潤成長？它們都是不同的範疇。

But I guess -- and to Kathleen's point, it really all depends, if this is unlike the financial crisis, not a 2 or 3 -- the financial crisis really was when you go back and think about it, the kind of mini-crises that occurred over the course of the following 2 or 3 years, remember, we had the European debt crisis. We had a number of things that elongated that situation. But that could happen here as well. And we are, of course, not scientists. And we don't know exactly what's going to happen. But we're using kind of the same forecast that, I think, all of you are using.

但我想——就像凱瑟琳說的，這真的取決於情況，如果這次危機與金融危機不同，而不是像第二次或第三次那樣——回想一下金融危機，你會發現，在接下來的兩三年裡，一系列小型危機接踵而至，比如歐洲債務危機。還有很多其他因素延長了危機的持續時間。但這種情況也可能發生在我們這裡。當然，我們不是科學家，我們無法確切地知道會發生什麼事。但我們使用的預測方法，我想，和你們所有人使用的預測方法差不多。

And if you make those assumptions around when the health care crisis passes, i.e., vaccines and therapeutics and so forth, if you follow that path, then FY '22, when we exit in the fourth quarter of FY '21, from a mathematical standpoint, I think you used the term growth rates, the growth rates are going to look pretty good in terms of as you exit from a booking standpoint and then starting maybe with profitability in the first quarter of FY '22. Because in the fourth quarter of FY '21, we still have some NDE expense.

如果你假設醫療危機何時結束，例如疫苗和治療藥物等，並且按照這個路徑發展，那麼從數學角度來看，當我們結束2021財年的第四季度時（我認為你提到了增長率），從預訂量的角度來看，增長率會相當不錯，而且我們可能在2022財年第一季就能實現盈利。因為在2021財年的第四季度，我們仍然有一些未決事件支出。

But some of that, frankly, is really the comparison. So we're going to have 3 quarters in FY '22 that are going to look pretty good. Because if we still think that the first couple of quarters of FY '21 are still impacted pretty significantly by COVID, and by the first couple quarters of FY '22, you don't have that impact, you're going to have some, I hope, some really good tailwinds on some of these growth numbers.

但坦白說，其中一些因素確實與比較有關。因此，2022財年的前三個季度業績將會相當不錯。因為如果我們仍然認為2021財年的前幾季仍然受到新冠疫情的嚴重影響，而到了2022財年的前幾季度，這種影響已經消失，那麼我希望這些增長數據能夠迎來一些非常有利的利好因素。

But the key for me was looking at absolute booking dollars in the fourth quarter of '21 compared to the fourth quarter of '19. Because obviously, '20 is not a good comparison, and looking also at our absolute profitability in the fourth quarter of '21 and our revenue in the fourth quarter of '21.

但對我來說，關鍵在於比較 2021 年第四季與 2019 年第四季的絕對預訂金額。因為很顯然，2020 年的數據並不具有可比性，同時也要關注 2021 年第四季的絕對獲利能力和收入。

And again, I feel some sense of optimism about '22 based on those exit rate assumptions with a capital A and a capital S-S-U-M-P-T-I-O-N because this is a -- we're a long way away from having certainty. And you've seen how fluid the situation has been. But I think the math, I think, works kind of favorably once we get through fiscal year '21, and particularly when we get through the first 3 quarters of fiscal year '21.

再次強調，基於這些退出率假設（務必強調「預期」），我對2022年抱持一定的樂觀態度，因為我們距離確定未來還很遙遠。你們也看到了，情況一直瞬息萬變。但我認為，一旦我們度過2021財年，特別是度過2021財年的前三個季度，從數學角度來看，情況就會比較樂觀。

Our next question comes from Jason Kupferberg from Bank of America.

下一個問題來自美國銀行的傑森·庫柏伯格。

Just wanted to start with the kind of a high-level question on the fiscal '21 guide. I mean we've got revenue down modestly, but obviously, EPS down quite a bit. And that's being driven by a little bit of tax but really the 300 bps of EBIT margin decline. And I guess it looks like the transformation savings should largely offset the hit to float income.

我想先問一個關於2021財年業績指引的宏觀問題。我的意思是，雖然營收略有下降，但每股盈餘（EPS）的降幅卻相當大。這其中一部分原因是稅收，但更主要的原因是息稅前利潤率（EBIT利潤率）下降了300個基點。我估計轉型帶來的成本節約應該可以基本上抵銷浮動收益的損失。

So are we really just down to kind of isolating this against decremental margins that maybe people didn't appreciate the -- kind of the severity of? Or are there other factors there? Because I just think at a high level, people were surprised to see how much EPS is going to be down relative to revenue for the current fiscal year?

所以，我們真的只是要把這個問題單獨拿出來分析，看看大家是否沒有意識到利潤率下降的嚴重性嗎？還是說還有其他因素？因為我覺得，總的來說，大家都很驚訝本財年每股盈餘相對於營收的下降幅度會這麼大？

Let me take a crack at a couple high-level things and then Kathleen probably can provide some additional maybe detail to help in terms of quantifying some of this stuff.

讓我先試著談談幾個高層次的問題，然後凱瑟琳或許可以提供一些額外的細節，幫助我們量化這些問題。

But we -- and I'm not sure if it was clear from our comments last quarter or this quarter, but having been through these types of -- not through a health care crisis, but I personally have been through dot-com downturn, Y2K at ADP, 9/11 and the global financial crisis. And our Board is a Board that is long-term-oriented. And it feels like -- despite how horrible the situation is, it feels like this situation is transitory.

但我們——我不確定上個季度或本季的發言是否清楚地表明了這一點，但我們經歷過類似的危機——不是醫療危機，而是我個人經歷過互聯網泡沫破裂、ADP的千年蟲問題、911事件和全球金融危機。我們的董事會是一個著眼於長期發展的董事會。儘管目前的情況非常糟糕，但我們感覺這只是暫時的。

And so one of the things that we have as a first principle is to maintain our level of investment. That doesn't mean that we're not prudent around our expenses. And I think we have been. And I think Kathleen gave you some examples of some of the things that we're doing. But we're going to add to our sales headcount next year, which might surprise some people and maybe not something that you were expecting.

因此，我們的首要原則之一就是保持投資水準。但這並不意味著我們在支出方面會掉以輕心。我認為我們一直都做得很好。凱瑟琳也舉例說明了我們正在採取的一些措施。不過，明年我們將增加銷售人員，這可能會讓一些人感到驚訝，也可能出乎你們的意料。

And the problem is that when you model only 1 fiscal year for a company like ADP or a recurring revenue model, if you decrease your sales cost or even your investment in product and technology, it actually looks quite favorable. And you can probably offset quite a bit of revenue decline. The question is, is that really the right thing to do long term? And we don't believe that it is. And so that's one factor philosophically.

問題在於，對於像ADP這樣的公司，或者採用經常性收入模式的公司，如果只模擬一個財年的情況，降低銷售成本甚至產品和技術方面的投資，看起來確實很有利。而且，或許可以抵銷相當一部分收入下滑。問題是，從長遠來看，這樣做真的正確嗎？我們認為並非如此。這是其中一個理念上的考量。

Second factor is that even though we clearly have some decline in the number of clients, the nature of revenues that are going down is very high margin. So you mentioned client funds interest. But we also have another decrease from a comparison standpoint, 20% to 21% in pays per control, which is, call it, 100% margin as well. And there's very little work related to the number of worksite -- sorry, the number of employees paid by our clients.

第二個因素是，儘管客戶數量明顯下降，但下降的收入來源利潤率非常高。您提到了客戶資金利息。但從比較的角度來看，我們還有另一項下降，就是按控制付費的收入下降了20%到21%，這部分利潤率也高達100%。而且，與工作場所數量相關的業務量也大幅減少——抱歉，我是指客戶支付工資的員工數量。

Our workload is generally driven by number of clients. And then as we've all now observed in the last quarter, also driven a lot by the regulatory environment. And so the amount of work has not decreased much and, in some cases, has increased on behalf of our clients. And again, that's a place where we could cut some of that support and then it would lead to lower NPS scores, and we probably would have retention go down.

我們的工作量通常取決於客戶數量。而且，正如我們上個季度所觀察到的，監管環境也對其產生了很大影響。因此，我們的工作量並沒有減少太多，在某些情況下，為了客戶，我們的工作量甚至增加。同樣，如果我們削減這方面的支持，就會導致淨推薦值 (NPS) 下降，客戶留存率也可能隨之降低。

But the single most important driver of financial value for ADP is client retention and lifetime value. To lose clients and then have to go sell them again and implement them again makes absolutely no sense. And all the experience we -- that I have and we have and our Board has tells us to kind of stand firm and make sure that -- that doesn't mean that we ignore the realities around us.

但對ADP而言，最重要的財務價值驅動因素是顧客留存率和終身價值。失去客戶後，不得不重新去爭取他們並重新實施他們的方案，這完全沒有意義。我們——包括我、我們團隊以及董事會——的所有經驗都告訴我們，要堅定立場，確保……但這並不意味著我們要忽視周遭的現實。

If we thought that this was a permanent decrease in capacity of the economy or in terms of the global outlook and that it was going to last 2, 3, 4 years, we probably would be behaving differently. But that's not our expectation. That's not our -- that's not the way that we're managing the company. There's also a couple of other items, I think, that mathematically may be not helping us. And maybe Kathleen can help a little bit with some of those.

如果我們認為這是經濟或全球前景的永久性衰退，並且會持續兩三年甚至四年，我們的應對措施可能會有所不同。但我們並不這麼認為，也不是我們管理公司的方式。我認為還有其他一些因素，從數學角度來看，可能對我們不利。或許凱瑟琳能在這方面提供一些幫助。

Sure. Yes. Look, on the surface, the 300 -- the guide to 300 basis point decline on the surface may sound like a lot. But there's a lot going on in there. When you pick it apart, I think it's really -- and you put it into these kind of buckets, I think you'll see how we arrived at that guidance and that expectation, right?

當然。是的。你看，表面上看，300——也就是300個基點的降幅——聽起來可能很多。但實際上有很多因素在起作用。當你仔細分析之後，你會發現，如果你把它歸類到這些不同的類別中，你就會明白我們是如何得出這個指引和預期的，對吧？

As we've talked about and as you know, we've got obviously a substantial impact from loss of very high margin revenue, right? We've got that high-margin revenue. We've got client funds interest, which is a hurt on margin year-over-year. We also have growth in zero-margin pass-throughs, which falls right to the bottom line from a margin perspective. That's going to be a significant hurt for us, where it hasn't been as much in the past.

正如我們之前討論過的，也正如您所知，高利潤收入的損失顯然對我們造成了重大影響，對吧？我們有高利潤收入，還有客戶資金利息，這會逐年拉低利潤率。此外，零利潤率的轉嫁收入也在成長，這直接影響到利潤率。這對我們來說將是一個很大的打擊，而過去這種情況並不常見。

And the continued investment along the lines of, look, we think it's prudent and smart to continue our long-term view and to continue to invest in sales and in product, we're committed to that level of investment. So that's a hurt (technical difficulty) [perspective]. And then you do have, as you pointed out, the transformation and other cost actions that we've been taking that only partially offset that.

而且，我們將繼續進行投資，因為我們認為，繼續秉持長遠眼光，繼續投資於銷售和產品是審慎明智的做法，我們致力於維持這一投資水平。所以，這（技術難題）是一個需要考慮的因素。正如您所指出的，我們採取的轉型和其他成本控制措施只能部分抵消這些影響。

So I would think about it in those buckets in terms of, look, you've got this high-margin revenue. You've got some other things that fall right to the bottom line, like zero-margin pass-through and client fund interest. You've got the commitment to continuing to invest. And quite frankly, I think we've been executing really well from a transformation perspective and also in terms of looking at, as we navigate through this period, the excess capacity costs that we have and being really smart about addressing those.

所以我會從這些方面來考慮：你看，你看，你看到了高利潤的收入。你也看到了一些直接影響利潤的部分，例如零利潤的轉嫁費用和客戶資金利息。你還有持續投資的承諾。坦白說，我認為從轉型角度來看，我們做得非常出色；同時，在應對這段時期，我們也很好地處理了產能過剩成本，並採取了非常明智的措施。

But I guess let [me provide more] comment just to provide a little bit of color on kind of our view. Because I learned the hard way from my 2 predecessors about some of these things. So if you just look at the sales engine aspect of our business and you look at it over multiple years, you can actually do the math.

不過我想再補充一點，稍微闡述我們的觀點。因為我從兩位前任身上學到了一些慘痛的教訓。所以，如果你仔細分析我們業務的銷售引擎，並觀察多年的數據，你就能明白其中的道理了。

That if our -- if we decreased our headcount, call it, 5% or even if we just kept it flat and you assume that productivity continued on kind of its normal trend, which is a big assumption, but even if you assume that, you can see the impact that has on revenue growth for multiple years down the road.

如果我們減少員工人數，例如減少 5%，或者即使我們保持員工人數不變，並且假設生產力繼續保持正常趨勢（這是一個很大的假設），但即使你這樣假設，你也能看到這對未來幾年的收入成長產生的影響。

So obviously, if you expect that you're not going to be able to ever return to the same kind of sales productivity you had before, then you have to do something differently. But that's not the expectation we have right now. And it's critical to our growth in '22, '23 and '24 for us to maintain our investment in our sales engine, not to mention in our product and our technology and a few other places as well.

顯然，如果你預期自己永遠無法恢復到先前的銷售效率水平，那麼你就必須採取不同的策略。但這並非我們目前的預期。為了在2022、2023和2024年實現成長，我們必須繼續增加對銷售引擎的投入，更不用說對產品、技術以及其他一些領域的投入了。

Okay. Yes, that's really good color. For my follow-up, I wanted to ask just about retention. I know you're forecasting the 50 to 100 bps decline this year. I wanted to see if we can get a sense of how that compares to how you exited the June quarter on that metric. And I'm really just trying to get a sense of whether you're forecasting acceleration in churn over the next few quarters or more of just kind of a stable and steady pace of churn.

好的。是的，顏色確實不錯。接下來想問關於客戶留存率的問題。我知道您預測今年客戶留存率會下降 50 到 100 個基點。我想了解一下，這個預測與您六月季度末的指標相比如何。另外，我還想了解一下，您預測未來幾季客戶流失率會加速上升，還是會保持相對穩定？

Again, let me give you some maybe philosophical, high-level comments. And then Kathleen maybe can give you some color on the fourth quarter and some of the assumptions.

再一次，讓我先從一些哲學層面、高屋建瓴的角度來談談我的看法。然後凱瑟琳或許可以就第四季的情況和一些假設做一些更具體的闡述。

So in general, we've been -- and I've been -- again, having been through multiple downturns and crises, I've been surprised by the resilience of our retention. And we think there could be a number of factors here. One of them could be all of the government stimulus, the Paycheck Protection Program, all these things might -- these are all new things compared to the past that might be helping.

總的來說，我們——包括我自己——經歷了許多經濟衰退和危機，員工留存率的韌性讓我感到驚訝。我們認為這可能有很多因素。其中之一可能是政府的刺激措施，例如薪資保護計劃（PPP），所有這些措施——與過去相比都是新的——可能起到了積極作用。

There's also the potential that some clients are frozen in place, if you will, like we've talked about how difficult our bookings have been. I think logic would tell me that that's probably happening across multiple industries and multiple competitors. And so we would be intellectually dishonest not to assume that that might be helping our retention in some parts of our business like the mid-market and the upmarket. Because in the downmarket, it's really driven more by out-of-business.

還有一種可能是，部分客戶暫時無法預訂，就像我們之前討論過的預訂困難問題一樣。我認為，從邏輯上講，這種情況很可能在多個行業和多個競爭對手中都存在。因此，如果我們不認為這或許有助於我們在中端市場和高端市場等部分業務領域的客戶留存，那就太不誠實了。因為在低階市場，客戶流失更多是因為企業倒閉造成的。

So having said all that, I would say that a lot of these things are really about timing. Because if there continues to be government stimulus and there continues to be optimism about this being transitory, then I think this kind of holds and you have probably some additional fallout in the downmarket as a result of out-of-business and so forth. But you don't have kind of a major downturn or a collapse in retention.

綜上所述，我認為很多事情的關鍵在於時機。如果政府繼續實施刺激政策，人們繼續樂觀地認為這只是暫時的，那麼我認為這種局面就能持續下去，市場可能會因為企業倒閉等原因出現一些額外的下滑，但不會出現嚴重的經濟衰退或客戶留存率暴跌。

So -- and that's kind of where I am today that we're expecting, what I would say is -- I would consider these to be reasonable and modest declines in retention when you compare them to other downturns that we have some data on and some history about.

所以——這就是我目前對我們預期情況的看法，我認為——當我們將這些與我們掌握一些數據和歷史資料的其他經濟衰退時期相比時，我認為這些是合理且適度的留存率下降。

Yes. And we did do a lot of work around and analysis around what happened in the last recession and what happened to retention and by segment. And I think we've got a pretty balanced view. If you look at the decline in retention that we experienced in Q4 and what we are guiding to and expecting and planning for in fiscal '21, it's basically in line with the retention pressure that we had during the last recession.

是的。我們確實做了大量工作和分析，研究了上次經濟衰退期間客戶留存率的變化，以及各個細分市場的情況。我認為我們現在對情況的看法相當全面。如果你看一下我們在第四季度經歷的客戶留存率下降情況，以及我們對2021財年的預期和計劃，你會發現它與上次經濟衰退期間我們面臨的客戶留存壓力基本一致。

So we'll see. I mean it's really hard to predict and to tell what level of support the PPP program has had and is going to have. But that's our best view right now.

所以，我們拭目以待。我的意思是，要預測和判斷PPP專案已經獲得和將會獲得多少支持，真的很難。但這是我們目前能做出的最佳判斷。

And I think I don't -- we normally don't give it. But I think I feel like this is an environment where transparency is probably not a bad idea just to give you -- like that's why we gave you kind of the gross bookings number besides the net bookings number. Because you guys need to model this stuff, so you can understand what's happening here.

而且我覺得我們通常不會提供這些數據。但我覺得在這種環境下，保持透明或許並非壞事——就像我們除了提供淨預訂量數據之外，還提供了總預訂量數據一樣。因為你們需要建立模型來分析這些數據，這樣才能了解實際情況。

But think the fourth quarter is somewhere around couple hundred basis point decline in retention, which I think, again all things considered, I thought was -- and most of that decline, frankly, came in the downmarket. So that, to me, feels like better than I would have expected 3 months before that.

但我認為第四季度的客戶留存率下降了大約幾百個基點，考慮到所有因素，我覺得這已經很好了——坦白說，大部分下降都發生在市場低迷時期。所以，對我來說，這比三個月前的預期還要好。

Our next question comes from Tien-Tsin Huang from JPMorgan.

下一個問題來自摩根大通的黃天進。

Just on the transformation initiatives, I caught all the details there. How about looking beyond those 2 initiatives? Are there any other potential actions that you could take? Anything that could be material over a similar size?

關於轉型計劃，我已經了解了所有細節。除了這兩項計劃之外，您能否考慮一下其他措施？還有其他可能採取的行動嗎？有沒有規模相當、影響深遠的舉措？

Again, I'll maybe give some high-level comments and let, I think, Kathleen give some additional detail. We have a very large menu of things that we can do. This company has a very, very long history of navigating through multiple changes in environments and multiple economic circumstances. And now I think we will add to our repertoire, managing through a major health crisis and a pandemic.

我再次重申，我可能只會做一些概括性的評論，然後讓凱瑟琳補充一些細節。我們有很多事情可以做。這家公司有著非常悠久的歷史，在應對各種環境變化和經濟狀況方面都累積了豐富的經驗。現在，我認為我們將把應對重大健康危機和疫情也納入我們的能力範圍。

And so we have -- I don't know how else to put it. We have a huge number of things that we could do if necessary and when necessary. This is an incredibly resilient business model. I recognize that it is unusual for ADP to be down the way we are. But it is what it is in terms of the economic circumstances around us. But believe me, we have a number of levers. So as I said, like some of these things are -- in our business model are somewhat self-correcting.

所以，我們有很多應對措施——我不知道該怎麼更好地表達。如果需要，我們可以隨時採取許多措施。這是一個極具韌性的商業模式。我知道ADP目前的情況確實不尋常，但這就是我們所處的經濟環境。不過，請相信我，我們有很多應對之策。正如我所說，我們商業模式中的一些機制具有一定的自我調節能力。

If in the unlikely event, there was a belief that there was a permanent impairment of kind of global economic GDP or growth vis-à-vis other industries or other companies, I think that we are in somewhat of a better place. Because the amount of money that we spend on NDE and on implementation alone would, at least for the short term, would certainly enhance our bottom line and help us from a from a margin standpoint.

如果萬一真的出現全球經濟GDP或成長（相對於其他產業或公司而言）受到永久性損害的情況，我認為我們現在的情況反而更好一些。因為我們在無損檢測和實施方面的投入，至少在短期內，肯定會提高我們的利潤，並從利潤率的角度幫助我們。

That's not what we want. Because the real value to be created here is through growth, right, through profitable growth, not by kind of shrinking our way into profitability. But we have no intentions of allowing ourselves to underperform, if you will, on a long-term basis, below what we have delivered for many, many decades. And that's what '21 is all about. But if circumstances change, we have a very long list and quite a lot of variable expense in our P&L and a very strong balance sheet and a very strong cash position.

那不是我們想要的。因為真正的價值在於成長，在於獲利性成長，而不是透過縮減規模來勉強獲利。但我們絕不允許自己長期表現低於過去幾十年來的水準。這就是2021年的目標。但如果情況發生變化，我們還有很多應對方案，損益表中有很多可變支出，而且我們的資產負債表和現金儲備都非常強勁。

So Tien-Tsin, thank you for the question. It's a logical question because when you think about kind of the path and the history over the last several years, right, in terms of what we've been driving from a transformation perspective, you can see that we've had these several kind of big major initiatives over the last several years, right? We had service alignment initiative, first. We have a voluntary early retirement program. We told you about the workforce optimization and then the procurement. And now the procurement continues, and we've shared with you our work that we're doing around digital transformation. The question, what comes next? Quite frankly, I think there's a lot of runway, and we have a lot to do from a digital standpoint and also from a procurement standpoint. It does get harder as you go, I will say. But there's a lot to do there.

田進，謝謝你的提問。這個問題很合理，因為回顧過去幾年的發展歷程，從轉型角度來看，我們確實推出了一些重大舉措，對吧？首先是服務整合計劃，然後是自願提早退休計劃。我們之前提到過勞動力優化和採購方面的工作。現在採購工作仍在繼續，我們也分享了我們在數位轉型方面所做的工作。那麼，接下來呢？坦白說，我認為我們還有很長的路要走，在數位化和採購方面都還有很多工作要做。當然，隨著工作的推進，難度也會越來越大。但我們還有很多工作要做。

And a lot of the digital projects -- first of all, the digital is certainly focused on our service and implementation because there's opportunity there. But it is across the entire company. So every single segment and every single department, whether your front office or your back office, is tasked with thinking about digital transformation, automation, how do you make the work more efficient, how do you take work out. There's runway there. So I expect that you will hear us talking about that for some time to come. The procurement, while it does get harder as you go, what I would say is, in an environment like this, that we're in right now in a downturn, it does present some procurement opportunities that maybe didn't exist a year ago. When you go back and you're negotiating with vendors and suppliers and so forth. So we've got real work to do there.

許多數位化計畫——首先，數位轉型當然會聚焦於我們的服務和實施，因為這方面蘊藏著巨大的機會。但它也涵蓋了整個公司。因此，每個部門、每個業務單元，無論是前台還是後台，都肩負著數位轉型、自動化、如何提高工作效率、如何減輕工作負擔的重任。這方面還有很大的發展空間。所以我預計，在未來一段時間內，你們還會聽到我們談論這些。採購方面，雖然隨著時間的推移難度會越來越大，但我想說的是，在像我們目前所處的這種經濟低迷環境下，也出現了一些一年前可能並不存在的機會。當你重新與供應商談判時，你會發現這些機會。所以，我們在這方面還有很多工作要做。

And as you heard us say in the prepared comments, we've expanded procurement to make sure we're capturing all of the opportunities from a real estate perspective in terms of, look, the environment has changed, the way the world is working has changed. Let's make sure we are thinking about our real estate footprint in a fresh, modern, forward-looking way to ensure we're utilizing the assets that we have to the fullest extent possible. We're understanding how we're going to get work done in the future. We're understanding how we can utilize mobility models where it makes sense to do that. So we've got a lot of work and some really good work to do here from a digital procurement real estate perspective.

正如您在事先準備好的發言稿中聽到的，我們擴大了採購範圍，以確保從房地產角度掌握所有機會。要知道，環境已經改變，世界的運作方式也改變了。我們必須以一種全新的、現代化的、前瞻性的視角來審視我們的房地產佈局，確保我們最大限度地利用現有資產。我們正在探索未來如何開展工作，以及如何在適當的情況下運用行動辦公模式。因此，從數位化採購房地產的角度來看，我們還有很多工作要做，而且其中不乏一些非常重要的工作。

And just one last comment on that. The other thing that maybe is underappreciated, but it's worth mentioning here because again we're typically not talking about these things because they're more longer term. But if your question was really more about what's potentially next longer term and not just in '21, our Next Gen investments are the largest potential digital transformation effort we've ever undergone. And we always focus on them around what they're going to do in terms of our winning in the marketplace and our sales growth and our revenue growth. But trust me when I tell you that the business cases for those investments and the progress we've been making over all these years, there is an enormous expectation for, call it automation, call it efficiency, whatever you want to call it.

最後再補充一點。還有一點可能被低估了，但值得一提，因為我們通常不會討論這些，因為它們更著眼於長遠。但如果你的問題實際上是關於更長遠的未來發展方向，而不僅僅是2021年，那麼我們的「下一代」投資是我們迄今為止最大的數位轉型計畫。我們始終關注這些投資將如何幫助我們贏得市場、提升銷售業績和增加收入。但請相信我，這些投資的商業價值以及我們多年來的進展，都反映了人們對自動化、效率提升等等方面的巨大期望。

And we don't usually talk about our tax engine. We talk about HCM and Payroll. But one of those Next Gen investments is our tax engine, which, again there, the early signs, we already have a couple of hundred thousand clients migrated onto that platform. And when you see how quickly we were able to make these legislative changes in that platform and the cost structure and the cost of support, again I would be very optimistic that one of the largest transformation efforts we'll be talking about in the future when we look backwards is these next-generation investments. I'm hoping they're also going to lead to big growth incrementality and winning more market share in the marketplace. But do not underestimate the value of these investments in terms of our back office and also our cost structure.

我們通常不談論稅務引擎，而是談論人力資本管理 (HCM) 和薪資管理。但稅務引擎是我們下一代投資項目之一，而且正如之前提到的，我們已經有數十萬名客戶遷移到該平台。考慮到我們能夠如此迅速地在該平台上完成這些法規變更，以及成本結構和支援成本的優化，我非常樂觀地認為，未來我們回顧過去時，最值得一提的轉型舉措之一就是這些下一代投資。我希望這些投資也能帶來顯著的增量成長，並幫助我們贏得更多市場份額。但千萬不要低估這些投資對我們後台營運和成本結構的重要性。

Yes. That's a very complete answer. And if you don't mind, just one quick follow-up. You mentioned the legislative changes and a lot of the work and effort that you put into that. And Carlos, I know I ask you this all the time, so I'm going to ask you again. Could we see more demand? I know you mentioned improved bookings momentum that you started to see. But could you see more demand for the service model in general here? I don't know where you're seeing maybe some switching from or more demand for work. But again, election year, a lot of complexity, probably more changes coming, could that help you here?

是的，回答非常全面。如果您不介意，我想再問一個問題。您提到了立法方面的改變，以及您為此投入的大量工作和精力。卡洛斯，我知道我經常問您這個問題，所以我再問一次。我們是否會看到更大的需求？我知道您提到預訂量的成長動能已經開始增強。但您認為這種服務模式的整體需求是否增加？我不知道您是否觀察到一些客戶正在從其他行業轉型，或對工作的需求增加。但今年是選舉年，情況非常複雜，未來可能會有更多變化，這些因素對您有幫助嗎？

I mean I don't see how it can't. So usually, I'm not that optimistic or that definitive. Because if it were only the election, I would say we'll have to wait and see. But I don't -- again, I'm not usually a pontificator, but I just don't see how companies after all this don't reassess, not just kind of how they do HCM and payroll and so forth, but so many other parts of their business model, where continuity and resiliency and so forth are critical. And that applies to the smallest client to the very largest clients. I think that for a lot of us, I don't think we're the only ones or the only industry or space where that's going to be a tailwind, but it's hard to believe that this isn't a positive. Now in what quarter and how do I quantify that? Because you have GDP going down, I don't know, 30-something percent in the second quarter, even if people were thinking about that, that wasn't really going to be a factor in -- certainly in the fourth quarter.

我的意思是，我不明白為什麼不能。所以通常情況下，我不會那麼樂觀或那麼肯定。因為如果只是選舉，我會說我們得拭目以待。但我——再說一遍，我通常不是個愛妄下斷言的人——我只是不明白，經歷了這一切之後，企業怎麼可能不重新評估，不僅僅是他們的人力資本管理（HCM）和薪資管理等等，還有他們商業模式中的許多其他方面，在這些方面，連續性和韌性等等都至關重要。這適用於最小的客戶，也適用於最大的客戶。我認為對我們很多人來說，我不認為我們是唯一一家或唯一一個會從中受益的行業或領域，但很難相信這不是一件好事。那麼，會在哪個季度發生呢？我又該如何量化這種影響呢？因為第二季GDP下降了，我不知道，可能下降了30%多，即使人們考慮到這一點，這也不會對第四季產生影響。

The question is, how does that net out in the math, right? Because you want to somehow be able to parse that out and understand how much of it is incremental. And I can't necessarily do that scientifically. But intellectually, it's hard to believe that it isn't a tailwind going forward for us. And then on the election side, we like -- we generally like change because -- and it doesn't matter whether one party versus the other, we're apolitical as a company. But usually when there's change, there is change for employers. Employers are an instrument of policy of the government. It's how public policy gets effectuated, whether it's through tax or all the various safety policies -- you're seeing all these changes in leave policies now to help manage through the health crisis. And so that's all incredible, I think, opportunity for us to help our clients. And when there's opportunity to help clients, that's opportunity to sell new business as well.

問題是，這在數學上是如何反映的？因為你需要能夠分析清楚，了解其中有多少是增量。我未必能用科學的方法做到這一點。但從理論上講，很難相信這不會對我們未來的發展起到推動作用。至於選舉方面，我們喜歡——我們通常喜歡變化，因為——無論哪個黨派，我們公司都是不涉政治的。但通常情況下，當出現變化時，雇主也會受到影響。雇主是政府政策的工具。公共政策正是透過雇主得以實施，無論是透過稅收或各種安全政策——你現在可以看到，為了因應這場健康危機，休假政策也發生了許多變化。所以我認為，這對我們幫助客戶來說都是絕佳的機會。而當有機會幫助客戶時，也意味著有機會拓展新業務。

Our next question comes from Bryan Keane from Deutsche Bank.

下一個問題來自德意志銀行的布萊恩·基恩。

I just wanted to ask, take another crack on the margin question and looking at it from this perspective. The fourth quarter margin in ES was impressive to bring it to flat. And you took a lot of the brunt of the hit. Just thinking about that fourth quarter versus the guide of down 300. I guess I'm a little surprised that it doesn't hold up better. Can you just contrast the margins in the fourth quarter being flat versus down 300 from that perspective?

我只是想再問一下，能否從這個角度重新檢視利潤率的問題？標普500指數(ES)第四季的利潤率表現令人印象深刻，使其與預期持平。而你承擔了大部分的損失。想想第四季的業績與先前預測的下跌300點相比，我有點驚訝它的表現並沒有更好。你能否從這個角度比較一下第四季持平與下跌300點的利潤率？

Sure. I mean I think some of it is -- and Kathleen will go through some of the math. But the client funds interest impact is much bigger, I think, going forward than it was in the fourth quarter because of the laddering that we do in our portfolio. The impact, for example, of bookings, we still had a lot of business starting. Because remember, there's a lag between bookings and starts. So I think you would all be very surprised by how much -- even though we had some delays in some -- particularly for larger clients, we started a lot of business in the fourth quarter also. And as kind of the bookings decline, now the starts and the amount of revenue that goes into the run rate declines as well as you move forward until you get that sales number back up again. So I think there are a number of just kind of mathematical realities that, I think, that hit us in the next 2 or 3 quarters in comparison to the fourth quarter.

當然。我的意思是，我認為其中一些因素確實存在——凱瑟琳會詳細解釋一下。但我認為，由於我們在投資組合中採用了階梯式投資策略，客戶資金利息的影響在未來會比第四季大得多。例如，就預訂量而言，我們仍然有許多業務啟動。因為要知道，預訂和啟動之間存在滯後。所以我認為，儘管我們在某些​​方面有所延誤——特別是對於一些大客戶——但我們在第四季度仍然啟動了大量業務，這可能會讓你們非常驚訝。隨著預訂量的下降，啟動量和計入運行率的收入也會隨之下降，直到銷售額再次回升。因此，我認為在接下來的兩到三個季度裡，與第四季相比，我們將面臨一些實際的數學問題。

But I think that, again you -- we're not going to do that. Like we're not going to provide quarterly guidance. But I would encourage you to attempt to do either a first half or a second half based on the tone that you're hearing from us or even attempt to do it by quarter because the view that we have of the fourth quarter, again assuming the assumptions are correct, I think paints a very different picture than the picture maybe that you're getting by looking at a '21 number. I would also argue that when we talk about '21, it's fiscal '21, which happens to be only 6 months of '21. For every other company out there, when you talk about '21, you're talking about the beginning of January of '21, where everybody expects everything already to be back to normal. And that is in terms of assumption of things being back to normal. So it's a little bit maybe tricky in terms of the thought process and the math. But I don't know if Kathleen has anything to add on that.

但我認為，我們不會那麼做。我們不會提供季度業績指引。但我建議您根據我們目前的表態，嘗試預測上半年或下半年的業績，或嘗試按季度預測，因為我們對第四季度的看法（假設假設正確）與您從2021年的數據中得出的結論可能截然不同。我還想指出，我們所說的2021年指的是2021財年，也就是2021年的前六個月。對其他公司來說，他們所說的2021年指的是2021年1月初，那時大家都預期一切都會恢復正常。這是基於一切恢復正常的假設。所以，從想法和計算的角度來看，這可能有點複雜。但我不知道凱瑟琳對此還有什麼補充。

Yes. I mean, yes, it's a little bit hard to say, okay, compare 1 quarter to a full year, particularly in a year like this, when there's so much going on and there's so much linearity aspect in fiscal '21. But what I will say is in Q4, we did have sales expense. Our NDE was actually a little bit of a help in Q4 versus it ends up being a hurt. So that's kind of one difference one to the other. And the other thing is from a transformation perspective in terms of benefits and how the benefits flow, while certainly being a favorable and a help for us in each year in fiscal '20 and in fiscal '21, in Q4, there is a pretty substantial impact favorability from transformation, if you were to compare it to a full year of fiscal '21.

是的。我的意思是，確實很難說，好吧，把一個季度和一整年進行比較，尤其是在像今年這樣事情很多、2021財年整體情況又如此復雜的年份。但我要說的是，在第四季度，我們確實有銷售支出。我們的非開發支出（NDE）實際上在第四季度起到了一定的幫助作用，而不是像往年那樣最終造成了負面影響。所以這是兩者之間的一個區別。另一方面，從轉型角度來看，就收益及其流動方式而言，雖然轉型在2020財年和2021財年每年都對我們有利，但在第四季度，如果與2021財年全年相比，轉型帶來的有利影響相當顯著。

So it's kind of the math of how it all falls out in a quarter versus in a full year. But again, think about fiscal '20 as -- sorry, fiscal '21 as, look, you've got this high-margin revenue. You've got top line stuff that flows right to the bottom line being the zero-margin pass-through and the client fund interest. You've got continued our commitment to investment. So you've got that hurt from sales expense, partially offset by continued transformation work.

所以，這其實就是季度業績和全年業績的數學比較。但話說回來，想想2020財年——抱歉，應該是2021財年——你會發現，你看，有高利潤率的收入。有直接轉化為利潤的營收，例如零利潤率的轉嫁費用和客戶基金利息。還有我們持續的投資投入。所以，銷售費用帶來的損失會被持續的轉型工作部分抵銷。

Got it. That's helpful. And then just a quick follow-up. The elevated out-of-business losses, just trying to get a sense of how that's compared in past recessions. And then how much more do we have to go on that? I mean have you written down the majority of it and there's just a little bit left over? Because I know in FY '21, you're saying there'll be some more losses. I'm just trying to get an impact of magnitude of previous recessions and how much is left.

明白了，這很有幫助。還有一個後續問題。關於企業倒閉造成的損失，我想了解與以往經濟衰退相比情況如何。還有，我們還能掌握多少資訊？我的意思是，您是否已經記錄了大部分損失，只剩下一些零星資訊？因為我知道您提到2021財政年度還會有一些損失。我只是想了解以往經濟衰退的嚴重程度，以及還剩下多少資訊。

So that really comes through in the retention. So it's not really -- we don't "write it down," right? So that really comes through in terms of the losses from a retention standpoint. We have, like maybe others, some clients that have "stopped processing" and -- but they're still there. And so there's a question of which of those clients come back and which of those clients don't come back. But we've modeled in, in the downmarket -- this is really a downmarket issue. We hope that it's a downmarket issue. At least in prior economic cycles, that's been the case. And I think you see it reflected in our retention rate.

所以這一點確實反映在客戶留存率上。我們其實並沒有「記錄」這些損失，對吧？所以從客戶留存的角度來看，這確實反映在客戶流失上。和一些其他公司一樣，我們也有一些客戶“停止了處理訂單”，但他們仍然存在。因此，問題在於哪些客戶會回來，哪些客戶不會回來。但我們已經在模型中考慮到了市場低迷的情況——這確實是一個市場低迷的問題。我們希望這是一個市場低迷的問題。至少在之前的經濟週期中，情況確實如此。我認為這一點也反映在我們的客戶留存率上。

But it's very, very hard for us to say with any level of certainty how that's going to exactly play out in the future. We've looked at all the prior downturns. And we know that there's probably some out-of-business that's still there that's going to occur. And a lot of this, in this case, is going to depend on government stimulus and whether there continues to be some support for small business or not and also just the overall level of GDP and obviously the overall pace of recovery in terms of people going back to spending on products that help small businesses survive.

但我們很難非常確定地預測未來究竟會如何發展。我們研究了以往所有的經濟衰退，也知道可能會有一些企業倒閉。而這一切，很大程度上取決於政府的刺激措施，以及是否會繼續支持小型企業，還取決於整體GDP水平，以及人們恢復消費、幫助小型企業生存的復甦速度。

Our next question comes from Lisa Ellis from MoffettNathanson.

我們的下一個問題來自 MoffettNathanson 公司的 Lisa Ellis。

I apologize, I am going to ask one more question on margins. Just a clarification on the back side. Because I think that maybe the effect of the deleveraging related to pays per control is maybe a little bit steeper, [is maybe something that we're] expecting, et cetera. Is the implication of that coming out of this as we get back to better employment levels late in '21 that you would see a sort of similar snapback? Is that the way we should be thinking about it as unemployment improves, so meaning when we're looking out into FY '22? Or are there reasons that we wouldn't expect that to happen?

抱歉，我還要再問一個關於利潤率的問題。只是想澄清一下背面的狀況。因為我認為，去槓桿化對每股盈餘的影響可能更大一些，這或許是我們預期的，等等。這意味著，隨著2021年底就業水準的回升，是否會出現類似的快速反彈？隨著失業率的改善，也就是展望2022財年，我們是否該這樣看待這個問題？或者說，我們有理由預期這種情況不會發生？

No, I think that's right. And again, I hate to go back to -- because I think I would encourage you, like I'm doing the focus on both growth rates but also because I know they're important in terms of models and so forth, but absolute numbers as well. Because if pays per control doesn't grow in the fourth quarter of fiscal year '22, we have a serious problem. Like if there's not a big snapback of that number, like if there isn't a huge snapback of bookings, we have serious problems. And so the only thing that we think is not something that we want to model improving is interest rates. Because it just doesn't feel like there's a basis for doing that.

不，我覺得你說得對。而且，我不想再回到之前那個主題了——因為我覺得我應該鼓勵你們關注增長率，我知道它們對於模型構建等等都很重要，但絕對數字也同樣重要。因為如果2022財年第四季的單次控制付費沒有成長，我們就面臨一個嚴重的問題。如果這個數字沒有大幅回升，如果預訂量沒有大幅回升，我們也面臨一個嚴重的問題。所以，我們認為唯一不應該被納入模型預測的因素是利率的改善。因為感覺這樣做沒有依據。

But I think if you take reasonable assumptions based on economic forecasts, you do have a fairly significant snapback in terms of growth rates, if you will, or improvement percentages. The question then is what does that mean in terms of absolute numbers? And so if you still have 7% unemployment, by definition, that unemployment rate is still higher than it was in the, call it, third quarter of FY '20. And that has some implications in terms of absolute level, if you will, of pays per control. And we've kind of modeled that in to our assumptions. But for sure, there's a snapback in the numbers. There's no denying it.

但我認為，如果基於合理的經濟預測做出假設，那麼成長率或改善百分比確實會出現相當顯著的反彈。那麼問題來了，這在絕對數字上意味著什麼？如果失業率仍然維持在7%，那麼根據定義，這個失業率仍然高於2020財年第三季的水平。這會對人均所得的絕對水準產生一定影響。我們已經在模型假設中考慮到了這一點。但可以肯定的是，這些數字確實出現了反彈，這點毋庸置疑。

Good. Okay. All right. And then just my follow-up is related to the PEO. As you're seeing -- because I know you don't -- your bookings are ES-related bookings. So just a kind of question on demand -- the demand environment for the PEO. As you're seeing companies adjusting now to the crisis and to the recession, how is demand acting for the PEO, meaning, is it positive because companies are looking to variabilize costs? Or are you seeing some companies move away from the PEO because they're reducing benefits? What does that demand outlook look like?

好的。好的。好的。接下來我想問一個關於PEO的問題。正如您所看到的——因為我知道您可能看不到——您的訂單都是與ES相關的訂單。所以我想問一個關於需求的問題—PEO的需求環境。鑑於您看到企業目前正在調整以應對危機和經濟衰退，PEO的需求情況如何？也就是說，需求是否因為企業尋求分散成本而成長？或者您看到一些企業因為削減福利而放棄PEO？這種需求前景如何？

I think the demand -- so far, our experience in the PEO has been that it was kind of in line with the rest of the business. It looked a little more resilient in April, which you may have heard that tone from us. But then May and June, pretty much in line with what was happening across ES in terms of bookings demand. And I think some of that is because of just the sales cycle. If you think about the PEO, the sales cycle resembles more the upmarket, the lower end of the upmarket than it does the downmarket, even though the average client size is small. And that's because it's a high-involvement product and high-involvement sale because you're basically turning over all of your HCM, including your benefits, your workers' comp, et cetera. So I think that's what we've seen in the short term.

我認為，就目前我們在PEO（專業雇主組織）的經驗來看，需求與公司其他業務基本一致。 4月份的需求似乎更有韌性，您可能也從我們這裡聽到了類似的說法。但到了5月和6月，就預訂需求而言，情況基本上與ES（企業服務）整體的情況一致。我認為這部分原因在於銷售週期。如果您仔細想想PEO，您會發現它的銷售週期更接近高端市場，甚至是高端市場的低端部分，而不是低端市場，儘管客戶的平均規模較小。這是因為PEO是一種高參與度的產品，銷售過程也需要高度投入，因為您基本上要將所有的人力資本管理（HCM）業務，包括福利、工傷賠償等等，都交給他們來處理。所以，我認為這就是我們短期內觀察到的情況。

If you look at again 20, 25 years' worth of history, I can't even believe I've been doing this for that long, but I started my career in the PEO, and every time there's an economic cycle or a change, whether it's dot-com or financial crisis or whatever, there's a lot of theories. And I think the secular demand and growth of the PEO doesn't seem to be impacted by many things. So I would still expect that kind of solution to have a lot of legs for small- and mid-sized clients for a long time to come. In the interim, there could be ups and downs. Because as you said, if companies are "hunkering down" and don't want to offer benefits, at least in our PEO, part of the value proposition is benefits. And so -- but so far, when you look at sales results, lead generation, activity, et cetera, there's no reason to believe that the PEO won't recover in the same way that we expect the rest of the business to recover from a booking standpoint.

回顧過去二三十年的歷史，我簡直不敢相信自己已經從事這個行業這麼久了。我的職業生涯是從PEO（專業雇主組織）開始的。每當經濟週期或變革來臨，無論是網路泡沫破裂、金融危機或其他什麼，都會出現各種各樣的理論。但我認為，PEO的長期需求和成長似乎不受太多因素的影響。因此，我仍然相信，這種解決方案在未來很長一段時間內仍將對中小企業客戶具有強大的吸引力。當然，在此期間，市場可能會出現波動。正如您所說，如果企業“縮減開支”，不願提供福利，那麼至少在我們PEO領域，福利是我們價值主張的重要組成部分。因此——但就目前而言，從銷售業績、潛在客戶開發、業務活動等方面來看，沒有理由相信 PEO 業務不會像我們預期的其他業務一樣，從預訂量的角度來看實現復甦。

Our next question comes from Steven Wald from Morgan Stanley.

下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的史蒂文·沃爾德。

Great. So just coming at some of the implicit assumptions under the guidance, another angle. Just curious what your guys thoughts are in terms of what you're seeing conditions on the ground-wise in terms of geographic concentration. I mean, certainly, some parts of the country are more open than others. Some industries are doing better than others. I guess I'm just curious if you guys could sort of separate out how you guys are thinking about that on a go-forward and the unevenness of the recovery and what that means for your client base. I know you've talked about being diversified. But certainly, there's a quite disparate experience level across the country right now.

好的。接下來我想從另一個角度談談指導方針中一些隱含的假設。我很好奇你們對目前實際情況，特別是地域集中度方面有什麼看法。我的意思是，當然，全國各地開放程度肯定有所不同，有些行業比其他行業發展得更好。我想請你們具體談談，你們是如何看待未來發展以及復甦不平衡的，以及這對你們的客戶群意味著什麼。我知道你們一直強調多元化。但目前全國各地的經驗水平確實存在很大的差異。

It's a great question. I think you probably saw in our comments that we said that we observed in our data that there has been a slowdown in the last few weeks. So we are looking at the data weekly and we do look at it geographically, both globally in terms of by country but also within the U.S. by state. And as you would expect, part of the challenge in the last several weeks and month has been in the places where you've seen some of the comeback in terms of the virus or the resurgence of the virus in kind of the Southern states and also Texas and California, but nothing back to kind of the full shutdown that we saw in April, which is in line with what you're all seeing as well in the news and so forth. So this is more about a leveling-off of growth rather than kind of a decline. So we've seen it in the same metrics that I talked about in the last quarter. So I can see it in like the number of job postings and screenings and so forth that have -- that we're on an upward trend line. And frankly, it was certainly not a V. But it was a nice, upwardly sloped trend line, which then was translating into improved employment, both in our numbers but also in the government reported numbers. But we have seen a plateauing of that as of the last 2 or 3 weeks.

這是一個很好的問題。我想您可能已經從我們的評論中看到了，我們提到，根據我們的數據，過去幾週的成長速度有所放緩。我們每週都會查看數據，並且會從地理角度進行分析，包括全球各國以及美國各州的情況。正如您所預料的，過去幾週和幾個月的部分挑戰在於，一些地區出現了疫情反彈，例如南部各州以及德克薩斯州和加利福尼亞州，但疫情並未像四月份那樣全面封鎖，這與大家在新聞中看到的情況一致。因此，這更像是成長放緩，而不是下降。我們在上個季度提到的那些指標中也看到了這一點。例如，從職缺發布數量、篩選人數等指標來看，我們仍然處於上升趨勢。坦白說，這肯定不是V型復甦，但確實是一條漂亮的上升趨勢線，這轉化為就業狀況的改善，無論是我們統計的數據還是政府公佈的數據都證實了這一點。但近兩三週以來，我們看到這種趨勢趨於平緩。

And so that's something that we -- fortunately, when we relooked at our assumptions for fiscal year '21, the assumptions we have for pays per control for the first quarter are around where -- what the pays per control exit growth rate was for the fourth quarter. And based on this kind of plateauing, that feels like the right place for us to be. And the problem is we don't want to necessarily go tweak the second quarter or the third quarter and the fourth quarter. Because as you've seen over the last 3 or 4 months, 3 or 4 months ago, we were actually thinking about opening our office in Orlando, in Maitland, Orlando because everything was fine in Florida and nothing was happening in Florida. And we didn't know what the hell we were going to do in New Jersey and New York. And as we sit here today, I'm sitting in the office in New Jersey and we're not opening anything in Florida. So I think it's, unfortunately, a very fluid situation. And you just have to keep an eye on all of these assumptions, both at the macro level. But as you said, we have very detailed information and a heat map by state. And I would say that what you're hearing and seeing in the news is what we're seeing in the data. And -- but what's that translating into is a plateauing or a leveling-off of employment short term so far, not a decline.

所以，幸運的是，當我們重新檢視2021財年的假設時，我們發現第一季每位控制人的薪酬預期與第四季每位控制人的薪酬退出成長率大致相同。基於這種趨於平穩的趨勢，我們認為目前的狀況是適當的。問題在於，我們並不想對第二季、第三季和第四季的預期進行調整。因為正如您在過去三、四個月所看到的，三、四個月前，我們實際上正在考慮在奧蘭多的梅特蘭開設辦事處，因為當時佛羅裡達州一切正常，沒有任何變動。而我們當時完全不知道在新澤西州和紐約州該怎麼辦。而今天，我坐在新澤西州的辦公室裡，佛羅裡達州的辦公室仍然沒有開設。所以，很遺憾，我認為目前的情況非常不穩定。你必須密切注意所有這些假設，包括宏觀層面的假設。但正如你所說，我們掌握非常詳細的信息，還有按州劃分的熱力圖。我想說，你在新聞中聽到和看到的，正是我們從數據中看到的。而且——但就目前而言，這意味著短期內就業成長趨於平穩或持平，而不是下降。

That's very helpful. Maybe if I could just squeeze a quick follow-up in here. Carlos, I think you guys laid out at your Innovation Day earlier this year that the addressable market ADP sits in, it's about $150 billion of revenue a year, growing at 5% to 6%. Obviously, that's changed given COVID. But I'm just curious to get any updated thoughts you have around maybe where that stands today. But if you can't really speak to where that stands today, given the fluidity of the situation, how you're thinking about it coming out of it, given your comments and Kathleen's comments about the enhanced opportunity for the space you're in.

這很有幫助。我能不能在這裡快速補充一下？卡洛斯，我記得你們在今年早些時候的創新日上提到過，ADP 的目標市場規模約為每年 1500 億美元的營收，年增長率在 5% 到 6% 之間。顯然，受新冠疫情影響，情況已經改變了。我很好奇你們現在對這個市場現況有什麼新的看法。如果鑑於目前情況瞬息萬變，你們無法就此給出確切的答案，那麼能否結合你們和凱瑟琳之前提到的你們所在領域機遇的提升，談談你們對未來發展的看法？

Listen, there's a lot of smart analysts out there and industry analysts out there that would probably be better at answering that question. And they probably are going to need a little bit more time and information to answer that question. But I would answer it the same way that I answered it earlier today, which is I don't know by how much, but it's hard to believe that past the transitory nature of the situation that, that growth rate for the industry isn't at least what it is, if not higher, because -- and again, I'm not trying to be arrogant that, that is only for HCM. But there are other industries that I think have -- should have tailwind from these events, where the acceleration of people to using cloud services and using what I would consider to be outsourced services so that you can focus on your core business but also have resiliency, I think -- and also so that you can improve efficiency and you can improve productivity of your workforce and improve engagement of your workforce, all of those things, I think, are going to get tailwind. And it's across multiple technology sectors that, I think, are going to probably benefit on a longer-term -- on a medium-term and a longer-term basis from this unfortunate situation.

聽著，市面上有許多優秀的分析師和產業分析師，他們或許能更好地回答這個問題。他們可能需要更多的時間和資訊才能回答。但我的回答和我今天早些時候的回答一樣，那就是：我不知道具體增長多少，但很難相信，在當前情況的暫時性影響過去之後，整個行業的增長率不會至少保持目前的水平，甚至可能更高。因為──我再次強調，我並非自大，這只是指人力資本管理（HCM）領域。我認為其他產業也會從這些事件中受益，例如人們加速使用雲端服務和外包服務，讓企業可以專注於核心業務，同時增強業務韌性，提高效率、提升員工生產力、增強員工敬業度等等。我認為，所有這些方面都會受益。我認為，從長遠來看，多個技術領域可能會從這種不幸的局面中受益——無論是在中期還是在更長的時間內。

This concludes our question-and-answer 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·羅德里格斯先生，請他作總結發言。

Thanks. So just a couple of final thoughts. One is, I know I said it before, but we have navigated through a lot of issues over many decades. I've had the experience of being through several myself, whether it's the dot-com recession, what happened after 9/11, the global financial crisis because in that case, it was really a synchronized global downturn and now this health crisis. And the one thing that I would say about ADP's business model, regardless of -- I know the focus here is on the short term. But if you stay focused on the long term, it's an incredibly resilient business model, financial model but also business model, the value of our products and our services is key.

謝謝。最後還有幾點想說。首先，我知道我之前說過，但幾十年來我們經歷了很多挑戰。我自己也親身經歷過好幾次，例如網路泡沫破裂後的衰退、911事件後的經濟危機、全球金融危機（因為那次危機是全球同步衰退），以及現在的這場健康危機。關於ADP的商業模式，我想說的是，無論——我知道大家關注的焦點是短期——如果你著眼於長遠，你會發現這是一個極具韌性的商業模式，無論是財務模式還是商業模式，我們產品和服務的價值才是關鍵所在。

And one small anecdote, I think we may have mentioned it in the last call. But as kind of this crisis unfolded, we had to become, like many other parts of the economy, we had to go and talk to governors and leaders, including the White House, to make sure that we were deemed an essential service because we needed to stay in operation. And so I don't know what better sign there is of a resilient, long-term model than to be considered an essential service because we definitely are. We're glad we were there to help our clients. We'll still be there to help our clients. But I think that speaks volumes to the long-term viability and also upside of the business that we are a critical service, an essential service to the economy and to our clients. We're proud of that. And I'm proud of what our associates did to live up to that expectation.

還有一個小插曲，我想我們上次通話時可能有提到。隨著這場危機的蔓延，我們和其他許多經濟部門一樣，必須與各州州長和領導人，包括白宮溝通，以確保我們被認定為必要服務，因為我們需要繼續運作。因此，我認為沒有什麼比被認定為必要服務更能體現我們模式的韌性和長期發展了，因為我們的確是。我們很高興能夠為客戶提供協助。我們將繼續為客戶提供協助。我認為這充分說明了我們業務的長期生存能力和發展前景——我們是一項關鍵服務，對經濟和客戶都至關重要。我們為此感到自豪。我也為我們的員工不負眾望所做的一切感到自豪。

And as to the next year, again I would just encourage everyone to think through kind of first half, second half or even by quarter. Because at least for me, assuming that we stay on the trajectory that we're on, which I realize is fluid, but with those assumptions, the fourth quarter exit rate of FY '21 is really what I'm focused on and not necessarily the short-term results of the first few quarters of FY '21, although we're going to do our best to perform as well as we can throughout that as well. And lastly, I know Kathleen said in her comments, but we're very proud to have delivered $1.5 billion in cash back to dividends and $1 billion through buybacks, too, which I think is also another sign of the incredible resilience and I think cash flow generation capability of this business model. And this kind of short-term hit that we're having to revenues and to profitability, I don't believe will impair our ability to continue that tradition of returning cash to our shareholders.

至於明年，我再次鼓勵大家認真思考上半年、下半年甚至每季的情況。因為至少對我而言，假設我們能維持目前的成長動能（我知道這並非一帆風順），我真正關注的是2021財年第四季的最終業績，而不是前幾季的短期業績。當然，我們也會盡全力爭取在接下來的幾季中取得最佳表現。最後，我知道凱瑟琳在發言中提到過，我們非常自豪地宣布，我們已向股東返還了15億美元的現金用於分紅，並透過股票回購返還了10億美元。我認為這再次證明了我們商業模式的強大韌性和現金流產生能力。我相信，目前收入和獲利能力受到的短期衝擊不會影響我們繼續向股東返還現金的傳統。

And for that, I want to say that I appreciate the patience of our shareholders as well and all of you. And I thank you today for listening to us and for all your questions. And I wish you all a very safe summer as well. Thank you.

為此，我要感謝各位股東和各位的耐心。感謝大家今天聆聽我們的發言，也感謝大家提出的所有問題。祝大家有個平安的夏天。謝謝。

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.

女士們、先生們，謝謝。今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝各位的參與，現在可以掛斷電話了。祝大家有美好的一天。