高知特 (CTSH) 2021 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Cognizant Technology Solutions' Q1 2021 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to turn this conference over to Mr. Tyler Scott, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you. You may begin.

女士們、先生們，歡迎參加 Cognizant Technology Solutions 2021 財年第一季財報電話會議。 （操作說明）現在我將會議交給投資人關係資深總監 Tyler Scott 先生。請您發言，先生。謝謝。您可以開始了。

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. By now you should have received a copy of the earnings release and the investor supplement for the company's first quarter 2021 results. If you have not, copies are available on our website, cognizant.com. The speakers we have on today's call are Brian Humphries, Chief Executive Officer; and Jan Siegmund, Chief Financial Officer.

謝謝接線員，大家下午好。各位現在應該已經收到公司2021財年第一季業績的獲利報告和投資人補充資料。如果您還沒有收到，可以造訪我們的網站cognizant.com取得。今天電話會議的發言人是執行長Brian Humphries和財務長Jan Siegmund。

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some of the comments made on today's call and some of the responses to your questions may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to the risks and uncertainties as described in the company's earnings release and other filings with the SEC. Additionally, during our call today, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe provide useful information for our investors. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures, where appropriate to the corresponding GAAP measures, can be found in the company's earnings release and other filings with the SEC.

在會議開始之前，我想提醒各位，今天電話會議中的一些發言以及對您提問的一些回答可能包含前瞻性陳述。這些陳述受公司獲利報告和提交給美國證券交易委員會（SEC）的其他文件中所述的風險和不確定性因素的影響。此外，在今天的電話會議中，我們將提及一些我們認為對投資者有用的非公認會計準則（非GAAP）財務指標。在適當情況下，非GAAP財務指標與相應的GAAP指標的調節表可在公司獲利報告和提交給SEC的其他文件中找到。

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Brian Humphries. Please go ahead, Brian.

接下來，我將把電話交給布萊恩漢弗萊斯。請開始吧，布萊恩。

Thank you, Tyler. Good afternoon, everybody. I would like to start today's call by addressing the humanitarian crisis in India. As many of you know, India is the heart of Cognizant, and home to more than 200,000 of our associates. I would like to express my support and solidarity for our Indian associates, wherever they are in the world, and my sympathy for any who have suffered a loss during the pandemic.

謝謝泰勒。大家下午好。我想先談談印度的人道危機。如大家所知，印度是高知特的核心，也是我們超過20萬名員工的家。我謹向我們在世界各地的印度同事表達我的支持和聲援，並對疫情期間遭受損失的人們表示慰問。

In addition to the ongoing support of our associates, which includes home care and hospitalization assistance, vaccination cost reimbursement for our associates and their families, and making vaccine availability easier for those with disabilities, Cognizant is making a multimillion dollar investment to assist India through the crisis. This is focused on covering operational expenses at hospitals throughout India that are caring for COVID-19 patients; funding the efforts of UNICEF in India to deploy oxygen-generation plants, COVID diagnostic testing and medical supplies; and partnering with one of India's leading hospital chains to set up vaccination centers in locations across the country, including some of Cognizant's owned facilities.

除了持續為員工提供支持，包括居家護理和住院援助、為員工及其家屬報銷疫苗費用，以及為殘障人士提供更便捷的疫苗接種途徑外，Cognizant 還投入數百萬美元幫助印度渡過難關。這筆資金將用於支付印度各地收治新冠肺炎患者的醫院的營運費用；資助聯合國兒童基金會在印度部署制氧廠、新冠病毒診斷檢測和醫療用品；並與印度一家領先的連鎖醫院合作，在全國各地（包括 Cognizant 旗下的一些醫院）設立疫苗接種中心。

The impact of the pandemic on industry attrition rates, absenteeism and client delivery remains somewhat uncertain. We monitor our situation daily, and we'll continue to prioritize the health and safety of our associates, while serving our clients who have been particularly supportive in recent weeks.

疫情對產業人員流失率、缺勤率和客戶服務的影響仍存在一定程度的不確定性。我們每天都在密切關注事態發展，並將繼續把員工的健康和安全放在首位，同時竭誠為客戶服務。感謝客戶近幾週來給予我們的大力支持。

As the COVID situation differs throughout the world, our return-to-office strategy remains country-driven. Currently, almost all of our associates are working from home and business travel remains on an exception-only basis.

由於全球各地新冠疫情情勢不盡相同，我們的復工復產策略仍以各國實際情況為依據。目前，我們幾乎所有員工都在家辦公，商務旅行也僅限於特殊情況。

Let's turn now to the first quarter. First quarter revenue was $4.4 billion, representing growth of 2.4% year-over-year in constant currency. Although we executed well in the quarter and delivered against our expectations, revenue upside was limited by elevated attrition, reflecting the intensely competitive market for digital talent that we spoke about in our last earnings call. This put some pressure on salaries as rows were filled by lateral hires or contingent workforce. And in some cases, commercial opportunities were forgone due to an inability to source talent.

現在我們來看第一季。第一季營收為44億美元，以固定匯率計算年增2.4%。儘管我們本季執行得很好，業績也達到了預期，但由於人員流失率較高，營收成長受到限制。這反映了我們在上次財報電話會議上提到的數位人才市場競爭異常激烈。由於需要透過外部招聘或臨時工來填補空缺，這給薪資水平帶來了一定的壓力。在某些情況下，由於無法找到合適的人才，我們不得不放棄一些商業機會。

To address retention challenges, we've been executing a multipart plan that includes stepping up our internal engagement efforts and increasing investments in our people through training and job rotations to provide opportunities for career growth; shifting to a quarterly promotion cycle for billable associates; and implementing further salary increases and promotions for high-demand skills and critical positions; and ramping our hiring capacity by adding hundreds of recruiters, and making 28,000-plus offers to new graduates in India, a new record.

為了因應員工留任挑戰，我們一直在執行一項多管齊下的計劃，其中包括加強內部員工互動，透過培訓和輪調增加對員工的投資，為員工提供職業發展機會；將計費員工的晉升週期改為季度晉升；對高需求技能和關鍵職位進一步提高薪資和晉升；以及透過增加數百名招聘人員來提高招聘能力，並向印度創錄通​​知。

Daily resignations increased through the first quarter, peaking in March. On a positive note, resignations slowed in April and continued to slow in May. However, given 2-months' notice periods in India, we anticipate further sequential increases in attrition in Q2 and before a gradual recovery in the second half.

第一季每日離職人數持續上升，並在3月達到高峰。令人欣慰的是，4月離職人數有所放緩，5月持續放緩。然而，鑑於印度的離職通知期為兩個月，我們預計第二季員工流失率將進一步上升，並在下半年逐步回升。

Notwithstanding industry attrition challenges, we remain confident in Cognizant's standing as a magnet for skilled talent and a great place to build a career. In recent quarters, we've seen a meaningful increase in our brand perception in the talent market in India. For example, our compass acceptance rates amongst India's top engineering colleges has risen to more than 80% this year, up almost 10 percentage points since 2019. In addition, LinkedIn just ranked Cognizant a top company in both the U.S. and India based on traits like the ability to advance, skills growth and gender diversity, all of which are consistent with enabling professionals to grow their careers. In India, LinkedIn ranks us #2 among 25 leading companies. This honor follows Forbes Magazine recently naming Cognizant to its list for World's Best Employers and Best Employers for Diversity.

儘管業界面臨人才流失的挑戰，我們依然對 Cognizant 作為人才磁石和職業發展理想之地的地位充滿信心。近幾個季度，我們在印度人才市場的品牌認知度顯著提升。例如，今年 Cognizant 在印度頂尖工程院校的 Compass 錄取率已超過 80%，較 2019 年成長近 10 個百分點。此外，LinkedIn 近期將 Cognizant 評為美國和印度的頂級公司，評選標準包括晉昇機會、技能提升和性別多元化等，這些都與助力專業人士職業發展的目標相符。在印度，LinkedIn 將我們評為 25 家領先公司中的第二名。此前，《富比士》雜誌也曾將 Cognizant 列入「全球最佳雇主」和「最佳多元化雇主」榜單。

Moving on, I'm pleased with the health of key leading performance indicators. For example, digital revenue growth accelerated to 15% year-over-year. Digital now represents 44% of our revenue mix. Bookings growth of 5%, which was strong considering outstanding December bookings and a tough prior year compare. Year-to-date bookings growth has since been boosted by excellent bookings in April. I'm confident that our sustained book-to-bill ratio of greater than 1.1x revenue provides us with the opportunity to further accelerate revenue growth.

接下來，我對關鍵領先績效指標的健康狀況感到滿意。例如，數位收入年增率加速至15%。目前，數位收入占我們總收入的44%。考慮到12月份出色的訂單量以及去年同期的高基數，5%的預訂量成長表現強勁。 4月的優異預訂量進一步推動了年初至今的預訂量成長。我相信，我們持續高於1.1倍的訂單出貨比為我們提供了進一步加速營收成長的機會。

Finally, our qualified pipeline and win rates are strong and give us reason to be bullish.

最後，我們合格的客戶管道和成交率都很強勁，這讓我們有理由保持樂觀。

Turning now to our industry sectors. Financial services declines moderated. Leading performance indicators, including digital mix and qualified pipeline have both improved in both insurance and banking. Our turnaround efforts are ongoing, and we expect Financial Services to continue to recover over the course of the year.

現在來看我們的產業板塊。金融服務業的下滑幅度有所收窄。保險業和銀行業的關鍵績效指標，包括數位化業務佔比和合格業務儲備，均有所改善。我們的復甦工作仍在進行中，預計金融服務業將在今年持續復甦。

I'm pleased with the growing momentum in our Healthcare business. We had a strong quarter with growth across our payer and life sciences businesses and improving trends within our provider business. Over the past 18 months, we've refreshed our product strategy and better aligned our investments with market priorities. We recalibrated our product road maps to focus our core platforms and cloud enablement, customer experiences, digital workflows and automation. This intensified pivot to digital has resonated well with both existing clients and prospects, enabling us to achieve double-digit growth in our software product business.

我對我們醫療保健業務的持續成長勢頭感到欣喜。本季度，我們的支付方和生命科學業務均實現了強勁成長，醫療服務提供方業務也呈現良好發展趨勢。過去18個月，我們更新了產品策略，並更好地將投資與市場優先事項相匹配。我們重新調整了產品路線圖，重點放在核心平台和雲端賦能、客戶體驗、數位化工作流程和自動化。這種加速數位轉型的策略得到了現有客戶和潛在客戶的積極回應，使我們的軟體產品業務實現了兩位數的成長。

Products and Resources continues to be affected by the pandemic. Declines in retail and consumer goods and in travel and hospitality were offset by continued double-digit growth in manufacturing, logistics, energy and utilities.

產品與資源產業持續受到疫情影響。零售和消費品以及旅遊和酒店業的下滑被製造業、物流業、能源和公用事業的持續兩位數增長所抵消。

Communications, Media and Technology posted solid growth when normalized for the exit of elements of content moderation. Jan will provide more details on the quarter in his prepared remarks.

剔除內容審核環節退出的影響力後，通訊、媒體和科技板塊實現了穩健成長。 Jan 將在事先準備好的發言稿中提供本季的更多細節。

Let's turn now to the macro environment. Our client conversations suggest a robust and resilient IT services demand picture for 2021 and beyond. This is fueled by business model innovation, customer experience investments, technology modernization, risk mitigation and efficiency initiatives, all driven by hyperscale road map and commercial investments.

現在讓我們來看看宏觀環境。我們與客戶的交流表明，2021年及以後，IT服務需求將保持強勁且富有韌性。這主要得益於商業模式創新、客戶體驗投資、技術現代化、風險緩解和效率提升舉措，而所有這些都由超大規模路線圖和商業投資所驅動。

Creating better experiences is at the center of the digital economy. That's what clients are most interested in, how to orchestrate technology, data and design to make their employee and customer experiences more productive, intuitive, relevant and valuable. A good example is the work we've been doing with Papa John's International, one of the largest pizza delivery chains in the United States. We helped Papa John's transform its order operations into a centralized model that enables hyper-personalized offers for customers. We did so through an end-to-end intelligent cloud-based omni-channel solution powered by advanced analytics in 750 of its stores initially before being expanded to 1,500 stores given early success.

創造更佳體驗是數位經濟的核心。顧客最關心的是如何整合技術、數據和設計，進而提升員工和顧客的體驗，使其更有效率、更直覺、更貼合需求、更有價值。我們與美國最大的披薩外送連鎖店之一——棒約翰國際（Papa John's International）的合作就是一個很好的例子。我們幫助棒約翰將其訂單營運模式轉型為集中式，從而能夠為客戶提供高度個人化的服務。我們首先在棒約翰的750家門市部署了一套基於雲端的端到端智慧全通路解決方案，並利用先進的分析技術，隨後由於早期成功，將應用範圍擴展到了1500家門市。

This solution resulted in a revenue uplift of more than 15% per order, significant productivity improvements and halving the time between order placement and delivery. It's also improved the experience of Papa John's employees by lowering their stress from multitasking while freeing up staff to focus on serving guests.

該解決方案使每筆訂單的收入提升超過 15%，顯著提高了生產效率，並將下單到送達的時間縮短了一半。此外，它還改善了棒約翰員工的工作體驗，減輕了他們同時處理多項任務而產生的壓力，使他們能夠騰出更多精力專注於服務顧客。

The shift from traditional to a software-centric business requires clients to transform their business processes and their IT architectures in parallel. This starts with engineering a new digital stack, enabled by software and consumer-grade apps that sit on intelligence, drawn from sophisticated data sets, all of which need to be instrumented and run on cloud platforms. Within this new stack, we see particularly strong opportunities to help clients in modernizing their applications, data and infrastructure. And as you can imagine, this is driving increasing demand for our digital engineering and cloud solutions portfolio.

從傳統業務模式轉向軟體驅動型業務模式的轉變，要求客戶同步轉型其業務流程和IT架構。這首先需要建立全新的數位化技術棧，該技術棧由軟體和麵向消費者的應用組成，而這些應用又依託於從複雜數據集中提取的智能信息，所有這些都需要進行集成並在雲平台上運行。在這個全新的技術堆疊中，我們看到了幫助客戶實現應用程式、資料和基礎設施現代化的巨大機會。正如您所料，這推動了對我們數位化工程和雲端解決方案組合日益增長的需求。

Our overriding aim is to help clients become modern businesses. That way, they can innovate faster, become more agile and above all, stay relevant to their customers. In that vein, we're collaborating with Inchcape, a U.K.-based automotive, distribution and retail leader to digitally transform and simplify their global finance and accounting infrastructure and services. We're applying machine learning, data analytics, RPA and advanced business process services to drive efficiencies and enable Inchcape to make faster and smarter business decisions.

我們的首要目標是幫助客戶轉型為現代化企業。這樣，他們就能更快地創新，更敏捷，最重要的是，始終與客戶保持緊密聯繫。為此，我們正與總部位於英國的汽車、分銷和零售業領導企業 Inchcape 合作，為其全球財務和會計基礎設施及服務進行數位轉型和簡化。我們運用機器學習、資料分析、RPA（機器人流程自動化）和先進的業務流程服務來提升效率，並幫助 Inchcape 更快、更明智地做出業務決策。

Moving now on to strategy. We remain focused on executing the strategy with 4 related priorities: building a stronger global brand, further globalizing Cognizant, accelerating digital and increasing our client relevance. I've covered these priorities in prior calls, so I'll just offer a few broad observations about our execution.

接下來談談策略。我們將繼續專注於執行策略，並圍繞四個相關優先事項展開：打造更強大的全球品牌、進一步拓展 Cognizant 的全球業務、加速數位轉型以及提升客戶相關性。我在之前的電話會議中已經詳細介紹過這些優先事項，所以這裡我只就我們的執行情況做一些概括性的說明。

We strengthened our portfolio and sharpened its focus on faster-growing markets and geographic segments. All of our offerings are aligned to the market and name that providing the capabilities clients want most, like accelerating cloud migration, enabling omnichannel commerce, unlocking value from data using AI and ML, creating modern mobility experiences and more. As cloud computing has changed the way IT is delivered across infrastructure applications and platforms, we've continued to strengthen our relationships with the world's leading hyperscale and SaaS companies.

我們強化了產品組合，並更專注於成長更快的市場和地理領域。我們所有的產品和服務都與市場需求和品牌定位保持一致，旨在提供客戶最需要的功能，例如加速雲端遷移、實現全通路商務、利用人工智慧和機器學習從資料中挖掘價值、打造現代化的行動體驗等等。隨著雲端運算改變了IT在基礎設施應用和平台上的交付方式，我們持續加強與全球領先的超大規模雲端服務和SaaS公司的合作關係。

With our dedicated business groups from Microsoft, AWS and Google Cloud platform, we can help clients run their core applications and create more agile workflows in the cloud. We're also maintaining our M&A pace to further expand our capabilities in our key digital focus areas of software engineering, data and AI, cloud and IoT.

憑藉我們來自微軟、AWS 和谷歌雲端平台的專業業務團隊，我們可以幫助客戶運行其核心應用程序，並在雲端創建更敏捷的工作流程。同時，我們也保持著併購步伐，以進一步拓展我們在軟體工程、數據與人工智慧、雲端運算和物聯網等關鍵數位化領域的實力。

In Q1, we acquired Servian, an Australian enterprise transformation consultancy, specializing in data analytics, AI, digital services, experience design and cloud. We also acquired Linium, a cloud transformation consultancy group specializing in the ServiceNow platform and solutions; and Magenic Technologies, a custom software development services company that expands our global software product engineering network.

第一季度，我們收購了澳洲企業轉型顧問公司Servian，該公司專注於數據分析、人工智慧、數位服務、體驗設計和雲端運算。此外，我們也收購了雲端轉型顧問集團Linium，該公司專注於ServiceNow平台和解決方案；以及客製化軟體開發服務公司Magenic Technologies，此次收購進一步拓展了我們的全球軟體產品工程網路。

During the quarter, we signed an agreement to acquire ESG Mobility, a digital automotive engineering, R&D provider for connected autonomous and electric vehicles. ESG mobility complements our existing connected mobility offerings and our automotive industry presence.

本季度，我們簽署協議收購了ESG Mobility，該公司是一家專注於互聯自動駕駛和電動車的數位化汽車工程研發服務供應商。 ESG Mobility的加入將完善我們現有的互聯旅遊產品和服務，並增強我們在汽車產業的佈局。

Before closing, I want to spend a moment on ESG, environmental, social and governance. The public health, economic and societal damage wrought by COVID-19 have caused most businesses to reflect deeply on what they owe their stakeholders. In keeping with our purpose, we tried to be a modern corporation that is responsive to the many larger contexts in which we operate, among them, societal, environmental, economic and technological. And that's why the principle of sustainability is so important to us. It speaks to our interdependence with local communities and global ecosystems.

在結束之前，我想花一點時間談談ESG，即環境、社會和治理。新冠疫情對公共衛生、經濟和社會造成的傷害，促使大多數企業深入反思自身對利害關係人的責任。秉承我們的宗旨，我們努力成為一家現代化企業，積極應對我們營運所處的許多宏觀環境，包括社會、環境、經濟和技術環境。也因為如此，永續發展原則對我們至關重要。它體現了我們與當地社區和全球生態系統之間的相互依存關係。

During Q1, we announced a 5-year $250 million global philanthropic investment to advance economic mobility, educational opportunity, diversity and inclusion and health and well-being in communities as they emerge from the pandemic. We also recognize how much we must evolve to become a sustainable business. To do so, we will embed ESG into our thinking, decisions and actions. This is a multiyear endeavor, and one of increasing importance to our clients, associates and indeed you, our investors. To mark our progress along this journey, we're planning a series of announcements that will include the publication of Cognizant's 2020 ESG report later in the second quarter.

第一季度，我們宣布了一項為期五年、總額達2.5億美元的全球慈善投資計劃，旨在促進疫情後社區的經濟流動性、教育機會、多元化和包容性以及健康福祉。我們也意識到，要成為一家永續發展的企業，我們還有很多需要改進的地方。為此，我們將把ESG（環境、社會和治理）理念融入我們的思考、決策和行動中。這是一項多年計劃，對我們的客戶、員工以及各位投資者而言，其重要性與日俱增。為了慶祝我們在這一征程中取得的進展，我們計劃發布一系列公告，其中包括在第二季稍後發布Cognizant 2020年ESG報告。

In closing, we continue to successfully execute our strategy. We are bullish in the industry and our prospects within it. We're working diligently through a multiyear plan to reposition Cognizant to achieve its full growth potential and reestablish our company as an industry leader. As we do so, we are committed to make the necessary investments that will set us up for sustained momentum. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jan, who will cover the details of the quarter and our financial outlook before we take your questions. Jan, over to you.

最後，我們繼續成功地執行我們的策略。我們對行業前景和自身在該行業的潛力充滿信心。我們正努力推動一項多年計劃，以重塑 Cognizant 的品牌形象，充分發揮其成長潛力，並重新確立公司在業界的領先地位。為此，我們致力於進行必要的投資，以確保持續的發展動能。接下來，我將把電話交給 Jan，她將詳細介紹本季業績和財務展望，之後我們將回答各位的問題。 Jan，請開始你的發言。

Thank you, Brian, and good afternoon, everyone. Our Q1 revenue was $4.4 billion, representing growth of 4.2% year-over-year or 2.4% in constant currency. Compared with the prior year period, this includes approximately 300 basis points of growth from our acquisitions and a 90 basis points of negative impact from the exit of certain content services.

謝謝布萊恩，大家下午好。我們第一季營收為44億美元，年增4.2%，以固定匯率計算成長2.4%。與去年同期相比，這其中包含了收購帶來的約300個基點的成長，以及部分內容服務退出帶來的90個基點的負面影響。

Digital revenue in Q1 grew approximately 15% and represented 44% of total revenue versus 39% in the prior year period. We were pleased with this growth acceleration compared to Q4, particularly in light of a competitive hiring environment for digital talent.

第一季數位業務收入成長約15%，佔總營收的44%，去年同期為39%。我們對這一成長速度較第四季有所加快感到滿意，尤其是在數位人才競爭激烈的招募環境下。

Now moving on to segment results where all growth rates provided will be year-over-year in constant currency. Financial Services declined 1.7%, reflecting more moderate declines in both banking and insurance, in line with our expectations. We are seeing early signs that the investments and repositioning of both businesses are resonating with our clients. This includes Financial Services bookings growth outpacing total company bookings growth in Q1 and a solid pipeline growth. We continue to expect a pace recovery for this segment over the next several quarters and anticipate that we will see positive momentum throughout the year.

接下來是各業務板塊的業績，所有成長率以固定匯率計算，與去年同期相比。金融服務業務下滑1.7%，銀行業和保險業的下滑幅度均較為溫和，符合我們的預期。我們初步看到，這兩項業務的投資和重新定位正在獲得客戶的認可。這包括第一季金融服務業務的訂單成長超過了公司整體訂單成長，以及穩健的銷售管道成長。我們預計該業務板塊將在未來幾季逐步復甦，並有望在全年保持積極的成長勢頭。

Healthcare growth was 7% and accelerated from last quarter, driven by strong performance in both our health care payer and life sciences businesses. Following strong performance in last quarter, in Q1, our Healthcare business had its best year-over-year growth quarter since 2018, benefiting from increased demand for our integrated payer software solutions and improving fundamentals in our provider business. Life sciences revenue continued to benefit from strong demand for our digital services among both pharmaceutical and medical device companies.

醫療保健業務成長7%，較上季加速成長，主要得益於醫療支付方和生命科學業務的強勁表現。繼上季強勁成長之後，第一季醫療保健業務實現了自2018年以來最佳的同比增長，這得益於市場對我們整合支付方軟體解決方案的需求增加以及醫療服務提供商業務基本面的改善。生命科學業務收入持續受益於製藥和醫療器材公司對我們數位化服務的強勁需求。

Products and Resources increased 2.4%, driven by the fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth in manufacturing, logistics, energy and utilities. This growth was partially offset by mid-single-digit declines in retail consumer goods and double-digit declines in travel and hospitality. We have seen some early signs of stabilization within these sectors most impacted by the pandemic, but it remains a fluid demand environment.

產品與資源板塊成長2.4%，主要得益於製造業、物流、能源和公用事業連續第四個季度實現兩位數成長。零售消費品板塊的個位數中段下滑以及旅遊和酒店業的兩位數下滑部分抵消了這一增長。我們已經看到受疫情影響最嚴重的這些產業出現了一些穩定的早期跡象，但市場需求仍然瞬息萬變。

Communications, Media and Technology grew 3.1%, including a benefit from recent acquisitions, but was partially offset by a negative 600 basis point impact from our exit of certain portions of our content services business. Outside of this impact, we are very pleased with the growth of our core portfolio of the technology business and expect continued solid growth for the remainder of the year. Segment growth was also partially offset by the demand softness attributable to the pandemic.

通訊、媒體和技術業務成長3.1%，其中受益於近期收購，但部分被剝離部分內容服務業務帶來的600個基點的負面影響所抵銷。除此影響外，我們對核心技術業務組合的成長非常滿意，並預計今年剩餘時間將繼續保持穩健成長。此外，受疫情影響，需求疲軟也部分抵銷了該業務板塊的成長。

Now moving on to margins. In Q1, our GAAP and adjusted operating margin were both 15.2% as there were no adjustments for unusual items to report. On a year-over-year basis, adjusted operating margin improved approximately 10 basis points, reflecting lower travel and entertainment expenses, savings from our cost initiatives in 2020 and lower immigration costs. These benefits were mostly offset by investments impacting our SG&A, including the margin-dilutive impact from our recent acquisitions, investments to accelerate organic growth and corporate investments, including enhancements to our cybersecurity environment.

接下來我們來看利潤率。第一季度，由於沒有需要報告的非經常性項目調整，我們的GAAP營業利潤率和調整後營業利潤率均為15.2%。與去年同期相比，調整後營業利潤率提高了約10個基點，這主要得益於差旅和招待費用的降低、2020年成本控制措施帶來的收益以及移民成本的下降。這些收益大部分被影響銷售、管理及行政費用的投資所抵消，包括近期收購帶來的利潤率稀釋、加速內生成長的投資以及公司投資，例如網路安全環境的提升。

Our GAAP tax rate in the quarter was 24.1%. And our adjusted tax rate was 23.7%, aided by a discrete benefit of a tax settlement in the quarter. Diluted GAAP EPS was $0.95 and adjusted diluted EPS was $0.97.

本季GAAP稅率為24.1%。受本季一筆稅務結算款項的單獨收益影響，調整後稅率為23.7%。 GAAP攤薄後每股收益為0.95美元，調整後稀釋後每股收益為0.97美元。

Now turning to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with cash and short-term investments of $2.2 billion or $1.5 billion net of debt. Free cash flow in the first quarter, our seasonally softest quarter, was $93 million and included an approximately $50 million negative impact from unique items in the quarter, including the payment of a portion of our 2020 COVID tax deferrals. Q1 also includes the payment of our annual cash incentive which was higher this year compared to the 2020 payment. DSO of 70 days was flat sequentially compared to the 74 days in the prior year period.

現在來看資產負債表。本季末，我們持有現金及短期投資22億美元，扣除債務後淨額為15億美元。第一季是公司業績通常最淡的季度，自由現金流為9300萬美元，其中包含約5000萬美元的季度特殊項目負面影響，包括支付部分2020年新冠疫情相關稅收遞延款項。第一季還包括支付年度現金獎勵，今年的金額高於2020年。應收帳款週轉天數（DSO）為70天，與去年同期的74天持平。

As a reminder, in 2021, we expect free cash flow will be lower compared to 2020 as a result of several benefits from 2020 negatively impacting '21, including government offered deferrals of certain tax payments, which impacted Q1 and will also impact cash flow later this year and the higher cash incentive payout this quarter versus Q1 2020 I just mentioned. Our outlook for 2021 is unchanged and assumes free cash flow conversion will be around 100% of net income as we focus on building upon the DSO improvements achieved last year.

再次提醒，由於2020年的多項利好因素對2021年產生了負面影響，我們預計2021年的自由現金流將低於2020年。這些利好因素包括政府提供的部分稅款延期支付政策（該政策影響了第一季度，並將持續影響今年稍後的現金流）以及我剛才提到的本季度較高的現金激勵支出。我們對2021年的展望保持不變，並假設自由現金流轉換率將達到淨利潤的100%左右，因為我們將專注於鞏固去年在應收帳款週轉天數（DSO）改善方面取得的成果。

During the quarter, we continued to execute our balanced capital deployment strategy, repurchasing 3.1 million shares for $234 million at a weighted average price of approximately $76 per share. At the end of March, we had approximately $2.6 billion remaining under our share repurchase authorization. We also spent cash of approximately $300 million on acquisitions and $128 million for a regular quarterly dividend.

本季度，我們繼續執行均衡的資本部署策略，以每股約76美元的加權平均價格回購了310萬股股票，總額達2.34億美元。截至3月底，我們的股票回購授權額度還剩約26億美元。此外，我們還花費了約3億美元現金用於收購，並支付了1.28億美元用於發放季度股利。

Turning to guidance. For Q2, we expect revenue in the range of $4.42 billion to $4.46 billion, representing 10.5% to 11.5% growth or 8% to 9% in constant currency based on our expectation that currency will have a favorable approximately 250 basis points impact and inorganic contribution of approximately 400 basis points. This outlook assumes some stabilization in financial services and continued pressures across retail and consumer goods, travel and hospitality and communication and media. Keep in mind that Q2 2020 included a combined impact of COVID and the ransomware attack, which is leading to easier year-over-year compares for all segments in Q2 2021 and growth levels above our full year outlook.

接下來談談業績指引。我們預計第二季營收將在44.2億美元至44.6億美元之間，年增10.5%至11.5%，以固定匯率計算則為8%至9%。我們預期匯率變動將帶來約250個基點的有利影響，而非內生成長貢獻約400個基點。這項預期是基於金融服務業趨於穩定，以及零售和消費品、旅遊和旅館以及通訊和媒體產業持續承壓的假設。需要注意的是，2020年第二季受到新冠疫情和勒索軟體攻擊的雙重影響，因此2021年第二季各業務板塊的同比基數較低，且成長水準高於我們全年的預期。

For the full year, we now expect revenue of $17.8 billion to $18.1 billion, representing 7% to 9% growth or 5.5% to 7.5% in constant currency versus our prior guidance of 5.5% to 8.5% growth or 4% to 7% in constant currency, reflecting the improving macro environment and strong demand for our offerings. Our outlook assumes an unchanged expectation that currency will have a favorable approximately 150 basis points impact and includes approximately 300 basis points of contribution from inorganic revenue.

我們現在預計全年營收為178億美元至181億美元，年增7%至9%（以固定匯率計算為5.5%至7.5%），高於先前5.5%至8.5%（以固定匯率計算為4%至7%）的預期。這項調整反映了宏觀經濟環境的改善以及市場對我們產品的強勁需求。我們的展望基於以下假設：匯率將帶來約150個基點的有利影響，其中包括約300個基點的非內生性營收貢獻。

Moving on to margins. We expect full year adjusted operating margin in the range of 15.2% to 15.7% versus 15.2% to 16.3% previously, primarily reflecting increased investment in our people and recruiting for digital skills. This includes rapidly accelerating our recruiting capacity, implementing quarterly role-based promotions and leveraging our contractor ecosystem. We're also using it as an opportunity to enhance our employee value proposition and keep Cognizant as a top destination for talent globally.

接下來談談利潤率。我們預計全年調整後營業利潤率將在15.2%至15.7%之間，低於先前預期的15.2%至16.3%，這主要反映了我們對員工的投入增加以及對數位化技能人才的招募力度加大。這包括迅速提升招聘能力、實施季度性職位晉升機制以及充分利用我們的承包商生態系統。同時，我們也藉此機會提升員工價值主張，力求使Cognizant持續維持全球人才首選地位。

This leads to our full year adjusted EPS guidance, which is unchanged at $3.90 to $4.02. Our full year outlook assumes interest income of $20 million to $30 million, which is unchanged from our prior guidance and reflects the $2.1 billion cash repatriation in Q4 2020. Our outlook assumes average shares outstanding of approximately 530 million and a tax rate of 25% to 26%, both unchanged from our prior outlook. Our guidance does not account for any potential impact from events like changes to the immigration and tax policies.

因此，我們全年調整後每股盈餘預期維持不變，為3.90美元至4.02美元。我們全年展望假設利息收入為2,000萬美元至3,000萬美元，與先前的預期一致，並已反映出2020年第四季21億美元的現金匯回。我們的展望假設平均流通股約為5.3億股，稅率為25%至26%，這兩項均與先前的預期一致。我們的預期並未考慮移民和稅收政策變化等事件可能帶來的任何潛在影響。

With that, we will open the call for questions.

接下來，我們將開始接受提問。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of James Faucette with Morgan Stanley.

（操作說明）我們的第一個問題來自摩根士丹利的 James Faucette。

Our next question comes from the line of Bryan Bergin with Cowen.

我們的下一個問題來自 Bryan Bergin 與 Cowen 的對話。

I wanted to ask on the situation in India. Can you just frame how you're thinking about the potential impact this may have on the business in the near term? And I wanted to confirm is there nothing built into the outlook right now on a potential revenue disruption? And on the margin front, same kind of question, is there anything built in as far as those incremental costs that you may have framed here to support the workforce and the population?

我想問一下關於印度的情況。您能否簡要說明一下，您認為這種情況在短期內可能會對業務造成哪些潛在影響？我還想確認一下，目前的預期中是否已考慮了潛在的收入中斷？關於利潤率方面，同樣的問題，您是否已將為支持員工和民眾而增加的成本考慮在內？

Bryan, it's Brian here. So let me just touch upon this. First of all, I think it's really important for us to acknowledge it is a humanitarian crisis, and we've been prioritizing the health and safety of our associates and, of course, their dependents and hoping that they stay safe as they work essentially from home at this moment in time. And as I said in my script, we're doing a series of things to help in terms of medical expense support, free vaccinations, covering expenses in hospitals, working with UNICEF, et cetera.

布萊恩，我是布萊恩。讓我簡單說幾句。首先，我認為我們必須承認這是一場人道危機，我們一直把員工及其家屬的健康和安全放在首位，當然也希望他們在目前居家辦公的情況下能夠安全無虞。正如我剛才所說，我們正在採取一系列措施來提供幫助，包括醫療費用補貼、免費疫苗接種、支付住院費用、與聯合國兒童基金會合作等等。

To the question around in terms of how I think about the impact on the business, I think about the humanitarian side as being relevant, but candidly, the business side of the hot market is, in some regard, more meaningful in the sense that most of our attrition and the resignations we talked about, were happening in prior months, which are leading indicators of Q2 attrition and the end of Q1 attrition. And all of that was happening in a period when the COVID situation in India was substantially less severe than it is at this moment in time. So we are working through, obviously, our business operations, working with our teams who are working remotely. It's a challenging environment, of course, and it's a stressful and emotional time for our associates and their families.

關於疫情對業務的影響，我認為人道主義方面固然重要，但坦白說，在市場火熱的情況下，業務方面的影響在某種程度上更為顯著。因為我們之前提到的大部分人員流失和離職都發生在之前的幾個月，而這些正是第二季人員流失和第一季人員流失的先行指標。而且，這一切都發生在印度疫情遠不如現在這麼嚴重的時期。所以，我們顯然正在努力維持業務運營，與遠距辦公的團隊一起努力。這當然是一個充滿挑戰的環境，對我們的員工及其家人來說，也是一段充滿壓力和情緒波動的時期。

The impact, Bryan, on attrition rates and absenteeism and client delivery remains somewhat uncertain. We look at it on a daily basis. We have our crisis management teams involved. We've created a COVID delivery risk management process, which allows us to initiate remediation actions. We're required to review the status of our delivery portfolio, project by project, where possible, to shift work between offshore or nearshore and on-site teams.

布萊恩，疫情對員工流動率、缺勤率和客戶交付的影響仍存在一些不確定性。我們每天都在關注這個問題。我們的危機管理團隊也已介入。我們制定了新冠疫情交付風險管理流程，以便啟動補救措施。我們需要盡可能逐一審查交付組合的狀態，以便在離岸或近岸團隊和現場團隊之間調整工作。

But I will say clients have been incredibly supportive as we go through this. I've received a series of e-mails from clients who are wishing us the best of luck and certainly not putting a lot of pressure in the system at this moment in time. The financial impact of our actions is assumed in our guidance. And that is assumed off of what we know today, which is today's rates of absenteeism and today's resignations that we've seen. It is unclear whether attrition will actually slow because of this or whether attrition will go up or stay stable, but it will potentially go up because of absenteeism. But to date, our guidance includes what we know to date. To date, we feel as though our guidance is appropriate.

但我必須說，客戶們在我們應對這一切的過程中給予了極大的支持。我收到了一系列客戶的郵件，他們祝我們一切順利，並且在這個特殊時期並沒有給系統施加太多壓力。我們的指導方針中已經包含了我們行動的財務影響。而這個假設是基於我們目前掌握的信息，即當前的缺勤率和離職率。目前尚不清楚人員流失率是否會因此而放緩，或者上升，或者保持穩定，但由於缺勤率的上升，人員流失率可能會增加。但就目前而言，我們的指導意見包含了我們目前掌握的資訊。就目前而言，我們認為我們的指導意見是適當的。

Our next question comes from the line of Rod Bourgeois with DeepDive Equity Research.

我們的下一個問題來自 DeepDive Equity Research 的 Rod Bourgeois。

Okay. Great. So Brian, you're a very full 2 years into your leadership role at Cognizant. When you started at Cognizant, there were some meaningful management challenges there waiting for you. You're now navigating a pandemic with multiple ways across regions, so it's definitely been an eventful 2 years.

好的，太好了。布萊恩，你在 Cognizant 擔任領導職務已經整整兩年了。剛加入 Cognizant 時，就面臨一些意義重大的管理挑戰。現在，你又要應付疫情帶來的各種挑戰，橫跨多個地區，這兩年可謂是精彩紛呈。

In that context, I'd like to ask if you can grade Cognizant's underlying progress, the progress that you've made over the last couple of years. And if there's a way to decipher between internal progress, market progress, financial progress, I'm assuming those dimensions may be progressing at different stages. But overall, it would be helpful to hear how you'd grade Cognizant's last 2 years in its progress.

在此背景下，我想請您評論一下 Cognizant 的整體發展，也就是過去幾年所取得的進展。如果可以區分內部發展、市場發展和財務發展，我假設這些方面的進展可能處於不同的階段。但總的來說，我很想聽聽您如何評價 Cognizant 過去兩年的發展。

Thank you, Rod. It's a comprehensive question in nature. But yes, I would echo the word an eventful first 2 years given the transformation agenda, the leadership changes required as part of that, a global pandemic, a ransomware attack, of course, and now a war on talent that is happening in the midst of the humanitarian crisis in India. I would say, first of all, it's a team sport. This is about 300,000 associates pulling in one direction. I'm truly pleased with the executives I've got around me these days. We're all eager to show what we can do, and hopefully, I believe, can become an iconic leadership team together in the years ahead. And I've also been supported by a terrific Board, who've been 100% behind our vision and our strategy of the company.

謝謝你，羅德。這是一個非常全面的問題。是的，我同意用「充滿挑戰的頭兩年」來形容過去兩年，因為公司經歷了轉型計劃、隨之而來的領導層變動、全球疫情、勒索軟體攻擊，當然還有現在在印度人道危機期間爆發的人才爭奪戰。首先，我想說，這是一項團隊運動。大約30萬名員工朝著同一個方向努力。我對目前身邊的管理團隊非常滿意。我們都渴望展現自己的能力，我相信，在未來的幾年裡，我們能夠共同打造一支卓越的領導團隊。此外，我也得到了董事會的大力支持，他們百分之百地支持我們的願景和公司策略。

As I'm answering your question, I will start by saying I inherited a great company and a company of great pedigree and a company with a growth DNA and the company with proud employees. But it is clear that the company had not been hitting its stride in recent years. So I asked our organization to pull together to help me operationalize a broad transformation agenda, which included strategy, structure, commercial transformation, delivery, optimization, cultural elements. I also asked the company to help me with a restructuring program that we weren't used to, but it would allow us to free up capacity to make investments in growth in our systems and in our people.

在回答您的問題之前，我想先說明，我接手的是一家優秀的公司，一家擁有卓越歷史、蓬勃發展且員工引以為傲的公司。但很顯然，近年來公司的發展並未達到預期水準。因此，我要求整個團隊齊心協力，協助我落實一項全面的轉型計劃，其中包括策略、架構、商業轉型、交付、優化以及文化建設等方面。我還要求公司協助我開展一項我們之前從未嘗試過的重組計劃，這項計劃將釋放資源，使我們能夠投資於系統和人才的成長。

And this is a growth company, and we needed to restart the engine. And of course, as part of that, you have to go through the corporate strategy. Who are we? Who do we want to be? That leads to portfolio adjustments, both exits such as content moderation as well as meaningful M&A aligned to the corporate strategy. And of course, within that vein, we've also doubled down on partnerships, including hyperscalers.

這是一家成長型公司，我們需要重啟成長引擎。當然，這其中就包括重新審視公司策略。我們是誰？我們想成為什麼樣的人？這需要對業務組合進行調整，包括退出內容審核等業務，以及與公司策略相符的有意義的併購。當然，在此基礎上，我們也加大了與合作夥伴的投入，包括與超大規模資料中心營運商的合作。

And all of this was just a means to an end to set out to build a pipeline, to accelerate bookings and, ultimately, to get the company back to industry-leading growth because I think growth will ultimately make the P&L work again. So we're certainly in the middle of a lot of this. I will say I'm more confident now than ever that we can do this, and I believe we're on track and we've made great progress.

這一切都只是為了最終目標：建立銷售管道，加速訂單成長，最終讓公司重回業界領先的成長軌道。因為我認為，成長最終會讓損益表再次獲利。所以我們目前正處於這些工作的關鍵階段。我可以說，我現在比以往任何時候都更有信心，相信我們能夠做到這一點，我相信我們正走在正確的軌道上，並取得了巨大的進展。

Internally, now to go to your framework, look, we've got a clear purpose, vision, a set of values. We've got a clear strategy. We've got a more competitive portfolio that is aligned to our strategy. We've got a better talent philosophy, including D&I, which is critical in a knowledge-based business. We progressed on important things like sustainability, cybersecurity. I think we're getting our belief back and test them to that as the notion of employee engagement hit multiyear highs in 2020. Although we are fully aware that we've got more work to do on our employee value proposition and indeed, of course, on attrition.

現在來說說內部框架，我們擁有清晰的目標、願景和價值觀。我們制定了明確的戰略。我們擁有更具競爭力的產品組合，並且與我們的策略相契合。我們擁有更完善的人才理念，包括多元化和包容性，這對知識型企業至關重要。我們在永續發展和網路安全等重要領域也取得了進展。我認為我們正在重拾信心，並檢驗這些信念是否有效，因為2020年員工敬業度達到了多年來最高的水準。當然，我們也充分意識到，在提升員工價值主張以及降低員工流動率方面，我們還有很多工作要做。

Commercially -- and when I'm answering your question on markets, I'm not talking about Wall Street. I'm going to talk about commercial markets as in our clients. We've overhauled our commercial team. We've increased the sophistication of the team. I think we went back to our tuna box model, where we got tight alignment between commercial and delivery. We've refined our customer segmentation strategy, so we know who are the clients that we need to partner with deeply. We've implemented a more refined variable compensation program. We've refreshed our talent to ensure we can represent the entire portfolio and address client pain points beyond the CTO or CIO.

在商業方面—當我回答您關於市場的問題時，我指的不是華爾街，而是我們客戶所在的商業市場。我們對商業團隊進行了全面重組，提升了團隊的專業水準。我認為我們回歸了最初的「金槍魚盒」模式，實現了商業和交付的緊密協作。我們優化了客戶細分策略，從而更清楚地了解哪些客戶需要深度合作。我們實施了更完善的浮動薪酬方案。我們更新了人才隊伍，確保能夠代表整個產品組合，並解決技術長 (CTO) 或資訊長 (CIO) 以外的客戶痛點。

And I'm excited as to how we're now being seen by clients, Rod, to be honest. We're no longer necessarily just being viewed in the build or operate space. We've got growing reputation and recognition in digital and cloud following our M&A strategy. And that is now showing up in sustained book-to-bill ratios in excess of 1.1, which I feel is critical to drive the revenue growth rate that I'm aspiring to drive, and our qualified pipeline and win rates are as healthy as they have ever been.

羅德，說實話，我對客戶現在對我們的看法感到非常興奮。我們不再僅僅被視為一家建設或營運公司。透過併購策略，我們在數位化和雲端運算領域贏得了越來越多的聲譽和認可。這體現在我們持續高於1.1的訂單出貨比上，我認為這對於實現我所期望的收入成長率至關重要。此外，我們的合格銷售管道和得標率也達到了前所未有的水平。

Now all of that leads ultimately to financial outcomes. And I don't think the true benefits of this are yet visible. We have seen the margin dilution of the investments, commercial hiring, IT security modernization, M&A, dilution, some brand investments we're making. Of course, we continue to review the trade-offs between revenue growth and margin expansion. But I will say we expect to see revenue benefits on the back of the bookings momentum. And margin should improve each year for the foreseeable future, albeit with a balanced approach to trade-offs between revenue growth and further investments to drive a sustained outperformance versus the competition. So in short, a lot of work, and I look forward to great years ahead.

所有這些最終都會轉化為財務成果。我認為這些措施的真正益處尚未顯現。我們已經看到，投資、商業招聘、IT安全現代化、併購以及一些品牌投資都導致了利潤率的下降。當然，我們會持續評估營收成長和利潤率提升之間的權衡。但我可以肯定的是，我們預計在預訂量的推動下，收入將會成長。在可預見的未來，利潤率應該會逐年提高，但這需要我們在收入成長和進一步投資之間保持平衡，以持續超越競爭對手。總之，還有很多工作要做，但我期待未來幾年能取得佳績。

Great. And just a quick follow-up that kind of dovetails with some of the things you mentioned. It seems attrition is a top of the list of things to address at this stage. Can you just speak to what you see as the root factors causing the attrition and your confidence in being able to fix that?

好的。我還有一個後續問題，正好和您剛才提到的一些內容相關。看來人員流失是現階段需要解決的首要問題。您能否談談您認為導致人員流失的根本原因是什麼，以及您對解決這個問題有何信心？

Look, it's a 2-edged sword. We've seen a V-shaped recovery as an industry, and Cognizant certainly has after a weak March, April last year. We snapped back immediately. And that leads with a skill shortage. So it's an industry problem. I think you've seen that in the earnings cycle to date. Of course, I caution people to compare attrition rates between various competitors. We include BPO, and our calculation is current quarter annualized, which is the worst of all world at this moment in time versus some peers exclude BPO and look at attrition on a rolling or in the last 12 months, which includes some lower levels of attrition because of COVID.

你看，這把雙面刃。整個產業都經歷了V型復甦，Cognizant在去年三四月份業績疲軟後也迅速反彈。而這又與技能短缺密切相關。所以這是個行業問題。我認為從目前的財報週期來看，這一點已經很明顯了。當然，我建議大家在比較不同競爭對手的員工流動率時要謹慎。我們的數據包含了業務流程外包（BPO）業務，我們採用的是當季年化數據，這在目前情況下是所有競爭對手中最糟糕的。相較之下，有些同業則排除了BPO業務，而是採用滾動或過去12個月的員工流失率，其中包含了受新冠疫情影響而略低的流失率。

But Rod, I think about our attrition, which went up 200 basis points sequentially against 2 parameters. One is macro considerations. The market is extremely competitive at this moment in time. There are supply/demand imbalances across cloud, across digital engineering, across data. I sense that the work-from-home environment has given people, let's say, less sense of community. And I also see, obviously, the build-out of captives, which tend to pressurize salaries. And then on top of that macro backdrop, I think we have some Cognizant considerations as we continue to transform the company.

但羅德，我一直在思考我們的人員流失率，它環比上升了200個基點，這主要受兩個因素影響。一是宏觀因素。目前市場競爭異常激烈。雲端運算、數位工程和數據領域都存在供需失衡。我感覺居家辦公環境讓人的歸屬感有所下降。而且，顯然，我也看到了自建團隊的興起，這往往會推高資水準。除此之外，我認為在持續推動公司轉型的過程中，我們還要考慮一些Cognizant本身的因素。

We're driving towards a culture of meritocracy and a performance culture. We're evolving more towards a global or sometimes local workforce, which is in line with client expectations but also in line with regulatory policy around the world. And in some regards, we're late to some of those elements. And so we're dealing with some of the pain that others have dealt with previously.

我們正朝著菁英管理和績效導向文化邁進。我們正朝著全球化或在地化的員工隊伍模式發展，這既符合客戶的期望，也符合世界各地的監管政策。在某些方面，我們起步較晚。因此，我們也正在經歷一些其他企業之前也曾遇到的難題。

I will say I'm 100% confident we're actively managing attrition as best we can. I'm pleased to say that attrition peaked in March, slowed in April and continues to slow in May, albeit early days in May. We've got a lot of work streams around employee engagements, training, job rotations. We've taken the decision to invest more in targeted salary increases and promotions and shifting to quarterly promotion cycles for billable associates. And we've added hundreds of recruiters in the last 4 months. And we're making a record number of 28,000 offers to new graduates in India, which is up from 17,000 hired in 2020. And I think in 2018, we may have actually not even hired any gen Z graduates into Cognizant.

我可以百分之百肯定地說，我們正在盡最大努力積極控制員工流失。令人欣慰的是，員工流動率在三月達到峰值，四月有所放緩，五月雖然才剛開始，但成長仍在持續放緩。我們圍繞著員工敬業度、培訓和輪調安排開展了大量工作。我們決定增加對有針對性的加薪和升遷的投入，並將計費員工的晉升週期改為季度製。過去四個月，我們新增了數百名招募人員。我們向印度應屆畢業生發出了創紀錄的28,000份錄取通知，高於2020年的17,000份。而且我認為，在2018年，我們可能根本沒有招募任何Z世代畢業生加入Cognizant。

So we're doing the right thing to address attrition. And of course, in the meantime, we're working to manage the salary inflationary elements of this. As Jan pointed out, P&A expectations in the second half of the year are lower than previously anticipated. So that will temper some of the downsides. But in the same vein, these are investments that I think will help stem attrition, which will give us more productive hours in our employees. And in the same vein, of course, we've got other levers at our disposal to manage salary inflation, be that on offshore or nearshore mix, pyramid optimization, delivery industrialization, including automation, methodologies, templates and the like.

因此，我們正在採取正確的措施來應對人員流失問題。當然，同時，我們也在努力控制薪資上漲的不利影響。正如Jan指出的，下半年的人員流失預期低於預期，這將緩解一些不利因素。但同時，我認為這些投資將有助於遏制人員流失，進而提高員工的工作效率。當然，我們還有其他方法可以控制薪資上漲，例如調整離岸或近岸外包模式、最佳化架構、推進交付流程的工業化（包括自動化）、改進方法論、使用範本等等。

Procurement leverage for subcontractors. We've got a new Chief Procurement Officer coming on board soon. And of course, everything else we're doing as we evolve the company against the line of work that we actually sell and deliver as we shift from staff augmentation towards managed services and project-based delivery transformation that brings different considerations as well.

提高分包商的採購議價能力。我們即將迎來一位新的首席採購長。當然，隨著公司業務的轉型，我們也不斷調整，以適應我們實際銷售和交付的業務，從人員擴充轉向管理服務和基於專案的交付模式，這也帶來了不同的考慮。

So we know what we need to do, and we're on it. And as I said, I think we'll see sequential increases in attrition based on the resignations in the last few months because there is a 2-month notice period in India. So we have a strong understanding as to what attrition will be in Q2. But that's been factored into our model and into our guidance. And in the meantime, we've been hiring at record pace given the extra recruiters we've put to work.

所以我們知道該做什麼，並且正在著手進行。正如我所說，我認為根據過去幾個月的離職情況，員工流失率會逐年上升，因為印度的離職通知期是兩個月。因此，我們對第二季的員工流動率有比較清楚的了解。這些因素已經納入了我們的模型和績效預期。同時，由於我們增派了招募人員，我們的招募速度也創下了歷史新高。

Our next question comes from the line of Ashwin Shirvaikar with Citi.

我們的下一個問題來自花旗銀行的 Ashwin Shirvaikar。

So a couple of things. I guess I might have missed this, but can you quantify the revenue growth you were not able to get solely because of the talent shortage? And then when I think of head count growth, in spite of the hiring, head count growth still at relatively low sequential levels. Is it a question of these folks have not yet joined? Or is that the net number because of the attrition? And could you separate out what is digital head count growth versus overall head count growth?

有幾個問題。我可能錯過了相關信息，但您能否量化一下僅僅因為人才短缺而未能實現的收入增長？另外，就員工人數成長而言，儘管一直在招聘，但環比成長仍然相對較低。這是因為這些人還沒入職嗎？還是因為人員流失導致的淨成長？您能否分別說明數位化員工人數成長和整體員工人數成長分別是多少？

Well, head count grew about 5,000 people year-over-year, but Ashwin, that excludes subcontractors and contingent labor, and they have increased sequentially and year-over-year materially. It's not a number we disclose. But we have turned to, obviously, external sources, both lateral hires and subcontractors and contingent labor as we've been working through the attrition situation internally, nor do we break out digital versus nondigital head count.

嗯，員工總數年增約5,000人，但阿什溫指出，這不包括分包商和臨時工，而他們的人數較上季和年成長都相當可觀。我們不便透露具體數字。顯然，在內部應對人員流失問題的過程中，我們已經轉向外部招聘，包括直接招聘、分包商和臨時工。我們也不會單獨列出數位化部門和非數位化部門的員工人數。

I mean to be very clear, you can have somebody working in a test -- with testing capabilities, they can work on what could be viewed as legacy projects. But in the same vein, as part of an agile squad, they could be working on something around -- something as familiar as a frequent flyer website, which some of the work we do around experience and software product engineering there it's not viewed as legacy, it's certainly viewed as digital. So it's very hard to classify workforce between legacy and digital.

我的意思是，要非常明確地說明，有些人可能從事測試工作——他們具備測試能力，可以參與一些傳統專案。但同樣地，作為敏捷團隊的一員，他們也可能參與一些專案——例如我們熟悉的常旅客網站，這類網站涉及用戶體驗和軟體產品工程，它並不被視為傳統項目，而無疑是數位化項目。因此，很難將員工簡單地歸類為傳統專案和數位化專案。

With regards to the opportunity costs, look, we're not quantifying that, but certainly, it's material that I've talked about. And when I review countries, there's hundreds of basis points of growth in some cases that we could have had. In other cases, it's less. But it's been a pain point for us throughout the quarter. We talked about attrition being a worry in our last quarter because we could see resignation rates, and we can see what's happening in the industry as people are doing their best to putting counter offers to stop resignation. And I'm glad we anticipated it, and we set appropriate guidance, and we're doing the same this time around.

關於機會成本，我們目前沒有進行量化，但這確實是我之前提到的重要因素。在分析各國的情況時，我們發現有些國家本來可以實現數百個基點的成長。其他一些國家的情況則略少一些。但無論如何，這都是我們整個季度都面臨的難題。上個季度我們就討論過人員流失問題，因為我們看到了離職率，也看到了業界普遍存在的現象：大家都在竭盡全力提出挽留方案以阻止員工離職。我很高興我們提前預料到了這一點，並製定了相應的業績指引，這次我們也採取了同樣的做法。

Could you comment also on the potential for greater use of technology to decouple revenue and head count growth?

您能否也談談如何更好地利用科技來降低收入成長與員工人數成長之間的風險？

Well, that's the holy grail, of course, in some regards. But a lot depends on the way you're running your business and the businesses you're winning, whether you're in a BPO-type business or a tech services-centric project. We have a huge effort underway around automation, not just in delivery but also some very exciting IP that we have been developing that, hopefully, we'd be able to talk about in the next quarter or so that I think will completely set us apart in the industry. So it is a holy grail.

當然，在某些方面，這的確是夢寐以求的目標。但許多因素取決於你的業務運作方式以及你所贏得的業務類型，無論你從事的是業務流程外包（BPO）類型的企業，還是以技術服務為中心的專案。我們正在大力推動自動化，不僅在交付方面，還在開發一些非常令人興奮的知識產權，希望在接下來的一個季度左右能夠公佈這些知識產權，我相信它們將使我們在行業中脫穎而出。所以，這的確是夢寐以求的目標。

Of course, you've also got to think about the pyramid. I talked earlier about adding 28,000 offers for freshers into the bottom of the pyramid this year. The bill rates of those will be very different than bill rates of onshore delivery. So it's very difficult, in a succinct way, to decouple revenue growth from head count growth because there are so many factors at play. But rest assured that the industrialization of delivery, including automation, is top of mind for us.

當然，你得考慮金字塔結構。我之前提到過，今年我們將在金字塔底部新增28,000個針對應屆畢業生的職位。這些職位的計費標準與本地配送的計費標準截然不同。因此，很難簡單地將收入成長與員工人數成長完全分開，因為其中涉及的因素太多了。但請放心，配送業的工業化，包括自動化，始終是我們工作的首要任務。

Our next question comes from the line of Keith Bachman with BMO.

我們的下一個問題來自BMO的Keith Bachman。

Brian, I want to direct this to you, if I could. I want to understand how you're thinking about growth. You've obviously given guidance for the year, but I wanted to see if you could put some context of maybe even some philosophical views on longer term. You're guiding to basically 3% to 4% organic constant currency growth, maybe a little bit closer to the 4% if we take out or normalize for the Facebook business. And how should investors be thinking about that growth potential longer term?

布萊恩，如果可以的話，我想直接問你這個問題。我想了解你對成長的看法。你顯然已經給出了今年的業績指引，但我希望你能從更長遠的角度，甚至從一些哲學層面，談談你的見解。你預期有機成長率（以固定匯率計算）在3%到4%之間，如果剔除或調整Facebook業務的影響，可能會更接近4%。那麼，投資人該如何看待這種長期成長潛力呢？

And a, if you could talk a little bit about how the pipeline growth looks now, what are some metrics that you could provide us? Also in terms of, b, the capacity that you see for incremental M&A from here, whether it's the ability to -- the financial resources and/or the management resources to keep driving M&A. And then finally, c, I was hoping you could touch on financial. It's still candidly serving as an anchor to your growth rate, not in a positive way, but limiting your consolidated growth. And so if you could just again touch on how you're thinking about growth, pipeline, M&A capacity and then financial.

首先，您能否談談目前專案儲備的成長情況？能否提供一些相關指標？其次，您能否談談未來併購的增量能力？包括財務資源和管理資源，能否持續推動併購？最後，我希望您能談談財務方面。坦白說，財務狀況仍然限制著你們的成長率，這並非好事，而是限制了你們的整體成長。所以，能否再談談你們對成長、專案儲備、併購能力以及財務狀況的看法？

Okay. So M&A, first of all, let's go back to the capital framework we've set forth in recent quarters. We plan to deploy approximately 100% of our annual free cash flow through a balanced capital allocation program. I will say these are guiding principles, and we will continue to be opportunistic. Approximately 50% towards M&A, an area that's wholly aligned to our strategic priorities. And of course, about the remaining 50% towards dividends and share repurchases, targeting a consistent dividend payout ratio in the range of -- at about -- sorry, 25% on that and the rest for repurchases.

好的。首先，關於併購，我們先回顧一下近幾季所製定的資本架構。我們計劃透過均衡的資本配置方案，運用約100%的年度自由現金流。需要說明的是，這些只是指導原則，我們仍會抓住機會。大約50%將用於併購，這完全符合我們的策略重點。當然，剩餘的50%左右將用於分紅和股票回購，目標是保持穩定的分紅率在——抱歉，大約25%——其餘用於股票回購。

So M&A will continue to be a priority for us. And as I said earlier, we announced 3 acquisitions in the first quarter, and indeed signed an agreement to acquire ESG Mobility. It's not that M&A is something we wake up every morning until we have to do. It's just -- it's an enabler for us to achieve our strategy.

因此，併購仍將是我們的優先事項。正如我之前所說，我們在第一季宣布了三項收購，並且確實簽署了收購 ESG Mobility 的協議。這並不是說我們每天早上醒來就想著要進行併購，而是說併購是我們實現策略目標的重要推手。

Now our strategy is built around accelerating digital, which are higher growth categories, and our strategy is also built around globalizing the company, both from a global delivery network but also getting after exponential growth overseas. And digital as well as our overseas opportunity, I think, puts us in a position to have ambitions well in excess of the 3% to 4% organic growth rate, Keith, that you mentioned. However, I will refrain from getting into long-term financial statements here. But I would be very, very disappointed in the years ahead if we do not significantly exceed those growth rates.

現在，我們的策略圍繞著加速數位轉型展開，因為數位化是高成長領域；同時，我們的策略也圍繞著公司全球化展開，這不僅體現在全球交付網路建設上，也體現在海外市場的指數級成長。我認為，數位轉型以及我們在海外市場的機遇，使我們有能力實現遠超過您提到的3%到4%的有機成長率的目標，基斯。不過，我在這裡就不深入討論長期財務報表了。但如果未來幾年我們未能顯著超越這些成長率，我會非常非常失望。

And I would say we have been doing what was needed in the last year to start replenishing our backlog to consistently drive a book-to-bill ratio in excess of 1.1. That puts us in a position that organically, coupled with the accretive nature of the acquisitions we've done, we should have continued upward pressure on revenue on a go-forward basis. And that being said, I will caution everybody we're in somewhat of an unpredictable world at this moment in time with the humanitarian crisis in India.

我想說，過去一年我們一直在採取必要措施，逐步補充積壓訂單，從而持續保持訂單出貨比高於1.1。這使我們處於有利地位，憑藉自身成長以及收購帶來的增益，我們應該能夠在未來持續推動營收成長。話雖如此，我還是要提醒大家，鑑於目前印度的人道危機，我們所處的世界局勢充滿不確定性。

So that's how I think about our organic possibilities as well as the fact that we have an M&A lever that is exposing us to higher growth categories. And all of this, of course, is against the context where, from my perspective, we are substantially more operationally inclined and more sophisticated in terms of how we think about delivery and commercial levers going forward.

這就是我對我們自身發展潛力的看法，同時我們也意識到，併購可以幫助我們進入更高成長的領域。當然，所有這些都建立在我們更注重營運、更成熟地思考未來交付和商業策略的背景之上。

On Financial Services, look, it is critical. We turned around Financial Services. I'm proud with the progress we made in Healthcare, which is catching up on Financial Services as almost being our single biggest industry sector. Well, Financial Services is 1/3 of our revenue. And in dollar terms, it modestly grew, but in constant currency terms, it declined 1.7%. And Keith, within that, we ultimately have 2 groups. We have a Banking and Financial Services business that is more than half of the business, and we have insurance which is kind of less than half.

關於金融服務，這至關重要。我們扭轉了金融服務的頹勢。我對我們在醫療保健領域取得的進展感到自豪，醫療保健正在迎頭趕上金融服務，幾乎成為我們最大的單一行業板塊。金融服務占我們收入的三分之一。以美元計算，它略有增長，但以固定匯率計算，下降了1.7%。基思，我們最後將金融服務分成兩大板塊。我們的銀行和金融服務業務佔總業務的一半以上，而保險業務則佔比不到一半。

And it's a tale of 2 cities. In insurance, North America was weaker than the international business. But North American insurance is the vast majority of the insurance business, so that weakness hurt us in Banking and Financial Services. Actually, North America was modestly up, but our international business was down.

這就像是兩個截然不同的世界。在保險業務方面，北美市場表現弱於國際市場。但北美保險業務佔據了保險業的絕大部分，因此北美市場的疲軟也影響了我們在銀行和金融服務領域的表現。實際上，北美市場略有成長，但我們的國際業務卻出現了下滑。

Within Banking and Financial Services, there are relatively consistent trends with what we talked about previously. Capital markets declined. Retail banking grew modestly, but it was offset by declines in commercial banks and cards and payments. And if I think about things differently, the global banks, as we call them, have continued to in-source and that business continues to decline for us, offset somewhat by good momentum we have with some of the regional banks.

在銀行和金融服務領域，趨勢與我們之前討論的基本一致。資本市場下滑。零售銀行業務略有成長，但被商業銀行、信用卡和支付業務的下滑所抵銷。換個角度來看，我們稱之為全球性銀行的那些公司一直在進行內部業務重組，這部分業務對我們來說持續下滑，不過我們與一些區域性銀行的良好合作勢頭在一定程度上彌補了這一損失。

Now all of this comes back to what are we doing about it. I would say we have a plan of attack. We have had healthy bookings throughout Financial Services, both banking and insurance in 2020. We've added extra commercial coverage. We've actually changed out and refreshed a significant amount of our commercial teams. We've been embracing digital, and we've had strong digital bookings in those areas in 2020. And we've been working more with our partners who are very interested in our strength in Healthcare and indeed Financial Services.

現在，所有這一切最終都歸結於我們該如何應對。我認為我們已經制定了應對方案。 2020年，我們在金融服務領域，包括銀行和保險，都取得了良好的表現。我們增加了商業保險的覆蓋範圍。事實上，我們已經對相當一部分商業團隊進行了調整和重組。我們一直在積極擁抱數位化，並且在2020年這些領域也取得了強勁的數位化業績。此外，我們也加強了與合作夥伴的合作，他們對我們在醫療保健和金融服務領域的優勢非常感興趣。

So as Jan pointed out, it is a business that is under repair, and we expect to see gradual recovery in 2021. We should see stronger growth in Q2, obviously, for easy compare reasons as well as COVID and the ransomware attack. But I'd like to think in the course of the year, we can get this thing shaped up to be in better shape than it is today.

正如Jan所指出的那樣，這項業務目前正處於調整期，我們預計2021年將逐步復甦。顯然，由於便於比較以及新冠疫情和勒索軟體攻擊的影響，第二季的成長應該會更強勁。但我相信，在今年內，我們可以讓這項業務重回正軌，比現在的情況更好。

And any comments on pipeline, Brian?

布萊恩，關於輸油管有什麼看法嗎？

Look, pipeline is very healthy overall. It's as healthy as I have seen it. And pipeline, candidly, for Financial Services, is also healthy. So from my perspective, Keith, we don't have a demand issue in an industry -- I'm actually quite bullish on the industry for 2020 and indeed for 2021. And that's based on client conversations. And I speak with clients every day, as well as, obviously, we keep an eye on what industry analysts are saying.

你看，整體而言，業務通路非常健康。這是我見過的最健康的狀況。坦白說，金融服務業的業務管道也很健康。所以，基思，在我看來，我們這個行業不存在需求問題——事實上，我對2020年乃至2021年這個行業的前景都非常樂觀。這是基於與客戶的溝通。我每天都與客戶交流，當然，我們也會密切關注產業分析師的觀點。

I think talent shortages and attrition are a greater concern for the entire industry. But clients are making investments. They are decisive. And indecision is the enemy of people like myself. So clients being decisive is good. They are talking about more strategic partners. We are in the mix more than ever in that vendor consolidation, so I'm quite excited about that. And fundamentally, the things we see driving the pipeline, a lot around business model innovation, customer experience, technology modernization, risk mitigation and efficiency initiatives.

我認為人才短缺和人員流失是整個產業面臨的更大問題。但客戶正在加大投資，他們很果斷。而優柔寡斷正是像我這樣的人的敵人。所以，客戶的果斷是件好事。他們正在尋求更具戰略意義的合作夥伴。我們比以往任何時候都更積極地參與供應商整合中，對此我感到非常興奮。從根本上講，我們看到推動業務成長的因素主要圍繞著商業模式創新、客戶體驗、技術現代化、風險緩解和效率提升等措施。

And kind of the one of the reasons I was so adamant in doubling down with the hyperscalers 2 years ago is because these companies -- I don't think you should underestimate the sheer power and scale of hyperscale companies. They are investing massively, buying commercial teams, commercial terms, aligning with companies like Cognizant, [around] industries, massively accelerating cloud migrations. And if you believe in platform economics, which opens up the possibilities of microservices and APIs, I think this is going to be the future. So we set up 2 business groups or business groups in the hyperscalers in the last few years, and I think we're reaping the benefits of that now.

兩年前我如此堅定地加倍投資超大規模雲端服務商的原因之一，就是這些公司——我認為你不應該低估超大規模雲端服務商的實力和規模。它們正在大規模投資，收購商業團隊，優化商業條款，與像 Cognizant 這樣的公司合作，圍繞著各個行業，大幅加速雲端遷移。如果你相信平台經濟，它開啟了微服務和 API 的可能性，我認為這就是未來。所以在過去幾年裡，我們在超大規模雲端服務商中設立了兩個業務部門，我認為我們現在正在收穫這些投資帶來的收益。

Our next question comes from the line of Jason Kupferberg with Bank of America.

我們的下一個問題來自美國銀行的傑森·庫柏伯格。

This is [Kathy] on for Jason. So I mean the spring time frame is when enterprises typically make decisions on ramping up and moving forward with some of the discretionary projects. Can you just talk a little bit about what you're seeing on that front? Is there any hesitancy? Or are there any challenges in terms of meeting demand in that regard?

這裡是凱西，她替傑森發言。我的意思是，春季通常是企業決定擴大規模並推進一些非強制性專案的時候。您能否談談您在這方面觀察到的情況？是否有任何猶豫？或者在滿足這方面的需求方面是否存在任何挑戰？

Well, it's very consistent with my last answer, [Kathy,] to be honest. I'm expecting a robust environment. Clients are being decisive. discretionary projects are being funded. I think we've all grown used to the new world. And kind of we were getting at bats more often than ever before beyond bill run and more in the innovation and transformation agenda. So I feel very good and optimistic about the macro demand picture. But as I've said earlier, talent shortages and attrition are a much bigger concern for me at this moment in time than macro demand.

嗯，說實話，這和我上次的回答非常一致，凱西。我預計市場環境會很強勁。客戶決策果斷，自主性專案也獲得了資金支持。我想我們都已經適應了新的情況。而且，除了日常營運之外，我們在創新和轉型方面也比以往任何時候都更有話語權。所以我對宏觀需求前景感到非常樂觀。但正如我之前所說，目前人才短缺和人員流失比宏觀需求更讓我擔憂。

Our next question comes from the line of Lisa Ellis with MoffettNathanson.

我們的下一個問題來自 Lisa Ellis 和 MoffettNathanson 的問題。

First one, just on M&A, just a follow-up there. Your -- Cognizant's pace of M&A has increased quite a bit in the last few quarters. Can you just comment a bit on how you're building that muscle so that it becomes more of a strategic differentiator for Cognizant? Like what changes have you made to how you're doing sourcing or integration of these companies?

第一個問題，是關於併購的，想跟進一下。貴公司——Cognizant——近幾季的併購步伐明顯加快。您能否談談貴公司如何增強併購能力，使其成為Cognizant更具策略性優勢的因素？例如，貴公司在收購目標的選擇和整合上做了哪些調整？

Jan, do you want to address that?

Jan，你想談談這個問題嗎？

Yes. Look, the M&A activity had been healthy in the first quarter. So we spent approximately $300 million and announced 4 acquisitions. But I wouldn't read too much to it as an accelerated pace. I think we're executing against the plan and trying to spend in the framework of the capital that we strategically want to allocate towards M&A and we're executing that. The team has done really a fantastic job in aligning our deal sourcing across industries and across the globe.

是的。你看，第一季的併購活動相當活躍。我們投入了大約3億美元，並宣布了4項收購。但我不會將其解讀為加速推進。我認為我們正在按計劃執行，並努力在既定的併購策略資本框架內進行支出，我們正在有效地執行這一目標。團隊在協調跨行業、全球範圍內的交易來源方面做得非常出色。

So you see this, for example, we talked in the last quarter about a slight shift towards more geographic expansion, and we have 2 deals this -- an Australian deal and, of course, very close to my heart, a German deal also part of the transactions that we could announce and some of them closed. So we're executing really in a classic manner. The team is very focused partnering with our markets and with our service lines on identifying the strategic areas of growth that we want to do and it's been very diligent and creative of identifying acquisition opportunities. It has really worked really well. And I think the natural spacing of these things will lead us to kind of execute against our allocated capital against it. Now it's what we have been lumpy in and out, but a consistent way to do so.

例如，上個季度我們討論過略微調整策略，轉向地域擴張，目前我們達成了兩項交易——一項是澳大利亞的交易，當然，還有一項我個人非常看重的德國交易，這些交易也包含在我們可以宣布的交易中，其中一些已經完成。所以我們的執行方式非常傳統。團隊非常專注於與市場和服務部門合作，確定我們想要發展的策略成長領域，並且在尋找收購機會方面非常勤奮和富有創意。這種方式確實非常有效。我認為這些交易的自然間隔將引導我們合理利用分配的資金。雖然我們目前的投入和退出方式可能有些不規律，但整體來說是一種持續的推進方式。

The focus in the company is clearly on integration because the synergies that these companies deliver are at the heart of the viability of our M&A strategy. And we are pleased with the ability to generate synergies. Our business plans are generally pretty close to the reality on the revenue synergies. And as we now have a larger portfolio of companies that we have acquired, we have increased our focus quite naturally on integration and efficiencies so that these companies can fit into the fabric of Cognizant and benefit from the scale that we can bring to the table.

公司目前的重點顯然是整合，因為這些公司帶來的綜效是我們併購策略可行性的核心。我們對實現協同效應的能力感到滿意。我們的業務計劃與實際收入綜效基本吻合。隨著我們收購的公司數量不斷增加，我們自然而然地更加重視整合和效率提升，以便這些公司能夠融入 Cognizant 的整體架構，並受益於我們所能帶來的規模優勢。

You see we have still dilution, some acquisitions, putting pressure on our margin. And so you'll see us continuing working on driving integration and reaping also some of the cost efficiencies that might be available to us in the future.

您看，我們仍然面臨股權稀釋和一些收購帶來的利潤率壓力。因此，您將看到我們將繼續努力推動整合，並爭取在未來獲得一些成本效益。

Terrific. And then just a quick follow-up. I know, Brian, you mentioned that now you've had a 1.1 or greater book-to-bill for, I think, more than a year now on a very sustained basis. Can you just kind of comment on how you're feeling about the backlog at this point, your confidence level, whether it's improved and kind of your visibility into the sales pipeline and sales forecasting?

太好了。還有一個後續問題。布萊恩，我知道你提到過，你的訂單出貨比已經持續一年多保持在1.1以上了。能簡單談談你目前對積壓訂單的感受嗎？你的信心程度如何？積壓訂單是否有改善？你對銷售通路和銷售預測的了解程度如何？

Yes. Well, actually, I should thank Jan for this when he came in. He did a tremendous job really decomposing down prior bookings and tracing them to follow the breadcrumbs into revenue. And so at this moment in time, we have much better visibility into that than we had based on last year.

是的。其實，我應該​​感謝Jan的加入。他做得非常出色，把之前的預訂情況進行了細緻的分析，並追蹤線索，最終找到了收入來源。所以，目前我們對這方面的了解比去年要清晰得多。

I really feel good about our bookings momentum, to your point, really since the last -- if you think about it, throughout 2020, we had an exceptionally strong Q1. And then through the course of the year, we had strength with mid-teens for the course of the year. But really in 2019, it starts, you don't get bookings until you start building a pipeline. So we really put a lot of effort in the second half of 2020 into pipeline build. That started showing up in terms of bookings momentum in 2020 and then, of course, into 2021. We don't have the same easy compares now as we had last year, which is why I wanted to really contextualize Q1 bookings growth of 5%.

我對我們的預訂成長勢頭感到非常滿意，正如您所說，實際上，從去年開始——如果您仔細想想，2020 年第一季我們表現異常強勁。之後，我們的預訂量全年也保持了強勁成長，達到了 15% 左右。但實際上，在 2019 年，一切都始於建立銷售管道，只有開始建立銷售管道才能獲得預訂。因此，我們在 2020 年下半年投入了大量精力來建立銷售管道。這在 2020 年的預訂成長勢頭中開始顯現，當然，這種勢頭也延續到了 2021 年。我們現在不像去年有那麼多可比較數據，所以我才想具體分析第一季 5% 的預訂成長。

I actually am delighted with that because our December was really outstanding. It was an excellent month for us. And April has been an excellent month, so the Q1 period has been sandwiched between that. And it's really important to me that people think about bookings on a rolling 4-quarter basis because something stepping from a Friday to a Monday or vice versa could take a deal from Q1 to Q2 or Q1 to Q4. So it's important to contextualize that.

我其實對此非常滿意，因為我們12月的業績確實非常出色，對我們來說是個非常好的月份。 4月的業績也很好，所以第一季正好夾在這兩個月之間。對我來說，大家應該以滾動的四個季度來看待預訂情況，這一點非常重要，因為週五到週一的變動，或者反過來，都可能導致一筆交易從第一季度轉移到第二季度，或者從第一季轉移到第四季度。所以，把這些資訊放在具體的背景下看待非常重要。

So book-to-bill is the right way to also think about it. I think once you're north of 1.1x, it creates a backlog of opportunity to go execute against and hopefully accelerate revenue on from here. So we're confident of our -- in our numbers. And we're also confident we'll have a very strong Q2 bookings number on the back, not just of excellent April results but also, let's face it, the compare wasn't exactly stellar in May this time last year for many other reasons.

所以，從訂單出貨比來考慮這個問題也是正確的方法。我認為，一旦訂單出貨比超過1.1倍，就會產生大量可執行的潛在客戶，並有望在此基礎上加速營收成長。因此，我們對自身的業績充滿信心。我們也相信，第二季的訂單量會非常強勁，這不僅是因為四月份的出色業績，而且說實話，由於許多其他原因，去年同期五月份的業績也並不理想。

Our last question comes from the line of Tien-Tsin Huang with JPMorgan.

最後一個問題來自摩根大通的黃天進。

I know you're at the bottom of the hour here. I just want to get a clarification here on the margin side and just ask it at a high level, if just the cost of doing business is going up. I mean I see your gross margin in the first quarter was pretty good, but I know you move in to the lower end of the margins, how you said to lead that some of the M&A integration costs are going up. I understand that. But is the rest of it just people? And again, is the cost of doing business overall, just maybe going higher than you had expected 90 days ago?

我知道現在已經是晚上9點了。我只是想就利潤率方面確認一下，簡單問一下，是不是營運成本上升了？我知道你們第一季的毛利率相當不錯，但你們的利潤率已經進入下行區間了，正如你們之前提到的，併購整合成本有所上升。我理解這一點。但其他成本上升只是因為人力成本嗎？再次強調，整體營運成本是否比你們90天前的預期高？

Tien-Tsin, thank you for the question. I was wondering if it wouldn't come actually. So I appreciate it because there's a lot of momentum, a movement in our margins that I think is important to put our eyes on. When you compare our margins overall operating margin, we're kind of roughly flat, slightly improved year-over-year. And on the gross margin side, you see the benefits of our Fit for Growth, and you can see also the benefits of the lower T&E that helped us to expand the growth margins. Utilization helped a little bit. And also, we had obviously a little bit help in the rupee. That all helped on the margin side.

天心，謝謝你的提問。我之前還在想這個問題會不會出現。所以我很感謝你的提問，因為我們的利潤率目前勢頭強勁，我認為值得關注。從整體營業利潤率來看，我們基本上持平，略有年增。在毛利率方面，我們「Fit for Growth」計畫帶來了效益，差旅費用降低也幫助我們擴大了成長利潤率。產能利用率的提高也起了一定的作用。當然，盧比匯率的走強也對我們有幫助。所有這些因素都對利潤率的提升起到了積極作用。

But then we had on the SG&A side, you see an accelerated growth, but we are really laser-focused on directing that SG&A growth to our strategic initiatives that we think will yield -- we view them as investments, will yield accelerating revenue growth rates. And you pointed out the 2 biggest items. M&A is -- and its dilutive element in its initial years as well as our investments into sales and account management and growth in essence. Those are 2 offsetting factors that we have seen in the past quarters but also this quarter.

但就銷售、管理及行政費用（SG&A）而言，我們看到了加速成長，但我們真正專注於將SG&A的成長導向我們認為能夠帶來——我們將其視為投資——加速營收成長的策略舉措。您指出了其中最重要的兩點：併購——及其在初期階段的稀釋效應，以及我們對銷售、客戶管理和成長方面的投資。這兩個因素相互抵消，我們在過去幾個季度以及本季都看到了這一點。

When we -- now in outlook, you're pointing out we are basically down ticking our margin guidance a tiny bit. I think that is reflective of a balance that we're trying to strike here reflecting what we anticipate could be some increase in our compensation costs due to the measures in order to lower attrition, attract and retain our talent. And we're planning to offset that partially with some change in assumptions. I think the prices in India illustrates that maybe T&E is not coming back as fast as we have anticipated. And we're also carefully and surgically monitoring our future SG&A growth to tie it all so that we keep the overall margin equation together for the full year.

展望未來，您指出我們實際上略微下調了利潤率預期。我認為這反映了我們正在努力尋求的平衡，即考慮到為降低員工流失率、吸引和留住人才而採取的措施可能會導致薪酬成本增加。我們計劃透過調整一些假設來部分抵銷這部分成本。我認為印度的價格表明，差旅費用可能沒有我們預期的那麼快恢復。此外，我們也密切監控未來的銷售、管理及行政費用成長，以確保全年整體利潤率保持穩定。

But the second quarter will be kind of in line or similar to our first quarter margin expectation, in particular since we're anticipating the SG&A moderation to accelerate basically in the third and fourth quarter, but some of the compensation measures will be probably visible already in the second quarter.

但第二季的利潤率將與我們對第一季的預期基本持平或相似，特別是考慮到我們預計銷售、一般及行政費用的緩和將在第三和第四季度加速，但一些補償措施可能在第二季度就已經顯現出來。

That was very clear, Jan. So maybe as a quick follow-up. Just you didn't mention contract execution and performance, so I'm assuming things are going well there. Any update on contract execution and risk management, has identified any changes since last quarter in the portfolio?

Jan，你剛才說得很清楚。那我再快速問一個後續問題。你沒有提到合約執行和履行情況，所以我假設這方面進展順利。關於合約執行和風險管理，你有什麼最新進展嗎？自上個季度以來，投資組合方面是否有任何變化？

Yes. No, I presume you are -- refer to our management of escalations, deals, et cetera. I think we have had a very usual quarter. We made progress on our implementation of improvements for deal reviews and deal acceptance and pricing as we rolled out. Those initiatives are gaining momentum. And on the delivery side, I think the issues that we're hearing the most, and Brian mentioned it, is obviously, our ability to fulfill and to have talent available. It's a primary concern of our clients. But overall, I would say it was a very solid quarter relative to execution.

是的。不，我猜您指的是——關於我們對升級、交易等的管理。我認為我們這個季度表現非常正常。隨著我們逐步推出改進措施，我們在交易審查、交易接受度和定價方面取得了進展。這些舉措正在逐步推進。在交付方面，我認為我們聽到最多的問題，也是布萊恩提到的，顯然是我們能否按時交付以及是否有充足的人才可用。這是我們客戶最關心的問題。但總的來說，我認為就執行而言，這是一個非常穩健的季度。

All right. I think with that, we'll end today's call. Thank you all for the questions, and we look forward to speaking with you next quarter.

好的。我想今天的電話會議就到此結束了。感謝各位的提問，我們期待下個季度與大家再次交流。

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and enjoy the rest of your evening.

今天的會議到此結束。您可以斷開線路了。感謝您的參與，祝您晚安。