羅賓遜全球物流 (CHRW) 2023 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the C.H. Robinson Second Quarter 2023 Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Wednesday, August 2, 2023. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chuck Ives, Director of Investor Relations.

下午好，女士們先生們，歡迎來到 C.H. Robinson 2023 年第二季度電話會議。 （操作員說明）謹此提醒，本次會議將於 2023 年 8 月 2 日星期三進行錄製。我現在將會議交給投資者關係總監 Chuck Ives。

Thank you, Donna, and good afternoon, everyone. On the call with me today is Dave Bozeman, our President and Chief Executive Officer; Mike Zechmeister, our Chief Financial Officer; and Arun Rajan, our Chief Operating Officer. Dave will provide some introductory comments. Mike will provide a summary of our 2023 second quarter results and our outlook for 2023. Arun will provide an update on our efforts to improve our customer and carrier experience and our operating leverage, and then we will open the call up for questions.

謝謝唐娜，大家下午好。今天與我通話的是我們的總裁兼首席執行官戴夫·博茲曼 (Dave Bozeman)； Mike Zechmeister，我們的首席財務官；以及我們的首席運營官 Arun Rajan。戴夫將提供一些介紹性評論。 Mike 將提供我們 2023 年第二季度業績的摘要以及 2023 年的展望。Arun 將提供有關我們為改善客戶和運營商體驗以及運營槓桿所做的努力的最新信息，然後我們將開始徵集問題。

Our earnings presentation slides are supplemental to our earnings release and can be found in the Investors section of our website at investor.chrobinson.com. Our prepared comments are not intended to follow the slides. If we do refer to specific information on the slides, we will let you know which slide we're referencing.

我們的收益演示幻燈片是對收益發布的補充，可以在我們網站 Investor.chrobinson.com 的投資者部分找到。我們準備好的評論並不是為了跟隨幻燈片。如果我們確實引用了幻燈片上的具體信息，我們將讓您知道我們引用的是哪張幻燈片。

I'd also like to remind you that our remarks today may contain forward-looking statements. Slide 2 in today's presentation list factors that could cause our actual results to differ from management's expectations.

我還想提醒您，我們今天的言論可能包含前瞻性陳述。今天演示文稿中的幻燈片 2 列出了可能導致我們的實際結果與管理層預期不同的因素。

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Dave.

然後，我會將電話轉給戴夫。

Thank you, Chuck. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Let me start by saying it is an absolute privilege to be leading C.H. Robinson, a market leader with enormous scale, a strong base of loyal customers and a resilient business model that generates profits and free cash flow through the entirety of the freight cycle.

謝謝你，查克。大家下午好，感謝您今天加入我們。首先我要說的是，能夠領導 C.H. 是我的榮幸。羅賓遜是一家市場領導者，擁有巨大的規模、強大的忠誠客戶群和富有彈性的商業模式，可在整個貨運週期中產生利潤和自由現金流。

I know from my time in the transportation market that other freight providers and new entrants look to Robinson as an example of a commercial engine with the breadth, scale, expertise and financial strength that they aspire to achieve. However, there's always room for improvement, and I recognize the tremendous opportunity in front of us to accelerate growth in a very fragmented market.

我從我在運輸市場的經歷中了解到，其他貨運提供商和新進入者都將羅賓遜視為具有他們渴望實現的廣度、規模、專業知識和財務實力的商業引擎的例子。然而，總是有改進的空間，我認識到我們面前有巨大的機會，可以在一個非常分散的市場中加速增長。

In my first month, I've been spending time meeting with and talking to customers, employees and shareholders as I analyze the business. A customer-centric focus is in my DNA, and I have successfully implemented customer-focused strategies over my 30-year career at leading brands such as Harley-Davidson, Caterpillar, Amazon and Ford Motor Company. I look forward to applying that experience towards our goal of providing such a compelling offering that customers feel like C.H. Robinson is essential to the success of their supply chain.

在我的第一個月裡，我在分析業務時花時間與客戶、員工和股東會面並交談。以客戶為中心是我的 DNA，在 30 年的職業生涯中，我在哈雷戴維森、卡特彼勒、亞馬遜和福特汽車公司等領先品牌成功實施了以客戶為中心的戰略。我期待著運用這些經驗來實現我們的目標，即提供如此引人注目的產品，讓客戶感覺像 C.H.羅賓遜對其供應鏈的成功至關重要。

As a Lean practitioner, I'm in a discovery and diagnosis phase, and I've been learning more and shaping my vision for the company each day. I'm digging in quickly with the leadership team. I'm looking at the portfolio of businesses with an open mind. And my intentions are to drive focus so that we position ourselves for growth in our core business.

作為一名精益實踐者，我正處於發現和診斷階段，每天我都在學習更多內容並塑造我對公司的願景。我正在迅速與領導團隊深入合作。我正在以開放的心態看待業務組合。我的目的是集中註意力，以便我們為核心業務的增長做好準備。

As I aim to reinvigorate the winning culture, my focus will be on people, products, processes, technology, collaboration and excellence. My style is to: one, be accountable for driving improvement and be passionate about making people better; two, look around corners and anticipate in order to minimize surprises. And three, wake up every day, like you're working for a startup by being gritty, scrappy, innovative and change-oriented with a focus on improving clock speed and acknowledging every day that you can be better.

當我的目標是重振獲勝文化時，我的重點將放在人員、產品、流程、技術、協作和卓越上。我的風格是：第一，負責推動改進並熱衷於讓人們變得更好；第二，環顧四周並進行預測，以盡量減少意外情況。第三，每天醒來，就像你在一家初創公司工作一樣，堅韌、鬥志、創新和以變革為導向，專注於提高時鐘速度，並承認每天你可以做得更好。

These practices have enabled success for the companies I've worked at and the people I've worked with. People are at the heart of Robinson, and I'm confident that together, we will win for our customers, carriers and shareholders.

這些實踐使我工作過的公司和共事過的人取得了成功。以人為本，是羅賓遜的核心，我相信，只要我們齊心協力，我們就能為客戶、運營商和股東贏得勝利。

I'm passionate about continuously improving how organizations operate. Lean principles work and are applicable at Robinson to further improve efficiency. Robinson is a strong company, but all companies have waste that can be removed to make a company quicker, more flexible and more agile in solving problems for their customers, improving workflows and providing better customer service and experiences.

我熱衷於不斷改進組織的運作方式。精益原則在羅賓遜發揮作用並適用於進一步提高效率。羅賓遜是一家實力雄厚的公司，但所有公司都有浪費，可以消除這些浪費，使公司更快、更靈活、更敏捷地為客戶解決問題、改進工作流程並提供更好的客戶服務和體驗。

I have helped build out and scale transportation businesses, most notably at Amazon, where technology is the starting point. I am certain, we can leverage technology as a force multiplier here at Robinson, and I've been discussing it with Arun and the team. As an example, when I look at C.H. Robinson, I'm excited about the potential benefits from Generative AI in conjunction with the machine learning and artificial intelligence that the company has already been utilizing.

我幫助建立和擴大了運輸業務，尤其是在亞馬遜，技術是起點。我確信，我們可以在羅賓遜利用技術作為力量倍增器，我一直在與阿倫和團隊討論這一點。舉個例子，當我看 C.H. Robinson，我對生成式人工智能與公司已經在使用的機器學習和人工智能相結合的潛在好處感到興奮。

With more data and history to leverage than any other 3PL, we have opportunities to harness the power that these advanced technologies now offer to further capitalize on our information advantage, and we'll continue to look for and pursue those opportunities.

與任何其他 3PL 相比，我們擁有更多的數據和歷史記錄，因此我們有機會利用這些先進技術現在提供的力量來進一步利用我們的信息優勢，並且我們將繼續尋找和追求這些機會。

Arun will touch more on this in his prepared comments. In summary, I look forward to leading this great company to new heights, and sharing our progress with all of you along our journey.

阿倫將在他準備好的評論中更多地談到這一點。總而言之，我期待帶領這家偉大的公司邁向新的高度，並與大家分享我們一路走來的進步。

With that, I'll turn it over to Mike for a review of our second quarter results.

這樣，我將把它交給邁克來審查我們第二季度的業績。

Thanks, Dave, and good afternoon, everyone. Global freight markets in Q2 continued to be impacted by weak demand, high inventories and excess capacity, which resulted in a more competitive marketplace with suppressed transportation rates.

謝謝戴夫，大家下午好。第二季度全球貨運市場繼續受到需求疲軟、庫存高企和運力過剩的影響，導致市場競爭更加激烈，運價受到抑制。

North American freight volumes and load-to-truck ratios remain near the low levels of 2019. In the freight forwarding market, ocean vessel and air freight capacity continues to exceed demand, which has kept ocean and air freight rates low during the period of significant declines that extends back to the second half of 2022.

北美貨運量和載車比仍接近2019年的低水平。在貨運代理市場，海船和空運運力持續超出需求，這使得海運和空運運價在大幅上漲期間保持在較低水平。下降趨勢可以追溯到2022 年下半年。

Despite the weak demand, new vessel deliveries are expected to continue to add capacity to the ocean market. This suggests that the influence of excess capacity may persist for several periods despite the steamship lines efforts to manage capacity through blank sailings, slow steaming and redeploying capacity to other lanes.

儘管需求疲軟，但新船交付預計將繼續增加海洋市場的運力。這表明，儘管輪船公司努力通過停航、慢航和將運力重新部署到其他航線來管理運力，但運力過剩的影響可能會持續幾個時期。

We are staying focused on what we can control, providing superior service to our customers and carriers and streamlining our processes by removing waste and manual touches. The result has been meaningful cost reduction and productivity gains across our business.

我們始終專注於我們可以控制的事情，為我們的客戶和承運商提供優質的服務，並通過消除浪費和手動操作來簡化我們的流程。結果是我們整個業務的成本顯著降低，生產力得到提高。

With our record quarterly financial results in Q2 of last year as a comparable, and the macro forces that I outlined as the backdrop, our second quarter total revenues of $4.4 billion declined 35% compared to Q2 last year. Our second quarter adjusted gross profit or AGP, was also down 35% year-over-year or [$366 million,] driven by a 45% decline in our Global Forwarding and a 36% decline in NAST.

以我們去年第二季度創紀錄的季度財務業績為可比，以及我概述的宏觀力量作為背景，我們第二季度的總收入為 44 億美元，比去年第二季度下降了 35%。我們第二季度的調整後毛利潤（AGP）也同比下降 35%（3.66 億美元），原因是我們的全球貨運業務下降 45%，NAST 業務下降 36%。

On a sequential basis, total company AGP was down 3%, driven by a 6% decline in NAST that was partially offset by a 1% increase in Global Forwarding and a 6% increase in the total of our other segments.

環比來看，公司總 AGP 下降了 3%，這是由 NAST 下降 6% 推動的，但全球貨運業務增長 1% 以及其他業務部門總體增長 6% 部分抵消了這一下降。

On a monthly basis compared to Q2 of last year, our total company AGP per business day was down 30% in April, down 39% in May and down 37% in June. In our NAST truckload business, our Q2 volume declined by approximately 6.5% on a year-over-year basis. Within Q2, average daily volume in April was stronger than March, but weakened in May and held in June, which resulted in a 0.5% sequential decline in Q2.

與去年第二季度相比，我們公司每個工作日的 AGP 總額在 4 月份下降了 30%，在 5 月份下降了 39%，在 6 月份下降了 37%。在我們的 NAST 整車業務中，我們第二季度的銷量同比下降了約 6.5%。第二季度內，4 月份日均交易量強於 3 月份，但 5 月份有所減弱，並在 6 月份保持不變，導致第二季度環比下降 0.5%。

During Q2, we had an approximate mix of 70% contractual volume and 30% transactional volume in our truckload business. Routing guide depth of tender in our managed services business, which is a proxy for the overall market, declined from 1.4 in Q2 of last year to 1.1 in the second quarter of this year, which is the lowest level we've seen for a full quarter since the recession of 2009.

在第二季度，我們的整車業務大約佔合同量的 70% 和交易量的 30%。我們的託管服務業務的路由指南招標深度（代表整個市場）從去年第二季度的 1.4 下降到今年第二季度的 1.1，這是我們在整個市場中看到的最低水平。自2009 年經濟衰退以來的一個季度。

The sequential declines in our truckload linehaul cost per mile since Q2 of last year began to level off and increased sequentially in May and June, causing the June cost per mile to be only $0.02 below the March cost per mile. On a year-over-year basis, we saw a decline of approximately 19% in our average truckload linehaul cost per mile to carriers, excluding fuel surcharges.

自去年第二季度以來，我們每英里卡車運輸成本的連續下降開始趨於平穩，並在 5 月和 6 月連續上升，導致 6 月每英里成本僅比 3 月每英里成本低 0.02 美元。與去年同期相比，我們發現承運商每英里的平均卡車裝載線路運輸成本下降了約 19%（不包括燃油附加費）。

Due to the time lag for contract pricing to follow spot market costs, Q2 truckload linehaul pricing continued to decline on a sequential basis resulting in a 23% year-over-year decline in our average linehaul rate or price billed to our customers, excluding fuel surcharges. These changes resulted in a 41.5% year-over-year decrease in our Truckload AGP per mile and AGP per shipment with declines in both contractual and transactional AGP per shipment. This is the largest year-over-year decline in AGP per mile that we've experienced in the last 10 years and is in contrast to the 46.5% increase in Q2 last year.

由於合同定價與現貨市場成本存在時間滯後，第二季度整車長途運輸定價繼續環比下降，導致我們的平均長途運輸費率或向客戶收取的價格（不包括燃油）同比下降 23%附加費。這些變化導致我們的卡車每英里 AGP 和每批貨物的 AGP 同比下降 41.5%，每批貨物的合同和交易 AGP 均下降。這是過去 10 年來每英里 AGP 的最大同比下降，與去年第二季度 46.5% 的增長形成鮮明對比。

In our LTL business, shipments were flat on a year-over-year basis and up 5% sequentially. By leveraging our broad access to capacity in all modes of LTL and our high level of service, our LTL team continues to onboard a pipeline of new business that is offsetting the softness in the LTL market.

在我們的零擔業務中，發貨量同比持平，環比增長 5%。通過利用我們在所有零擔模式中廣泛的產能和高水平的服務，我們的零擔團隊繼續開展一系列新業務，以抵消零擔市場的疲軟。

AGP per order, however, declined 19% compared to Q2 last year, driven primarily by the market conditions and lower fuel prices. As I mentioned, market conditions in our Global Forwarding business were also soft behind weak demand and plenty of capacity.

然而，與去年第二季度相比，每份訂單的平均平均利潤下降了 19%，這主要是受到市場狀況和燃油價格下降的推動。正如我所提到的，在需求疲軟和運力充足的情況下，我們的全球貨運業務的市場狀況也疲軟。

Despite that, our ocean and air volume each grew sequentially, exhibiting the progress our Global Forwarding team has made through adding new customers, diversifying trade lanes and verticals and leveraging investments in technology and talent over the past several years. In Q2, Global Forwarding generated revenue of $780 million and AGP of approximately $179 million, which declined 45% year-over-year compared to the record high from Q2 last year.

儘管如此，我們的海運量和空運量均連續增長，展示了我們的全球貨運團隊在過去幾年中通過增加新客戶、實現貿易航線和垂直行業多樣化以及利用技術和人才投資所取得的進步。第二季度，環球貨運實現收入 7.8 億美元，AGP 約為 1.79 億美元，與去年第二季度的歷史新高相比，同比下降 45%。

Within these results, our ocean forwarding AGP declined by 53% year-over-year compared to 51% growth in Q2 of 2022. The Q2 results were driven by a 49.5% decrease in AGP per shipment and a 7% decrease in shipments.

在這些結果中，與2022 年第二季度51% 的增長相比，我們的海運AGP 同比下降了53%。第二季度的結果是由每批貨物的AGP 下降49.5% 和出貨量下降7%推動的。

Turning to expenses. We delivered on our expense reduction and productivity expectations for the quarter. Q2 personnel expenses were $377.3 million, including $13.1 million of restructuring charges, down 15.2% compared to Q2 of last year. Excluding the restructuring charges, our Q2 personnel expenses were down 18.1% year-over-year primarily due to the cost optimization efforts and lower variable compensation.

轉向開支。我們實現了本季度的費用削減和生產力預期。第二季度人員費用為 3.773 億美元，其中包括 1,310 萬美元的重組費用，比去年第二季度下降 15.2%。不包括重組費用，我們第二季度的人員費用同比下降 18.1%，這主要是由於成本優化工作和可變薪酬的降低。

Our headcount was also down significantly in Q2 with ending headcount at 15,763, down 13.1% year-over-year. In Q2, we elevated our cost optimization efforts, which began in Q4 of last year as we streamlined our workflows and removed waste to help ensure a more competitive and sustainable long-term cost structure. As a result, our shipments per person per day in NAST has increased by 12% year-to-date through Q2, and we remain on track to deliver on our target of 15% year-over-year improvement by Q4 of this year.

第二季度我們的員工人數也大幅下降，最終員工人數為 15,763 人，同比下降 13.1%。在第二季度，我們加強了從去年第四季度開始的成本優化工作，簡化了工作流程並消除了浪費，以幫助確保更具競爭力和可持續的長期成本結構。因此，今年第二季度以來，我們 NAST 的每人每天發貨量增加了 12%，並且我們仍有望在今年第四季度實現同比增長 15% 的目標。

I'd also note that we were able to achieve the productivity gains in a soft volume market, which sets us up well for when the market demand returns. Going forward, we expect continued improvements in shipments per person per day and the associated cost benefits through the remainder of 2023 as we streamline processes and improve customer outcomes with technology that supports our people and processes.

我還要指出的是，我們能夠在銷量疲軟的市場中實現生產率的提高，這為我們在市場需求恢復時做好了準備。展望未來，我們預計在 2023 年剩餘時間內，隨著我們通過支持我們的人員和流程的技術簡化流程並改善客戶成果，每人每天的發貨量以及相關的成本效益將持續改善。

As a result of the progress on our cost optimization efforts, we now expect 2023 personnel expenses to be toward the lower end of the $1.45 billion to $1.55 billion range that we previously provided. As a reminder, our expense guidance excludes restructuring expenses.

由於我們在成本優化方面取得的進展，我們現在預計 2023 年的人員費用將接近我們之前提供的 14.5 億美元至 15.5 億美元範圍的下限。提醒一下，我們的費用指導不包括重組費用。

Moving to SG&A. Q2 expenses were $155.6 million and included $1 million of restructuring charges. Excluding the Q2 restructuring charges and last year's $25.3 million gain on the sale leaseback of our Kansas City Regional Center in Q2, SG&A expenses were up approximately 8.5% compared to Q2 of last year, primarily due to increases in claims and warehouse expenses.

轉向 SG&A。第二季度支出為 1.556 億美元，其中包括 100 萬美元的重組費用。不包括第二季度的重組費用和去年第二季度堪薩斯城區域中心售後回租帶來的 2530 萬美元收益，SG&A 費用比去年第二季度增長約 8.5%，主要是由於索賠和倉儲費用的增加。

We continue to expect our 2023 SG&A expenses to be $575 million to $625 million, including $90 million to $100 million of depreciation and amortization expense. As you may recall from our Q1 earnings call, we raised our cost savings commitment to $300 million of net annualized cost savings by Q4 of this year compared to the annualized run rate of the Q3 expenses from last year. We continue to be on track to deliver those expense reductions and the majority are expected to be longer-term structural changes to our cost base that will help us improve operating margins once demand returns.

我們仍然預計 2023 年 SG&A 費用為 5.75 億至 6.25 億美元，其中包括 9000 萬至 1 億美元的折舊和攤銷費用。您可能還記得，在我們第一季度的財報電話會議上，與去年第三季度費用的年化運行率相比，我們將成本節約承諾提高到今年第四季度的年度淨成本節約 3 億美元。我們將繼續致力於實現這些費用削減，其中大部分預計將是對我們成本基礎的長期結構性變化，這將有助於我們在需求恢復後提高營業利潤率。

Q2 interest and other expense totaled $18.3 million, down $9.1 million versus Q2 last year. Q2 included $23.2 million of interest expense, up $6.3 million versus Q2 of last year due to higher variable interest rates against a reduced debt load. Q2 also included a $3.5 million gain on foreign currency revaluation and realized foreign currency gains and losses compared to a $10.3 million loss in Q2 last year, with both driven by various foreign currency impacts on intercompany assets and liabilities. As a reminder, our FX impacts are predominantly noncash gains and losses.

第二季度利息和其他費用總計 1,830 萬美元，比去年第二季度減少 910 萬美元。第二季度包括 2320 萬美元的利息支出，比去年第二季度增加 630 萬美元，原因是可變利率上升而債務負擔減少。第二季度還包括350 萬美元的外幣重估收益和已實現的外幣損益，而去年第二季度的虧損為1,030 萬美元，兩者都是由各種外幣對公司間資產和負債的影響造成的。提醒一下，我們的外匯影響主要是非現金損益。

Our Q2 tax rate came in at 14.9% compared to 21.3% in Q2 of '22. The lower tax rate was driven by lower pretax income and incremental benefits from tax credits and incentives. We now expect our 2023 full year effective tax rate to be in the range of 16% to 18%, assuming no meaningful changes to federal, state or international tax policy.

我們第二季度的稅率為 14.9%，而 2020 年第二季度的稅率為 21.3%。較低的稅率是由稅前收入較低以及稅收抵免和激勵措施帶來的增量收益推動的。現在，假設聯邦、州或國際稅收政策沒有發生重大變化，我們預計 2023 年全年有效稅率將在 16% 至 18% 之間。

Adjusted or non-GAAP earnings per share, excluding the $14.1 million of restructuring charges, was $0.90. Excluding the $25.3 million gain from Q2 last year, non-GAAP earnings per share was down 64% compared to the 75% increase in Q2 last year.

調整後或非公認會計準則每股收益（不包括 1,410 萬美元的重組費用）為 0.90 美元。排除去年第二季度 2530 萬美元的收益，非 GAAP 每股收益比去年第二季度增長 75% 下降了 64%。

Turning to cash flow. Q2 cash flow generated by operations was approximately $225 million compared to the $265 million in Q2 of 2022 demonstrating our ability to generate cash and make investments in the business through the freight cycle. The year-over-year decline in our cash flow was driven by a $251 million decrease in net income partially offset by $144 million sequential decrease in net operating working capital in Q2, resulting from the declining cost and price of ocean and truckload transportation.

轉向現金流。第二季度運營產生的現金流約為 2.25 億美元，而 2022 年第二季度為 2.65 億美元，這表明我們有能力在整個貨運週期內產生現金和對業務進行投資。我們的現金流量同比下降是由於淨利潤減少 2.51 億美元，部分被第二季度淨運營營運資本環比減少 1.44 億美元所抵消，這是由於海運和卡車運輸成本和價格下降造成的。

Over the last 4 quarters, as the cost and price of purchased transportation have come down, we have realized a benefit to working capital and operating cash flow of more than $1.4 billion. In Q2, our capital expenditures were $24.4 million compared to $43.2 million in Q2 of last year, and we continue to expect our 2023 capital expenditures to be in the range of $90 million to $100 million.

在過去 4 個季度中，隨著購買運輸的成本和價格下降，我們實現了超過 14 億美元的營運資金和運營現金流效益。第二季度的資本支出為 2440 萬美元，而去年第二季度的資本支出為 4320 萬美元，我們仍然預計 2023 年的資本支出將在 9000 萬美元至 1 億美元之間。

We returned $106 million of cash to shareholders in Q2 through $73 million of cash dividends and $33 million of share repurchases. The cash returned to shareholders exceeded net income but was down 74% versus Q2 last year, driven by the $137 million of cash used to reduce debt.

第二季度，我們通過 7300 萬美元的現金股息和 3300 萬美元的股票回購向股東返還了 1.06 億美元的現金。返還給股東的現金超過了淨利潤，但由於用於減少債務的 1.37 億美元現金，較去年第二季度下降了 74%。

Now on to the balance sheet highlights. We ended Q2 with approximately $1.1 billion of liquidity comprised of $859 million of committed funding under our credit facilities and a cash balance of $210 million. Our debt balance at the end of Q2 was $1.74 billion, which includes debt paydown of $532 million versus Q2 last year.

現在來看看資產負債表的亮點。第二季度結束時，我們的流動資金約為 11 億美元，其中包括我們信貸安排下的 8.59 億美元承諾資金和 2.1 億美元的現金餘額。第二季度末我們的債務餘額為 17.4 億美元，其中包括與去年第二季度相比償還的債務 5.32 億美元。

Our net debt-to-EBITDA leverage at the end of Q2 was 1.81x, up from 1.39x at the end of Q1. Our capital allocation strategy is grounded in maintaining an investment-grade credit rating, which allows us to optimize our weighted average cost of capital. With the year-over-year earnings reduction and the $0.5 billion of debt pay down, we'll continue to manage our capital structure to maintain our investment-grade credit rating. As you would expect, the cash that we used to reduce debt generally reduces the amount of cash available for share repurchases.

第二季度末我們的淨債務與 EBITDA 槓桿率為 1.81 倍，高於第一季度末的 1.39 倍。我們的資本配置策略以維持投資級信用評級為基礎，這使我們能夠優化加權平均資本成本。隨著盈利同比下降和 5 億美元債務償還減少，我們將繼續管理我們的資本結構，以維持我們的投資級信用評級。正如您所料，我們用於減少債務的現金通常會減少可用於股票回購的現金數額。

Over the long term, we remain committed to growing our quarterly cash dividend in alignment with long-term EBITDA growth. Our dividends and share repurchase program are important levers to enhance shareholder value as we are delivering quality, customer service more efficiently than anyone in the marketplace.

從長遠來看，我們仍然致力於增加季度現金股息，以與長期 EBITDA 增長保持一致。我們的股息和股票回購計劃是提高股東價值的重要槓桿，因為我們比市場上任何人都更有效地提供優質的客戶服務。

As we have demonstrated through the ups and downs of our highly cyclical freight market, the strength of our business model makes us a reliable partner for our customers and allows us to invest through the cycle. Our customers value the stability and reliability that we provide as we work to optimize their transportation needs.

正如我們通過高度週期性貨運市場的起伏所證明的那樣，我們業務模式的優勢使我們成為客戶可靠的合作夥伴，並使我們能夠在整個週期內進行投資。我們的客戶重視我們在努力優化他們的運輸需求時所提供的穩定性和可靠性。

I'd like to close by adding that I am incredibly excited about the direction we are headed and our ability to build on the productivity and cost control progress that we've made. By leveraging Lean principles to reduce waste and the emerging benefits of our combination of machine learning and Generative AI across our scaled model, we are positioned well to deliver greater efficiency and improved competitiveness in the marketplace to generate greater value for Robinson shareholders.

最後我想補充一點，我對我們的發展方向以及我們在生產力和成本控制方面取得的進展的能力感到非常興奮。通過利用精益原則來減少浪費，以及我們在規模化模型中將機器學習和生成式人工智能相結合所帶來的新優勢，我們處於有利位置，能夠提高效率並提高市場競爭力，為羅賓遜股東創造更大價值。

With that, I'll turn the call over to Arun to provide more details on our efforts to strengthen our customer and carrier experience and improve our efficiency and operating leverage.

接下來，我將把電話轉給 Arun，提供更多有關我們為增強客戶和運營商體驗以及提高效率和運營槓桿所做的努力的詳細信息。

Thanks, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. In the second quarter, our single threaded cross-functional teams made great progress on improving customer outcomes with technology that supports our people and processes. Our enhanced carrier advantage program has significantly improved our automated tracking and advanced visibility capabilities and those efforts are being recognized by our customers and multiple third parties.

謝謝邁克，大家下午好。在第二季度，我們的單線程跨職能團隊通過支持我們的人員和流程的技術在改善客戶成果方面取得了巨大進展。我們增強的運營商優勢計劃顯著提高了我們的自動跟踪和先進的可見性能力，這些努力得到了我們的客戶和多個第三方的認可。

In our LTL business, our team is leading the way as an early adopter of electronic builder rating, which has enhanced our digital connectivity with our LTL carriers and enabled us to eliminate unnecessary work and achieve gains in efficiency and accuracy.

在我們的零擔業務中，我們的團隊作為電子建築商評級的早期採用者處於領先地位，這增強了我們與零擔承運商的數字連接，使我們能夠消除不必要的工作並實現效率和準確性的提高。

All the initiatives and work streams of our teams are targeted at improving productivity and accelerating growth with disciplined product and change management. Over the last 6 months, we've increased our focus on opportunities to streamline processes that are core to improving the customer and carrier experience and enabling us to decouple volume and headcount growth and drive increased productivity. Shipments per person per day is a key metric that we use to measure our productivity improvements and as Mike mentioned earlier, we've achieved a 12% year-to-date improvement through Q2 as we progress towards our goal of 15% year-over-year improvement by Q4 of this year.

我們團隊的所有舉措和工作流程都旨在通過嚴格的產品和變革管理來提高生產力並加速增長。在過去的 6 個月裡，我們更加關注簡化流程的機會，這些流程是改善客戶和運營商體驗的核心，使我們能夠將數量和員工數量增長脫鉤並提高生產力。每人每天的發貨量是我們用來衡量生產力改進的一個關鍵指標，正如邁克之前提到的，我們在第二季度實現了12% 的年初至今的改進，同時我們正在朝著同比15% 的目標邁進截至今年第四季度，同比有所改善。

In order to reach our 2023 goal, we have accelerated the digital execution of critical touch points in the life cycle of a load, thereby reducing the number of manual tasks per shipment and the time per task. A few areas where we have seen this progress include increasing the automation of in-transit tracking, case management tasks and appointment-related tasks. As Dave mentioned earlier, we've also been using machine learning, artificial intelligence and our large data estate to improve outcomes for our customers and carriers.

為了實現 2023 年的目標，我們加快了負載生命週期中關鍵接觸點的數字化執行，從而減少了每次發貨的手動任務數量和每個任務的時間。我們看到這一進展的一些領域包括提高在途跟踪、案件管理任務和預約相關任務的自動化程度。正如戴夫之前提到的，我們還一直在使用機器學習、人工智能和我們的大數據資產來改善我們的客戶和運營商的成果。

But machine learning alone has limitations due to a need for standardization. Generative AI and large language models have the ability to work with unstructured and incomplete data and unstructured task flows to create an automation unlock. One example of where this can be used is in order management. Over the years, manual processes or workarounds have been put in place to serve our customers and carriers in customized and therefore, unstructured ways such as receiving orders and providing quotes through e-mail.

但由於標準化的需要，機器學習本身也有局限性。生成式人工智能和大型語言模型能夠處理非結構化和不完整的數據以及非結構化任務流，以創建自動化解鎖。可以使用這一點的一個例子是訂單管理。多年來，我們已經採用了手動流程或解決方法，以定制的非結構化方式為我們的客戶和運營商提供服務，例如通過電子郵件接收訂單和提供報價。

As you can imagine, these have highly variable levels of information completeness and a fragmented mix of formats. Generative AI can be used to fill in the blanks, whether it's incomplete and unstructured information in a highly automated and efficient process. Our early testing and results from Generative AI are promising, and we're excited about the potential for this technology to be an accelerant to automation and productivity improvements and to magnify our information advantage.

正如您可以想像的那樣，它們的信息完整性水平差異很大，而且格式也分散。生成式人工智能可以用來填補空白，無論是高度自動化和高效的流程中的不完整和非結構化信息。我們的生成式人工智能的早期測試和結果很有希望，我們對這項技術加速自動化和生產力提高以及放大我們的信息優勢的潛力感到興奮。

With that, I'll turn the call back over to Dave for his final comments.

這樣，我會將電話轉回戴夫以徵求他的最終意見。

Thanks, Arun. C.H. Robinson is a great company with the largest market share, the most developed freight brokers network, long-standing relationships with global blue-chip customers, deep carrier relations, strong technology and a larger data set than any other market participant. While the near-term freight environment presents some challenges, the strength of our people, scale network, financial model and investments in improving efficiency position us well for the eventual rebound.

謝謝，阿倫。 C.H.羅賓遜是一家偉大的公司，擁有最大的市場份額、最發達的貨運經紀網絡、與全球藍籌客戶的長期關係、深厚的承運商關係、強大的技術和比任何其他市場參與者更大的數據集。雖然近期的貨運環境帶來了一些挑戰，但我們的人員實力、規模網絡、財務模式以及在提高效率方面的投資使我們能夠為最終的反彈做好準備。

I see an opportunity for the company to reach its full potential and create more shareholder value by improving our value proposition, increasing our market share, accelerating growth, improving our efficiency and operating margins and increasing overall profitability. Robinson has great people with a passion for winning and the grit, grind and hustle needed to innovate and solve challenges for our customers and carriers.

我認為公司有機會通過改善我們的價值主張、增加市場份額、加速增長、提高效率和營業利潤率以及提高整體盈利能力來充分發揮潛力並創造更多股東價值。羅賓遜擁有優秀的員工，他們對勝利充滿熱情，並具有創新和解決客戶和運營商挑戰所需的勇氣、磨礪和努力。

To enable greater agility and flexibility and to accelerate our clock speed, I'm empowering our people to uncover new ways to challenge the status quo, move faster and act boldly to better anticipate our customers' needs, exceed their expectations and make us indispensable. Shippers are looking for stable and innovative logistics partners. Robinson has shown the strength of its model through cycles. Our balance sheet continues to be strong, and we plan to invest in initiatives that we expect to amplify the expertise of our people and generate high returns on investment. I'm excited about our opportunities and our future. This concludes our prepared remarks.

為了實現更大的敏捷性和靈活性並加快我們的時鐘速度，我授權我們的員工發現挑戰現狀的新方法，更快地採取行動，大膽行動，以更好地預測客戶的需求，超越他們的期望，使我們變得不可或缺。托運人正在尋找穩定且創新的物流合作夥伴。羅賓遜通過週期展示了其模型的優勢。我們的資產負債表繼續保持強勁，我們計劃投資於旨在增強員工專業知識並產生高投資回報的舉措。我對我們的機會和未來感到興奮。我們準備好的發言到此結束。

I'll turn it back to Donna now for the Q&A portion of the call.

我現在將其轉回給唐娜，以進行電話問答部分。

(Operator Instructions) Today's first question is coming from Jack Atkins of Stephens.

（操作員說明）今天的第一個問題來自Stephens 的Jack Atkins。

Dave, congratulations on your new role at C.H. Robinson. So I guess I'd love to start going back to something that you mentioned in both your prepared remarks and also in the press release, it's making C.H. Robinson essential. I guess my first question is just broadly like what is -- what about C.H. Robinson right now isn't essential? Because I look at a company with unparalleled scale in the marketplace, a leading technology platform. What do you think you need to do differently as a company to really make yourself essential in what is ultimately a highly commoditized part of the transportation supply chain, which is brokerage.

Dave，祝賀您在 C.H. 擔任新職務羅賓遜。所以我想我很想開始回到您在準備好的講話和新聞稿中提到的一些事情，這使得 C.H.羅賓遜必不可少。我想我的第一個問題大致就是——C.H. 怎麼樣？羅賓遜現在不是必需品嗎？因為我關注的是一家在市場上擁有無與倫比的規模、領先的技術平台的公司。作為一家公司，您認為您需要採取哪些不同的做法，才能真正使自己在運輸供應鏈的最終高度商品化的部分（即經紀業務）中發揮重要作用。

Yes. Thanks, Jack, and pleasure to virtually meet you. I look forward to meeting you in person here over the coming weeks. When I think about that question, Jack, it's a couple of things. You're right, and I agree with you. C.H. Robinson is essential, and it's going to continue. As I look at it's going to continue to have a situation where we can pick up customers organically. So everyone sees the value and the advantage of doing business with Robinson. And some of the ways of doing that is, I consider myself a lean practitioner, as I said in my comments, driving the company to think faster, act faster, reduce waste, these are things that are going to take a strong company and make it stronger, right? And we're going to be laser-focused on that.

是的。謝謝，傑克，很高興能在網上見到你。我期待著在未來幾週內與您見面。傑克，當我思考這個問題時，有兩件事。你是對的，我同意你的觀點。 C.H.羅賓遜至關重要，而且這種情況將會持續下去。據我觀察，我們將繼續有機會有機地吸引客戶。因此，每個人都看到了與羅賓遜開展業務的價值和優勢。做到這一點的一些方法是，我認為自己是一個精益實踐者，正如我在評論中所說，推動公司更快地思考、更快地行動、減少浪費，這些都是需要一家強大的公司才能做出的事情。它更強吧？我們將全神貫注於此。

Speed is imperative, but speed is powerful, Jack, as you know. And in this market with this scale, as this company continues to increase its clock speed as it continues to use technology as an enabler with its people. I think that is going to just enhance us to allow us to drive profitable growth and continue to, along with our strong balance sheet, it just makes me excited and validates why I chose to come here. So that's what I'd say to that.

速度是必要的，但速度是強大的，傑克，正如你所知。在這個規模如此之大的市場中，該公司不斷提高其時鐘速度，並繼續使用技術作為其員工的推動者。我認為這只會增強我們的實力，讓我們能夠推動盈利增長，並繼續保持強勁的資產負債表，這讓我感到興奮，並驗證了我選擇來這裡的原因。這就是我要說的。

The next question is coming from Scott Group of Wolfe Research.

下一個問題來自沃爾夫研究的斯科特小組。

Congrats, Dave. Look forward to meeting you next week. I guess the near-term question and a longer-term question. Just help us think about the puts and takes on net revenue -- sequential net revenue and earnings trends from second quarter to third quarter, do you think we should be higher or lower? And then just, Dave, maybe too early to ask, but just as I think about the margin opportunity longer term that you talked about, this used to be a 40% net operating margin business this year, probably closer to 20%. What do you think is the right margin range to think about for C.H. over time? Can we get back to where we were?

恭喜，戴夫。期待下週與您見面。我想是近期問題和長期問題。請幫助我們思考一下淨收入的看跌期權和承擔額——從第二季度到第三季度的連續淨收入和盈利趨勢，您認為我們應該更高還是更低？然後，戴夫，也許現在問還為時過早，但正如我思考你談到的長期利潤機會一樣，今年的淨營業利潤率曾經是 40%，可能接近 20%。您認為 C.H. 需要考慮的正確利潤範圍是多少？隨著時間的推移？我們能回到原來的地方嗎？

Yes. Thanks. I look forward to meeting you as well. Mike, why don't you jump in? It's a good question, and I'll let you jump in on that.

是的。謝謝。我也期待與您見面。邁克，你為什麼不跳進去呢？這是一個很好的問題，我會讓你參與進來。

Yes, Scott. First of all, on the first part of your question, just thinking about the outlook on, as you said, net revenue margin or AGP, Q2 to Q3, I'd point to a few things. So first of all, obviously, we're in a market that has been weak. And no matter how you look at it, we've come a long way since Q2 of last year when we were sitting on record highs across the board and particularly in our biggest service lines truckload and ocean.

是的，斯科特。首先，關於您問題的第一部分，正如您所說，僅考慮第二季度至第三季度淨收入利潤率或 AGP 的前景，我會指出一些事情。首先，顯然我們所處的市場一直疲軟。不管你怎麼看，自去年第二季度以來，我們已經取得了長足的進步，當時我們的整體業務都創下了歷史新高，特別是在我們最大的卡車和海運服務線路上。

And so as we sit here today, you've got the demand factor and you got the capacity factor. And on the demand side, that's a macroeconomic trend thing. As we look at our shippers and what the way they've been seeing the market and acting. They've been working on inventories here for, geez, it seems like almost a year now. They've been trying to work them down and optimize them. And so have they got there? Are they there yet? Can we expect demand to come back there? We'll see where that heads.

因此，當我們今天坐在這裡時，您已經了解了需求因素和產能因素。在需求方面，這是宏觀經濟趨勢。當我們觀察我們的托運人以及他們看待市場和採取行動的方式時。他們已經在這里處理庫存了，天啊，看起來已經快一年了。他們一直在努力降低並優化它們。那麼他們已經到達那裡了嗎？他們還在嗎？我們可以預期需求會回到那裡嗎？我們將看看事態的發展。

On the capacity side, we've been bouncing on the bottom in terms of the cost per mile for carriers in terms of where their breakeven is at. And so qualitatively, I think capacity is probably coming out of the market. I think it's tough for some of the carriers. They're probably more likely now to be parking to truck and finding employment elsewhere given the good economy. And so I think on the capacity side, we probably are close to the bottom. And so as you go forward, one of the things that we provide for you in terms of forecasting is on our website, chrobinson.com, under resources, we've got a section called North American Freight Market Insights, and we provide a forecast of DAT linehaul cost per mile for Van for not only the remainder of 2023, but also we've added another year to it now and we're giving you in 2024.

在運力方面，就承運商的盈虧平衡點而言，我們的每英里成本一直在底部反彈。因此，從質量上來說，我認為產能可能正在從市場中消失。我認為對於一些運營商來說這很困難。鑑於經濟良好，他們現在可能更有可能把車停在卡車上並在其他地方找到工作。因此，我認為在產能方面，我們可能已接近底部。因此，當您繼續前進時，我們在預測方面為您提供的內容之一是在我們的網站 chrobinson.com 上的資源下，我們有一個名為“北美貨運市場洞察”的部分，我們提供預測貨車每英里DAT 長途運輸成本不僅在2023 年剩餘時間內，而且我們現在又增加了一年，我們將在2024 年為您提供。

And if you look at that, I think it's really important. And the reason we give you cost is because, as you know, in this market in truckload, price follows cost, and that gets right to the root of the issue for us here in Q2 and probably in Q3, which is because we have a significant portion of our business that is contract where the prices are established and set for most frequently one year, when the cost side of the equation has been coming down like it has and it takes a while, there's a lag there between when we're renegotiating those contracts with shippers. And so there's a lag on pricing, and that's been coming down.

如果你看看這一點，我認為這非常重要。我們給你成本的原因是，如你所知，在這個卡車裝載市場中，價格跟隨成本，這正是我們在第二季度甚至第三季度問題的根源，這是因為我們有一個我們業務的很大一部分是合同，其中價格最常確定並設定為一年，當等式的成本方面像以前一樣下降並且需要一段時間時，我們之間存在一個滯後與托運人重新談判這些合同。因此，定價存在滯後性，而且這一滯後性正在下降。

And so one of the key things from a margin standpoint for us in the quarter was the fact that price came down 23% but costs came down 19%, and that's that price catching up with cost. That's margin compression for us. So it's not what we would expect going forward. It's -- you see that through the cycle. That's the point in the cycle that we're at right now. And so there's a little bit of extra margin compression there that will work itself out over time as cost leads price.

因此，從本季度利潤率的角度來看，關鍵的事情之一是價格下降了 23%，但成本下降了 19%，這就是價格趕上了成本。這對我們來說是利潤壓縮。所以這不是我們所期望的未來。你可以通過整個週期看到這一點。這就是我們現在所處的周期的關鍵點。因此，隨著時間的推移，隨著成本領先於價格，利潤會受到一些額外的壓縮。

And so when you're back on that website looking at our forecast, you'll see that we've got costs going up for the remainder of this year. We're kind of at the bottom in terms of our forecast now. And then as you get to the holidays, you see a little spike up and then it comes down a little bit and then we see it really getting back to normal as you get through 2024. And so a pretty dramatic increase in cost there. And of course, price will follow as we get into new contracts with our shippers.

因此，當您返回該網站查看我們的預測時，您會發現今年剩餘時間的成本將會上漲。就我們的預測而言，我們現在處於底部。然後當你到了假期時，你會看到一點點上升，然後又一點點下降，然後我們看到到 2024 年它真的恢復正常了。所以那裡的成本急劇增加。當然，當我們與托運人簽訂新合同時，價格也會隨之變化。

40% operating margin?

營業利潤率40%？

Yes. So on the 40% operating margin, that's the target that we've got out there for NAST. That's been out there for quite a while. There are different dynamics going on there that impact that. But I'll tell you what. We feel really good about the progress that we've made on productivity. We reported the shipments per person per day on NAST. We put a target out there to improve that by 15% on the year. We're 6 months into the year, and we're at 12% already.

是的。因此，40% 的營業利潤率是我們為 NAST 設定的目標。這已經存在很長一段時間了。那裡發生的不同動態會影響這一點。但我會告訴你什麼。我們對生產力方面取得的進步感到非常滿意。我們在 NAST 上報告了每人每天的發貨量。我們設定的目標是在今年提高 15%。今年已經過去 6 個月了，我們的增長率已經達到 12%。

And that's on the back of some really quality work from the teams looking at where we're spending our dollars, where we're spending our time and taking that waste out of our system and translating that into productivity. So you saw that on those numbers. Those efforts will continue. We're -- we've got plenty to do there on that front. We're really excited about Dave's leadership as a lean practitioner. I believe in those principles and have worked in that environment in the past. It's a really methodical way to find waste and eliminate waste in analytical, data-driven kind of way. And so we'll continue to be able to take costs out there. We talked about machine learning and Generative AI. And I really believe that Robinson is in a unique position in that regard and unique because we have a scaled business with an enormous amount of data. And because of our history, it's, to some extent, unstructured. And so from a machine learning standpoint, the key for us has been to standardize and automate, but one of the great complements from Generative AI is the ability to go in and find inconsistencies, missing data and actually take it through to getting that data and reinserting it and plugging it back into our machine learning. And so there's really some great complementary things there that can help us with our productivity and allow our folks really to focus on quality and more strategic work with our customers. So I think that inside of that, you get growth inside of that, you get efficiency and the growth and efficiency continue to keep us on our 40% operating income margin for NAST. I don't know if Arun, if you've -- covered it, yes.

這是基於團隊的一些真正高質量的工作，我們關注我們把錢花在哪裡，我們把時間花在哪裡，並將這些浪費從我們的系統中消除出來，並將其轉化為生產力。所以你在這些數字上看到了這一點。這些努力將繼續下去。我們在這方面還有很多工作要做。我們對戴夫作為精益實踐者的領導能力感到非常興奮。我相信這些原則，並且過去曾在這種環境中工作過。這是一種以分析、數據驅動的方式發現浪費和消除浪費的真正有條理的方法。因此，我們將繼續能夠降低成本。我們討論了機器學習和生成人工智能。我真的相信羅賓遜在這方面處於獨特的地位，並且獨一無二，因為我們擁有規模龐大的業務和大量數據。由於我們的歷史，它在某種程度上是非結構化的。因此，從機器學習的角度來看，我們的關鍵是標準化和自動化，但生成式人工智能的一大補充是能夠深入查找不一致、丟失的數據，並實際獲取數據和重新插入它並將其重新插入我們的機器學習中。因此，確實有一些很好的互補性的東西可以幫助我們提高生產力，讓我們的員工真正專注於質量和與客戶一起進行更具戰略性的工作。所以我認為，在這之中，你會得到增長，你會得到效率，而增長和效率繼續讓我們的 NAST 保持 40% 的營業利潤率。我不知道阿倫是否已經——報導過它，是的。

The next question is coming from David Vernon of Bernstein.

下一個問題來自伯恩斯坦的大衛·弗農。

So Dave, first question for you is really kind of your background in some of the other maybe more disruptive parts of the brokerage industry that have shown an ability to take quite a bit of share in very short periods of time. What's different about them versus what Robinson has been doing recently? And then how do you think about the moat of C.H. Robinson having been kind of on the other side of the barricades throwing barrels of burning oil at the company. How do you think about the moat of C.H. Robinson?

所以，戴夫，你的第一個問題實際上是你在經紀行業其他一些可能更具顛覆性的領域的背景，這些領域已經表現出在很短的時間內佔據相當多份額的能力。他們與羅賓遜最近所做的事情有何不同？那麼你如何看待 C.H. 的護城河呢？羅賓遜在路障的另一邊向公司投擲燃燒的石油桶。您如何看待 C.H. 的護城河？羅賓遜？

Yes. Good question, and pleasure to virtually meet you as well. The -- you're right, I have been on a couple of sides of this. And number one, I'd say what the players coming in, I feel good about that because the work we did at Amazon when I was there and building some of this new entrant work here. So I understand it. I understand the importance of technology and the power that it can play in the digital transformation here. The key here from a Robinson perspective is I think you have both. And I know the importance of that scale.

是的。好問題，也很高興能在網上見到你。你是對的，我一直站在這兩個方面。第一，我想說的是，進來的玩家是什麼，我對此感覺很好，因為我在那裡時我們在亞馬遜所做的工作，並在這裡構建了一些新進入者的工作。所以我明白了。我了解技術的重要性及其在數字化轉型中可以發揮的力量。從羅賓遜的角度來看，關鍵是我認為兩者兼而有之。我知道這個規模的重要性。

And I know having scale plus technology will drive that competitive advantage. And as we continue to -- someone asks me said, "Hey, Dave, what was something that surprised you, right, as you came to Robinson. I'll tell you one of the things that surprised me as you come in and people will say, "Hey, it's a fax machine company, right, they're older when actually coming in some of the technology and state of the art things that Arun has put in and continues to grow was surprising because this is a company that is really on the leading edge with technology, and then adding scale to it. It just says, and I know this on being on both sides that this is a competitive advantage and really allows the company to set the tone in the marketplace. So that's how I'm answering that from both sides of it. And when you talk about the moat, it's about just making sure we stay focused driving waste out. I just spent a lot of time over the last several weeks doing what I call a gemba, that's a go see, and you actually go see the work. And it taught me a couple of things. One, the strength of our employees that are out there. But two, it allowed me to see the waste and the potential air states in the work so that you can fix them and fix them fast. And as we take this waste out, you'll clearly see the speed of improvement on an already scaled strong business. That's why I feel so happy about where we are and eventually, when this upturn comes, where we will be from a positioning perspective.

我知道擁有規模加上技術將推動這種競爭優勢。當我們繼續時，有人問我，“嘿，戴夫，當你來到羅賓遜時，有什麼事情讓你感到驚訝，對吧。我會告訴你一件讓我驚訝的事情，當你進來時，人們會說，“嘿，這是一家傳真機公司，對吧，他們的歷史比較悠久，但實際上Arun 已經投入了一些技術和最先進的東西，並且不斷發展，這令人驚訝，因為這是一家真正處於技術領先地位，然後擴大規模。它只是說，我知道這是一種競爭優勢，並且確實可以讓公司在市場上定下基調。這就是我從兩方面來回答這個問題的方式。當你談論護城河時，它只是確保我們專注於消除廢物。在過去的幾周里，我花了很多時間做我所謂的“現場”，那就是去看，你真的去看了這個作品。它教會了我一些事情。第一，我們員工的實力。但第二，它讓我能夠看到工作中的浪費和潛在的空氣狀態，以便你可以快速修復它們。當我們消除這種浪費時，您將清楚地看到已經規模化的強大業務的改進速度。這就是為什麼我對我們現在的處境感到如此高興，並且最終當經濟好轉時，從定位的角度來看我們將處於什麼位置。

And maybe just as a quick follow-up. We're talking a lot about lean, we're talking a lot about process improvement. From a -- can you talk to the mandate you have from the Board? Are we really just kind of focused on improving what Robinson does, the how of what it does? Or are we still also looking at the what of it in terms of maybe some structural change to the business. I think there was some discussion with one of the activist shareholders a while back about a strategic committee. Can you give us a sense for kind of what the marching orders are from the Board from your perspective?

也許只是作為一個快速的後續行動。我們談論了很多關於精益的話題，我們談論了很多關於流程改進的話題。您能談談董事會對您的授權嗎？我們真的只是專注於改進 Robinson 的工作及其工作方式嗎？或者我們是否還在考慮對業務進行一些結構性變革的意義。我認為不久前與一位激進股東就戰略委員會進行了一些討論。您能否從您的角度讓我們了解一下董事會發出的命令是什麼？

Yes, I will tell you from the Board, I am locked in with the Board. I have a clear connection with the Board, and that is driving profitable growth for our shareholders and for this company. And it's pretty clear on where we're going to do that. I'm taking my time to diagnose, analyze. I will speak to the Board on when I get through my diagnosis phase, but the true north is, it's continuing to improve this company with profitable growth, and I'm locked in on that. And the principles that I have found successful in this company. I'm just going to bring those forward in Robinson, and I know those are successful to do that.

是的，我會從董事會的角度告訴你，我被董事會鎖定了。我與董事會有著明確的聯繫，這正在推動我們的股東和公司的盈利增長。我們要在哪裡做到這一點非常清楚。我正在花時間診斷、分析。當我完成診斷階段時，我將向董事會發表講話，但真正的情況是，它正在繼續改善這家公司的盈利增長，我對此很感興趣。以及我在這家公司發現的成功原則。我只是要把這些帶到羅賓遜，我知道他們能成功做到這一點。

The next question is coming from Christopher Kuhn of The Benchmark Company.

下一個問題來自基準公司的克里斯托弗·庫恩。

Good to meet you virtually, Dave. I wanted to just go back to your comments when you first started your conversation about taking a look at the portfolio on your thoughts there? And what you're going to be looking for going forward?

很高興在網上見到你，戴夫。我想回到你第一次開始談論你的想法時的評論？未來您將尋求什麼？

Yes. Nice to meet you as well. The -- from a portfolio perspective, same thing. It's early days, right, on this. And I'm driving in, but my point is clear is, I'm looking at the entire business and as I said, with an open mind on the portfolio, make no doubt about it, right? There's a clear focus on driving focus within the organization on some of these -- the core business, and we all know truckload and making sure we drive truckload, LTL, ocean air really driving that kind of focus on those portfolios. But -- and then with all the other businesses continuing to evaluate, how we best unlock that additional value for our shareholders. So it's an open-mind approach. It's early days. I'm diagnosing. I'm diagnosing hard. And certainly, we'll come back to that, but I just wanted to give a little bit of color to that.

是的。我也很高興認識你。從投資組合的角度來看，同樣的事情。現在還為時尚早，對吧。我正在開車進來，但我的觀點很明確是，我正在審視整個業務，正如我所說，對投資組合持開放態度，對此毫無疑問，對吧？明確的重點是推動組織內部對其中一些核心業務的關注，我們都知道卡車裝載量，並確保我們駕駛卡車裝載量、零擔運輸、海運真正推動對這些業務組合的關注。但是，隨著所有其他業務的繼續評估，我們如何最好地為股東釋放額外價值。所以這是一種開放思想的方法。現在還早。我正在診斷。我正在努力診斷。當然，我們會回到這個話題，但我只是想為此增添一點色彩。

The next question is coming from Jason Seidl of TD Cowen.

下一個問題來自 TD Cowen 的 Jason Seidl。

Dave, good to meet you and welcome aboard. It sounds like everything is still on the table as you're in your diagnosis mode. So I'm going to sort of laser in on a few things. You talked a lot about some exciting opportunities in Generative AI. And when I look at the electronic opportunities in brokerage, I think sort of the one sticking point has always been sort of getting the drivers over to sort of embrace technology. What are some things that you think C.H. can do better to sort of grow that presence on the driver side?

戴夫，很高興見到你，歡迎加入。當你處於診斷模式時，聽起來一切都還沒有定論。所以我要重點討論一些事情。您談到了生成人工智能領域一些令人興奮的機會。當我審視經紀行業的電子機會時，我認為一個癥結始終是讓司機接受技術。您認為 C.H. 有哪些事情？可以更好地提高駕駛員側的存在感嗎？

Yes. Pleasure to meet you and great question because there's a lot of ways to go into this. I mean, Arun, why don't you start off? I'll finish on a couple of things here.

是的。很高興見到你，這是一個很好的問題，因為有很多方法可以解決這個問題。我的意思是，阿倫，你為什麼不開始呢？我將在這裡完成幾件事。

Yes. And I think for those of you who've been listening in for a while, is when I came on board, we made sustained investment in our carrier-facing app and website, and we've seen a huge uptake in usage in terms of digital bookings. And from a carrier-facing technology perspective, there's 2 things that carriers care about, right? They care about sort of access to volume and loads, which we have. And they care about a better experience.

是的。我認為對於那些已經聽了一段時間的人來說，當我加入時，我們對面向運營商的應用程序和網站進行了持續投資，並且我們已經看到了使用量的巨大增長數字預訂。從面向運營商的技術角度來看，運營商關心兩件事，對吧？他們關心的是我們擁有的對容量和負載的訪問權。他們關心更好的體驗。

So things like load recommendations, getting paid fast if they choose to. So it's a better experience. And we've invested a lot in those areas. And like I said, digital bookings are up significantly. And more recently, you probably saw us release or go live with our refreshed Carrier Advantage Program, which is our loyalty program. And with that program, we had certain new requirements of our carriers in terms of providing track and trace -- automated track and trace through the app and through ELD. And what I can say is, carriers ask us when we ask them for things, they say, "Well, okay, well tell us what you need and when we make that easy to use on the app, they do it. And likewise, we listen to them about what they want and we invest in the carrier experience. So I would say compared to some of our competition, I'd say, we have all the features that our carriers have asked for, and we have the volume of loads that no one can bring to the table.

比如加載推薦，如果他們願意的話可以快速獲得報酬。所以這是一個更好的體驗。我們在這些領域投入了大量資金。正如我所說，數字預訂量大幅增加。最近，您可能看到我們發布或啟用了更新後的運營商優勢計劃，這是我們的忠誠度計劃。通過該計劃，我們對運營商在提供跟踪和追踪方面提出了某些新要求——通過應用程序和 ELD 進行自動跟踪和追踪。我能說的是，當我們向運營商索取東西時，他們會說：“好吧，好吧，我們告訴我們您需要什麼，當我們在應用程序上提供易於使用的功能時，他們就會這樣做。同樣，我們傾聽他們的需求，並對運營商體驗進行投資。所以我想說，與我們的一些競爭對手相比，我們擁有運營商要求的所有功能，並且我們擁有無人能將其帶到餐桌上的負載。

Yes. I would just plus one on that. I agree with a room there in previous experience and seeing the teams build these things that it's about ease of use. It's really about allowing those carriers to get the things that they want, such as pay and access to Lowe's. So I think he hit on all the key points that when you do that, you really net spreads, right, when you hear about the ease of use. So it's a good question. I'm glad you said it because it highlights kind of where we are in this space and where we're going to continue to go. So thanks for asking that.

是的。我只想在此基礎上加一。我同意房間里以前的經驗，看到團隊構建這些東西是為了易於使用。這實際上是為了讓這些運營商獲得他們想要的東西，例如付費和使用 Lowe's。所以我認為他擊中了所有關鍵點，當你這樣做時，當你聽說易用性時，你真的會產生淨價差，對吧。所以這是一個好問題。我很高興你這麼說，因為它強調了我們在這個領域的位置以及我們將繼續前進的方向。謝謝你的提問。

Sure. I appreciate the color. And as a quick follow-up, when I look at forwarding on the EBIT margins, if I sort of throw away the inflated numbers on the pandemic side. It looks like you guys have been in the sort of 15% to 20% range. We're sort of probably going to be at the lower end this year at that. What's it going to take to sort of get us towards the higher end and out of the way from the lower end? Is it just going to be an improvement in the overall macro? Or are there other things that you think are going to be low-hanging fruit that can get you there?

當然。我很欣賞它的顏色。作為一個快速的後續行動，當我考慮息稅前利潤率的轉發時，如果我扔掉大流行方面誇大的數字的話。看起來你們的比例都在 15% 到 20% 之間。今年我們可能會處於較低水平。怎樣才能讓我們走向高端，擺脫低端？這只是整體宏觀方面的改善嗎？或者還有其他你認為容易實現的事情可以幫助你實現這一目標嗎？

Yes. Thanks for the question, Jason. You're right. You have to look through the markets that we've experienced here over the past couple of years. Obviously, the comp this quarter is against all-time record highs on record highs from Q2 last year. But our long-term operating income margin goal for Global Forwarding is 30%. We feel like that's achievable. The playbook there is, in a lot of respects, similar to the playbook that we've got on the NAV side. In other words, the team has done a really nice job developing their capability from a technology standpoint.

是的。謝謝你的提問，傑森。你說得對。你必須審視過去幾年我們在這裡經歷的市場。顯然，本季度的業績對比去年第二季度的歷史新高。但我們對 Global Forwarding 的長期營業利潤率目標是 30%。我們覺得這是可以實現的。在很多方面，該劇本與我們在資產淨值方面的劇本相似。換句話說，從技術角度來看，該團隊在能力開發方面做得非常出色。

There is plenty of excitement out there around Navisphere 2.0, and that was launched and the customers are having a better experience there. We're seeing monthly average users go up, track and trace better, data quality better, future usage by customers better. So on the tech side, that's great. Operational uniformity is an important element for them there, the standardization in a very complex business to create efficiency. Generative AI can help as well there.

Navisphere 2.0 的推出令人興奮不已，客戶在那裡獲得了更好的體驗。我們看到每月平均用戶數有所上升，跟踪和追踪效果更好，數據質量更好，客戶未來的使用情況也更好。所以在技術方面，這很棒。運營統一性對他們來說是一個重要因素，在非常複雜的業務中標準化可以創造效率。生成式人工智能在這方面也能提供幫助。

Scale is something that the team has been working on. They've done a really nice job here through the ups and downs of the market, to gain market share and increase the scale in that business, which will be important to getting the returns where we need them to be going forward. The -- probably the biggest highlight over the past year has been their expense management. So they've taken headcount down by about 12% year-over-year. And at the same time, they've been able to handle the loads and handle the volume that they've been working on. So that's been a really nice enhancement that should really serve them well once we get back to some more normalization there.

規模化是團隊一直在努力的方向。在市場的起起落落中，他們做得非常出色，獲得了市場份額並擴大了該業務的規模，這對於在我們需要他們前進的地方獲得回報非常重要。過去一年最大的亮點可能是他們的費用管理。因此，他們的員工人數同比減少了約 12%。與此同時，他們已經能夠處理他們一直在處理的負載和體積。因此，這是一個非常好的增強功能，一旦我們恢復到更多的正常化狀態，它就會真正為他們服務。

And then the last thing I'd say is the development of their business. They've done a nice job of bringing some talent in, in some new geographies. They're looking at new verticals. And they've had a fair amount of success in new trade lines and opening up to some places that they haven't had a developed business in the past. And they're getting excellent results. They're #3 in the transpacific to U.S., #2 into the U.S. and #1 in U.S. Oceana. So a lot of great progress from the team there. And I think all those factors are important in coming together to get back to a more normalized 30% operating income margin.

我要說的最後一件事是他們業務的發展。他們在一些新地區引進了一些人才方面做得很好。他們正在尋找新的垂直領域。他們在新的貿易線路和向一些他們過去沒有開發過的業務的地方開放方面取得了相當大的成功。他們正在取得優異的成績。它們在跨太平洋至美國航線中排名第三，在美國航線中排名第二，在美國大洋洲航線中排名第一。所以那裡的團隊取得了很大的進步。我認為所有這些因素對於恢復 30% 的正常營業利潤率都很重要。

The next question is coming from Matthew Spahn of TCW.

下一個問題來自 TCW 的 Matthew Spahn。

Congratulations, Dave, and welcome to C.H. Robinson. I have a question about engagement. When a company is highly engaged employees, quality and delivery improve, and drawing on your prior experiences leading lean transformations, can you share 1 or 2 learnings that you can apply to foster a culture of deeper employee engagement at C.H. Robinson?

恭喜戴夫，歡迎來到 C.H.羅賓遜。我有一個關於訂婚的問題。當一家公司的員工敬業度很高時，質量和交付都會得到改善，並且利用您之前領導精益轉型的經驗，您能否分享1 或2 個經驗教訓，您可以將其應用於在C.H. 培養更深層次的員工敬業度文化。羅賓遜？

Yes, great question, Matthew, and pleasure to meet you. This is the coal phase for me, right? I'm meeting everyone for the first time here in some cases. The -- good question. Let me break that down for me and I'll be pretty pointed here. The one engagement that I see is, number one, you really do need to be vocally self-critical about where you are on the things you do well and the things you don't. And having the ability to see employees actually see waste in their processes and be able to understand that, understand what their process flow should be versus what it is, they actually get engaged on that improvement, trying to improve when you're blind is one thing, but improving when it's clear to you, makes for engagement. And so that's one thing as I've gone through various companies. It's the enlightenment and the education around where you are and then the humbleness to show how you can be better. And once that's laid out, employees latch on to that and I've seen it over 4 different companies.

是的，很好的問題，馬修，很高興見到你。這對我來說是煤炭階段，對嗎？在某些情況下，我是第一次在這裡見到大家。這是個好問題。讓我把這個問題分解一下，我會在這裡指出的。我認為的一項承諾是，第一，你確實需要對自己在哪些方面做得好的方面和哪些方面做得不好的方面進行口頭自我批評。有能力看到員工實際上看到了流程中的浪費，並能夠理解這一點，了解他們的流程應該是什麼，而不是它是什麼，他們實際上參與了改進，當你盲目時嘗試改進是其中之一事情，但是當你清楚地知道時進行改進，就可以提高參與度。這是一回事，因為我經歷過很多家公司。這是圍繞你所處位置的啟蒙和教育，然後是謙虛地展示你如何才能變得更好。一旦制定出來，員工就會抓住這一點，我已經在 4 家不同的公司看到了這一點。

I really appreciate that. I mean it's -- I appreciate that. I mean the culture matters most right now, I mean, you're being I feel like the champion of lean, it's a powerful cultural enabler. So welcome and good luck.

我真的很感激。我的意思是——我很欣賞這一點。我的意思是文化現在最重要，我的意思是，我覺得你是精益的冠軍，它是一個強大的文化推動者。歡迎並祝你好運。

Thank you, sir.

謝謝你，先生。

The next question is coming from Stephanie Moore of Jefferies.

下一個問題來自傑富瑞 (Jefferies) 的斯蒂芬妮·摩爾 (Stephanie Moore)。

Dave, congrats on your first earnings call.

戴夫，恭喜你召開第一次財報電話會議。

Thanks, Stephanie. Appreciate it.

謝謝，斯蒂芬妮。欣賞它。

So I think a lot was called out in your prepared remarks, I think a number of exciting opportunities going forward. But what do you think is probably the single one most important area you'll place your focus on over the next 12 months? And what is your early read on how to achieve it?

因此，我認為您在準備好的發言中提出了很多內容，我認為未來有許多令人興奮的機會。但您認為未來 12 個月您將重點關注的最重要領域是什麼？您對如何實現這一目標的早期了解是什麼？

Yes. That's a good question, Stephanie. It's one that can take us well past the call, so I won't do that. But I will give you some color on it. The focus is around driving waste out with the endgame of profitable growth. And really getting the organization to latch on to faster speed of decisions, speed of innovation and ultimately, looking around corners to set itself up for what is going to be an eventual turnaround.

是的。這是個好問題，斯蒂芬妮。這是一個可以讓我們遠遠超過電話的人，所以我不會這樣做。但我會給你一些顏色。重點是在盈利增長的最終階段消除浪費。真正讓組織能夠加快決策速度、創新速度，並最終環顧四周，為最終的轉變做好準備。

And that will put us in a very strong position with our scale and our balance sheet. And so just focusing on that and then also technology. We talked a bit about it. Arun talked a bit about it. These large language models, again, don't underestimate just the scale of Robinson and then attaching that level of technology on top of that. I think can be a strong competitive advantage for us. So me focusing on driving that adoption of that type of technology, driving waste out of the system. This all adds up to a profitable growth setup for this company and really puts it in a strong position. I feel really, really strong around where we are, and that's why I decided to take this move.

這將使我們的規模和資產負債表處於非常有利的地位。因此，只關注這一點，然後關注技術。我們談了一些。阿倫談了一些。再次強調，這些大型語言模型並沒有低估 Robinson 的規模，然後再在此基礎上附加這種技術水平。我認為這對我們來說是一個強大的競爭優勢。因此，我專注於推動此類技術的採用，將廢物排出系統。所有這些都為該公司帶來了盈利增長，並真正使其處於有利地位。我對我們所處的位置感到非常非常強大，這就是我決定採取這一舉措的原因。

The next question is coming from Bruce Chan of Stifel.

下一個問題來自 Stifel 的 Bruce Chan。

Dave, congrats. It's good to have you with us. I know it's still pretty early in your tenure here, but I know you've hit the ground running. So maybe I could just coagulate some of the responses and get your perspective on where you see the biggest incremental cost buckets over the intermediate term. We talked a lot about lean and waste, but where specifically do you see the biggest addressable opportunities there?

戴夫，恭喜。很高興有你和我們在一起。我知道你的任期還為時尚早，但我知道你已經開始行動了。因此，也許我可以匯總一些回复，並了解您對中期最大增量成本桶的看法。我們談論了很多關於精益和浪費的話題，但您具體認為其中最大的可利用機會在哪裡？

Yes, Bruce, I'm going to double team you here a bit because I'm 4.5, 5 weeks here on my diagnosis there. So I am going to call a comma not a period on this question because I do want to continue to diagnose. But I will tell you this. And as I'm talking with Arun and team, it's breaking down this kind of life of an order and really going through the origination of this order all the way through the end and then understanding those air states and pinch points along the way, that's going to generate kind of where the cost opportunities are along that line, along that side. And I'm in the middle of doing that. I have some points that I see, but it's not complete. And I think Arun sees some of that as well. So I will come back to you on that because it's a fair question, but I'm in the middle of it. Arun, would you add any other color to it?

是的，布魯斯，我要在這里和你進行雙人組隊，因為我的診斷已經 4.5、5 週了。所以我將在這個問題上用逗號而不是句號，因為我確實想繼續診斷。但我會告訴你這一點。當我與阿倫和團隊交談時，它正在打破這種訂單的生命，並真正從頭到尾經歷這個訂單的起源，然後理解沿途的那些空氣狀態和關鍵點，那就是將產生某種成本機會沿著這條線，沿著那一邊。我正在做這件事。我看到了一些觀點，但並不完整。我認為阿倫也看到了其中的一些。所以我會再回答你這個問題，因為這是一個公平的問題，但我正處於其中。阿倫，你會添加其他顏色嗎？

Yes. I think the color I would add is similar to things that we've been saying over the past, call it, 12 to 18 months. When asked about sort of our path to operating leverage and our focus on digital. Our focus has been looking at the end-to-end order life cycle from quoting to order tender to order entry, to booking, then to appointments, track and trace, invoicing the whole life cycle, right? And the focus of our digital efforts has been looking at those points in the life cycle that are disproportionately and manually intensive.

是的。我認為我要添加的顏色與我們過去所說的類似，稱之為“12 到 18 個月”。當被問及我們的運營槓桿之路以及我們對數字化的關注時。我們的重點一直是關注端到端的訂單生命週期，從報價到訂單投標，再到訂單輸入，到預訂，然後到預約，跟踪和追踪，開具發票的整個生命週期，對吧？我們數字化工作的重點一直是關註生命週期中那些不成比例且人工密集的點。

And going after either automation or making self-serve to our customers or our carriers or, in some cases, the processes don't even make sense, their legacy processes and we eliminate them. So that's been the focus. And so now you come in a kind of layer. So in a way, it's about taking out waste. I think it's just that we've come at it more from a technology perspective. I think Dave is going to come in here, and I think he's going to inject Lean principles and as we get the tailwind of Gen AI, I believe the things we've been talking about for the past 12 or 18 months just will accelerate.

追求自動化或為我們的客戶或運營商提供自助服務，或者在某些情況下，這些流程甚至沒有意義，他們的遺留流程我們消除了它們。這就是焦點。所以現在你進入了某種層次。所以在某種程度上，這是關於清除廢物。我認為這只是我們更多地從技術角度來看待它。我認為 Dave 將會來到這裡，我認為他將注入精益原則，隨著我們得到 Gen AI 的順風，我相信我們過去 12 或 18 個月一直在談論的事情將會加速。

Okay. That's super helpful. And then, Dave, a fair point about the brevity of your tenure. So maybe just to follow up a little bit on that and direct the question more again at you, Arun. We've had some nice reductions here in personnel cost. Is the tech and the platform at a place now where we can grow in the next cycle without adding additional resources? Or do we have a little bit more work to do?

好的。這非常有幫助。然後，戴夫，關於你的任期短暫的一個公平的觀點。因此，也許只是想跟進一下，然後再次向您提出更多問題，阿倫。我們在人員成本方面有了一些不錯的削減。現在的技術和平台是否足以讓我們在下一個週期中實現增長，而無需添加額外的資源？或者我們還有更多工作要做嗎？

Yes. So that's a great question. We obviously have more work to do, but we've talked about 15% productivity improvements this year. The work that we've done to enable that productivity is structural, we can actually measure fewer touches in our system as a result of that work because they've got more automated track and trace information from our carriers, right, which means we don't have to call carriers for status. Similarly, we've reduced the number of automation -- reduce the number of appointment tasks by automating the greater proportion of them. So we actually see touches go down, touches per load go down in a way that we know it's structural as we go into the cycle a positive cycle here.

是的。這是一個很好的問題。顯然我們還有更多的工作要做，但我們已經談到今年生產力將提高 15%。我們為實現生產力所做的工作是結構性的，由於這項工作，我們實際上可以測量系統中更少的接觸，因為他們從我們的運營商那裡獲得了更多自動化的跟踪和追踪信息，對吧，這意味著我們不這樣做無需致電運營商了解狀態。同樣，我們減少了自動化的數量——通過自動化更大比例的預約任務來減少預約任務的數量。因此，我們實際上看到觸球次數下降，每次負載的觸球次數下降，我們知道這是結構性的，因為我們進入了一個正循環。

We're showing time for one final question today. Our final question will be coming from Chris Wetherbee of Citi.

今天我們有時間回答最後一個問題。我們的最後一個問題將來自花旗銀行的克里斯·韋瑟比。

Congrats, Dave, I guess, one of the things I guess I've been sitting listening to the call, and there's been discussions sort of big picture and the Generative AI opportunity, those kinds of things. Maybe a 2-parter here. Short term, what do we think headcount looks like through the rest of the year? Are there further opportunities as we move through the rest of the year on the cost? It sounds like you guys are making maybe better progress towards those full year goals. So that would be interesting.

恭喜戴夫，我想，這是我一直在聽電話會議的一件事，並且已經討論了大局和生成人工智能機會，諸如此類的事情。也許這裡有兩人。短期來看，我們認為今年剩餘時間的員工人數會是什麼樣？今年剩下的時間裡，在成本方面還有更多機會嗎？聽起來你們在實現全年目標方面可能取得了更好的進展。所以這會很有趣。

And then the second one kind of comes, we've talked about the segment level operating margin targets, relatively similar to what they've been historically and big picture opportunities that maybe would generate greater productivity, potentially cost savings down the road. So just trying to square those to the NAST and the Global Forwarding margin targets relative to the opportunity you guys are talking about with some of these productivity tools. Should there be upside? Or is it the same? I just want to make sure I understand that.

然後是第二種，我們討論了細分市場層面的營業利潤率目標，與歷史上的目標相對相似，以及可能會產生更高生產力、未來可能節省成本的大局機會。因此，只是嘗試將這些與 NAST 和全球轉發利潤目標相對應，並與你們正在談論的一些生產力工具的機會相匹配。應該有上升空間嗎？或者說是一樣的嗎？我只是想確保我理解這一點。

Yes, let me take that. So first of all, you're right, we've had great progress on our headcount, down 13% year-over-year. And because of the efforts and initiatives that we have ongoing in place that will continue and really, I think we've got a great pipeline of things to work on. We'll continue to draw that headcount down as we go forward and get to some of these things. Although I would say the back half of '23 won't be nearly as dramatic reductions as we saw in the first half.

是的，讓我接受。首先，你是對的，我們的員工人數取得了巨大進步，同比下降了 13%。由於我們正在進行的努力和舉措將繼續下去，我認為我們有很多工作要做。當我們繼續前進並處理其中一些事情時，我們將繼續減少人數。儘管我想說，23 年後半段的削減幅度不會像上半年那樣大幅減少。

Now when you talk about those operating targets and the macro things, we're trying to help you understand that we feel like we've got some accelerants here in terms of our ability to improve our performance, our efficiency and get us to growth. And the headlines on those are lean principles, the diagnosing of our issues, finding waste, getting -- eliminating the waste, whether that's with technology, with process, with adoption, with giving self-serve to customers or carriers, these kinds of things.

現在，當您談論這些運營目標和宏觀事物時，我們試圖幫助您理解，我們感覺我們在提高業績、效率和實現增長的能力方面已經有了一些促進劑。這些的頭條新聞是精益原則，診斷我們的問題，發現浪費，消除浪費，無論是通過技術、流程、採用、為客戶或運營商提供自助服務，諸如此類的事情。

And so that's one accelerant. The other accelerant as we talked about is really the combination of the machine learning work that we've been doing, but then enabled by Generative AI, where it can go in and it can find the exceptions and the work that really our people have been handling here historically, where you build a model that handles things if everything has been input properly. And then in many cases, our staff was going after the exceptions. And so now with Generative AI, we've got the ability to do that in a more automated way and really enable our folks in place them. So those are the key headlines.

這就是一種促進劑。我們談到的另一個促進劑實際上是我們一直在做的機器學習工作的結合，但隨後由生成人工智能啟用，它可以進入並找到例外情況以及我們的員工真正所做的工作歷史上處理這裡，您構建一個模型，如果所有內容都已正確輸入，則該模型可以處理事物。在很多情況下，我們的員工都會追查例外情況。因此，現在有了生成式人工智能，我們有能力以更自動化的方式做到這一點，並真正幫助我們的人們就位。這些是關鍵的頭條新聞。

Okay. But they don't necessarily change the curve of those targets. They're just sort of additive to the improvement off of the sort of where we are in the macro is the right way to think about them?

好的。但它們不一定會改變這些目標的曲線。它們只是對我們在宏觀上所處位置的改進的補充，這是思考它們的正確方式嗎？

Yes, the progress we've made so far, yes.

是的，我們迄今為止所取得的進展，是的。

Thank you. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Ives for closing comments.

謝謝。現在，我想把發言權交還給艾夫斯先生以供結束髮言。

That concludes today's earnings call. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today, and we look forward to talking to you again. Have a great evening.

今天的財報電話會議到此結束。謝謝大家今天加入我們，我們期待再次與你們交談。祝您度過一個美好的夜晚。

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation and interest in C.H. Robinson. This concludes today's event. You may disconnect your lines or log off the webcast at this time, and enjoy the rest of your day.

女士們、先生們，感謝您對 C.H. 的參與和關注。羅賓遜。今天的活動到此結束。此時您可以斷開線路或註銷網絡廣播，然後享受剩下的一天。