Concentrix Corp (CNXC) 2023 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Concentrix' Fiscal Second Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, David Stein, Vice President of Investor Relations.

美好的一天，感謝您的支持。歡迎參加 Concentrix 2023 年第二季度財務業績電話會議。 （操作員指示）請注意，今天的會議正在錄製中。我現在想把會議交給今天的發言人，投資者關係副總裁大衛·斯坦因。

Thank you, and good evening. Welcome to the Concentrix Second Quarter Fiscal 2023 Earnings Call. This call is the property of Concentrix and may not be recorded or rebroadcast without the written permission of Concentrix. This call contains forward-looking statements that address our expected future performance and that, by their nature, address matters that are uncertain. These uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events or developments.

謝謝你，晚上好。歡迎參加 Concentrix 2023 財年第二季度收益電話會議。此通話屬於 Concentrix 的財產，未經 Concentrix 書面許可不得錄製或轉播。本次電話會議包含前瞻性陳述，這些陳述涉及我們預期的未來業績，並且就其性質而言，涉及不確定的事項。這些不確定性可能導致我們未來的實際結果與我們的前瞻性陳述中表達的結果存在重大差異。我們不承諾因新信息或未來事件或發展而更新我們的前瞻性陳述。

Please refer to today's earnings release and our most recent filings with the SEC for additional information regarding uncertainties that could affect our future financial results. This includes the risk factors provided in our annual report on Form 10-K. Also during the call, we'll discuss non-GAAP financial measures, including free cash flow, non-GAAP operating income, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS as well as adjusted constant currency revenue growth. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures is available in the news release and on the Concentrix Investor Relations website under Financials.

請參閱今天的收益報告和我們最近向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件，了解有關可能影響我們未來財務業績的不確定性的更多信息。這包括我們在 10-K 表年度報告中提供的風險因素。此外，在電話會議期間，我們還將討論非 GAAP 財務指標，包括自由現金流、非 GAAP 營業收入、調整後 EBITDA 和調整後每股收益以及調整後恆定貨幣收入增長。這些非 GAAP 指標的調節可在新聞稿和 Concentrix 投資者關係網站的“財務”部分中找到。

With me on the call today are Chris Caldwell, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Andre Valentine, our Chief Financial Officer. Chris will provide a summary of our operating performance and growth strategy, and Andre will cover our financial results and business outlook. Then we'll open the call for your questions.

今天與我一起參加電話會議的是我們的總裁兼首席執行官 Chris Caldwell；和我們的首席財務官安德烈·瓦倫丁。克里斯將總結我們的經營業績和增長戰略，安德烈將介紹我們的財務業績和業務前景。然後我們將打開電話詢問您的問題。

Now I'll turn the call over to Chris.

現在我將把電話轉給克里斯。

Thank you, David. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to our second quarter earnings call for fiscal 2023. During the quarter, we received many investor questions about the impacts of the ongoing macroeconomic environment, the status of our transformative combination with Webhelp and the emergence of generative AI technology. I will provide a brief update on each of those topics today. I would also encourage those listening to download our updated ESG report from our website that we just released.

謝謝你，大衛。大家晚上好，歡迎參加我們的 2023 財年第二季度財報電話會議。在本季度，我們收到了許多投資者的問題，涉及當前宏觀經濟環境的影響、我們與 Webhelp 的變革性組合的狀況以及生成人工智能技術的出現。今天我將就每個主題提供簡短的更新。我還鼓勵聽眾從我們剛剛發布的網站下載我們更新的 ESG 報告。

Now let's begin with our Q2 results. While we were disappointed in not being within our guidance, I am pleased that, as a team, we did grow and drive margin expansion and strong cash flow in the quarter despite the fact that certain clients saw volumes that were well below their expectations entering the quarter. Reported revenue in the second quarter was $1.6 billion, up 3%. On an organic constant currency basis, revenue grew by 1.6%. Our second quarter non-GAAP operating income improved to $221 million, growing 3.6%. Adjusted EBITDA increased 3.5% to $259 million compared with last year, and both our non-GAAP OI and adjusted EBITDA margins were up 10 basis points over last year. This reflects our ability to manage our cost structure dynamically when volumes from clients are lower than their expectations.

現在讓我們從第二季度的結果開始。雖然我們對沒有達到我們的指導感到失望，但我很高興的是，作為一個團隊，我們確實在本季度實現了增長並推動了利潤率擴張和強勁的現金流，儘管某些客戶在進入本季度時看到的交易量遠低於他們的預期四分之一。第二季度報告收入為 16 億美元，增長 3%。在有機固定貨幣基礎上，收入增長了 1.6%。我們第二季度的非 GAAP 營業收入增至 2.21 億美元，增長 3.6%。調整後 EBITDA 比去年增長 3.5%，達到 2.59 億美元，我們的非 GAAP OI 和調整後 EBITDA 利潤率比去年增長 10 個基點。這反映了當客戶的數量低於他們的預期時，我們動態管理成本結構的能力。

Non-GAAP EPS was $2.69 per share compared with $2.93 per share last year, largely reflecting the expected impact of higher interest rates. While we continued to see volume softness, we also experienced relative strength across certain strategic verticals, particularly with clients in the health care, travel, insurance and certain parts of our technology portfolio. The volume softness that we have seen in recent quarters in the retail, e-commerce, consumer electronics and telecom industries continued and, in some cases, intensified with certain clients despite us maintaining or growing share within those clients.

非 GAAP 每股收益為 2.69 美元，去年為每股 2.93 美元，很大程度上反映了利率上升的預期影響。雖然我們的銷量繼續疲軟，但我們在某些​​戰略垂直領域也經歷了相對優勢，特別是醫療保健、旅行、保險和我們技術組合的某些部分的客戶。最近幾個季度，我們在零售、電子商務、消費電子和電信行業看到的銷量疲軟仍在繼續，在某些情況下，儘管我們在這些客戶中的份額保持或增長，但某些客戶的銷量疲軟甚至加劇。

From a catalyst perspective, our large project that we have talked about on past calls will have no further ramp this year, reflecting conversations within the last few weeks driven by budget pressures at the client. We are adjusting our outlook and cost structure accordingly.

從催化劑的角度來看，我們在過去的電話會議中討論過的大型項目今年將不會進一步增加，這反映了過去幾週內由客戶預算壓力推動的對話。我們正在相應調整我們的前景和成本結構。

Regarding client-driven provider consolidation opportunities within our existing base, we continue to see clients wanting to work with fewer partners who can support end-to-end processes. This trend favors partners like Concentrix who have the breadth of capabilities to serve clients in a strategic partner role. Currently, clients are faced with a dilemma regarding whether to cut costs by consolidating partners or holding excess capacity. These decisions are occurring more slowly than we originally expected.

關於我們現有基礎內客戶驅動的提供商整合機會，我們繼續看到客戶希望與更少的能夠支持端到端流程的合作夥伴合作。這種趨勢有利於像 Concentrix 這樣的合作夥伴，他們擁有廣泛的能力以戰略合作夥伴的身份為客戶提供服務。目前，客戶面臨著是通過整合合作夥伴來削減成本還是通過持有過剩產能來削減成本的兩難選擇。這些決定的發生速度比我們最初預期的要慢。

Additionally, while we are gaining share by winning provider consolidation opportunities, the volumes we are consolidating with clients are starting at a reduced level. We see these factors as temporary, and if the softness persists, we expect clients will speed up their plans for consolidation, which we believe benefit us. From a sales perspective, we signed business with 2 dozen new logos in the quarter. The pipeline of new business has remained solid, although clients are focused on optimizing their cost structure rather than expansion, and we are seeing smaller deals and slower approval processes once we have been chosen as the partner.

此外，雖然我們通過贏得供應商整合機會來獲得份額，但我們與客戶整合的數量開始下降。我們認為這些因素是暫時的，如果疲軟持續下去，我們預計客戶將加快整合計劃，我們相信這對我們有利。從銷售角度來看，本季度我們與 2 打新標識簽訂了業務。儘管客戶專注於優化成本結構而不是擴張，但新業務的渠道仍然穩固，而且一旦我們被選為合作夥伴，我們就會看到規模較小的交易和較慢的審批流程。

From a Concentrix perspective -- sorry, from a catalyst perspective, we are very happy with new wins coming in that combine our CX operations and digital IT service offerings. Again, these wins tend to be smaller as large transformational projects are taking much longer to transact. We also view this as temporary and believe digital transformation remains essential to clients in the long term.

從 Concentrix 的角度來看，抱歉，從催化劑的角度來看，我們對將 CX 運營和數字 IT 服務產品結合起來的新勝利感到非常高興。同樣，由於大型轉型項目的交易時間要長得多，因此這些勝利往往較小。我們還認為這只是暫時的，並相信從長遠來看，數字化轉型對客戶仍然至關重要。

A few examples of our Q2 wins that demonstrate our broad set of capabilities include: for a very large global generative AI provider, we were awarded and are now providing generative AI moderation services. We were selected due to our experience in critical trust and safety content support as well as our footprint in innovative ways we came up with to train the models.

我們第二季度獲勝的一些例子證明了我們廣泛的能力，包括：對於一家非常大的全球生成式人工智能提供商，我們獲得了獎勵，現在正在提供生成式人工智能審核服務。我們之所以被選中，是因為我們在關鍵信任和安全內容支持方面的經驗，以及我們以創新方式訓練模型的足跡。

For a large consumer electronics brand in Asia Pacific, we proposed a transformational omni-channel CX delivery model to drive improved customer experience while lowering the cost to serve in high-cost markets. We designed and built the solution with AI-enabled translation services, which are providing an accelerated, more profitable path to growth for our clients. We were selected because of our domain knowledge, the ability to integrate complex technology and our understanding of the local markets they were looking to grow in.

對於亞太地區的一家大型消費電子品牌，我們提出了一種變革性的全渠道客戶體驗交付模式，以推動改善客戶體驗，同時降低高成本市場的服務成本。我們利用人工智能翻譯服務設計並構建了解決方案，為我們的客戶提供了一條加速、更有利可圖的增長之路。我們被選中是因為我們的領域知識、整合複雜技術的能力以及我們對他們希望發展的當地市場的了解。

For a major airline operating in EMEA, we were selected to become the primary provider to drive improved experiences and drive better support across all key languages, incorporating new digital and AI-powered capabilities and replacing other providers unable to provide a full solution. We were selected because of our multilingual footprint, ability to integrate technology and the ability to lower the number of partners the airline had to deal with to get a full solution.

對於在歐洲、中東和非洲地區運營的一家大型航空公司，我們被選為主要提供商，以推動改善體驗並推動對所有關鍵語言提供更好的支持，整合新的數字和人工智能支持的功能，並取代其他無法提供完整解決方案的提供商。我們之所以被選中，是因為我們的多語言足跡、集成技術的能力以及減少航空公司為獲得完整解決方案而必須打交道的合作夥伴數量的能力。

For a large consumer communications brand in EMEA, we won a significant new agreement to deliver reimagined service models for improved customer acquisition and retention using sophisticated analytics and AI-enabled technologies. We were selected because of our understanding of the market, our robust sales capabilities and our ability to automate manual work they were currently challenged with.

對於歐洲、中東和非洲地區的一家大型消費者通信品牌，我們贏得了一項重要的新協議，通過複雜的分析和人工智能技術提供重新設計的服務模型，以改善客戶獲取和保留。我們被選中是因為我們對市場的了解、我們強大的銷售能力以及我們將他們目前面臨的手工工作自動化的能力。

In Catalyst, we identified opportunities to improve a large transportation company's software implementation speed and support costs. Our proactive approach helped us secure the consulting engagement as the exclusive provider. The client embraced our recommendations leading to a shift in their product strategy and further engagement around the product development. We were selected because of demonstrated expertise in software development, implementation practices and managed services of software environments while having a focus on the customer experience of the user during transition of software.

在 Catalyst 中，我們發現了提高大型運輸公司軟件實施速度和支持成本的機會。我們的積極主動的方法幫助我們獲得了作為獨家提供商的諮詢服務。客戶接受了我們的建議，導致他們的產品策略發生轉變，並進一步參與產品開發。我們之所以被選中，是因為我們在軟件開發、實施實踐和軟件環境託管服務方面展示了專業知識，同時注重軟件過渡期間用戶的客戶體驗。

In all of these examples, the clients' needs aligned to our [sellers one] approach while demonstrating the effectiveness of our design, build, run go-to-market strategy. We have remained disciplined in our approach to pricing in the current market and on selling profitable, sustainable programs for the future that build on our unique capabilities. From an operating perspective, we continued to achieve strong customer satisfaction and innovation scores, which we believe will again help us to be a continued partner of choice.

在所有這些示例中，客戶的需求與我們的[賣方一]方法保持一致，同時展示了我們設計、構建、運行進入市場策略的有效性。我們在當前市場的定價方法以及基於我們獨特能力的未來銷售可盈利、可持續的項目方面始終保持嚴格的紀律。從運營角度來看，我們繼續取得出色的客戶滿意度和創新分數，我們相信這將再次幫助我們成為持續的首選合作夥伴。

Moving to our proposed transformative combination with Webhelp, we recently filed our proxy statement that provides more insight into the transaction and have made great progress on integration planning since announcing the combination. Their share purchase agreement has now been signed. We have started to receive approvals from various regulatory agencies and have made strong progress towards completing the financing. As we discussed on our last call, Webhelp will diversify our revenue, client base, vertical focus and global footprint. Webhelp will also add capabilities and deep domain expertise to our European, African and Latin American market presence.

轉向我們提議的與 Webhelp 的變革性合併，我們最近提交了委託書，該聲明提供了對交易的更多見解，並且自宣布合併以來在整合規劃方面取得了巨大進展。他們的股份購買協議現已簽署。我們已開始獲得各個監管機構的批准，並在完成融資方面取得了巨大進展。正如我們在上次電話會議中討論的那樣，Webhelp 將使我們的收入、客戶群、垂直焦點和全球足跡多樣化。 Webhelp 還將為我們的歐洲、非洲和拉丁美洲市場增加能力和深厚的領域專業知識。

The potential combination has been very well received by clients of both companies, and we believe there is a strong potential for growth in selling Webhelp's capabilities into our client base as well as selling our capabilities to the more than 1,000 additional Webhelp clients as we have successfully done in past combinations. Webhelp also brings recognized and exceptionally technology-enabled solutions, including anti-money laundering, know your customer and payment processing services and telehealth, which we believe we can expand into many Concentrix clients and regions.

這一潛在的合併受到了兩家公司客戶的一致好評，我們相信，向我們的客戶群銷售 Webhelp 的功能以及向 1,000 多個其他 Webhelp 客戶銷售我們的功能具有強大的增長潛力，因為我們已經成功地在過去的組合中完成。 Webhelp 還帶來了公認的、技術支持的解決方案，包括反洗錢、了解您的客戶和支付處理服務以及遠程醫療，我們相信我們可以將這些解決方案擴展到許多 Concentrix 客戶和地區。

The combination is expected to be accretive from the outset. We project mid- to high single-digit earnings per share accretion in the first year, followed by double-digit accretion in the second year. Additionally, we feel very confident about achieving cost synergies of $120 million by the third year through various measures such as IT systems harmonization and real estate footprint rationalization as 2 examples.

預計此次合併從一開始就會產生增值作用。我們預計第一年每股收益將實現中高個位數增長，第二年將實現兩位數增長。此外，我們非常有信心通過 IT 系統協調和房地產足跡合理化等各種措施，到第三年實現 1.2 億美元的成本協同效應。

Webhelp's performance in the first quarter surpassed expectations with low double-digit constant currency like-for-like growth. This was above Webhelp's planned growth for the quarter. We continue to expect that Webhelp will exceed 8% like-for-like revenue growth for the full year 2023 and will deliver approximately $500 million in 2023 adjusted EBITDA, consistent with our expectations when we announced the transaction back in March.

Webhelp 第一季度的業績超出了預期，保持了低兩位數的恆定貨幣同比增長。這高於 Webhelp 本季度的計劃增長。我們仍然預計 Webhelp 2023 年全年收入同比增長將超過 8%，並將在 2023 年實現約 5 億美元的調整後 EBITDA，這與我們在 3 月份宣布交易時的預期一致。

Three months since signing the combination, we believe the rationale for the Webhelp transaction has only been strengthened, and we look forward to realizing the benefits of the transaction for our clients, staff and shareholders. We expect -- we continue to expect the combination to be completed by the end of this year.

自簽署合併協議三個月以來，我們相信 Webhelp 交易的理由只會得到加強，我們期待著為我們的客戶、員工和股東實現交易的好處。我們預計——我們繼續預計合併將在今年年底完成。

Now I would like to spend a few minutes discussing our perspective on generative AI. As background, we have been using various forms of AI for over 2 years. As a technology-enabled industry leader, we already deploy AI tools across 60% of our business and are on track to have this close to 80% by year-end. Many of these tools help drive productivity and proficiency of our advisers, while some have completely automated work with machine learning chatbots and natural language processing IVRs. We have talked about a number of these use cases on prior earnings calls.

現在我想花幾分鐘討論我們對生成人工智能的看法。作為背景，我們使用各種形式的人工智能已有兩年多了。作為技術驅動的行業領導者，我們已經在 60% 的業務中部署了人工智能工具，並有望在年底前將這一比例接近 80%。其中許多工具有助於提高顧問的工作效率和熟練程度，而有些工具則可以與機器學習聊天機器人和自然語言處理 IVR 完全自動化工作。我們在之前的財報電話會議上討論了其中的一些用例。

Our depth of experience comes from trialing a myriad of AI tools in our business over the years and identifying tools that are scalable and secure for deployment. This gives us a rich understanding of the opportunities and challenges of sustainable deploying the technology in our clients' environment and workflow. Our depth of experience with established forms of AI as well as our current client discussions have helped inform our point of view regarding generative AI in the current market.

我們的豐富經驗來自於多年來在我們的業務中試驗了無數的人工智能工具，並確定了可擴展且安全部署的工具。這使我們對在客戶環境和工作流程中可持續部署該技術所面臨的機遇和挑戰有了更深入的了解。我們對現有人工智能形式的豐富經驗以及我們當前的客戶討論有助於我們了解當前市場中生成式人工智能的觀點。

We see generative AI as a continued evolution in enhancing solutions we can deliver to our clients. Our conversations about generative AI are centered around security, data management and how to fit the technology into the adviser and customer workflows we help our clients design, build and run. While harnessing this exciting advancement as the potential to drive substantial value for us and our clients, we believe there is some resistance to large-scale deployments due to concerns about the ownership of data, the security of proprietary information and customer exposure to AI hallucinations or brand damaging engagement.

我們將生成式人工智能視為增強我們可以為客戶提供的解決方案的持續發展。我們關於生成式人工智能的討論集中在安全性、數據管理以及如何將技術融入我們幫助客戶設計、構建和運行的顧問和客戶工作流程中。雖然利用這一令人興奮的進步為我們和我們的客戶帶來巨大價值的潛力，但我們認為，由於對數據所有權、專有信息的安全性以及客戶對人工智能幻覺或人工智能的暴露的擔憂，大規模部署存在一些阻力。品牌損害參與度。

While we will help our clients navigate these concerns, we continue to believe that the near-term focus for using this new technology will be on driving the productivity and proficiency of advisers before opportunities to fully automate work start to gain traction. We have many use cases in place that are proving out our thesis that generative AI will create new revenue opportunities and greater margin expansion opportunities for us while saving our clients costs. Our processes and philosophies have proven successful with past technological advancements, and we believe generative AI will be the same.

雖然我們將幫助客戶解決這些問題，但我們仍然相信，在完全自動化工作的機會開始獲得關注之前，使用這項新技術的近期重點將是提高顧問的生產力和熟練程度。我們有許多用例證明了我們的論點，即生成式人工智能將為我們創造新的收入機會和更大的利潤擴張機會，同時節省客戶成本。過去的技術進步已證明我們的流程和理念是成功的，我們相信生成式人工智能也將如此。

In addition to the multiple examples of new business wins in the quarter that we called out earlier, most of which use machine learning AI in the solution, our generative AI proof of concepts also span multiple industries and clients. A few examples of our use cases that are currently being done: we are working on leveraging proprietary large language models to ensure accuracy and compliance in regulatory industries -- regulated industries. We have seen benefits of being able to review materials far faster than we can with current tools for compliance.

除了我們之前提到的本季度新業務獲勝的多個示例（其中大多數在解決方案中使用機器學習 AI）之外，我們的生成式 AI 概念驗證還涵蓋多個行業和客戶。我們目前正在完成的用例的幾個例子：我們正在努力利用專有的大型語言模型來確保監管行業（受監管行業）的準確性和合規性。我們已經看到了能夠比當前合規工具更快地審查材料的好處。

We have a pilot currently where we are using generative AI to condense training materials and provide GenAI videos of courseware at a fraction of the cost that we can do currently. This already is being tested in production, and we expect to ramp this up to thousands of staff over the coming months. We are working with a large airline, taking notes from interactions with customers and convince them to get down for training and coaching that provides insights into how an adviser is working. Our proof of concept is currently saving about 45 minutes to 60 minutes a day for our coaches on preparing materials for their sessions with the advisers. We expect it to be rolled out across the entire program and other accounts starting in our fourth quarter.

我們目前有一個試點項目，正在使用生成式人工智能來壓縮培訓材料並提供課件的 GenAI 視頻，而成本只是我們目前的一小部分。這已經在生產中進行了測試，我們預計在未來幾個月內將其規模擴大到數千名員工。我們正在與一家大型航空公司合作，記錄與客戶的互動記錄，並說服他們接受培訓和指導，以深入了解顧問的工作方式。目前，我們的概念驗證每天為我們的教練節省了大約 45 分鐘到 60 分鐘的時間來為與顧問的會議準備材料。我們預計從第四季度開始，它將在整個計劃和其他賬戶中推廣。

Lastly, using generative AI, we have been able to greatly speed up a client's ability to scan through their knowledge bases and provide summary information back to an adviser to help them with their conversation with customers. This use case went into production last week on a program, and we're seeing the desired results of faster time to serve with greater ability to solve the customer problems faster.

最後，使用生成式人工智能，我們能夠大大加快客戶掃描其知識庫並向顧問提供摘要信息的能力，以幫助他們與客戶進行對話。該用例上週在一個程序中投入生產，我們看到了預期的結果，即更快的服務時間和更快地解決客戶問題的能力。

In all of these, we are working with our clients to evaluate the cost structure of generative AI and determine if machine learning or other types of automation are more cost effective. GenAI does have a cost factor to it, and we expect that it will cause some clients to continue to look at other methods of automation or offshoring first as generative AI costs inevitably will come down. Our investment in developing our Catalyst business has significantly expanded our capabilities in being able to design, build and run generative AI solutions at scale with thousands of staff able to deliver strategy, design and technically integrate the solutions when the need occurs. We view this as a unique capability that differentiates us significantly from our traditional CX peers.

在所有這些方面，我們正在與客戶合作評估生成式人工智能的成本結構，並確定機器學習或其他類型的自動化是否更具成本效益。 GenAI 確實存在成本因素，我們預計這將導致一些客戶首先繼續考慮其他自動化方法或離岸外包，因為生成式 AI 成本不可避免地會下降。我們對開發 Catalyst 業務的投資顯著增強了我們大規模設計、構建和運行生成式 AI 解決方案的能力，數千名員工能夠在需要時提供策略、設計和技術集成解決方案。我們認為這是一種獨特的能力，使我們與傳統的 CX 同行顯著不同。

We believe that the role of Concentrix will remain crucial even as clients have the option to purchase large language models directly. Generative AI is not a plug-and-play technology in the enterprise environment, and services are required to ensure a consistent and positive outcome when a company's brand reputation is on the line. The implementation and last-mile tasks such as model tuning, feedback gathering, training, exception handling are requiring human involvement and deep domain expertise.

我們相信，即使客戶可以選擇直接購買大型語言模型，Concentrix 的作用仍然至關重要。生成式人工智能並不是企業環境中的即插即用技術，當公司的品牌聲譽受到威脅時，需要提供服務來確保一致和積極的結果。模型調整、反饋收集、培訓、異常處理等實施和最後一英里任務需要人工參與和深厚的領域專業知識。

As a result, we believe that Concentrix will play an indispensable role in assisting clients with these critical elements, allowing us to add higher value services that don't exist today, so our clients can fully utilize the benefits of this technology. We have the experience, the expertise and the vision to leverage this technology to drive significant value for our clients and our business.

因此，我們相信 Concentrix 將在幫助客戶解決這些關鍵要素方面發揮不可或缺的作用，使我們能夠添加當今不存在的更高價值的服務，以便我們的客戶能夠充分利用這項技術的優勢。我們擁有豐富的經驗、專業知識和遠見，可以利用這項技術為我們的客戶和業務帶來巨大的價值。

Now with all automation, we expect some revenue impact over time, but we believe it will be offset by new work and increased margin potential. We expect a modest acceleration in the volume of transactions we already automate each year, and the economics for us and our clients will depend on where those transactions are currently serviced from. We are committed to delivering outstanding outcomes and maintaining our leadership position in the AI and automation space.

現在，隨著所有自動化的實現，我們預計隨著時間的推移，收入會受到一些影響，但我們相信，這將被新工作和增加的利潤潛力所抵消。我們預計每年已經實現自動化的交易量將略有增長，而我們和客戶的經濟效益將取決於目前為這些交易提供服務的地點。我們致力於提供卓越的成果並保持我們在人工智能和自動化領域的領導地位。

In summary, despite facing macroeconomic challenges that have impacted volumes for some clients, we achieved revenue growth and margin expansion this quarter. We are successfully planning for the combination with Webhelp and investing in harnessing the power of generative AI while continuing to drive strong positive cash flows. We are focused on aligning with the changing demands of our clients to enhance our long-term partnership for Concentrix and the market that we serve.

總之，儘管面臨宏觀經濟挑戰，影響了一些客戶的銷量，但我們本季度實現了收入增長和利潤率擴張。我們正在成功規劃與 Webhelp 的合併，並投資利用生成式人工智能的力量，同時繼續推動強勁的正現金流。我們致力於滿足客戶不斷變化的需求，以加強我們與 Concentrix 和我們所服務的市場的長期合作夥伴關係。

Finally, I want to take a moment to express my appreciation to our dedicated award-winning staff. Their hard work, resilience and unwavering commitment to excellence are the driving force behind our success. Also, I'd like to thank our clients for their trust and our talented Board of Directors for their support.

最後，我想花一點時間向我們屢獲殊榮的敬業員工表示感謝。他們的辛勤工作、韌性和對卓越的堅定承諾是我們成功的動力。此外，我還要感謝客戶的信任和才華橫溢的董事會的支持。

With that, I'll turn the call over to Andre. Andre?

這樣，我會將電話轉給安德烈。安德烈？

Thank you, Chris, and hello, everyone. I'll begin with a look at our financial results for the second quarter and then discuss our business outlook for the third quarter and the full year 2023. We delivered revenue growth and margin progression in the second quarter. Revenue in the second quarter was $1.61 billion, up 3% on an as-reported basis. The improvement in reported revenue includes a 1.6 point negative impact from foreign currency fluctuations and a positive 3% impact from acquisitions.

謝謝你，克里斯，大家好。我將首先介紹我們第二季度的財務業績，然後討論我們對第三季度和 2023 年全年的業務前景。我們在第二季度實現了收入增長和利潤增長。第二季度收入為 16.1 億美元，按報告增長 3%。報告收入的改善包括外匯波動帶來的 1.6 個百分點的負面影響和收購帶來的 3% 的正面影響。

Organic constant currency growth was below our Q2 expectations for the quarter at 1.6%, a reflection of certain clients having lower volumes than they expected. The shortfalls to volume expectations were most pronounced with a few large clients in the communications and consumer electronics verticals and a number of clients across our retail vertical.

固定匯率有機增長低於我們對第二季度 1.6% 的預期，反映出某些客戶的交易量低於他們的預期。通信和消費電子垂直領域的一些大客戶以及我們零售垂直領域的許多客戶的銷量預期的不足最為明顯。

In Catalyst, we saw client spending reductions and the change in the large project that Chris mentioned earlier. In terms of client verticals, we grew in each of our 4 strategic verticals in the quarter, with revenue from health care clients leading the way growing by approximately 11% on both an as-reported and organic constant currency basis. Revenue from retail, travel and e-commerce clients posted 4% growth as reported and 6% on constant currency organic growth as strong growth continued with travel clients.

在 Catalyst 中，我們看到了客戶支出的減少以及克里斯之前提到的大型項目的變化。就客戶垂直領域而言，本季度我們的 4 個戰略垂直領域均實現了增長，其中醫療保健客戶的收入領先，按報告和有機固定貨幣計算，增長約 11%。據報導，零售、旅遊和電子商務客戶的收入增長了 4%，由於旅遊客戶持續強勁增長，按固定匯率計算有機增長 6%。

Revenue from banking, financial services and insurance clients grew by 2% on a reported basis and 4.5% on an organic constant currency basis. Revenue from technology and consumer electronics clients grew 8% as reported and about 1% on an organic constant currency basis. Revenue from communications clients decreased by 6% as reported and on an organic basis. Revenue from clients in the other vertical decreased 8% as reported and about 7% on an organic constant currency basis in the second quarter, driven by reduced spending by 1 government client based on changing social spending priorities.

來自銀行、金融服務和保險客戶的收入在報告基礎上增長了 2%，在有機固定貨幣基礎上增長了 4.5%。據報導，來自技術和消費電子客戶的收入增長了 8%，按有機固定匯率計算增長了約 1%。據報告，來自通信客戶的收入有機下降了 6%。據報導，第二季度來自其他垂直行業客戶的收入下降了 8%，按有機固定匯率計算下降了約 7%，這是由於 1 個政府客戶因社會支出優先事項發生變化而減少了支出。

Our new economy clients grew 2% year-over-year and represented 23% of second quarter revenue. While we saw growth with new economy clients, particularly in travel and e-commerce clients, this was partially offset by reduced year-over-year revenue from crypto and fintech clients that represented a 5 point year-over-year headwind on our new economy client revenue growth in the second quarter.

我們的新經濟客戶同比增長 2%，佔第二季度收入的 23%。雖然我們看到新經濟客戶（尤其是旅遊和電子商務客戶）的增長，但這被加密貨幣和金融科技客戶同比收入減少所部分抵消，這對我們的新經濟造成了 5 個百分點的同比阻力第二季度客戶收入增長。

Non-GAAP operating income was $221 million in the second quarter compared with $213 million last year. Our non-GAAP operating margin of 13.7% was up 10 basis points from the second quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA was $259 million compared with $250 million in the second quarter of last year. Our adjusted EBITDA margin of 16.0% was up 10 basis points from the second quarter last year. Non-GAAP net income in the second quarter was $141 million compared with $155 million last year. Earnings per share were $2.69 per share on a non-GAAP basis compared with $2.93 per share last year.

第二季度非 GAAP 營業收入為 2.21 億美元，去年同期為 2.13 億美元。我們的非 GAAP 營業利潤率為 13.7%，比去年第二季度上升 10 個基點。調整後 EBITDA 為 2.59 億美元，去年第二季度為 2.5 億美元。我們調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率為 16.0%，比去年第二季度增長了 10 個基點。第二季度非 GAAP 淨利潤為 1.41 億美元，去年同期為 1.55 億美元。按非 GAAP 計算，每股收益為 2.69 美元，去年為 2.93 美元。

GAAP results for the second quarter of 2023 included $39 million of amortization of intangibles, $11 million of share-based compensation expense and $32 million of acquisition and integration expenses. Of the transaction and integration costs incurred in Q2, approximately $8 million is reflected in GAAP operating income. $12 million is reflected in interest expense, and $12 million is reflected in other expense. The $12 million included in interest expense relates to fees associated with the bridge financing that was put in place for the Webhelp transaction. The $12 million reflected in other expense relates to a mark-to-market loss on options that were purchased to hedge the FX impact of movements between sign and close on the portion of the Webhelp purchase price that is denominated in euros. Our GAAP tax rate was 25.6% in the second quarter and our non-GAAP tax rate was 25.3%.

2023 年第二季度的 GAAP 業績包括 3900 萬美元的無形資產攤銷、1100 萬美元的股權激勵費用以及 3200 萬美元的收購和整合費用。在第二季度發生的交易和整合成本中，大約 800 萬美元反映在 GAAP 營業收入中。 1200 萬美元反映在利息支出中，1200 萬美元反映在其他支出中。利息支出中包含的 1200 萬美元與為 Webhelp 交易設立的過橋融資相關的費用有關。其他費用中反映的 1200 萬美元與按市值計價的期權損失有關，購買這些期權是為了對沖以歐元計價的 Webhelp 購買價格部分的外匯影響。第二季度我們的 GAAP 稅率為 25.6%，非 GAAP 稅率為 25.3%。

Turning to cash flow. Second quarter cash flow from operations totaled $133 million and capital expenditures were $32 million. This resulted in free cash flow of $101 million in the quarter. Included in our free cash flow for the quarter were approximately $5 million of cash costs related to acquisitions. Our year-to-date free cash flow totals $166 million, approximately $24 million above the prior year period. We continue to expect free cash flow for the full year to exceed $500 million excluding Webhelp transaction and integration costs.

轉向現金流。第二季度運營現金流總計 1.33 億美元，資本支出為 3200 萬美元。這使得該季度的自由現金流達到 1.01 億美元。本季度的自由現金流中包括大約 500 萬美元的與收購相關的現金成本。我們年初至今的自由現金流總計 1.66 億美元，比上年同期增加約 2400 萬美元。我們仍然預計全年自由現金流將超過 5 億美元，不包括 Webhelp 交易和集成成本。

Moving to the balance sheet. At the end of the second quarter, cash and cash equivalents were $153 million and debt outstanding was $2.13 billion. Net debt was $1.98 billion at the end of the quarter. During the quarter, we paid a quarterly dividend of $0.275 per share; and today, our Board declared another quarterly dividend of $0.275 per share to be paid during the third quarter. We also repurchased 39,000 shares of our stock for approximately $5 million in the quarter at an average price of $126 per share under a 10b5-1 plan that we entered into earlier in the year. Share repurchases under the plan ceased with the announcement of our Webhelp combination due to regulatory considerations related to the transaction.

轉向資產負債表。第二季度末，現金和現金等價物為1.53億美元，未償債務為21.3億美元。本季度末淨債務為 19.8 億美元。本季度，我們支付了每股 0.275 美元的季度股息；今天，我們的董事會宣佈在第三季度再支付每股 0.275 美元的季度股息。根據我們今年早些時候制定的 10b5-1 計劃，我們還在本季度以每股 126 美元的平均價格以約 500 萬美元的價格回購了 39,000 股股票。出於與交易相關的監管考慮，隨著 Webhelp 合併的宣布，該計劃下的股票回購停止了。

After filing our proxy statement last week, we expect to continue our share repurchase activity in the third quarter. We have $339 million remaining on our share repurchase authorization and has been our intent to repurchase shares to offset dilution. We believe that our shares are undervalued and that continued modest share repurchase at this valuation is warranted and will be accretive to EPS.

在上週提交股東委託書後，我們預計將在第三季度繼續進行股票回購活動。我們的股票回購授權還剩 3.39 億美元，我們一直打算回購股票以抵消股權稀釋。我們認為，我們的股票被低估，在此估值下繼續適度回購股票是有道理的，並將增加每股收益。

At the end of the second quarter, gross leverage was approximately 2x adjusted EBITDA, and net leverage was approximately 1.9x on a trailing 4 quarters pro forma basis. Our liquidity remains strong at approximately $1.4 billion, including our $1.043 billion undrawn line of credit, cash on hand and additional capacity under our AR securitization.

截至第二季度末，總槓桿率約為調整後 EBITDA 的 2 倍，按過去 ​​4 個季度的預估計算，淨槓桿率約為 1.9 倍。我們的流動性仍然強勁，約為 14 億美元，其中包括 10.43 億美元的未提取信貸額度、庫存現金以及 AR 證券化下的額外產能。

Now I'll take a moment to review elements of the Webhelp combination. As I said when we announced the combination, on a pro forma basis, the combination of Webhelp will add $3 billion in 2023 revenue and approximately $500 million of 2023 adjusted EBITDA to Concentrix. The combined company will have $9.6 billion in revenue and almost $1.6 billion in combined EBITDA in fiscal year 2023 on a pro forma basis. We expect earnings per share accretion of mid- to high single digits in the first full year after close and double-digit accretion in the second year. We also expect to realize $75 million in synergies in the first year after close, growing to $120 million in synergies in year 3. While not included in our model, identifiable revenue synergy upsides exist related to opportunities that the companies couldn't pursue separately prior to the combination.

現在我將花點時間回顧一下 Webhelp 組合的元素。正如我在宣布合併時所說，根據預計，Webhelp 的合併將為 Concentrix 增加 2023 年收入 30 億美元，並為 2023 年調整後 EBITDA 增加約 5 億美元。按預計，合併後的公司 2023 財年的收入將達到 96 億美元，綜合 EBITDA 接近 16 億美元。我們預計，繼第二年接近兩位數增長之後，第一個全年每股收益將增長至中高個位數。我們還預計在交易完成後的第一年實現 7500 萬美元的協同效應，並在第三年增長到 1.2 億美元的協同效應。雖然沒有包含在我們的模型中，但存在可識別的收入協同優勢，這些優勢與公司之前無法單獨追求的機會相關。到組合。

When announced, the transaction was valued at $4.8 billion, which included approximately 14.9 million shares of Concentrix stock to be issued at closing valued at $120 per share; EUR 500 million in cash to be paid at closing; EUR 700 million in deferred consideration in the form of a 2-year note payable to Webhelp shareholders that will bear interest of 2%. The 14.9 million shares to be delivered at closing is a fixed number of shares. It is not impacted by changes in our stock price post announcement.

宣佈時，交易價值為 48 億美元，其中包括約 1,490 萬股 Concentrix 股票，交易結束時將以每股 120 美元的價格發行；交割時支付 5 億歐元現金； 7 億歐元的遞延對價以 2 年期票據的形式支付給 Webhelp 股東，利息為 2%。交割時交付的1490萬股為固定數量的股份。它不受公告後股價變化的影響。

Accordingly, with the recent reduction in trading value of our common stock, the current value of the transaction is below the originally announced $4.8 billion. The transaction consideration also includes 750,000 additional Concentrix shares that will vest based on certain conditions, including if the Concentrix share price appreciates to over $170 per share within a specified period following closing. The transaction was structured to maintain investment-grade rating for the debt that we will issue.

因此，隨著近期我們普通股交易價值的減少，當前交易價值低於最初宣布的 48 億美元。交易對價還包括 750,000 股額外的 Concentrix 股票，這些股票將根據某些條件授予，包括如果 Concentrix 股價在交易結束後的指定期限內升至每股 170 美元以上。該交易的結構是為了維持我們將發行的債務的投資級評級。

Since we announced the transaction, we have amended and expanded our revolving credit facility to include an increase in our term loan A to up to $2.145 billion at the time that the combination closes. We have also increased the size of our undrawn revolver. In addition to the increased borrowings in our term loan A, we now expect to finance the transaction through the issuance of approximately $2.2 billion in senior unsecured bonds with maturities split between 3 years, 5 years and 10 years.

自從我們宣布這項交易以來，我們修改並擴大了我們的循環信貸額度，包括在合併結束時將我們的定期貸款 A 增加至最高 21.45 億美元。我們還增加了未拔出的左輪手槍的尺寸。除了增加定期貸款 A 中的借款外，我們現在預計通過發行約 22 億美元的高級無擔保債券（期限分為 3 年、5 年和 10 年）來為交易融資。

As disclosed in our recently filed proxy statement and based on current market conditions and our investment-grade credit rating, we now forecast the financing that we will incur to complete the transaction will be at a weighted average interest rate of 6.175%, a little over 30 basis points below the rate we anticipated when we announced the combination. We continue to estimate that our net debt to adjusted EBITDA will be about 3x on a pro forma basis when the combination closes later this year. As we said at the time of our announcement of the combination, our strong free cash flow generation, and adjusted EBITDA growth gives us a clear path to reducing leverage, and we are committed to reducing our net leverage to about 2x within 2 years after the transaction closes.

正如我們最近提交的代理聲明中所披露的，根據當前的市場狀況和我們的投資級信用評級，我們現在預測完成交易所需的融資的加權平均利率將為 6.175%，略高於比我們宣布合併時的預期低 30 個基點。我們繼續估計，當今年晚些時候合併完成時，我們的淨債務與調整後 EBITDA 的比例將約為預計的 3 倍。正如我們在宣布合併時所說，我們強勁的自由現金流生成和調整後的 EBITDA 增長為我們提供了降低杠桿率的明確途徑，我們致力於在合併後的 2 年內將淨槓桿率降低至約 2 倍。交易結束。

Regarding our capital allocation priorities. After the transaction closes, our focus will be on organic growth, the successful integration of Webhelp, realizing the planned synergies and repaying debt. We are committed to investment-grade principles. We will prioritize paying down debt and reducing our net leverage while continuing our dividend and disciplined share repurchases to offset the dilution of equity grants. As I mentioned on our last call, we plan to provide guidance for the combined business after the transaction closes.

關於我們的資本配置優先事項。交易完成後，我們的重點將放在有機增長、Webhelp 的成功整合、實現計劃的協同效應和償還債務上。我們致力於投資級原則。我們將優先償還債務和降低淨槓桿率，同時繼續派息和嚴格的股票回購，以抵消股權授予的稀釋。正如我在上次電話會議中提到的，我們計劃在交易完成後為合併後的業務提供指導。

Now I'll turn to our business outlook for the third quarter and for the full year fiscal 2023. For clarity, our guidance does not include any contribution from Webhelp or any costs that we will incur related to the combination. We are growing in each of our 4 strategic verticals, and we're seeing growth across most of our regions. We're seeing stability in revenue in Catalyst and expect sequential growth each quarter in Catalyst in the second half of 2023. However, we are seeing near-term impacts for certain clients.

現在我將談談我們對第三季度和 2023 財年全年的業務展望。為了清楚起見，我們的指導不包括 Webhelp 的任何貢獻或我們將因合併而產生的任何成本。我們在 4 個戰略垂直領域中的每一個都在增長，並且我們在大多數地區都看到了增長。我們看到 Catalyst 的收入穩定，並預計 2023 年下半年 Catalyst 每個季度都會出現環比增長。但是，我們看到某些客戶的近期影響。

In communications, we are seeing a meaningful impact on our revenue expectations for the year for Catalyst driven by the delay to the large project that Chris discussed earlier. We're seeing lower-than-expected revenues from a few large clients we mentioned earlier, reflecting the lower volumes they are experiencing.

在通信方面，我們看到由於克里斯之前討論的大型項目的延遲，對 Catalyst 今年的收入預期產生了重大影響。我們看到我們之前提到的一些大客戶的收入低於預期，反映出他們的交易量較低。

Finally, our revenue expectations from retail clients have been reduced by lighter-than-expected volumes across many clients in this vertical. Our expectations do not include any improvement in the macroeconomic environment and continue to reflect muted seasonal volumes in line with what we experienced in fiscal 2022. As a result of these factors, we are revising our revenue expectations for the fiscal year. However, we remain focused on maintaining our profit margins while confirming our expectations for strong free cash flow generation for the year.

最後，我們對零售客戶的收入預期已經降低，因為該垂直領域許多客戶的銷量低於預期。我們的預期不包括宏觀經濟環境的任何改善，並繼續反映出與我們 2022 財年經歷的季節性銷量相一致的疲軟。由於這些因素，我們正在修改本財年的收入預期。然而，我們仍然專注於維持利潤率，同時確認我們對今年強勁自由現金流產生的預期。

For the third quarter, we now expect organic constant currency revenue growth to be in a range of 1.5% to 2.5%. Based on current exchange rates, we expect a 0.2 point positive year-over-year impact on reported revenue in the third quarter. We expect the timing of our 2022 acquisitions to contribute approximately $28 million of incremental year-over-year revenue growth in the third quarter. Based on these assumptions, we expect reported third quarter revenue to be in a range of $1.635 billion to $1.650 billion based on current exchange rates.

對於第三季度，我們目前預計固定貨幣收入的有機增長將在 1.5% 至 2.5% 之間。根據當前匯率，我們預計第三季度報告收入將同比增長 0.2 個百分點。我們預計 2022 年的收購時機將為第三季度帶來約 2800 萬美元的同比收入增長。基於這些假設，根據當前匯率，我們預計第三季度報告收入將在 16.35 億美元至 16.50 億美元之間。

Our profitability expectations for the third quarter include non-GAAP operating income in the range of $225 million to $235 million. This equates to a non-GAAP operating margin of 14.0% at the midpoint of the range, similar to the third quarter last year. We expect interest expense in the third quarter to be approximately $35 million excluding any impact related to the Webhelp combination. We also expect an effective tax rate of 26% and a weighted average diluted share count of approximately 51.5 million shares.

我們對第三季度的盈利預期包括非 GAAP 營業收入在 2.25 億美元至 2.35 億美元之間。這相當於非 GAAP 營業利潤率為該範圍中點的 14.0%，與去年第三季度類似。我們預計第三季度的利息支出約為 3500 萬美元，不包括與 Webhelp 合併相關的任何影響。我們還預計有效稅率為 26%，加權平均稀釋後股份數量約為 5150 萬股。

Moving to our outlook for the entire year. We now expect 2023 constant currency organic revenue growth to be in the range of 2% to 3%. Based on current exchange rates, we expect a 0.5 point negative impact on reported revenues for the full year. We expect the timing of our 2022 acquisitions to contribute approximately $156 million of incremental year-over-year revenue growth for the full year. This equates to reported full year revenue in a range of $6.575 billion to $6.640 billion.

轉向我們對全年的展望。我們現在預計 2023 年按固定匯率計算的有機收入增長率將在 2% 至 3% 之間。根據當前匯率，我們預計全年報告收入將受到 0.5 個百分點的負面影響。我們預計 2022 年的收購時機將為全年貢獻約 1.56 億美元的同比收入增長。這相當於報告的全年收入在 65.75 億美元至 66.40 億美元之間。

Our full year profitability expectations now include non-GAAP operating income in a range of $920 million to $945 million. This equates to a non-GAAP operating margin of 14.1% at the midpoint of the range, up 10 basis points from the prior year. We expect full year interest expense to be approximately $138 million, excluding any impact related to the Webhelp combination. We also expect an effective tax rate of approximately 26% and a weighted average diluted share count of approximately 51.5 million shares, again, excluding any impact from the shares to be issued to complete the Webhelp combination.

我們的全年盈利預期目前包括 9.2 億至 9.45 億美元的非 GAAP 營業收入。這相當於非 GAAP 營業利潤率為該範圍中點的 14.1%，比上一年上升 10 個基點。我們預計全年利息支出約為 1.38 億美元，不包括與 Webhelp 合併相關的任何影響。我們還預計有效稅率約為 26%，加權平均稀釋後股票數量約為 5150 萬股，同樣不包括為完成 Webhelp 合併而發行的股票的任何影響。

We continue to expect strong free cash flow for the year with free cash flow growing to over $500 million in 2023, an increase of at least 8% over 2022. Our business outlook does not include acquisition-related impacts or transaction and integration costs associated with our acquisition of Webhelp or any future acquisitions. Also not included in the guidance are impacts from future currency fluctuations or future share repurchases.

我們繼續預計今年自由現金流將強勁，到 2023 年自由現金流將增長至 5 億美元以上，比 2022 年增長至少 8%。我們的業務前景不包括與收購相關的影響或與收購相關的交易和整合成本我們對 Webhelp 的收購或任何未來的收購。指南中還沒有包括未來貨幣波動或未來股票回購的影響。

In closing, we are focused on margin expansion and cash flow generation while taking advantage of the market opportunity that generative AI poses and completing and successfully integrating the Webhelp combination. We believe that our focus on these areas will position us for future growth and value creation.

最後，我們專注於利潤擴張和現金流生成，同時利用生成式人工智能帶來的市場機會，完成並成功整合 Webhelp 組合。我們相信，對這些領域的關注將為我們未來的增長和價值創造做好準備。

At this time, operator, please open the line for questions.

此時，接線員請開通線路提問。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Vincent Colicchio with Barrington.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自 Vincent Colicchio 和 Barrington。

So Chris, part of your guidance, it looks like you're expecting a meaningful pickup in sequential growth in Q4. What is driving that?

因此，克里斯，您的指導的一部分，看起來您預計第四季度的環比增長將出現有意義的回升。是什麼推動了這一點？

So Vince, as we talked about earlier, we do have 2 large contracts, 1 that we talked about in Catalyst, which will not ramp. The other one is at plan and has confirmed kind of ramping as we expect the plan for the rest of the year. As we talked about, that's a fairly big driver of the growth that we're seeing within Q4. And then also as we looked at the areas that are growing, they continue to grow. We've looked at obviously muting the expectations of the clients who have not been able to kind of meet their volume expectations that they've had. So that's partly offset, but when you put the 2 together, that gives us what we're seeing within the fourth quarter as you look at the guide for the year.

因此，文斯，正如我們之前談到的，我們確實有 2 個大型合同，其中 1 個是我們在 Catalyst 中討論過的，它不會增加。另一個已按計劃進行，並已確認將按我們預計的今年剩餘時間的計劃進行。正如我們所討論的，這是我們在第四季度看到的增長的一個相當大的驅動力。然後，當我們觀察正在增長的領域時，它們仍在繼續增長。我們已經考慮過明顯降低那些無法滿足其數量期望的客戶的期望。所以這被部分抵消了，但是當你把兩者放在一起時，當你查看今年的指南時，這給了我們在第四季度看到的情況。

Yes. I think, Vince, one fairly sizable difference versus last year is our expectation, as I said that we expect to see sequential growth within Catalyst quarterly as we go through the back half of the year. So that is different than what we were experiencing last year and will kind of be the thing that makes this year's pattern look different than last year. Other than that, pretty much the same as last year's pattern.

是的。 Vince，我認為，與去年相比，一個相當大的差異是我們的預期，正如我所說，我們預計在今年下半年，Catalyst 季度將實現環比增長。因此，這與我們去年經歷的情況有所不同，這也將導致今年的模式看起來與去年有所不同。除此之外，與去年的模式幾乎相同。

And in terms of the vendor consolidation discussions, I think you may have touched on this. But what portion of the amount that is not coming in this year do you think you may see in the next fiscal year?

在供應商整合討論方面，我想您可能已經談到了這一點。但您認為下一個財年可能會看到今年未到位的金額中的哪一部分？

So Vince, to be honest, that's difficult to answer. What we're having is sort of positive conversations. We've clearly won a bunch of the vendor consolidation business, although it's coming in at lower volumes. But we have a number of clients who are kind of sitting on the fence, so to speak, and saying, look, if we continue to see these depressed volumes that we're seeing, we're definitely going to have to consolidate. But those pulling the trigger is taking a little longer than expected.

所以文斯，說實話，這很難回答。我們正在進行的是積極的對話。我們顯然已經贏得了很多供應商整合業務，儘管它的銷量較低。但我們有一些客戶持觀望態度，可以說，如果我們繼續看到我們所看到的這些低迷的銷量，我們肯定將不得不進行整合。但扣動扳機的時間比預期要長一些。

We are not anticipating anything meaningful in the next 2 quarters from a vendor consolidation perspective outside of ones that we've already been given and are ramping and are dealing with. I suspect that will roll into next year and probably the most appropriate time to talk about that as when we close the Webhelp combination and then kind of give a guide for what we see in the back half of the year -- sorry, front half, back half of next year.

從供應商整合的角度來看，除了我們已經得到的、正在增加的和正在處理的事情之外，我們預計未來兩個季度不會出現任何有意義的事情。我懷疑這將持續到明年，可能是討論這個問題的最合適的時間，因為當我們關閉 Webhelp 組合時，然後為我們在下半年看到的情況提供一個指南 - 對不起，前半部分，明年下半年。

And then one last one. The -- your strategic verticals are performing quite well. Should we expect that to continue in the second half? And the weakest, I think, of the 4 is the technology and consumer electronics side. Should we expect that to continue?

然後是最後一張。 - 你們的戰略垂直領域表現得相當不錯。我們是否應該期望這種情況在下半年繼續下去？我認為，這四個方面中最薄弱的是技術和消費電子產品方面。我們應該期望這種情況繼續下去嗎？

Yes. So Vince, on sort of health care and some of the others, banking insurance, you'll see what we foresee is that kind of continued sort of strength in the back half of the year. Consumer electronics and technology is a tale of 2 cities. Consumer electronics, we continue to see, frankly, as Andre called out, some of our larger clients suffering some fairly big volume declines within that space. But that's offset by, in some of the technology space that we've seen, some very good, strong growth, and we expect to see probably that continue on in the back half of the year with continued muted consumer electronics but some good strong growth in the technology side.

是的。因此，文斯，在醫療保健和其他一些銀行保險方面，你會看到我們預計下半年會出現持續的強勢。消費電子產品和技術是兩個城市的故事。坦率地說，正如安德烈所說，消費電子產品我們繼續看到，我們的一些大客戶在該領域的銷量出現了相當大的下降。但這被我們所看到的一些技術領域的一些非常好的、強勁的增長所抵消，我們預計這種情況可能會在今年下半年繼續下去，消費電子產品持續低迷，但一些強勁的增長在技​​術方面。

Our next question comes from Ruplu Bhattacharya with Bank of America.

我們的下一個問題來自美國銀行的魯普盧·巴塔查亞 (Ruplu Bhattacharya)。

Chris, revenues in fiscal 2Q grew 1.6% in constant currency, whereas you had expected it to grow 3% to 5%, reguiding 3Q to 2% constant currency growth, you're taking down the full year from 5% to 2.5%. I guess my question would be what is the market growing at based on your estimate. And why -- what gives you confidence that revenues can't be weaker? I mean why is 2.5% the right number? And what is giving you confidence in that?

克里斯，按固定匯率計算，第二財季的收入增長了 1.6%，而您原本預計增長 3% 至 5%，將第三季度的固定匯率增長率調整為 2%，但您將全年增長率從 5% 下調至 2.5%。我想我的問題是根據您的估計市場的增長速度是多少。為什麼——是什麼讓您有信心收入不會下降？我的意思是為什麼 2.5% 是正確的數字？是什麼讓您對此充滿信心？

So Ruplu, a couple of different things. I'm not sure -- we are hearing different market growth numbers frankly, and it's more based on region and by industry. And so for instance, we see Europe growing faster. We are experiencing that ourselves. Clearly, other public companies who have large European exposures are seeing that versus what sort of North America is growing. And similar, we're seeing some good growth in Asia Pac and, some public companies that are exposed to that are seeing the same things. So it's a bit of a mixed bag.

Ruplu，有一些不同的東西。我不確定——坦率地說，我們聽到了不同的市場增長數字，而且更多地基於地區和行業。例如，我們看到歐洲增長更快。我們自己正在經歷這一點。顯然，其他在歐洲擁有大量業務的上市公司也看到了這一點，而北美的業務正在增長。類似地，我們在亞太地區看到了一些良好的增長，一些面臨這種情況的上市公司也看到了同樣的情況。所以這有點魚龍混雜。

What I will tell you is we feel that -- and what we're hearing from our clients is we're keeping, if not growing our share across the categories that we're in and competing in and the business that we're competing in. So we feel good about that. That's probably the big takeaway from all of it.

我要告訴你的是，我們認為——我們從客戶那裡聽到的是，我們在我們所處的領域、競爭的領域以及我們正在競爭的業務中，即使沒有增加我們的份額，我們也會保持這一份額。所以我們對此感覺良好。這可能是所有這一切的最大收穫。

In terms of how we've looked at the back half of the year, when we looked at our Q1, we came in at the higher midpoint of the guide. And we said within Q1 that we had some clients who were forecasting lower and delivered way more. We had some clients who were forecasting more and delivered less. And we've had that similar experience in Q2.

就我們對今年下半年的看法而言，當我們查看第一季度時，我們處於指南的較高中點。我們在第一季度表示，我們有一些客戶的預測較低，但交付量卻要高得多。我們有一些客戶的預測較多，但交付較少。我們在第二季度也有過類似的經歷。

The difference is, is that we're seeing some of the clients that Andre pointed out sort of retool their infrastructure, for lack of a better term, in terms of what they're actually outputting into the marketplace. And when we see that, we tend to kind of feel like they've reached the position of stability in terms of what their expectations are, and it's muted from what we originally anticipated.

不同的是，我們看到安德烈指出的一些客戶正在重組他們的基礎設施，因為缺乏更好的術語，就他們實際向市場輸出的內容而言。當我們看到這一點時，我們往往會覺得他們已經達到了他們的期望的穩定狀態，並且與我們最初的預期相比有所減弱。

And so as we've gone through and looked at our Q3 numbers and expectations for full year, we've effectively had many, many conversations with clients in regards to what they're seeing from a capacity perspective, what they're tooling to, what their share is, where we will take share, where we will hold share and then put it through our own sort of calculations in regards to who has generally overpromised and underdelivered and vice versa to come up with where we see the numbers.

因此，當我們仔細研究第三季度的數據和全年的預期時，我們實際上與客戶進行了很多很多對話，了解他們從容量角度看到的情況以及他們正在使用的工具，他們的份額是多少，我們將在哪裡獲得份額，我們將在哪裡持有份額，然後通過我們自己的計算來確定誰普遍承諾過多和兌現不足，反之亦然，以得出我們在哪裡看到的數字。

And I think that gives us, as confident as we can be, on where we see Q3 and Q4. And as we've tried to kind of point out, very identifiable chunks of business that we have seen very different expectations than what clients had forecasted, where the rest we have seen good growth and good performance. I think through this, the takeaway, though, Ruplu, is that we're very focused on margin preservation, margin growth and also cash flow growth. And despite coming in less than what we had hoped for and we were disappointed in Q2, the reality is, is that the team adjusted very, very quickly to make sure that we delivered on our cash flow and margin performance goals, and that's certainly what our goals are as we go into Q3 and Q4 as well as obviously hitting our guidance that we've laid out.

我認為這讓我們對第三季度和第四季度的前景充滿信心。正如我們試圖指出的那樣，我們看到的非常明顯的業務塊與客戶的預測有很大不同，而其餘業務我們看到了良好的增長和良好的業績。不過，我認為，Ruplu 的結論是，我們非常關注利潤保護、利潤增長和現金流增長。儘管我們的業績低於我們的預期，而且我們對第二季度感到失望，但事實是，團隊調整得非常非常快，以確保我們實現現金流和利潤績效目標，這當然是我們的目標。我們的目標是進入第三季度和第四季度，並明顯達到我們制定的指導方針。

Okay. For my next question, let me ask you about the new economy clients. I mean this set of clients was growing 47% year-on-year 3, 4 quarters ago. I think you said they grew 2% year-on-year this quarter. So what are you hearing from them? Any idea when this set of clients can turn around? Do you think this is like another 1 to 2 quarter so weakness? Or what is your take on when this set of clients can see stronger growth?

好的。下一個問題，我想問一下關於新經濟客戶的問題。我的意思是，三、四個季度前，這組客戶同比增長了 47%。我想你說過這個季度同比增長了 2%。那麼你從他們那裡聽到了什麼？你知道這群客戶什麼時候可以扭轉局面嗎？您是否認為這會像另一個1到2季度那樣疲軟？或者當這組客戶能夠看到更強勁的增長時，您有何看法？

Yes. So Ruplu, great question. I think you have to peel back the onion a little bit on these clients. Where we're seeing weakness in this portfolio of clients is, as Andre pointed out, primarily crypto year-on-year, which is now de minimis to us kind of going forward; and then also in some of the fintechs. And to be more specific, we are seeing weakness in North American-based direct-to-consumer fintechs, which have dramatically kind of cut back their customer acquisition and spend and are more focused at kind of driving, frankly, real tangible, profitable returns.

是的。魯普魯，好問題。我認為你必須對這些客戶稍微剝一點洋蔥。正如安德烈指出的那樣，我們看到這個客戶組合的弱點主要是加密貨幣同比，這對我們的未來發展來說是微不足道的；然後還有一些金融科技公司。更具體地說，我們看到北美直接面向消費者的金融科技公司的弱點，這些公司大幅削減了客戶獲取和支出，並且更專注於推動坦率地說，真正有形的盈利回報。

And I think when you look at that combination, that's about a 5% headwind, which obviously will lap next year. So my expectation is that we'll continue to see muted performance within this portfolio of accounts probably until the back half of the year, early next year when either they start to spend more to expand or, obviously, economy might turn around and/or we continue to add clients into that portfolio, which we're doing.

我認為，當你看看這個組合時，你會發現大約有 5% 的逆風，這顯然會在明年發生。因此，我的預期是，我們將繼續看到該賬戶組合的表現不佳，可能直到今年下半年、明年初，屆時他們要么開始花費更多資金來擴張，要么，顯然，經濟可能會好轉和/或我們繼續將客戶添加到我們正在做的投資組合中。

Okay. Let me ask Andre a question. So Andre, the operating environment is weaker. I mean revenue growth is lower. You're taking on a lot of debt for the Webhelp acquisition. So talk to us about what is giving you confidence in being able to service that debt and as part of that, if you can weave in some of the margin drivers and what your expectations are for cash flows and why you think that those can sustain.

好的。讓我問安德烈一個問題。所以安德烈的經營環境比較弱。我的意思是收入增長較低。您因收購 Webhelp 而承擔了大量債務。因此，請與我們談談是什麼讓您對能夠償還債務充滿信心，作為其中的一部分，您是否可以納入一些利潤驅動因素，以及您對現金流的期望是什麼，以及為什麼您認為這些可以維持。

Yes. So one of the things that's really great about this business, Ruplu, through cycles is how it generates cash. And I go back as far back as -- in this industry as far back as the global financial crisis, and the participants even back then, when revenues were soft, we're able to drive really strong free cash flow. So it really starts with our ability to have a very variable cost base, so we can quickly react as we did in this quarter to preserve margins. I think then other margin drivers, as we go forward, will be, again, getting into higher value services, including now higher-value services around helping our clients implement generative AI.

是的。因此，Ruplu 這個業務在整個週期中真正偉大的事情之一就是它如何產生現金。我可以追溯到——在這個行業，早在全球金融危機時期，參與者甚至在那時，當收入疲軟時，我們就能夠推動真正強勁的自由現金流。因此，這實際上始於我們擁有非常可變的成本基礎的能力，因此我們可以像本季度那樣快速做出反應以保持利潤。我認為，隨著我們的前進，其他利潤驅動因素將再次進入更高價值的服務，包括現在圍繞幫助我們的客戶實施生成人工智能的更高價值的服務。

Obviously, we can still get some leverage on our G&A as we grow even at these muted levels. And then we add in -- you mentioned the Webhelp and taking on the debt there. We add in Webhelp, generate strong free cash flows and then the synergies from that transaction kind of on top of things, which will be accretive both to margins and to free cash flow. So all of that has us very, very confident even at the increased interest rates that we can generate strong free cash flow. Such as we are, frankly, in the Concentrix business, this year, we'll be able to do it even more so on a combined basis with Webhelp and with synergies and pay down debt.

顯然，即使在如此低迷的水平上，隨著我們的增長，我們仍然可以在一般行政費用上獲得一些槓桿。然後我們補充一下——您提到了 Webhelp 並承擔了那裡的債務。我們添加了 Webhelp，產生強大的自由現金流，然後從該交易中產生協同效應，這將增加利潤和自由現金流。因此，所有這些都讓我們非常非常有信心，即使在利率上升的情況下，我們也能產生強勁的自由現金流。坦率地說，就像我們在 Concentrix 業務中所做的那樣，今年我們將能夠在與 Webhelp 相結合、協同效應和償還債務的基礎上做得更好。

We've demonstrated our ability to do that in past transactions, the Convergys transaction, the PK transaction, and we've hit the targets we've set for ourselves, both in terms of synergies but more importantly, getting our debt levels down and getting down, frankly, more quickly than we indicated we would at the time that we did the transaction. I feel very confident, with Webhelp, we'll be able to do the same.

我們已經在過去的交易、Convergys 交易、PK 交易中展示了我們做到這一點的能力，並且我們已經實現了為自己設定的目標，無論是在協同效應方面，還是更重要的是，降低了我們的債務水平，坦率地說，下降的速度比我們在進行交易時表示的要快。我非常有信心，有了 Webhelp，我們就能做到同樣的事情。

Okay. Let me ask one last question. From the prepared remarks, it sounded that like Webhelp had stronger growth. I think you mentioned something about 8% year-on-year constant currency. Was that right? And why do you think that is? Is it a difference in geographies that's causing that? It sounded that they had better performance. So what do you attribute that to?

好的。讓我問最後一個問題。從準備好的發言來看，Webhelp 的增長勢頭更為強勁。我想你提到了按固定匯率計算同比增長8%左右。是這樣嗎？你認為這是為什麼？是地理差異造成的嗎？聽起來他們的表現更好。那麼你將其歸因於什麼呢？

Yes. So what we said was on a like-for-like constant currency basis, low double-digit growth. And so that's the growth rate in the first quarter. That is above expectations that Webhelp had for the quarter or that we had based on the diligence that we did.

是的。因此，我們所說的是在固定匯率的基礎上，低兩位數的增長。這就是第一季度的增長率。這超出了 Webhelp 對本季度的預期，也超出了我們根據我們所做的努力得出的預期。

What we've built into our model for this year is 8% to 8.5% growth in the Webhelp business, so we remain very, very confident that they can deliver that. This really speaks to the quality of the asset here that we're combining with their strong footprint in EMEA, particularly with nearshore and offshore offerings supporting European languages as well as the very, very strong operations and strong growth that they're seeing in Latin America.

我們今年的模型中內置了 Webhelp 業務 8% 到 8.5% 的增長，因此我們仍然非常非常有信心他們能夠實現這一目標。這確實說明了我們正在與他們在歐洲、中東和非洲地區的強大足跡相結合的資產質量，特別是支持歐洲語言的近岸和離岸產品，以及他們在拉丁語中看到的非常非常強大的運營和強勁增長美國。

If you look at kind of one of the rationales for this combination, if you look at other public peers who break out their revenue growth rates by region, Europe is growing quite well, as is Latin America. And frankly, we're growing well there as well, but we are subscale. And so that's what I would read into their results, and it's why we're so excited about completing the combination, the great progress we're seeing on the integration and then moving forward together.

如果你看看這種組合的理由之一，如果你看看其他按地區列出收入增長率的公共同行，歐洲的增長相當不錯，拉丁美洲也是如此。坦率地說，我們在那裡也發展得很好，但我們的規模還不夠。這就是我對他們的結果的解讀，這就是為什麼我們對完成合併感到如此興奮，我們在整合方面看到了巨大的進展，然後共同前進。

(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from Joseph Vafi with Canaccord Genuity.

（操作員說明）我們的下一個問題來自 Canaccord Genuity 的 Joseph Vafi。

Maybe just a couple ones based on your comments, Chris, on the AI front. Could you maybe perhaps give us a little more color? I know you mentioned cost being a factor in the technology and its implementation versus potentially other solutions. I think it'd be interesting to hear what -- it's early days but the cost of some of this technology versus maybe traditional servicing of those volumes. And I have a couple of follow-ups.

克里斯，也許只是根據你對人工智能方面的評論提出的一些建議。你能給我們多一點色彩嗎？我知道您提到成本是技術及其實施與其他潛在解決方案相比的一個因素。我想听聽這會很有趣——現在還處於早期階段，但某些技術的成本與這些卷的傳統服務的成本相比。我還有一些後續行動。

Yes, for sure, Joe. So traditional and even sort of the, I don't want to call it traditional AI, but the AI that we've deployed that's more machine-based learning or natural language processing, generally, the cost model is based on per seat, per license, per current transaction and doesn't necessarily have to deal with the type of transaction or the length of transaction that is being incurred. So for instance, asking a very simple question to having a back and forth at last 10 minutes, generally the same price and you get some variability out of that. The way generative AI is currently priced and the way the models work is that you actually pay per sort of, and I'm very simplifying this, for character that you're asking it to do and back and forth.

是的，當然，喬。所以傳統的，甚至有點，我不想稱之為傳統人工智能，但我們部署的人工智能更多的是基於機器學習或自然語言處理，一般來說，成本模型基於每個座位、每個人每個當前交易的許可證，不一定必須處理正在發生的交易類型或交易長度。舉例來說，問一個非常簡單的問題，最後 10 分鐘來回詢問，價格通常相同，您會從中得到一些變化。生成式人工智能目前的定價方式和模型的工作方式是，你實際上是按類型付費的，我非常簡化這一點，針對你要求它做的角色，然後來回進行。

So longer queries take more time, take more money and cost more that kind of goes back and forth with it. Plus, as you look at the proprietary information that you're uploading into the cloud for storage perspective, you're paying for the storage that kind of goes along with it. Then you're paying for the technology licenses of the technology deploying to kind of give that last-mile application to the client. So there's a lot more costs associated with it, and so for some transactions or some productivity gains and proficiency gains, that makes sense. For others, it doesn't because you don't get the benefit of it.

因此，更長的查詢需要更多的時間、更多的金錢和更多的成本，這樣的情況就會隨之而來。另外，當您查看上傳到雲中以進行存儲的專有信息時，您正在為隨之而來的存儲付費。然後，您需要支付部署技術的技術許可費用，以便為客戶提供最後一英里的應用程序。因此，與之相關的成本要高得多，因此對於某些交易或某些生產力提高和熟練程度提高來說，這是有道理的。對於其他人來說，則不然，因為您沒有從中受益。

The real conversations we're having with clients around generative AI right now, though, cost is one factor, but it's more about predictability of results where if -- it's not 1 or 2 questions coming up with the same answer. It's like if you ask it 10,000 questions, does it come up with the same answer or does it start to hallucinate and kind of give some odd feedback to a client that -- or to a customer that people don't want necessarily going direct.

不過，我們現在與客戶圍繞生成人工智能進行的真正對話，成本是一個因素，但更多的是關於結果的可預測性，如果——這不是一兩個問題得出相同的答案。就像如果你問它 10,000 個問題，它是否會給出相同的答案，或者它是否開始產生幻覺，並向客戶提供一些奇怪的反饋——或者向人們不一定希望直接提供的客戶提供一些奇怪的反饋。

And then two, around the security of their data and around who owns the data, most of the generative AI kind of implementations and instances and everything like that right now is you're giving up -- unless you're spending a vast sum of money, you're giving up sort of that data to the generative AI cloud providers in order for them to kind of tune their models, make things better for everybody. And we just -- when we talk to our clients, they are just not prepared to do that yet.

然後第二個，圍繞數據的安全性以及誰擁有數據，大多數生成式人工智能類型的實現和實例以及類似的一切現在都是你要放棄的——除非你花費了大量的資金錢，你將這些數據放棄給生成人工智能雲提供商，以便他們調整他們的模型，讓每個人的事情變得更好。當我們與客戶交談時，我們只是發現他們還沒有準備好這樣做。

Will that change? Possibly. But right now, they're more focused on how do they own the data, how do they own the learnings, how is it aligned to their brand, how does it give predictable results, how is it secure. And so a lot of that focus is now saying, okay, well, let's focus on proficiency of our staff delivering services because if there's a hallucination or something else, then a human is there to make sure that it's safeguarded.

這會改變嗎？可能吧。但現在，他們更關注如何擁有數據、如何擁有學習成果、數據如何與他們的品牌保持一致、如何提供可預測的結果以及安全性如何。因此，現在很多人都在說，好吧，好吧，讓我們關注我們的員工提供服務的熟練程度，因為如果出現幻覺或其他什麼情況，那麼會有人來確保它受到保護。

And then also the queries and back and forth, the human can handle a lot of the back and forth and really then kind of search and engineer the prompts, for lack of a better term, to what the information is that, that customer is looking for much faster. And that's what we're seeing in our proof of concepts. That's what we're deploying right now. And we're seeing the benefits as expected. We're seeing faster resolution time for customers. We're seeing higher CSAT scores because it has faster resolution. We're seeing an easier experience for the adviser in order to get the information. And because we're able to get things done faster, the clients save some money from it because they have more capacity with less -- well, they have more capacity for less money in effect is the way they look at it, if that makes sense.

然後還有查詢和來回，人類可以處理大量的來回，然後真正進行搜索和設計提示，由於缺乏更好的術語，客戶正在尋找的信息是什麼更快。這就是我們在概念驗證中看到的。這就是我們現在正在部署的。我們看到了預期的好處。我們看到客戶的解決時間更快。我們看到更高的 CSAT 分數，因為它具有更快的分辨率。我們發現顧問獲取信息的體驗更加輕鬆。因為我們能夠更快地完成工作，所以客戶可以從中節省一些錢，因為他們用更少的錢擁有更多的能力——好吧，他們實際上用更少的錢擁有更多的能力，這就是他們看待它的方式，如果這使得感覺。

Yes. Fair enough. And then we've seen some of the other players, I guess, in the broader ecosystem, maybe especially also over in the IT side of things kind of announce like major AI investment initiatives of their own internally to build the practice up. Is that something that makes sense for Concentrix to do and kind of earmark real -- a material budget for this stuff at this point? Or is it really a function of helping clients on their journey and maybe spending on investment there as it comes along?

是的。很公平。然後我們看到了一些其他參與者，我想，在更廣泛的生態系統中，尤其是在 IT 方面，他們也宣布了自己的內部重大人工智能投資計劃，以建立實踐。對於 Concentrix 來說，這樣做是否有意義，並且是否有實際用途——目前為這些東西提供材料預算？或者它真的是幫助客戶完成旅程並可能在旅途中進行投資的功能嗎？

Yes. Joe, that's a great question. The reality is a lot of press releases, I think, are somewhat misleading around where the spend is going and what it's for. The reality is, is that we are building up the practices pretty aggressively as we speak. It's an extension of learnings we already have. The investments that we have put into Catalyst are significant, and that gives us the ability to scale sort of the proof of concepts much faster into production.

是的。喬，這是一個很好的問題。我認為，現實情況是，很多新聞稿對於支出的去向和用途都有些誤導。現實是，正如我們所說，我們正在非常積極地建立這些實踐。這是我們已有知識的延伸。我們對 Catalyst 的投資是巨大的，這使我們能夠更快地將概念驗證擴展到生產中。

And as a whole, as a company, we spend tens of millions of dollars on R&D in our own technology and development. That hasn't slowed down or stopped or anything like that. We continue to see that as critical investments for our future. And so I think we're at the right investment level, and we'll continue to ramp it up as we drive more and more into production and win one more business around it.

總的來說，作為一家公司，我們在自己的技術和開發上花費了數千萬美元。這並沒有減慢或停止或類似的事情。我們仍然認為這是對我們未來的關鍵投資。因此，我認為我們處於正確的投資水平，隨著我們將越來越多的產品投入生產並圍繞它贏得更多業務，我們將繼續加大投資力度。

Fair enough. And then just one final one on the large Catalyst project that's been -- I guess is it fair to call it delayed and not canceled at this point? And then is there any kind of view as to, if it's just delayed, when it may start to ramp again?

很公平。然後是大型 Catalyst 項目的最後一個項目——我想現在稱其為延遲而不是取消是否公平？那麼是否有任何觀點認為，如果只是延遲，何時可能再次開始增長？

Yes, Joe. No problem. Just for clarity, we won this project back, and I'm sad to say, in sort of Q3 of last year. And the original plan from the client was to kind of get to full production in Q2, Q3 of this year. And the reality is, as we staffed up fairly heavily and the work for it started trickling in and we started doing work for it and we continue to do work for it, but the big [bank], for lack of a better term, when they wanted all the scrum teams and all the work done just continue to get pushed out and various reasons. They were doing a restructuring. They were aligning to a new technology stack, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And really, it's within the last couple of weeks that they sat down and said, hey, we need to continue this. We need to get this done. We need to continue to support the stack, but we just are going to push out the budget for sort of large-scale ramp and implementation that we both were expecting for sort of our Q3 and Q4.

是的，喬。沒問題。為了清楚起見，我們在去年第三季度重新贏得了這個項目，我很遺憾地說。客戶最初的計劃是在今年第二季度、第三季度全面投產。現實是，隨著我們人員配備相當多，它的工作開始慢慢開始，我們開始為它工作，我們繼續為它工作，但是大[銀行]，由於缺乏更好的術語，當他們希望所有的 Scrum 團隊和完成的所有工作都因為各種原因而繼續被淘汰。他們正在進行重組。他們正在適應新的技術堆棧，等等，等等。事實上，就在過去幾週內，他們坐下來說，嘿，我們需要繼續這樣做。我們需要完成這件事。我們需要繼續支持堆棧，但我們只是要推出我們都期望在第三季度和第四季度進行的大規模升級和實施的預算。

So it's not canceled. We are getting revenue from it, but it is a much lower run rate. And it will, frankly, push the project out further but at this much lower run rate versus what we had expected. So that does have a fairly big impact to us as we called it out from a size-wise perspective for the back half of this year. I do not expect that, in the front half of next year, it will come back in a meaningful way. I think it will continue to kind of slowly increase as the client kind of aligns budgets, and it comes back on to be a priority. But it's absolutely not canceled. It's still there, and we're still billing for it just at a much reduced rate.

所以沒有取消。我們從中獲得了收入，但運行率要低得多。坦率地說，它將進一步推動該項目，但運行速度遠低於我們的預期。因此，這確實對我們產生了相當大的影響，因為我們從今年下半年的規模角度提出了這一點。我不期望在明年上半年，它會以有意義的方式回歸。我認為，隨著客戶調整預算，它會繼續緩慢增加，並重新成為優先事項。但絕對沒有取消。它仍然在那裡，我們仍然以大大降低的費率為其計費。

Yes. And as we talk about the sequential growth that we expect in Catalyst over the back half of the year, it is not really a major contributor to that at all at this point in our expectations. What we are seeing are some nice smaller wins that are helping Catalyst for a stabilized revenue and then begin to grow as we expect it to. It actually grew slightly sequentially in Q2, and we expect that to accelerate a bit in Q3 and even more in Q4 but again, not based on that large contract but on a bunch of other smaller wins across the verticals.

是的。當我們談論我們預計 Catalyst 在今年下半年的連續增長時，在我們的預期中，它根本不是目前的主要貢獻者。我們看到的是一些不錯的小型勝利，這些勝利正在幫助 Catalyst 實現穩定的收入，然後開始按照我們的預期增長。實際上，它在第二季度略有增長，我們預計第三季度會有所加速，第四季度甚至會更快，但同樣，這不是基於大合同，而是基於垂直領域的其他一些較小的勝利。

And I'd now like to turn the call back over to Chris Caldwell for any closing remarks.

現在我想將電話轉回給克里斯·考德威爾，讓其作結束語。

Great. Thank you very much, everybody, for joining us today. We always very much appreciate your interest in Concentrix, and we're committed to maintaining strong profitability and cash flow generation, especially around executing our strategic objectives. We look forward to talking to you next quarter. Thank you very much, everybody.

偉大的。非常感謝大家今天加入我們。我們始終非常感謝您對 Concentrix 的興趣，我們致力於保持強勁的盈利能力和現金流生成，特別是在執行我們的戰略目標方面。我們期待下個季度與您交談。非常感謝大家。

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

謝謝。今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。您現在可以斷開連接。