自動資料處理 (ADP) 2020 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is Crystal, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to ADP's Second 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. Christian Greyenbuhl, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

早安.我叫克麗絲塔爾，今天我將擔任你們的會議接線生。在此，我謹代表ADP公司歡迎各位參加2020財年第二季財報電話會議。我想告知各位，本次會議正在錄影。（操作員指示）現在我將把會議交給投資者關係副總裁克里斯蒂安·格雷恩布爾先生。請繼續。

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

謝謝Crystal，大家早安，謝謝各位參加ADP 2020財年第二季財報電話會議和網路直播。今天陪同我的是我們的總裁兼執行長卡洛斯·羅德里格斯，以及我們的財務長凱瑟琳·溫特斯。

Earlier this morning, we released our results for the second quarter of fiscal 2020. The earnings materials are available on the SEC's website and our Investor Relations website at investors.adp.com, where you will also find the investor presentation that accompany this 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 財年第二季的業績報告。收益報告資料可在 SEC 網站和我們的投資者關係網站 investors.adp.com 上查閱，您還可以在該網站找到本次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 and the timing of these items, along with a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to their most comparable GAAP measure, can be found in our earnings release. Today's call will also contain forward-looking statements that refer to future events and as such, 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. Before I turn the call over to Carlos, I'd like to remind you of our upcoming Innovation Day, which is scheduled for February 10. We hope to see many of you there in person. And for those who are unable to attend, you can find more details about how to view the event at investors.adp.com. We're looking forward to sharing our progress on our investments in innovation as well as our vision for our HCM technology portfolio. 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.

在今天的電話會議中，我們將提及非GAAP財務指標，我們認為這些指標對投資者有用，並且排除了某些項目的影響。有關這些項目的描述和時間安排，以及非GAAP指標與其最可比較GAAP指標的調節表，請參閱我們的獲利報告。今天的電話會議還將包含一些前瞻性陳述，這些陳述涉及未來事件，因此存在一定的風險。我們建議您查閱我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件，以獲取有關可能導致實際結果與我們目前預期存在重大差異的因素的更多資​​訊。在將電話交給卡洛斯之前，我想提醒大家我們即將舉行的創新日活動，定於 2 月 10 日舉行。我們希望屆時能見到你們中的許多人。對於那些無法到場的人，您可以在 investors.adp.com 上找到有關如何觀看活動的更多詳細資訊。我們期待與大家分享我們在創新投資方面的進展，以及我們對 HCM 技術組合的願景。如有任何疑問，請隨時與我們聯繫。那麼，現在讓我把電話交給卡洛斯。

Thank you, Christian, and thank you, everyone, for joining our call.

謝謝你，克里斯蒂安，也謝謝大家參加我們的電話會議。

This morning, we reported our second quarter fiscal 2020 results with revenue of $3.7 billion for the quarter, up 5% reported and [6%] (added by company after the call) organic constant currency. We are pleased with this revenue growth, which was slightly ahead of our expectations. Our adjusted EBIT margin increased 70 basis points for the quarter and was also slightly ahead of our expectations.

今天上午，我們公佈了 2020 財年第二季業績，該季度營收為 37 億美元，按報告數據計算增長 5%，按固定匯率計算增長 6%（公司在電話會議後補充）。我們對這一營收成長感到滿意，它略微超出了我們的預期。本季調整後的息稅前利潤率提高了 70 個基點，略高於我們的預期。

Together with share buybacks and a lower adjusted effective tax rate, these results helped us deliver 13% adjusted EPS growth this quarter. Overall, we are pleased with our progress through the first half of fiscal 2020, following a difficult compare with the first half of fiscal 2019.

加上股票回購和較低的調整後實際稅率，這些因素幫助我們在本季實現了 13% 的調整後每股盈餘成長。整體而言，我們對 2020 財年上半年的進展感到滿意，儘管與 2019 財年上半年相比，情況較為艱難。

Moving on to operations and starting with new business bookings. This quarter, we continue to see strength in our employer services downmarket offerings and solid progress on the sales of our Workforce Now solutions. We were also particularly pleased to see strong double-digit bookings growth in our PEO. With that said, we are disappointed with our 3% employer services new business bookings growth for the quarter. This lower-than-expected growth was mainly the result of the same trends we saw in the first quarter with our international and multinational businesses, including delayed decisions for some of our larger multinational sales opportunities.

接下來進入營運環節，先從新業務預訂開始。本季度，我們的雇主服務下行市場產品持續保持強勁勢頭，我們的 Workforce Now 解決方案銷售也取得了穩步進展。我們也特別高興地看到，我們的 PEO 業務預訂量實現了強勁的兩位數成長。儘管如此，我們對本季雇主服務新業務預訂量僅成長 3% 感到失望。這一低於預期的成長主要是由於我們在第一季在國際和跨國業務中看到的相同趨勢造成的，包括我們一些較大的跨國銷售機會的決策被推遲。

As we have said before, given their size, these opportunities can have an outsized impact on our quarterly bookings metric. With this in mind, we have narrowed our full year Employer Services new business bookings outlook and now expect 6% to 7% growth as compared to our previous guidance of 6% to 8% growth from last year's $1.6 billion of Employer Services new business bookings. We continue to have a solid pipeline of opportunities, and we remain confident in our ability to execute across our portfolio.

正如我們之前所說，鑑於這些機會的規模，它們可能會對我們的季度預訂指標產生巨大的影響。考慮到這一點，我們縮小了全年雇主服務新業務預訂預期，目前預計增長 6% 至 7%，而此前我們預測的增長率為 6% 至 8%，去年雇主服務新業務預訂額為 16 億美元。我們持續擁有大量潛在項目，並且對自身在所有項目中的執行能力充滿信心。

Looking at client service, we continue to see good progress with overall strength in our Net Promoter scores and retention. As a result, we continue to expect our forecasted full year fiscal 2020 Employer Services revenue retention to increase 10 to 20 basis points.

從客戶服務來看，我們在淨推薦值和客戶留存率方面持續保持良好勢頭，整體表現強勁。因此，我們繼續預期 2020 財年全年雇主服務收入留存率將提高 10 至 20 個基點。

Now we're halfway through fiscal 2020 and at the midpoint of our 3-year targets we outlined at our June 2018 Investor Day. As we are also 6 months away from giving our fiscal 2021 guidance, and we will not be giving any updated financial outlook at our upcoming Innovation Day, I want to take a few moments here to look back and share my thoughts on our progress since we provided that guidance.

現在我們已經走過了 2020 財年的一半，也到達了我們在 2018 年 6 月投資者日上提出的三年目標的中點。由於距離我們發布 2021 財年業績指引還有 6 個月，而且我們也不會在即將舉行的創新日上發布任何更新的財務展望，我想藉此機會回顧一下，並分享一下自我們發布該指引以來所取得的進展。

Let's start with new business bookings. You will recall that at our June 2018 Investor Day, we outlined we were targeting growth for worldwide new business bookings growth of 7% to 9% through fiscal 2021. Though we no longer regularly report a worldwide bookings figure, which, as a reminder, includes the results of Employer Services and PEO segments together, we thought it would be helpful in that context of a midpoint look-back to share that we have seen 8% average quarterly growth since the beginning of fiscal 2019. We are pleased with this worldwide bookings growth, together with our improvements in Employer Services revenue retention, and how they demonstrate the strength and stability of our business even as we've been going through meaningful transformation as an organization with a set of broad-based initiatives, including our service alignment initiative in fiscal years 2017 and '18, our voluntary early retirement program in fiscal 2019 and most recently, our workforce optimization and procurement initiatives. Meanwhile, our quarterly average consolidated revenue grew 6% reported and organic constant currency over the past 18 months.

我們先從新的業務預訂說起。您可能還記得，在 2018 年 6 月的投資者日上，我們概述了我們的目標是到 2021 財年實現全球新業務預訂量增長 7% 至 9%。雖然我們不再定期公佈全球預訂量數據（需要提醒的是，該數據包括雇主服務和 PEO 部門的業績），但我們認為，在回顧中期業績的背景下，分享自 2019 財年開始以來我們平均每個季度增長 8% 的情況會很有幫助。我們對全球預訂量的增長以及雇主服務收入留存率的提高感到滿意，這些都體現了我們業務的實力和穩定性，即便我們作為一個組織一直在經歷意義深遠的轉型，實施了一系列廣泛的舉措，包括 2017 和 2018 財年的服務調整計劃、2019 財年的自願提前退休計劃以及最近的優化提前退休計劃以及最近的優化和採購計劃。同時，過去 18 個月，我們的季度平均合併收入按報告和自然成長（以固定匯率計算）成長了 6%。

As we look at some of the developments that have affected our recent growth relative to our expectations, we note that our PEO has not performed in line with our long-term expectations, driven by lower-than-expected pass-through revenues and lower-than-planned worksite employee growth. Over the past several quarters, we've discussed some of the factors impacting PEO revenue growth, including the impacts from our sales incentives, recent retention unfavorability related to health care inflation and softness in workers' compensation and state unemployment insurance rates. With the impact of these factors, our average growth over the past 18 months in average worksite employees was 8% as compared to our long-term expectation of 9% to 11%. And the contribution to revenue growth from pass-throughs was 1% compared to our long-term expectation of 1% to 3%.

當我們審視一些影響我們近期成長與預期不符的因素時，我們注意到，由於轉嫁收入低於預期以及工作場所員工成長低於計劃，我們的 PEO 業務表現並未達到我們的長期預期。在過去的幾個季度裡，我們討論了一些影響 PEO 收入成長的因素，包括銷售激勵措施的影響、近期與醫療保健通膨相關的客戶留存率下降以及工傷賠償和州失業保險費率疲軟。受這些因素的影響，過去 18 個月我們平均工作場所員工人數的成長率為 8%，而我們的長期預期為 9% 至 11%。轉嫁收入對營收成長的貢獻率為 1%，而我們長期預期為 1% 至 3%。

Despite the slight underperformance relative to our expectations, we are confident in the overall prospects of the PEO business and continue to see healthy demand for our offerings. Our PEO platform is the leading fully outsourced solution in the HCM market, and we combine this with best-in-class HR business partners, which, together, helps deliver an unparalleled service experience.

儘管業績略低於預期，但我們對 PEO 業務的整體前景充滿信心，並繼續看到市場對我們產品和服務的良好需求。我們的 PEO 平台是 HCM 市場領先的完全外包解決方案，我們將其與一流的人力資源業務合作夥伴結合，共同提供無與倫比的服務體驗。

Stepping back now to total revenue, we are tracking at 6% average growth through 6 quarters. We have a solid playbook with a proven track record of driving sustained growth, and we'll continue to focus on delivering consistent strong bookings growth and retention performance as key priorities.

現在回到總收入方面，我們在過去六個季度中實現了平均 6% 的成長。我們擁有一套行之有效的策略，並已證明能夠推動持續成長，我們將繼續把持續強勁的預訂成長和客戶留存率作為關鍵優先事項。

And moving down the P&L, during this period, we further solidified the foundations of our business as our associates continue to transform the way we work while also delivering innovative solutions to our clients. These transformation efforts, along with our steady top line growth and the operating leverage in our model, have helped deliver robust margin expansion and an average adjusted EBIT growth of 13% through the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2020, which is within the range of our fiscal 2021 target CAGR of 12.5% to 15.5%. This, together with our disciplined share buybacks and a lower adjusted effective tax rate, has driven adjusted EPS growth of 18%, which is tracking ahead of our targeted growth of $14.5 million to $17.5 million through fiscal 2021.

從損益表來看，在此期間，我們進一步鞏固了業務基礎，因為我們的員工不斷改變我們的工作方式，同時也為客戶提供創新解決方案。這些轉型努力，加上我們穩定的營收成長和我們模式中的營運槓桿，幫助我們實現了強勁的利潤率擴張，並在 2020 財年第二季度末實現了平均調整後息稅前利潤增長 13%，這在我們 2021 財年 12.5% 至 15.5% 的複合目標增長率範圍內。這一點，再加上我們嚴格的股票回購和較低的調整後有效稅率，推動調整後每股收益增長了 18%，這比我們 2021 財年 1450 萬美元至 1750 萬美元的目標增長速度更快。

As you can tell from our guidance for fiscal 2020, we currently anticipate ending the year within our fiscal 2021 3-year margin target range, 1 year ahead of schedule. This is no small accomplishment given our ongoing efforts to invest in the business for the long term. Overall, I'm very pleased with our progress to date. The journey that we embarked upon to simplify how we work, drive innovation and grow our business is a challenging one. However, and more importantly, it is also providing us with great opportunities to demonstrate the value of our offerings to our clients as we continue to simplify the client experience. Through these collective efforts and with the continued strength of both our R&D organization and our worldwide sales force, we are enhancing the depth and scale of our ability to serve our clients wherever they do business with best-in-class products and solutions that fit their needs.

從我們對 2020 財年的業績指引中可以看出，我們目前預計本財年將達到 2021 財年三年利潤率目標範圍，比原計劃提前 1 年。考慮到我們持續致力於對業務進行長期投資，這絕非易事。總的來說，我對我們迄今為止的進展非常滿意。我們踏上了一段充滿挑戰的旅程，旨在簡化我們的工作方式，推動創新，並發展我們的業務。然而，更重要的是，它也為我們提供了絕佳的機會，讓我們能夠向客戶展示我們產品的價值，同時不斷簡化客戶體驗。透過這些共同努力，以及我們研發機構和全球銷售團隊的持續強大實力，我們正在增強服務客戶的深度和規模，無論他們在哪裡開展業務，我們都能提供滿足他們需求的一流產品和解決方案。

Our clients, in turn, are recognizing these efforts as we continue to see improvements in both our Net Promoter Scores as well as in our Employer Services revenue retention. It is due to the success of these efforts that we remain committed to additional shareholder-friendly actions, such as our recent dividend increases of nearly 45% over the past 2 years. Our track record of annual increases in our dividend puts us in a small minority with 30 other companies in the S&P 500 that have also grown their dividend for 45 consecutive years or more.

我們的客戶也認可了這些努力，我們的淨推薦值和雇主服務收入留存率都在不斷提高。正是由於這些努力取得了成功，我們得以繼續致力於採取更多有利於股東的措施，例如在過去兩年中將股息提高了近 45%。我們連續45年或更長時間提高股息，這使我們成為標普500指數中少數幾家連續45年或更長時間提高股息的公司之一，其他30家公司也實現了這一目標。

As we look forward to the future, we remain confident that our strategy is the right one as we aim to further strengthen our resilient business model in order to drive sustainable long-term value for our shareholders.

展望未來，我們仍然堅信我們的策略是正確的，我們將進一步加強我們具有韌性的商業模式，從而為我們的股東創造可持續的長期價值。

Before I turn it over to Kathleen for a detailed financial review, I want you to know how proud I am of the external recognitions that we received this quarter, which reflect the strong corporate culture on which our business is built. As I reflect on our recent efforts, I am especially proud to see Fortune magazine again name us to their most admired companies list for the 14th consecutive time and also ranked us #1 in our sector. This is a remarkable achievement and a rewarding recognition for the efforts of our associates, who are focused on providing our clients the best solutions, both for today and for the future. I am also particularly pleased to see our efforts reflected in the Wall Street Journal's Drucker Institute list of best managed companies, where we were one of the biggest movers, jumping 104 places into the top quartile. These are only some of the great recognitions that we are receiving for our efforts to create opportunities for all of our stakeholders. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Kathleen for her commentary on our results and the fiscal 2020 outlook.

在將報告交給凱瑟琳進行詳細的財務審查之前，我想讓你們知道，我為我們本季獲得的外部認可感到非常自豪，這反映了我們業務賴以建立的強大企業文化。回顧我們近期的努力，我特別感到自豪的是，《財富》雜誌連續第 14 次將我們評為最受尊敬的公司之一，並且還將我們評為所在行業的第一名。這是一項了不起的成就，也是對我們員工努力的肯定，他們致力於為客戶提供當下和未來的最佳解決方案。我也特別高興地看到，我們的努力在《華爾街日報》德魯克研究所評選的最佳管理公司榜單中得到了體現，我們是進步最大的公司之一，排名躍升 104 位，躋身前四分之一。這些只是我們為所有利害關係人創造機會所獲得的部分認可。接下來，我將把電話交給凱瑟琳，請她對我們的業績和 2020 財年展望進行評論。

Thank you, Carlos, and good morning, everyone.

謝謝你，卡洛斯，大家早安。

As Carlos mentioned, we're pleased with our continued progress in delivering growth for our shareholders, and this quarter was no exception. This quarter's reported revenue growth of 5% and 6% organic constant currency is slightly ahead of our expectations. And we're particularly pleased given the difficult compare to our second quarter of fiscal 2019.

正如卡洛斯所說，我們對在為股東創造成長方面取得的持續進展感到滿意，本季也不例外。本季公佈的有機營收成長率為 5% 和 6%（以固定匯率計算），略高於我們的預期。考慮到與 2019 財年第二季相比的嚴峻形勢，我們尤其感到滿意。

Our adjusted EBIT increased 9%, and adjusted EBIT margin was up 70 basis points compared to the second quarter of fiscal 2019, both also slightly ahead of expectations due to the timing of our progress across our multiple transformation initiatives. Our margin improvement continues to benefit from a combination of cost savings related to our transformation initiatives and operating efficiencies. These benefits were partially offset by growth in PEO zero margin benefits pass-through expenses, increased selling and marketing expenses and amortization expense.

與 2019 財年第二季相比，我們的調整後息稅前利潤成長了 9%，調整後息稅前利潤率提高了 70 個基點，這兩項數據均略高於預期，這得益於我們在多項轉型計劃中取得的進展。我們的利潤率持續提高，這得益於轉型計畫帶來的成本節約和營運效率的提升。這些收益部分被 PEO 零利潤收益轉嫁費用的成長、銷售和行銷費用的增加以及攤銷費用的增加所抵銷。

Similar to the first quarter of fiscal 2020, we're particularly pleased with our margin performance given the difficult compare that we faced in the first half of the year, resulting from the outsized benefits in fiscal 2019 related to our voluntary early retirement program. Our adjusted effective tax rate decreased by 260 basis points to 22% compared to the second quarter of fiscal 2019. The decrease is in line with our expectations and was mainly due to the release of a valuation allowance related to foreign tax credit carryforwards. Adjusted diluted earnings per share grew 13% to $1.52; and in addition to benefiting from our revenue growth, margin expansion and a lower adjusted effective tax rate was also aided by fewer shares outstanding compared to a year ago.

與 2020 財年第一季類似，考慮到今年上半年由於 2019 財年自願提前退休計劃帶來的巨額收益而面臨的嚴峻形勢，我們對利潤率表現感到格外滿意。與 2019 財年第二季相比，我們的調整後實際稅率下降了 260 個基點，至 22%。這一降幅符合我們的預期，主要原因是釋放了與外國稅收抵免結轉相關的估值準備金。經調整後的稀釋每股盈餘成長 13% 至 1.52 美元；除了受益於收入成長外，利潤率擴張和較低的經調整實際稅率也得益於與一年前相比流通股數量的減少。

Moving on to our Employer Services segment and interest on funds held for clients. Employer Services revenues were slightly ahead of expectations and grew 4% reported and organic constant currency. Interest income on client funds grew 7% and benefited from growth in average client fund balances of 6% to $25.1 billion. This growth in balances continues to be driven by a combination of client growth, wage inflation and growth in our pays per control. Our Employer Services same-store pays per control metric in the U.S. grew 2.2% for the second quarter. Employer Services margins increased 30 basis points in the quarter, driven by the same factors that I mentioned earlier when discussing our consolidated results.

接下來我們來看看雇主服務部分以及為客戶持有的資金的利息。雇主服務收入略高於預期，按報告匯率和有機匯率計算增加了 4%。客戶資金的利息收入增加了 7%，並受益於客戶平均資金餘額增加 6% 至 251 億美元。餘額的成長持續受到客戶成長、薪資上漲和我們按次付費成長等因素的共同推動。美國雇主服務同店每控制指標第二季成長了 2.2%。本季雇主服務利潤率成長了 30 個基點，其驅動因素與我先前在討論我們的合併業績時提到的因素相同。

Our PEO segment revenues grew 9% for the quarter to $1.1 billion, and average worksite employees grew 6% to $579,000. Revenues, excluding zero margin benefits pass-throughs, grew 7% to $412 million and continue to include pressure from lower workers' compensation and SUI costs and related pricing. Our value proposition in the PEO remains strong, as evidenced by our double-digit PEO new business bookings growth this quarter.

本季度，我們的 PEO 業務部門收入成長了 9%，達到 11 億美元，平均工作場所員工人數增加了 6%，達到 57.9 萬美元。不包括零利潤福利轉嫁，營收成長 7% 至 4.12 億美元，並繼續受到工傷賠償和 SUI 成本及相關定價下降的壓力。我們在 PEO 領域的價值主張依然強勁，本季 PEO 新業務預訂量實現了兩位數的成長，這就是最好的證明。

Our mid-market sales channel continues to grow following the realignment of our sales incentives, and we're seeing continued signs of positive traction within our downmarket referral channel. With these factors in mind, we remain optimistic in our ability to reaccelerate the PEO in the latter part of fiscal 2020.

在調整銷售激勵措施後，我們的中端市場銷售管道持續成長，同時我們也看到下端市場推薦管道持續取得正面進展。考慮到這些因素，我們仍然樂觀地認為，我們有能力在 2020 財年下半年重新加速 PEO 的發展。

Margins in the PEO decreased about 30 basis points for the quarter, largely due to a difficult compare and an increase in selling expenses resulted from our strong quarterly new business bookings growth.

PEO 的利潤率在本季下降了約 30 個基點，主要是由於去年同期基數較高，以及由於季度新業務預訂量強勁增長而導致的銷售費用增加。

Let's turn to the outlook for the full year and start with the PEO. With 6 months behind us now, and our year-to-date average worksite employee growth and revenues tracking slightly below our expectations, we do not expect to achieve the higher end of our previous guidance range. As such, we are narrowing our guidance and now expect 9% to 10% PEO revenue growth in fiscal 2020 and 7% to 8% growth in PEO revenues, excluding zero-margin benefits pass-throughs, both driven by an anticipated growth of 7% to 8% in average worksite employees.

讓我們展望一下全年情況，首先來看 PEO。6 個月過去了，我們今年迄今的平均工作場所員工成長和收入略低於預期，因此我們預計無法達到先前指導範圍的上限。因此，我們縮小了預期範圍，現在預計 2020 財年 PEO 營收成長 9% 至 10%，不包括零利潤福利轉嫁的 PEO 營收將成長 7% 至 8%，這兩項成長均由預計平均工作場所員工人數成長 7% 至 8% 所驅動。

As we also discussed last quarter, we continue to expect lower workers' compensation and SUI costs and related pricing to pressure our total PEO revenue growth. For PEO margin, we continue to anticipate margins to be flat to down 25 basis points in fiscal 2020. As we noted in previous calls, this outlook continues to include approximately 50 basis points of pressure from smaller favorable reserve adjustments at ADP Indemnity in fiscal 2020 compared to fiscal 2019.

正如我們上個季度討論的那樣，我們仍然預計工傷賠償和 SUI 成本以及相關定價的下降將對我們的 PEO 總收入成長構成壓力。對於 PEO 利潤率，我們繼續預計 2020 財年利潤率將持平或下降 25 個基點。正如我們在先前的電話會議中所提到的，這項展望仍然包括約 50 個基點的壓力，這是由於 ADP Indemnity 在 2020 財年的有利準備金調整幅度小於 2019 財年。

Moving on, let's take a look at Employer Services. We are narrowing our guidance to 4% revenue growth versus our prior outlook of 4% to 5%, driven by a combination of continued unfavorability in FX and interest rates relative to our expectations coming into the year and the lower bookings growth in the first half of fiscal 2020. We meanwhile continue to anticipate pays per control growth of about 2.5% and Employer Services revenue retention to improve 10 to 20 basis points, and we now expect Employer Services new business bookings growth of 6% to 7%. We continue to expect our margin in the Employer Services segment to expand by 100 to 125 basis points. We now anticipate total revenue growth of about 6% in fiscal 2020 as compared to our previous outlook of 6% to 7%.

接下來，我們來看看雇主服務。由於年初外匯和利率持續不利於我們的預期，以及 2020 財年上半年預訂量成長放緩，我們將營收成長預期從先前的 4% 至 5% 下調至 4%。同時，我們繼續預期每項控制的付費成長約為 2.5%，雇主服務收入留存率將提高 10 至 20 個基點，我們現在預計雇主服務的新業務預訂量將成長 6% 至 7%。我們仍預期雇主服務業務的利潤率將提高 100 至 125 個基點。我們現在預計 2020 財年總營收成長約為 6%，而我們先前的預期為 6% 至 7%。

This revenue outlook continues to assume an elevated level of FX unfavorability for fiscal 2020 relative to our expectations at the beginning of the year. We continue to anticipate our growth in average client fund balances to be about 4%, the average yield earned on our client fund investments to be about 2.2% and interest income on client funds to be between $570 million to $580 million. We also continue to expect interest income from our extended investment strategy to be $575 million to $585 million.

這項營收展望仍假設 2020 財年的外匯不利因素將高於我們年初的預期。我們繼續預期客戶平均資金餘額將成長約 4%，客戶資金投資的平均收益率將達到約 2.2%，客戶資金的利息收入將在 5.7 億美元至 5.8 億美元之間。我們也持續預期，我們擴展投資策略的利息收入將達到 5.75 億美元至 5.85 億美元。

We continue to anticipate our adjusted EBIT margin to expand 100 to 125 basis points. As a reminder, this guidance also continues to contemplate approximately $100 million in cost savings for fiscal 2020 related to our workforce optimization and procurement transformation initiatives. We now anticipate our adjusted effective tax rate to be 23.2%. The rate includes this quarter's unplanned tax benefit from stock-based compensation related to stock option exercises. It does not, however, include any further estimated tax benefit related to potential future stock option exercises, given the dependency of that benefit on the timing of those exercises. We continue to expect adjusted diluted earnings per share to grow 12% to 14% in fiscal 2020.

我們繼續預期調整後的息稅前利潤率將提高 100 至 125 個基點。再次提醒大家，該指導方針也繼續考慮在 2020 財年透過我們的勞動力優化和採購轉型計畫節省約 1 億美元的成本。我們現在預計調整後的實際稅率為 23.2%。此稅率包含本季因股票選擇權行使而產生的非計劃性稅收優惠。然而，由於該收益取決於未來股票選擇權行使的時機，因此並未包括與未來潛在股票選擇權行使相關的任何其他預期稅收優惠。我們仍預期 2020 財年調整後稀釋每股盈餘將成長 12% 至 14%。

Finally, before we take your questions, I wanted to let you know that shortly after our February 10 Innovation Day, Christian will be moving on to take an international assignment as the General Manager of one of our European businesses. I want to thank Christian for his many contributions leading our investor relations program, and also welcome, Danyal Hussain, who many of you already know, as our new Head of Investor Relations. Congratulations to both of you. With that, I will turn the call over to the operator to take your questions.

最後，在回答你們的問題之前，我想告訴大家，在 2 月 10 日創新日之後不久，克里斯蒂安將前往歐洲，擔任我們某家歐洲企業的總經理。我要感謝 Christian 為領導我們的投資者關係項目所做的諸多貢獻，同時歡迎 Danyal Hussain（你們中的許多人已經認識他）擔任我們新的投資者關係主管。恭喜你們兩位。接下來，我將把電話轉交給接線員，由他來回答您的問題。

(Operator Instructions) And our first question comes from Kevin McVeigh from Crédit Suisse.

（操作說明）我們的第一個問題來自瑞士信貸的 Kevin McVeigh。

I think one of the things we've been focused on is the retention -- the improvement in the retention. Can you give us any sense of how are kind of the first half scale relative to the full year guidance?

我認為我們一直關注的重點之一是員工留存率——提高員工留存率。您能否大致說明一下上半年業績與全年業績預期相比如何？

Given that -- I think you could tell from our comments that it obviously improved in the second quarter. We've tried to get away from -- with the new guidance that we started providing, I think it was a year ago, we're trying to get away from quarterly guidance. But we're still committed to giving you kind of a sense of kind of where we are. And I think you can tell from my, I think, prepared comments that we had a good first quarter, and we also had a good second quarter. So retention is definitely a positive for us. Like we talked about last quarter, in terms of some of the bright spots, our mid-market business retention continues to improve and is on track to really get to this year close to record levels. So it's very, very satisfying because we went through a very difficult time back in the day where we did all the client upgrades and migrations. And then with ACA, at the same time, that was a business where we really had a real step-back of retention. By the way, step-back, for us, is a couple of percentage points. And now we've recovered all of that and are kind of on track to get back to kind of where we were at record levels.

有鑑於此——我想從我們的評論中可以看出，第二季情況明顯好轉。我們已經嘗試擺脫——從我們開始提供的新指導來看，我想大概是一年前，我們正在嘗試擺脫季度指導。但我們仍然致力於讓您大致了解我們目前的狀況。我想從我事先準備好的發言中可以看出，我們第一季表現不錯，第二季也表現不錯。所以，員工留存率對我們來說絕對是件好事。正如我們上個季度所討論的那樣，就一些亮點而言，我們的中端市場業務留存率持續改善，並有望在今年真正接近歷史最高水平。所以這非常令人欣慰，因為我們當年經歷了一段非常艱難的時期，當時我們完成了所有的客戶升級和遷移。同時，由於《平價醫療法案》(ACA) 的實施，我們的業務在客戶留存率方面出現了真正的倒退。順便說一句，對我們來說，後退幾個百分點。現在我們已經恢復了所有損失，並且正朝著恢復到歷史最高水準的方向穩步前進。

Understood. And then just...

明白了。然後就…

I'm sorry. Another comment was I think we also, in the first half, have had good retention in the upmarket, which was another place that's been kind of a challenge for us over the last couple of years. So I think both of those businesses, when you combine them, they're a significant portion of our revenues, and I think are -- have a solid retention performance.

對不起。另一位評論者說，我認為我們在上半年的高端市場也取得了良好的客戶留存率，而高端市場在過去幾年一直是我們面臨的挑戰之一。所以我覺得，這兩家業務加起來，占我們收入的很大一部分，而且我認為它們的客戶留存率表現都很出色。

That's super helpful. As a quick follow-up, despite revenue adjustments, it seems like you're maintaining the margin guidance. I guess what's driving that outperformance given kind of the revenue adjustments in the PEO and I guess, overall?

這太有幫助了。作為後續補充，儘管收入有所調整，但你們似乎仍維持利潤率預期。我想，考慮到 PEO 的收入調整以及整體而言，是什麼因素推動了這種優異的業績表現呢？

We have -- our business model's interesting because sometimes, at least for the first half because we -- as you can tell, we're hoping and planning on a recovery in terms of our sales results for the second half. But in general, we benefited in the first half from an expense standpoint from having weaker new business bookings because as you know, our business has a little bit of a self-adjusting factor. Now the new 606 rules, I think when you amortize some of these costs over time, they brought some of that impact, but there's still some impact from that. So we did benefit from that. And we just have a lot of good things going on from a margin standpoint, we really want to make sure that we focus on the growth as well, but we feel pretty good about the initiatives that we've put in place, call it, last fiscal year that are impacting this year's cost structure. And I think those -- we've talked about those procurement initiatives, also the workforce optimization, which was a delayering exercise, where we reduced spends and control. So we took 3 layers out and increased spends across the board, including all the way at the very highest levels where we had, for us, a -- I would call it, a significant decrease in overhead, if you will, in terms of our most senior levels. And so I think we're benefiting from all of those items. And that's helping the margin. So we feel pretty good about where we are in terms of costs and margin. We have a lot of transformation initiatives around costs and margins. And obviously, we want to make sure that we be focused on growth in new business bookings as well.

我們的商業模式很有意思，因為有時，至少在上半年，正如你所看到的，我們希望併計劃在下半年實現銷售業績的復甦。但總的來說，由於上半年新業務預訂量下降，我們在支出方面受益匪淺，因為正如您所知，我們的業務有一定的自我調節能力。我認為，隨著新的 606 規則的實施，當這些成本隨著時間的推移而攤銷時，它們確實帶來了一些影響，但仍然存在一些影響。所以我們從中受益了。從利潤率的角度來看，我們有很多利好消息，我們也希望確保專注於成長，但我們對上個財年實施的、對今年成本結構產生影響的舉措感到非常滿意。我認為這些——我們已經討論過這些採購舉措，還有勞動力優化，這是一項精簡層級的工作，我們減少了支出和控制。因此，我們精簡了 3 個層級，並全面增加了支出，包括最高層級的支出。就我們而言，如果可以這麼說的話，最高層級的管理費用大幅下降。所以我認為我們從所有這些項目中受益。這有助於提高利潤率。因此，我們對目前的成本和利潤率狀況感到相當滿意。我們圍繞著成本和利潤率開展了許多轉型計劃。顯然，我們也希望確保專注於新業務預訂量的成長。

Yes. Not too much to add to that. A lot of -- Carlos covered a lot of the points, but we're seeing the operating efficiency come through. We're executing on the transformation projects that we have in flight right now, saw a little bit better-than-expected margin expansion in the second quarter, primarily some timing on some of the transformation work. But look, the team's executing really nicely on that, particularly on the procurement side. And we're focused on continuing to do that and building the pipeline of additional opportunities.

是的。沒什麼要補充的了。卡洛斯講了很多要點，但我們現在看到了營運效率的提升。我們正在執行目前正在進行的轉型項目，第二季的利潤率擴張略好於預期，這主要是由於一些轉型工作的時機把握得比較好。但是你看，團隊在這方面執行得非常好，尤其是在採購方面。我們將繼續專注於此，並建立更多機會的管道。

And just one little item in terms of color. You'll see from the queue that credit to the organization, but again, a lot of these transformation initiatives have been -- some of them, when we talk about some of the big ones, we have dozens of other initiatives that are really improving the way we work, automating things, taking out kind of non-value-added work. And when you look at our Q, you'll see that it's really R&D and selling expense that have increased. And we really are holding the line on the rest of our operating expenses, due in large part to some of these initiatives that we have underway that are making work a little bit easier for our associates and also taking some of the workout. And so that's the key because we want to make sure that we keep, and we are keeping our NPS scores and our retention high. And so that's the magic formula there. I think keeping our expenses low and improving margin, if it results in lower client satisfaction and lower retention, is not going to help us in the long term. But fortunately, again, credit to the associates and to the management team, we're actually pulling it off, where we're getting both of those things right now.

還有一點顏色上的小瑕疵。從排隊情況可以看出，這要歸功於組織，但話說回來，很多轉型舉措——當我們談到一些重大舉措時——我們還有幾十項其他舉措，這些舉措確實在改善我們的工作方式，實現自動化，消除非增值工作。當你查看我們的季度報表時，你會發現，真正增加的是研發和銷售費用。我們確實控制住了其他營運費用，這很大程度上要歸功於我們正在實施的一些舉措，這些舉措讓我們的員工工作更輕鬆一些，也減輕了他們的一些負擔。所以關鍵就在這裡，因為我們希望確保保持較高的 NPS 分數和客戶留存率，而我們也確實做到了這一點。這就是其中的奧秘。我認為，如果降低成本和提高利潤率導致客戶滿意度下降和客戶留存率降低，那麼從長遠來看，這對我們沒有幫助。但幸運的是，再次感謝同事和管理團隊，我們實際上做到了，我們現在兩件事都實現了。

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。

Congrats to Christian and Danny. I want to ask on, well, I guess, a bigger picture question maybe for the team. Just balancing -- you're balancing the new tech investments, and you just mentioned the transformation initiatives in the pipeline there. But just given that you're a year early, you're on track to get to your fiscal year targets this year -- for fiscal '21, I'm sorry, are you more willing to invest, let's say, in the short to midterm to maybe energize revenue growth and get that up a little bit more? Or is your preference to still hit the higher end of your long-term margin target? I'm just trying to understand how you might be balancing revenue growth and margin expansion given where you are now.

恭喜克里斯蒂安和丹尼。我想問一個，嗯，我想，一個關於團隊的更宏觀的問題。只是在平衡——你在平衡新的技術投資，你剛才也提到了正在籌備中的轉型計畫。但鑑於你們提前一年完成了目標，並且預計在今年實現本財年目標——抱歉，對於 2021 財年，你們是否更願意在短期到中期內進行更多投資，以刺激收入增長並使其進一步提高？或者，您是否更傾向於達到長期利潤目標的較高水準？我只是想了解一下，在你們目前的狀況下，你們是如何平衡營收成長和利潤率擴張的。

That's a great -- it's a great question. And I think our Board obviously has that discussion with us as well. And I think our Board is very long-term oriented. And so as much as we're committed to hitting all the individual components, it's about balancing all of those factors to really create long-term sustainable growth. And we would love to have as much growth as possible. And when I think about where are some of those places that we could invest, as an example, like in our sales organization, we are fully staffed. I think we're probably a little bit ahead of our plans in terms of headcount. So we clearly have some execution issues there, especially, as we mentioned, in our international and multinational businesses and some difficult compared to over last year. But we have really strong performance in the downmarket and in the mid-market and even in the domestic upmarket this quarter. So it doesn't feel like we're under-investing. In fact, I'm pretty sure that we're not under-investing in sales and marketing. We also have a brand campaign that we've invested in over the last year, which has added some expense. So I think we've put our money where our mouth is when it comes to sales and marketing. And then turning to the other obvious places where we could invest, again, for growth and product in our R&D organization, again, our R&D group would always say that we could spend more. But when I look at the year-over-year and even a 3-year growth of our investments in our next-gen platforms and even some of the additional feature functionality that we're adding to our existing products, including user experience, that's, again, a place where our investments are growing. So we are -- you can see it from our depreciation and amortization line, when you see it in the Q and you can see it from our and hear from our words that we are -- and you can see in our balance sheet in terms of capitalized software. So we believe that we are investing for the future. And that when we have sometimes, you have these timing issues because we do have a lot of enthusiasm, for example, about our next-gen platforms. But relative to the size of the company, when -- this is the year -- this is the first year where we have, over the last 12 months is the first time we've actually got clients now live on our next-gen platforms, including next-gen payroll and next-gen HCM, which we call Lifion. So we're excited. We're ahead of plan, but you have less than 10 clients on one of the platforms and call it, 30 to 40 clients on another one of those platforms. So it just doesn't make a difference yet in terms of the sales results or the revenue results, but it doesn't dampen our enthusiasm around the future. So again, I guess, the long and short of it is, I don't think it's a lack of investment, but trust us that if we see an opportunity to invest for growth, we'll take it.

這是一個很好的問題。我認為我們的董事會顯然也和我們討論過這個問題。我認為我們的董事會非常注重長遠發展。因此，儘管我們致力於實現所有單獨的組成部分，但更重要的是平衡所有這些因素，才能真正創造長期可持續的成長。我們非常希望實現盡可能多的成長。當我思考我們可以投資的領域時，例如，在我們的銷售部門，我們已經人員配備齊全。我認為就人員配備而言，我們可能稍微超前於計劃。所以很明顯，我們在執行方面存在一些問題，特別是，正如我們所提到的，在我們的國際和跨國業務方面，與去年相比，有些方面比較困難。但本季我們在低階市場、中階市場，甚至國內高端市場都取得了非常強勁的業績。所以感覺我們沒有投資不足。事實上，我很確定我們在銷售和行銷方面的投入並不不足。過去一年，我們也投入資金進行了品牌推廣活動，這增加了一些開支。所以我覺得我們在銷售和行銷方面已經說到做到。然後，我們再來看看其他顯而易見的可以投資的領域，例如研發部門的成長和產品研發，我們的研發團隊總是會說我們可以投入更多資金。但是，當我看到我們對下一代平台的投資逐年增長，甚至是過去三年的投資增長，以及我們為現有產品添加的一些額外功能（包括用戶體驗）的增長時，這再次表明，我們的投資正在增長。所以，你可以從我們的折舊和攤銷項中看到這一點，當你在季度報告中看到它時，你也可以從我們的聲明中看到並聽到我們所說的話中看到這一點——你也可以在我們的資產負債表中看到資本化軟體的情況。所以我們相信，我們是在為未來投資。而有時候，我們會遇到這些時間安排上的問題，因為我們對下一代平台充滿熱情。但相對於公司的規模而言，今年是我們第一年，在過去的 12 個月裡，我們第一次真正擁有了客戶，他們現在正在使用我們的下一代平台，包括下一代薪資管理和下一代 HCM，我們稱之為 Lifion。我們很興奮。我們進度超前於規劃，但你在其中一個平台上只有不到 10 個客戶，而在另一個平台上卻有 30 到 40 個客戶。所以，就銷售業績或收入表現而言，目前還沒有任何影響，但這並不會削弱我們對未來的熱情。所以，總而言之，我認為問題不在於缺乏投資，而是投資。請相信我們，如果我們看到投資成長的機會，我們一定會抓住它。

Understood. And then just maybe on that point, with the ES bookings, it sounds like it's more international again. So I'm curious if this is more cyclical or is there -- some very broad base? Or is it more just [fees] like clients that you're looking for a decision? Just trying to better understand how -- the visibility here on the international side.

明白了。然後，或許正是在這一點上，從 ES 的預訂情況來看，它似乎又變得更加國際化了。所以我很好奇，這種情況是週期性的，還是存在某種非常廣泛的基礎？或者，您更關心的是客戶方面的費用問題，還是希望盡快做出決定？我只是想更了解一下——這裡在國際上的知名度是如何實現的。

I think the most obvious one in terms of -- because it's easy to see and quantify, is in our large global view, multinational deals. We had a very difficult compare. Now of course, that means that 12 months ago, we were celebrating getting those deals and those sales. And hopefully, we talked about it, that, that was giving us tailwind at the time. And I think we did, but we'd have to go back to the transcripts. And now -- unfortunately, now we have a very difficult compare. Now we just had our rethink meeting. We call it rethink meeting, where we have all of our large multinational prospects and clients. And I think we walked away with a very solid pipeline and a lot of enthusiasm. And so we feel good about, hopefully, the second half. And whether it's the second half or next year, but any less enthusiastic about our multinational solutions, but we just have a very difficult compare. So that's an obvious place. We do have a couple of, what we call, in-country or best-of-breed locations that are also having some challenges that I think also have some difficult compares. But it's hard to point at any kind of cyclical or product issues because we've been strengthening our products overseas as well and I think, investing in our sales force. So again, and the European economy in particular seems to be at a minimum stabilizing, if not improving. So I don't think we can point to anything cyclical, which is why we remain optimistic about a turnaround.

我認為最明顯的例子——因為它很容易看到和量化——就是從我們廣闊的全球視野來看，跨國交易。我們進行了一次非常艱難的比較。當然，這意味著 12 個月前，我們還在慶祝達成那些交易和銷售目標。希望我們當時討論過這件事，那件事當時給了我們順風。我認為我們確實做到了，但我們需要查閱一下記錄。而現在——很遺憾，我們現在面臨著一個非常艱難的比較。我們剛開完重新討論會議。我們稱之為“重新思考會議”，我們所有的大型跨國潛在客戶和現有客戶都會參加。我認為我們最終獲得了非常可靠的人才儲備和極大的熱情。所以我們對下半場充滿信心，希望如此。無論是下半年還是明年，我們對跨國解決方案的熱情都不會降低，但我們面臨著一個非常大的比較。所以那是一個顯而易見的地方。我們確實有幾個我們稱之為國內最佳或同類最佳的地點，它們也面臨一些挑戰，我認為這些挑戰也帶來了一些難以比較的情況。但很難指出任何週期性或產品方面的問題，因為我們一直在加強海外產品，而且我認為，我們也在投資銷售團隊。所以，尤其是歐洲經濟，至少看起來正在趨於穩定，即便沒有好轉，也至少在好轉。所以我認為我們無法指出任何週期性因素，這也是我們仍然對經濟好轉保持樂觀的原因。

Yes. So maybe I'll just add a little more color and talk about it in terms of kind of ES bookings overall. I guess, what I'd say is that, look, as you go into the year, there's always going to be areas where you do better and areas where you do worse than you may have planned. And thus far, into the year, we've seen particular strength in downmarket, as we've noted in our comments. And actually, internationally, we've also seen strength in our Celergo streamline product, which was quite nice to see. And as you saw, the multinational global view is where we're seeing really the slowness or the weakness for the last 2 quarters now. Hard to say that it's -- we're not really seeing that it's attributable to any change from an economic landscape or environment standpoint, but more so just seeing delayed decision-making. And it's taking time to get these larger and sometimes much more complex deals through the decision-making process. So we've seen it 2 quarters in a row. The pipeline looks pretty decent. We've got some of these deals in the pipeline, but it remains to be seen exactly how much longer it takes to get them closed.

是的。所以，我或許可以再添一些細節，從整體談談 ES 預訂的情況。我想說的是，你看，在這一年中，總是會有一些方面你會做得比計劃的更好，也會有一些方面你會做得比計劃的更差。到目前為止，今年以來，我們已經看到下行市場表現特別強勁，正如我們在評論中提到的那樣。事實上，在國際市場上，我們的 Celergo 流線型產品也展現了強勁的勢頭，這讓我們非常高興。正如你所看到的，在過去的兩個季度裡，跨國全球市場確實出現了成長放緩或疲軟的情況。很難說這是因為——我們並沒有看到這是由於經濟狀況或環境方面的變化造成的，而更多的是因為決策延遲。而要讓這些規模更大、有時更複雜的交易通過決策過程，需要時間。我們已經連續兩個季度看到這種情況了。這條管道看起來相當不錯。我們已經有一些交易正在洽談中，但究竟還需要多久才能完成，還有待觀察。

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 I ask you to give us kind of a brief macro overview in terms of what you're seeing in your various markets, given everything that's going on in the world today? Any call-outs or any changes in the environment?

鑑於當今世界局勢，能否請您簡要概述一下您在各個市場觀察到的宏觀？是否有任何緊急呼叫或環境變化？

So when we look at -- we have a few things that we obviously look at in terms of, call it, economic macro indicators. The ones that are kind of relatively stable, I would call them relatively stable, our pays per control and wage growth. And we look at, obviously, our own data as we get ready for this earnings call, but we also have the ADP Research Institute that publishes its own kind of wage growth information and other factors around the economy. And I think all those signs positive -- point to, what I would call, stability. Our pays per control was slightly lower than it was the previous quarter and the trend, but we've seen that many times before where we go 2.5% one quarter, and then we go a little bit lower than next quarter, but then it comes back to 2.5%. It does seem, and we've been saying it, and we've been wrong so far that as the labor markets tighten, there's just not enough people available in the U.S. to continue to drive the kind of pays per control growth that we've experienced. But obviously, labor force participation has been ticking up slightly. And for a variety of reasons, that continued to hum along. And again, we see the same kind of indicators that all of you see around consumer spending, et cetera. So when we look at across all of our domestic businesses, the pays per control growth seems to be a reasonable indicator that the economy is on stable ground. And wage growth, we think, should continue to accelerate, but that's moderated slightly also for the last couple of quarters, but it's still at robust levels and should drive continued consumer spending and continued consumer confidence. We do look at pays per control also outside of the U.S. And I think there, we, again, in our numbers, see some signs of stabilization in Europe when it comes through in the unemployment and pays per control metrics there. So for us, I think that everything looks -- bankruptcies are -- we're seeing the same things in our own business that you see through external metrics. We don't see any kind of elevation of -- or increase in out-of-business or bankruptcies in our downmarket business, which is the canary in the coal mines, the first place you would see it. So our sales are also strong in the downmarket and the mid-market, so it doesn't feel like the weakness we had this quarter is anything other than the lumpiness that we talked about around multinationals because new business bookings would be another, I think, macro indicator that could weaken. We've talked about our retention continuing to improve. Retention doesn't improve in a bad economy because it -- that's one of the things that really suffers as a result of out-of-business in the down market. And that has stayed strong and solid, so no negatives that we can see in the macro.

所以當我們觀察──我們顯然會專注在一些方面，例如經濟宏觀指標。那些相對穩定的指標，我會稱之為相對穩定的指標，包括我們的控制費用和薪資成長。當然，在準備這次財報電話會議時，我們會查看我們自己的數據，但我們也會參考 ADP 研究所發布的工資成長資訊和其他經濟因素。我認為所有這些積極的跡像都指向我所說的穩定性。我們每控制項的付費略低於上一季和目前的趨勢，但我們以前也多次看到過這種情況，一個季度達到 2.5%，然後下一個季度略低於這個水平，但之後又會回到 2.5%。確實如此，我們一直這麼說，但到目前為止我們錯了，隨著勞動市場趨緊，美國沒有足夠的人手來繼續推動我們所經歷的那種人均薪資成長。但很顯然，勞動參與率一直在小幅上升。由於種種原因，這種情況繼續持續下去。同樣，我們看到的指標與你們在消費支出等方面看到的指標相同。因此，當我們縱觀所有國內業務時，每個控制權的薪酬成長似乎是一個合理的指標，表示經濟處於穩定狀態。我們認為，薪資成長應該會繼續加速，但近幾季成長略有放緩，不過仍處於強勁水平，應該會推動消費者支出和消費者信心的持續成長。我們也關注美國以外的人均薪資。我認為，從我們的數據來看，歐洲的失業率和人均薪資指標都出現了一些穩定跡象。所以對我們來說，我認為一切看起來——破產就是——我們在自己的業務中看到的情況與你透過外部指標看到的情況相同。我們沒有看到低端市場業務出現任何形式的下滑——或者說倒閉或破產的增加，而低端市場業務就像煤礦裡的金絲雀，是最先發出預警的地方。因此，我們在低端市場和中端市場的銷售也很強勁，所以感覺我們本季度的疲軟只是我們之前討論過的跨國公司普遍存在的波動，因為我認為，新業務預訂是另一個可能走弱的宏觀指標。我們已經討論過客戶留存率持續提高的問題。經濟不景氣時，顧客留存率不會提高，因為－－這是市場低迷時期企業倒閉後真正受到影響的因素之一。而且這種情況一直保持強勁穩定，因此從宏觀層面來看，我們沒有看到任何負面因素。

Okay. And you sort of addressed this. Dovetailing with Kathleen's last answer and your answer just now, but can you talk a little bit about the competitive environment? And that doesn't -- manifesting itself as sort of pricing-related actions or an intensification of maybe more an increase in opposing bidders showing up for contract processes or new business models emerging out there. I'm just trying to explore whether there's any other peripheral causes for some of the, I think, what are timing-related delays and things like bookings, especially maybe in Europe, but elsewhere as well.

好的。你也算是談到了這一點。這與 Kathleen 的上一個回答以及你剛才的回答相呼應，你能談談競爭環境嗎？而這並沒有——表現為與定價相關的行動，或合約流程中競爭競標者數量的增加，或出現新的商業模式。我只是想探究是否存在其他一些與時間相關的延誤以及預訂等問題的其他潛在原因，尤其是在歐洲，但其他地方也可能存在。

Sure. So back to maybe a little bit of what Kathleen said about, there's always -- there's positive and there's negative. When it comes to competitors, it's the same thing. We have a lot of competitors in each of our each of our segments. And some years we do better, some of the years we do worse, but we do have the overall balance of trade. And our situation there is better. And you would think that based on our retention results, and based on the comment we just gave you about new business bookings in our downmarket, mid-market and domestic upmarket business. So I think in North America, I think if you look at those results, I would say our competitive situation has improved. And it shows in our net balance of trade that we keep track of. In particular, I would point out, besides the continued strength in our downmarket business, which has been growing market share here for a few years, if you look at our mid-market business, the last 2 quarters in particular were quite strong in terms of what we call new logos against a variety of competitors. But again, we can't point to any one competitor because we have a large set of competitors. Some of them are geographically concentrated, and some of them are national. But I think we're very pleased with this quarter's performance against those competitors in the mid-market. And then in the upmarket, I would say that the addition of Workforce Now and call it, the 1,000 to 5,000 range, so the lower end of our upmarket, which we did a couple of years ago, has really been an important generator of win-loss and balance of trade success for us in the upmarket. So we've had a robust growth in units, in revenue and sales dollars from introduction of Workforce Now into that 1,000 to 5,000, which addresses a segment of the market where that platform really has a lot of appeal.

當然。所以，回到凱瑟琳剛才說的一點，凡事總有正面的一面和負面的一面。對於競爭對手來說，情況也是如此。我們在各個細分市場都有許多競爭對手。有些年份我們做得更好，有些年份做得比較差，但我們整體來說還是保持了貿易平衡。我們在那裡的處境更好。根據我們的客戶留存率結果，以及我們剛剛向您提供的關於我們低端市場、中端市場和國內高端市場業務的新業務預訂情況的評論，您可能會這樣認為。所以我覺得在北美，如果你看看這些結果，我會說我們的競爭狀況已經有所改善。這一點在我們一直關注的貿易淨差額中有所體現。尤其值得一提的是，除了我們低端市場業務的持續強勁增長（該業務的市場份額已連續幾年增長）之外，如果你看看我們的中端市場業務，尤其是在過去兩個季度，我們在新客戶數量方面表現得相當強勁，戰勝了眾多競爭對手。但是，我們不能指出任何一個特定的競爭對手，因為我們的競爭對手有很多。有些是地域性的，有些是全國性的。但我認為我們對本季在中端市場與競爭對手的較量中表現非常滿意。然後，在高端市場，我認為 Workforce Now 的加入，以及我們幾年前推出的 1,000 到 5,000 人規模的產品（也就是我們高端市場的低端產品），確實為我們在高端市場的盈虧平衡和成功做出了重要貢獻。因此，自從 Workforce Now 進入 1,000 至 5,000 家企業以來，我們的銷售、收入和銷售額都實現了強勁增長，這滿足了該平台在市場中極具吸引力的細分需求。

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。

I just wanted to drill in a little bit more on the commentary around the delayed decision-making. Have you guys been down-selected for these contracts already? Or is the actual RFP process still kind of dragging along?

我只是想就決策延遲這一評論再深入探討一下。你們已經被列入這些合約的候選名單了嗎？或者說，實際的招標流程仍然進展緩慢？

I wish I could tell you that I have that level of detail. I don't. So this is really -- ties back to the comment I made before about we have a certain number of salespeople in the field. We have a certain pipeline of dollars that we track year-over-year. And we know what our sales results were the previous year in the same period, whether it was the first quarter or the first 2 quarters of the year. So we are attributing the weakness to the late decision-making. But this is not -- we do have large contracts, particularly in multinational, and they definitely move the number from one quarter to the other, but we don't have $50 million, $100 million contracts. It's not that kind of a business. So we don't -- I know our sales leaders have that level of detail. I don't have it available in my fingertips here.

我希望我能做到那種程度的細節控制。我不。所以這其實——與我之前提到的我們在外勤銷售人員數量有限有關。我們有一筆固定的資金流向，我們會逐年追蹤這筆資金的流向。我們知道上一年同期（無論是第一季還是前兩季）的銷售業績如何。因此，我們將這種弱點歸因於決策遲緩。但事實並非如此——我們確實有一些大額合同，尤其是在跨國公司，這些合約肯定會將數字從一個季度轉移到另一個季度，但我們沒有 5000 萬美元、1 億美元的合約。這不是那種類型的生意。所以我們沒有——我知道我們的銷售主管掌握著那種程度的細節。我手邊沒有現成的資料。

Yes. I mean, maybe you're asking kind of have we seen any particular shift in where things are in terms of stages of the cycle and stages in the pipeline? Nothing that we've seen or heard that we can draw any conclusion from or point to any trends.

是的。我的意思是，你可能想問的是，就週期階段和流程階段而言，我們是否看到了任何特定的變化？我們目前所見所聞都無法得出任何結論或指出任何趨勢。

But we do have a pipeline of deals. I mean, sure, we wanted to rethink this year with more participants, more attendees in a larger pipeline of dollar opportunities than we had the previous year.

但我們確實有一批待完成的交易。我的意思是，當然，我們希望今年能有更多參與者、更多與​​會者，以及比前一年更大的獲利機會。

Right. Yes. No, I was just curious if you were just kind of waiting for some final signatures to make the bookings official or if it really is a matter of kind of just broader pipeline conversion. Just my second quick follow-up, just on the margins, you had the 70 bps up overall in the quarter, which was better than you expected. But at the segment level, I know ES was up only 30. And PEO was down 30, if I'm not mistaken. So I think it was some of the below-the-line drivers that got you to the 70. Can you elaborate on those? Because I know you have some add-backs in your adjusted EBIT margin calculation.

正確的。是的。不，我只是好奇你是否還在等待一些最終的簽字來正式確認預訂，還是這真的只是一個更廣泛的流程轉換問題。我的第二個快速跟進是，就邊際效益而言，你們本季整體成長了 70 個基點，這比你們預期的要好。但就板塊層面而言，我知道標普500指數只上漲了30點。如果我沒記錯的話，PEO下降了30%。所以我認為正是那些幕後推手讓你達到了70分。能詳細說明一下嗎？因為我知道你們在調整後的息稅前利潤率計算中有一些加回項。

Yes, I can help maybe a little bit with that. It's -- as you know, the transformation initiatives that we are undergoing right now, some of those are sort of back-office-facing as well. So if you think about procurement and the workforce optimization initiative, those will have impacts to items that are, what we would deem, other in the segment review. So corporate functions, for example, that's where the delta probably sits for you.

是的，我或許能在這方面幫上一點忙。如您所知，我們目前正在進行的轉型計劃中，有些也涉及後台部門。因此，如果您考慮採購和勞動力優化計劃，這些都會對我們在細分市場審查中視為「其他」的項目產生影響。例如，公司職能部門，這可能就是你遇到的差異。

Our next question comes from Mark Marcon from Baird.

我們的下一個問題來自 Baird 公司的 Mark Marcon。

Let me add my congratulations to both Christian and Danny. With regards to the bookings, just looking ahead, and thinking about the comparisons for the third and fourth quarters, are there any things that we should think from a sequencing perspective in terms of they're both -- one's up 10%, one's up 11%? Is there anything that's particular in one versus the other that would make it a more difficult comp? Or how should we think about the bookings over the next 2 quarters in terms of the sequencing?

我也要向克里斯蒂安和丹尼表示祝賀。關於預訂情況，展望未來，並考慮第三季度和第四季度的比較，從順序的角度來看，當一個季度增長 10%，另一個季度增長 11% 時，我們是否應該考慮一些事情？兩者之間是否有什麼特殊之處，使得比較起來更加困難？或者，我們應該如何考慮未來兩季的預訂順序？

Well, I think our #1 goal is to obviously maintain the momentum we have in everything other than our international and multinational businesses. And again, these businesses, not just because there's a big ocean between them, they are fairly separate, right, in terms of how they're managed in terms of sales and sales execution and so forth even though we have one worldwide sales organization. So we feel good that we're going to be able to maintain the momentum we have in the rest of the business. And then hopefully, we get a little bit of a tailwind with some of this stuff going our way in terms of the larger deals and some of the international stuff that we've talked about. We do have -- in the second half, particularly in the last quarter, we do have a difficult compare. Because last year, as you recall, we purchased -- it was a client-based acquisition -- an acquisition of the company with a client-based acquisition of Wells Fargo's payroll business. And that helped our new business bookings and obviously our -- translated into some revenue help in the downmarket and as part of what's given us some tailwind from a revenue growth standpoint in that business. But since it was a client-based acquisition, it does -- and it wasn't an acquisition of a business, it does roll through our new business bookings. And that was, I believe, in the fourth quarter.

我認為，我們的首要目標顯然是保持除國際和跨國業務之外的其他所有領域的發展勢頭。再說一遍，這些企業不僅僅是因為它們之間隔著一片汪洋大海，而且它們在銷售和銷售執行等方面的管理方式也相當獨立，對吧，即使我們有一個全球銷售組織。因此，我們有信心能夠保持在其他業務領域的成長動能。然後，希望我們能藉助一些順風，在一些大型交易和我們之前討論過的國際合作方面取得一些進展。下半年，特別是最後一個季度，我們確實面臨一個比較艱難的比較週期。因為如您所知，去年我們收購了——這是一項基於客戶的收購——收購了富國銀行的薪資業務。這有助於我們的新業務預訂，顯然也轉化為市場低迷時的收入成長，並且從收入成長的角度來看，這為我們帶來了一些助力。但由於這是一項基於客戶的收購，而不是對企業的收購，因此它會計入我們的新業務預訂。我記得那是在第四季。

Fourth quarter.

第四季。

Fourth quarter.

第四季。

Yes, yes. That's not -- probably not show as well. So -- and that's part of the reason for asking the question. So arguably, the third quarter should be a little bit of an easier comp.

是的，是的。那可能——也可能不會播出。所以——這也是我提出這個問題的部分原因。因此，可以說第三季的數據比較起來會比較容易。

And there's one reason -- for some reason, they never feel easy. But mathematically, you're probably mathematically correct, but we have a lot of things that we're cooking to make sure that we hit the -- obviously, our intention is to achieve the guidance we've provided. And we wouldn't -- we don't provide it lightly.

原因只有一個——不知何故，它們總是讓人感覺輕鬆。但從數學角度來看，你的說法可能是正確的，但我們正在努力確保我們能夠達到目標——顯然，我們的目標是實現我們提供的指導方針。我們不會－我們不會輕易提供。

Great. And then, Carlos, obviously, you've got a long-standing sort of experiences with the PEO market. How are you feeling about the longer-term trajectory of the market? What are you seeing? What do you think are thinking? Or ex pass-throughs, the sustainable growth rate is there? And what are you seeing from -- on the competitive front, it seems like there's a little bit more private capital that's coming into the space. So just wondering what your -- how you're thinking about that space and the legislative outlook there.

偉大的。卡洛斯，很顯然，你在 PEO 市場方面有著豐富的經驗。您對市場的長期走勢有何看法？你看到了什麼？你覺得你在想什麼？或者，撇開轉嫁實體不談，可持續成長率是否存在？從競爭方面來看，似乎有更多的私人資本流入這個領域。所以我想知道您——您是如何看待這個領域以及那裡的立法前景的。

Well, when you look at the -- again, the balance of trade information there, I feel pretty good about our competitive situation, right? So you always feel good about your own children and about your businesses. But you've got to look at the facts, right? And I think the facts are pretty good for us in terms of our win-loss and our balance of trade. So that feels pretty good. And then the second thing that makes me feel really good, particularly this quarter versus last year and started to feel it last quarter, is we really took a while to kind of filter through to make sure that we had our incentives properly aligned to make sure that our sales force was focused on, obviously, number one, selling the right thing to our clients, but making sure that they're properly incented to make sure that the PEO is something that they raised. Because it is a difficult sale because it's a high-involvement sale. And so you have to have the right incentives in order for the sales force to really want to sell it. And so I think we did that, and I think we talked about that. It's got to be 12 months ago, I think it was. So that feels like it's starting to filter through. And I think we talked about very strong double-digit new business bookings for the quarter, which that's the most important metric to -- for the future to really give us confidence that the business model is still strong and intact. So that feels pretty good.

嗯，當你再次查看貿易平衡資訊時，我對我們的競爭情況感覺相當不錯，對吧？所以你總是對自己的孩子和事業感到滿意。但你得看看事實，對吧？我認為就我們的勝負和貿易平衡而言，事實對我們相當有利。感覺還不錯。第二件讓我感覺非常好的事情，特別是與去年同期相比，上個季度就開始有這種感覺了，那就是我們確實花了一段時間來仔細篩選，確保我們的激勵機制適當調整，以確保我們的銷售團隊專注於，顯然，第一，向客戶銷售正確的產品，但同時也要確保他們得到適當的激勵，以確保 PEO 是他們提出的要求。因為這是一筆難度很高的銷售，因為它是一筆需要高度參與的銷售。所以，你必須提供適當的激勵措施，才能讓銷售人員真正願意去銷售產品。所以我覺得我們做到了，也討論過這個問題。應該是12個月前吧，我想應該是。感覺這開始慢慢滲透進來了。我認為我們討論了本季兩位數的強勁新業務預訂量，這是最重要的指標——它真正讓我們有信心，未來業務模式依然強勁且完整無損。感覺還不錯。

Our next question comes from Samad Samana from Jefferies.

下一個問題來自傑富瑞集團的薩馬德·薩馬納。

So I wanted to maybe ask a question about the -- what's been going on in terms of bookings and how you're thinking about guidance. Is there -- was guidance updated just to reflect what bookings has done so far this year? Or have you maybe made some changes to the guidance framework to account for some more of the variability or variance that you're seeing in multinational and international deals closing? So I guess, is guidance more conservative? Are you using the same framework that you've historically used? And then maybe just one follow-up.

所以我想問一個關於預訂情況的問題，以及你們是如何考慮提供指導的。是否有更新指南以反映今年迄今的預訂情況？或者，您是否對指導框架進行了一些修改，以應對您在跨國和國際交易中看到的更多變化或差異？所以我想，指導意見是否更保守？你們使用的框架和以往一樣嗎？然後或許只需要一次後續跟進。

Yes. Again, just a reminder, just given the last comment that I made about the PEO that the guidance that we provide for bookings is ES only, just to be clear. So if you look at our combination of our PEO and ES sales, they're -- it's a better picture and a stronger picture in the first half than what our guidance would depict because we provide guidance for the PEO based on average worksite employee growth, not on new business bookings. But having said that, I think the answer is just in a -- this year, like there's no change in our thinking or our framework, given that we just think there's some large deal delays that I don't think impact our view of the future.

是的。再次提醒一下，鑑於我上次對 PEO 的評論，我們提供的預訂指導僅適用於 ES，特此說明。因此，如果您看一下我們 PEO 和 ES 銷售額的綜合情況，您會發現，上半年的情況比我們的預期要好得多，也強勁得多，因為我們對 PEO 的預期是基於平均工作場所員工成長，而不是基於新業務預訂。但話雖如此，我認為答案就在於——今年，我們的想法或框架沒有任何改變，因為我們認為有一些重大交易延遲，但我認為這不會影響我們對未來的看法。

Yes, no change in framework. No change in kind of the way we're rolling up that forecast or the data we're looking at. For example, we look at things like, okay, where is business coming from in terms of by segment or by geography or new clients versus upsell to existing clients? We're continuing to see fairly consistent trends in terms of the split between new and upsells. So no change in the framework. It's more so just, look, we've seen the slower out of the gates for 2 quarters now, lower than we expected in the international. And so we saw it was given that we're 6 months into the year here, we thought it made sense to give you our best view. And so therefore, we narrowed the view for the year.

是的，框架沒有變化。我們匯總預測資料的方式和所查看的資料基本上沒有變化。例如，我們會觀察諸如以下情況：業務來源來自哪裡，按細分市場、地理位置或新客戶與現有客戶的追加銷售來看？在新產品和追加銷售的比例方面，我們持續看到相當穩定的趨勢。所以框架沒有變化。更確切地說，你看，我們已經看到球隊連續兩個季度開局慢熱，國際比賽的表現也低於我們的預期。鑑於現在已經過去六個月了，我們認為有必要向大家展示我們最好的觀點。因此，我們縮小了今年的視野範圍。

Yes. Just one other comment that in terms of something a little bit quirky about as we changed our guidance to focus on ES worldwide bookings versus the PEO based on average worksite employees, the reason we gave you some color about the bookings for the PEO this quarter is even though we're not going to change the way we do our guidance is, in some respects, what's good for the PEO, sometimes in the short term if business gets referred to the PEO, can have in the short term a dampening effect on Employer Services. But we still had a great result in the downmarket and in the mid-market in Employer Services. So we definitely can't point to that. But again, it is kind of important to keep in mind that it's really the combination of those 2 that are driving overall ADP bookings and overall ADP revenue growth.

是的。還有一點需要說明，關於我們調整業績指引，將重點放在 ES 全球預訂量而不是基於平均工作場所員工人數的 PEO 預訂量上，這有點特殊。我們之所以向您介紹本季度 PEO 的預訂情況，是因為儘管我們不會改變業績指引的製定方式，但在某些方面，對 PEO 有利的事情，有時短期內如果業務被轉介給 PEO，可能會對 Employer Services 產生短期抑製作用。但我們在低端市場和中端市場的雇主服務領域仍然取得了非常好的成績。所以，我們絕對不能指出這一點。但同樣重要的是要記住，正是這兩者的結合才真正推動了 ADP 的整體預訂量和 ADP 的整體收入成長。

Great. That's helpful. And then maybe if I could just ask one follow-up. I think there's a lot of excitement around Lifion coming off of HR Tech and ahead of the Innovation Day that the company is hosting so I just wanted to see if there's any early patterns in terms of customer profile, whether it's by size or whether you think about existing products that they're using, whether it's Vantage or Workforce Now. Maybe where are you seeing the early adopters come from? And any type of profile commentary you could give on that would be helpful.

偉大的。那很有幫助。然後，我或許可以再問一個後續問題。我認為，在 HR Tech 大會之後，以及該公司即將舉辦創新日之前，大家對 Lifion 都非常興奮，所以我只是想看看在客戶概況方面是否有任何早期模式，無論是按規模還是按他們正在使用的現有產品（例如 Vantage 或 Workforce Now）來看。你覺得早期採用者都來自哪裡？如果您能就此提供任何類型的個人資料評論，我們將不勝感激。

So again, in our case, everybody's maybe approaches this differently. But we started off with smaller, less complex clients. And now we've actually just sold, I would call, consider it to be very large clients, so call it, tens of thousands of employees. And so we've got a couple of very large sales that we've done. And we have a bunch in the middle and then we have a few smaller ones that we did in the early days. Some of the business we've sold is obviously new logo. Some of it has been, as you mentioned, off of some of our existing platforms. I don't think that I can point to one particular platform and say they were like -- we're not targeting because we're not trying to do migrations or upgrades, we're trying to go after clients that have the right profile and the right needs, right? So that we can make them happier ADP clients in the long term. So we know what the capabilities are of the platform, and we try to target the clients and the prospects, whether they're internal or external, in the appropriate manner. So I guess the best way to put it is kind of across the board in terms of from an internal view. And then in terms of industry or size of client, fortunately, it's also kind of a widespread.

所以，就我們而言，每個人處理這個問題的方式可能都不一樣。但我們最初服務的都是規模較小、業務要求較不複雜的客戶。現在我們實際上剛剛賣出了一份價值數萬名員工的合同，我稱之為非常大的客戶。因此，我們已經完成了幾筆非常大的銷售交易。中間有很多，然後我們還有一些早期做的規模較小的。我們出售的部分業務顯然是採用了新的標誌。正如您所提到的，其中一些內容已經從我們現有的平台上移除。我不認為我可以指出某個特定的平台，然後說他們就像——我們不以客戶為目標，因為我們不打算進行遷移或升級，我們只是想找到具有合適特徵和合適需求的客戶，對吧？這樣我們才能讓他們在長期內成為更滿意的 ADP 客戶。因此，我們了解平台的功能，並嘗試以適當的方式瞄準客戶和潛在客戶，無論他們是內部客戶還是外部客戶。所以我覺得最好的說法是從內部視角來看，這是普遍現象。而且就行業或客戶規模而言，幸運的是，它也相當普遍。

Our next question comes from David Togut from Evercore ISI. .

下一個問題來自 Evercore ISI 的 David Togut。

There have been a few questions on bookings already, but this seems to be the main question of the day, that the one question that I'd like to explore here is, you're still in the critical selling season, which typically runs December to February. So is there anything you see in your pipeline in the U.S. or confidence on international close rates that gives you the confidence that you can close this critical selling season in better shape than we've seen, obviously, in the second quarter and the first quarter bookings results?

已經有一些關於預訂的問題了，但今天最主要的問題似乎是，我想探討的問題是，你們仍然處於關鍵的銷售旺季，通常是從 12 月到 2 月。那麼，您在美國的銷售管道中是否有任何跡象，或者您對國際成交率是否有信心，讓您相信您能夠比我們在第二季度和第一季的預訂結果中看到的情況更好地結束這個關鍵的銷售季？

So again, at the risk of getting too much into the sausage-making, the -- if you remember, like part of our business, particularly the downmarket and into some of our mid-market, we report our sales when they start. So they're -- like bookings and starts are basically equivalent. But when you get to very large deals, that's where you're really recognizing a sale. And then the revenue starts at a later date. It could be 6 months. It could be 12 months. With a very large complex international deal, it could be 18 months later. So to your point about the critical selling season, pretty much now and done because January is the biggest month for us, particularly for our downmarket business and the lower end of our mid-market business as well and the PEO. So just because of the natural cycle of the PEO, a large number of clients, by the way, affect retention as well. But from a new business booking standpoint, January is the critical month for us. So the December-January period is a critical month for us in the PEO. And again, we're in the middle of that quarter. So it's kind of hard to make comments about the quarter since the quarter isn't done yet. But I think in a down market and in our PEO in particular, we had, I'd say, a good start to the quarter.

所以，再次強調，雖然這麼說可能會有點離題，但——如果你還記得的話，就像我們業務的一部分，特別是低端市場和一些中端市場，我們會在銷售開始時就公佈銷售額。所以它們——就像預訂和開始基本上是等價的。但只有當交易金額非常大時，才能真正反映出銷售的價值。然後，收入會在稍後某個日期開始產生。可能需要6個月。可能需要12個月。如果是規模龐大、錯綜複雜的國際交易，可能需要 18 個月的時間。所以，關於您提到的關鍵銷售季節，現在差不多已經結束了，因為一月份是我們最重要的月份，特別是對於我們的低端市場業務、中端市場業務的低端部分以及 PEO 業務而言。所以，由於 PEO 的自然週期，大量的客戶也會影響顧客留存率。但從新業務預訂的角度來看，一月對我們來說至關重要。因此，12月至1月對我們PEO來說是一個至關重要的月份。現在，我們正處於這個季度的中間階段。由於本季度尚未結束，因此很難對本季做出評論。但我認為，在市場低迷的情況下，尤其是在我們 PEO 業務方面，可以說，我們本季開局良好。

Yes. The only thing -- other thing I would add, and this is with regard to the ES bookings in particular. If you kind of look at the cadence of the year last year and this year and you look at 6 months year-to-date, we're at about the same point this year as we were last year in comparison to where we ended the year.

是的。唯一一點——還有一點我想補充，特別是關於 ES 預訂方面。如果你看去年和今年的節奏，再看一下今年前6個月的情況，你會發現，與去年年底相比，我們今年所處的位置與去年大致相同。

So in other words, you see enough in the pipeline at this point and expected close rates that drive your expectation of the 6% to 7% bookings target? Is that accurate?

換句話說，您目前看到有足夠的潛在客戶，並且預期成交率足以讓您實現 6% 到 7% 的預訂目標嗎？準確嗎？

I think that -- again, that is a level of detail to say that we have specific things in the pipeline. I think just to reiterate what we said before, so the #1 driver of our confidence in our sales results in most of our business is headcount and execution. And we believe we're fully staffed, and we have that headcount in place. In the place where we've had the variability or the volatility, if you will, it does come down to what you're describing, which is RFPs, pipeline, et cetera. Yes, we do believe we have the pipeline and the visibility of that pipeline to feel that we will close the gap for the rest of the year. But that's not the -- in our SBS business, in our downmarket business, it doesn't work that way. It's really more about the volume. It's a volume business that's really related to having the proper amount of headcount, the right digital marketing tools and spend. And again, there, we feel good and we feel confident.

我認為——再說一遍，這種細節程度足以說明我們有一些具體的項目正在籌備中。我想重申我們之前說過的話，我們大多數業務中，銷售業績信心的首要驅動因素是人員配備和執行力。我們相信我們人員配備齊全，而且我們的人員編制也符合要求。在我們遇到的這種變化或波動性（如果你願意這麼說的話），最終都歸結於你所描述的情況，即 RFP、專案儲備等等。是的，我們相信我們擁有足夠的供應管道和供應管道的可見性，足以讓我們在今年餘下的時間裡彌補供應缺口。但在我們的SBS業務，在我們的低階市場業務中，情況並非如此。其實更重要的是音量。這是一個以規模為導向的行業，它與擁有足夠的人員、合適的數位行銷工具和投資密切相關。而且，在那裡，我們感覺很好，也很有自信。

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

下一個問題來自 BMO 資本市場的 Jeff Silber。

I'm apologizing for asking another bookings-related question. I just wanted to clarify something. I'm assuming that most of your clients are on calendar year-end as opposed to your June year-end. When you talk about the late decision-making, does this mean that the decisions are being deferred until another year from now? Or is it something that could happen within the next quarter or so?

很抱歉再次詢問與預訂相關的問題。我只是想澄清一下。我假設你們的客戶大多是以自然年為結算週期，而不是你們的六月年終結算週期。您所說的決策延遲，是指決策要延後到一年以後嗎？或者這件事可能會在接下來的一個季度左右發生？

So the good news for ADP is we have clients with all kinds of year-ends because we have a lot of clients. So it really spans the gamut. But you're right that probably the average company in the U.S. has a calendar year-end. But I think most large companies, and particularly multinationals, which ADP -- I would consider ADP to be one of those, we -- typically, when we are negotiating with a vendor for a large contract, we'd be focused more on their fiscal year-end rather than our own fiscal year-end. And so you're right that there are some drivers around people's budgets and so forth, but a lot of procurement departments tend to focus on the vendor's year-end. And so we've seen, historically, it doesn't mean that it will happen again this year, is that our fourth quarter for large domestic and especially for large multinational deals is a particularly important quarter. Because prospects are recognized that even though we're not like a typical software company that -- negotiating towards a company's fiscal year-end, at least in their minds, tends to be a good time to sign deals or negotiate.

所以對 ADP 來說，好消息是我們有很多客戶，所以他們的年終結算方式也各不相同。所以它真的涵蓋了所有方面。但你說得對，美國大多數公司可能都採用自然年結算方式。但我認為大多數大型公司，特別是跨國公司（ADP——我認為ADP是其中之一），我們——通常情況下，當我們與供應商談判簽訂大型合約時，我們會更關注他們的財政年度結束，而不是我們自己的財政年度結束。所以你說的沒錯，人們的預算等等因素確實會起到一些作用，但很多採購部門往往更關注供應商的年終表現。因此，從歷史角度來看，這並不意味著今年也會如此，但第四季對於國內大型交易，尤其是大型跨國交易而言，是一個特別重要的季度。因為潛在客戶意識到，儘管我們不像典型的軟體公司那樣——至少在他們看來，在公司財年結束之際進行談判往往是簽署協議或進行談判的好時機。

Okay, I appreciate the....

好的，我很感激…

Sorry, Jeff. Just one reminder. I know we said it before, but the 1% impact on an annual basis in business bookings equating to about $17 million, I mean, these multinational, particularly global view deals, you can imagine that if you take that on a quarterly basis, it does have -- just put it in perspective, that outsized impact. So it's just from a framing perspective. It is a pretty meaningful adjustment if you have some of these deals that flow in from one quarter to the next given that sensitivity.

抱歉，傑夫。提醒一下。我知道我們之前說過，但是每年 1% 的業務預訂量受到的影響相當於大約 1700 萬美元，我的意思是，這些跨國公司，特別是全球視野的交易，你可以想像，如果按季度來看，它的影響是巨大的——從這個角度來看。所以這只是從構圖的角度來看。考慮到這種敏感性，如果你有一些交易是從一個季度延續到下一個季度，那麼這是一個相當有意義的調整。

On the new business bookings results.

關於新業務預訂結果。

On the new business bookings results.

關於新業務預訂結果。

Right. Because on a revenue, as you just described, the irony of the situation is that as it doesn't have a big impact on revenue, like we're having issues with FX and with client funds interest in particular that are hurting us, it's not to deny that the bookings eventually will have some impact, but the types of bookings that we have fallen short on in the first half are not particularly revenue impactful.

正確的。因為就收入而言，正如你剛才所描述的，諷刺的是，雖然它對收入的影響不大，但我們目前面臨的外匯問題和客戶資金利息問題尤其損害了我們的利益，這並不能否認預訂最終會產生一些影響，但我們在上半年未能達到的預訂類型對收入的影響並不大。

Okay, that's helpful. I do appreciate the color on that. And then I know you don't give quarterly guidance, but you called out, I guess, the comp on the, I guess, "acquisition" of the Wells Fargo payroll business last year. Anything else to call out between 3Q and 4Q that might affect the cadence of those quarters?

好的，這很有幫助。我很喜歡它的顏色。我知道您不提供季度業績指引，但您提到了去年對富國銀行薪資業務的“收購”，我猜想這其中存在可比性問題。第三季到第四季之間還有其他需要注意的事項可能會影響這兩個季度的節奏嗎？

In terms of new business bookings?

就新業務預訂而言？

No. No. The overall business, either revenues or margins.

不。不。整體業務，包括收入或利潤率。

Well, I mean, again, back to revenues and margins, the -- this client funds interest issue, and again, going back to kind of the 3-year guidance that we gave a few years ago, again, obviously not expecting a lot of sympathy from this crowd, but we're probably about $100 million less than what we expected to be in terms of client funds interest that we're obviously able to -- which we're overcoming some of that as we go forward here. And the -- so that in the second half is actually going to -- according to what I'm seeing in terms of our forecast, that's going to start to have an impact on revenue growth as well. It's not a huge impact, but where we were getting, call it, 1% lift in terms of revenue growth last year in the second quarter, I think this second quarter, it was a much smaller number. And in the second half, it goes to probably no help to actually hurting our revenue growth. So that's a headwind for us. But when I really take out all these issues, FX, client funds interest and other kind of calendar noise issues, when you look at the net impact of new business bookings starts, not new business booking sales, but new business bookings starts minus losses, so if you take retention and new business that started, if you compare last year's second quarter to this year's second quarter, and that, hopefully, the same thing continues into the second half, we have a slight acceleration. It's not a huge acceleration, but a slight acceleration. And so that's what makes me feel good about the strength in the underlying business. Because there's a lot of noise happening in between with calendar. And remember, last year, we also had a one-time item that we mentioned that we call a SUI pull-forward, and the PEO is an accounting change that we were obligated to make that helped the second quarter revenue growth. So all those things, you have to kind of separate all of those and get down to the core of the business and how the core business is performing. And on that basis, I feel good about the quarter, and I feel good about the second half.

嗯，我的意思是，再說回收入和利潤率，關於客戶資金利息問題，再說回我們幾年前給出的三年期業績指引，顯然我不指望得到大家的同情，但我們目前的客戶資金利息收入可能比預期少了大約 1 億美元，我們顯然能夠——而且我們正在逐步克服其中的一些問題。而且——所以下半年實際上將會——根據我目前對我們的預測，這也將開始對收入成長產生影響。影響雖然不大，但去年第二季度我們的營收成長約為 1%，而今年第二季度，這個數字要小得多。而到了下半年，這可能不但無濟於事，反而會損害我們的收入成長。所以這對我們來說是個不利因素。但當我真正排除所有這些因素，例如外匯、客戶資金利息和其他日曆噪音問題時，當你觀察新業務預訂的淨影響時，不是新業務預訂銷售額，而是新業務預訂減去損失，所以如果你把客戶留存率和新業務啟動額進行比較，如果你把去年第二季度與今年第二季度可以延續到下半年增長。加速幅度不大，只是輕微的加速。所以，這讓我對公司業務的穩健發展感到放心。因為日曆上有很多幹擾因素。請記住，去年我們還有一項一次性項目，我們稱之為 SUI 提前支付，而 PEO 是我們必須進行的會計變更，這有助於第二季度的收入成長。所以，你必須把所有這些因素分開來看，然後深入到業務的核心以及核心業務的運作。基於此，我對本季以及下半年的業績都感到滿意。

Yes. The only other thing I would add to your question about kind of quarterly linearity in the balance of the year. Just as a reminder, in the second half of last year, we had much, much more margin expansion in Q3 than in Q4. So therefore, tougher comps for us this year, Q3 versus Q4, in terms of margin expansion. So while we don't give quarterly guidance, I would expect not a whole lot in Q3 and then potentially much more in Q4.

是的。關於您提出的關於本年度剩餘時間季度線性變化的問題，我唯一想補充的是：需要提醒的是，去年下半年，第三季的利潤率擴張幅度遠大於第四季。因此，就利潤率擴張而言，今年第三季與第四季相比，我們的年比基數更大。因此，雖然我們不提供季度業績指引，但我預計第三季業績不會太好，而第四季可能會好得多。

But again, back to like in terms of what I mentioned in terms of some of these comparisons that were difficult versus last year's second quarter, some of those things then get easier on a revenue standpoint. Notwithstanding the issues from client funds interest, the SUI pull-forward actually helped last year's second quarter, but depressed our third quarter. So that's going to make an easier comparison. So we do expect slight improvement in our revenue growth in the second half.

但是，回到我剛才提到的，與去年第二季相比，有些比較困難，但從收入的角度來看，有些事情就變得容易多了。儘管客戶資金利息方面存在一些問題，但 SUI 提前支取實際上幫助了去年第二季的業績，卻拖累了我們第三季的業績。這樣一來，比較起來就更容易了。因此，我們預計下半年營收成長將略有改善。

And just a brief reminder on the fourth quarter. So as a reminder, so we did the client-based acquisition. So that added some amortization expense, which we'll lap in the fourth quarter, and obviously with bookings -- increased booking expense related to the client-based acquisition as well. So just keep that in mind. And then we obviously launched our brand campaign, I think, in the third quarter, but most of that was really -- the expense was kicking off in the fourth quarter as well. So that will be lapped as well.

最後簡單提醒一下第四季的情況。所以再次提醒一下，我們進行了以客戶為基礎的收購。因此，這增加了一些攤銷費用，我們將在第四季度消化這些費用，而且顯然，由於客戶獲取，預訂費用也有所增加。所以請記住這一點。然後，我們顯然在第三季推出了品牌推廣活動，但大部分支出實際上是在第四季才開始的。所以那一段也會被套圈。

I guess what we're saying is we have some tailwinds in the fourth quarter.

我想說的是，我們在第四季有一些順風。

Yes.

是的。

And we have time for one final question. And our last question will come from Lisa Ellis from MoffettNathanson.

我們還有時間回答最後一個問題。最後一個問題來自 MoffettNathanson 公司的 Lisa Ellis。

Congrats to Christian and Danny from me as well. Carlos, you mentioned a couple of times, and I think in the presentation, the progress on both Lifion as well as the next-gen payroll and tax, can you give an update of where you are on the deployments of the next-gen payroll and tax engines and how they're impacting your business perhaps on the retention side or some of the other impacts?

我也要向克里斯蒂安和丹尼表示祝賀。卡洛斯，你曾多次提到，而且我認為在演示中也提到了 Lifion 以及下一代薪資和稅務系統的進展。你能否介紹下一代薪資和稅務引擎的部署進展，以及它們對你們業務的影響，例如在客戶留存方面或其他方面的影響？

Sure. Thanks. Very excited about the next-gen payroll as well as the back office tax. But the payroll engine, even though it's somewhat back-office, I think, has some positive qualities in terms of potentially helping us, both in terms of, in the future, both around bookings but also around efficiency and costs. I think we have somewhere between 30 and 40 live clients in our next-generation payroll platform. So as you can imagine, in comparison to the size of ADP, it's a relatively small impact in terms of revenue retention or any of the other actual metrics. But an enormous amount of enthusiasm around what we're doing there, both at the team level. I think the team is incredibly enthusiastic. And I think the rest of the organization is very enthusiastic as well in terms of what we're seeing in the early days, especially around the flexibility of how quickly we can, for example, make changes. And that's just related really to the investments in the platform itself. So we've already kind of experimented, and I think we maybe talked about this in the past, with kind of federation, as you call it, in trying to have others develop and build on that platform. We've done the same thing on Lifion. So now we have a team, for example, in Australia that has actually built Australian payroll, and we have 1 or 2 clients on that as well. And so we're incredibly happy with what we're seeing. We're really happy that we have live clients. And this is the first year that, again, even though it was, call it, 30 to 40 clients, this is the first time we've gone through year-end. So who we actually had to go through a year-end and do all the year-end closing activities are probably, enthused, et cetera. So it's still very early days just because of the size of ADP. But if we were a start-up, this would be like really great news. Like if this is a discussion about a start-up, like we've gotten now a lot of technical risk behind us, if you will, and now we have scaling and execution risk that's still in front of us, but that's a hell of a lot better than where we would have been 2 to 3 years ago. And I think it could really add to our competitiveness here in the long run, not to mention it could help a lot in terms of back-office costs. On the tax side, that's probably more focused on back-office costs and efficiency, but that also has an impact on our associates in terms of their ability to deliver service and also the experience that our clients have when we do things like amendments and tax notices. And so again, the news there is very positive. We have -- I think it's close to 140,000 to 150,000 clients?

當然。謝謝。我對下一代薪資管理系統以及後台稅務系統感到非常興奮。但我認為，儘管工資系統在某種程度上屬於後台部門，但它在未來可能會對我們有所幫助，無論是在預訂方面，還是在效率和成本方面。我認為我們的下一代薪資平台目前大約有 30 到 40 個活躍客戶。因此，正如你所想，與 ADP 的規模相比，就收入留存率或任何其他實際指標而言，這都是一個相對較小的影響。但是，無論是在團隊層面還是其他層面，大家對我們在那裡所做的事情都充滿熱情。我認為團隊充滿熱情。我認為，就我們目前所看到的早期成果而言，組織中的其他成員也同樣充滿熱情，尤其是在我們可以快速做出改變的靈活性方面。而這其實只是與平臺本身的投資有關。所以我們已經進行了一些嘗試，我想我們過去可能也討論過這個問題，就像你所說的聯邦制，試圖讓其他人在這個平台上進行開發和構建。我們在 Lifion 上也做了同樣的事情。例如，我們現在在澳洲有一個團隊，他們已經建立了澳洲的工資系統，我們也有 1 到 2 個客戶使用該系統。因此，我們對目前所看到的景象感到無比滿意。我們很高興現在有了實際客戶。今年是我們第一次經歷年終結算，儘管客戶數有 30 到 40 個。所以，那些真正需要經歷年終並完成所有年終結算活動的人，可能都充滿熱情等等。所以現在還處於非常早期的階段，原因在於ADP的規模。但如果我們是一家新創公司，這簡直就是天大的好消息。例如，如果這是關於一家新創公司的討論，就像我們現在已經克服了很多技術風險，現在我們面臨的仍然是規模化和執行方面的風險，但這比我們兩三年前的處境要好得多。我認為這從長遠來看確實可以提高我們的競爭力，更不用說還能大幅降低後台營運成本。在稅務方面，這可能更側重於後台成本和效率，但這也會影響我們員工提供服務的能力，以及我們在處理修改和稅務通知等事宜時客戶所獲得的體驗。所以，那裡的消息再次非常積極。我們有－我想應該接近14萬到15萬客戶吧？

Yes, about 140,000 clients.

是的，大約有 14 萬客戶。

About 140,000 clients. Obviously, those are smaller downmarket clients in a limited number of jurisdictions. But I think we've -- now we're up to 20 -- more than 20 jurisdictions. Jurisdictions, by the way, refers the number of states, in addition to the federal places where we can actually do the taxes. And so I'd say that that's progressing also very, very well. Again, highly flexible platform that -- very optimistic in terms of what it can do to us down the road and seeing no scaling issues so far in either of those platforms.

約有14萬名客戶。顯然，這些是規模較小的低端市場客戶，且僅限於少數幾個司法管轄區。但我認為我們現在已經超過 20 個司法管轄區了。順便一提，管轄區指的是除了聯邦機構之外，我們可以實際進行稅務工作的州的數量。所以我覺得這方面進展也非常好。再次強調，這是一個高度靈活的平台——我們對它未來能為我們帶來什麼非常樂觀，而且到目前為止，這兩個平台都沒有出現任何擴展性問題。

And this concludes our question-and-answer portion for today. I am pleased to hand the program over to Carlos Rodríguez for any closing remarks.

今天的問答環節到此結束。我很高興將節目交給卡洛斯·羅德里格斯，請他作總結發言。

So as you can tell, we're pretty -- we're pleased with the progress we continue to make on both the financials, but also on our strategy. Obviously, as we keep saying over and over again, we're trying to build on our success in the past, but also transform for the future here, so we can continue to deliver sustainable growth for many years to come. I also want to mention that this time of the year, somebody mentioned about this being a busy time of the year for us from a sales standpoint. It's also a very busy time for our associates to deliver service and also our year-end commitments to our clients very long hours and very hard work, and I really appreciate the commitment of our associates. And again, it's one of the great differentiators we have in terms of being able to deliver that level of service, especially in a very busy time of the year like we are right now. Obviously, we wouldn't be able to be successful in the long run without strong products. And so when we have our Investor Day, we're going to hopefully lay out a plan for you about how the sustainability of the strength of ADP will be, I think, helped by the investments we've been making over the last 5 years in our next-generation products. So we look forward to spending time with you on February 10 to discuss all these innovations that we've been investing in, in addition to the next-gen platform and also discussing a little bit of our vision for the future about how we expect work to change and the HCM industry to change.

所以正如你所看到的，我們對在財務和策略方面取得的持續進展感到非常滿意。顯然，正如我們一再強調的那樣，我們正在努力鞏固過去的成功，同時也在為未來轉型，以便在未來多年繼續實現永續成長。我還想提一下，每年的這個時候，有人提到從銷售角度來看，這是我們一年中最忙碌的時候。對我們的員工來說，這也是一個服務非常繁忙的時期，他們要履行對客戶年終承諾，工作時間很長，非常辛苦，我非常感謝我們員工的付出。再次強調，這是我們在提供這種服務水準方面的一大優勢，尤其是在像現在這樣一年中最繁忙的時期。顯然，如果沒有強大的產品，我們就無法取得長期的成功。因此，在我們舉辦投資者日活動時，我們希望能夠向大家展示一個計劃，說明ADP實力的可持續性將如何得到保障，我認為，這得益於我們過去5年來對下一代產品的投資。因此，我們期待在 2 月 10 日與您共聚一堂，討論我們一直在投資的所有創新，以及下一代平台，並探討我們對未來的願景，即我們預期工作將如何變化以及 HCM 行業將如何變化。

And with that, I want to thank you once again for your interest in ADP and for joining us today. Thank you.

最後，我再次感謝各位對ADP的關注，也感謝各位今天蒞臨我們的節目。謝謝。

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program, and you may all disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.

女士們、先生們，感謝各位參加今天的會議。程式到此結束，各位可以斷開連接了。祝大家今天過得愉快。