高知特 (CTSH) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Cognizant Technology Solutions Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Tyler Scott, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

女士們、先生們，歡迎參加 Cognizant 技術解決方案 2023 年第四季財報電話會議。 （操作員說明）謝謝。現在我想將會議交給投資者關係副總裁泰勒·史考特先生。請繼續，先生。

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 fourth quarter and full year 2023 results. If you have not, copies are available on our website, cognizant.com. The speakers we have on today's call are Ravi Kumar, Chief Executive Officer; and Jatin Dalal, Chief Financial Officer.

謝謝接線員，大家下午好。到目前為止，您應該已經收到了該公司第四季度和 2023 年全年業績的收益發布副本和投資者補充資料。如果您還沒有，可以在我們的網站 cognizant.com 上取得副本。今天電話會議的發言者是首席執行官拉維·庫馬爾 (Ravi Kumar)；和財務長 Jatin Dalal。

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.

在我們開始之前，我想提醒您，今天電話會議中發表的一些評論以及對您問題的一些答案可能包含前瞻性陳述。這些聲明受到公司收益報告和向 SEC 提交的其他文件中所述的風險和不確定性的影響。

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.

此外，在今天的電話會議中，我們將參考某些非公認會計準則財務指標，我們認為這些指標為我們的投資者提供了有用的資訊。非公認會計原則財務指標（如適用）與相應公認會計原則指標的調節可以在公司向美國證券交易委員會提交的收益報告和其他文件中找到。

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

有了這個，我現在想把電話轉給拉維。請繼續。

Thank you, Tyler, and good afternoon, everyone. Today, I would like to cover 3 topics: Cognizant's fourth quarter and full year results, an assessment of our progress in 2023, and a look ahead to our focus and outlook for 2024. I've been in the CEO role now for a full year and have used these 12 months to dig into the company's client relationships, operations, services portfolio, market environment, finances and culture. I've met with about 400 clients and established a regular cadence of listening to and speaking with our employees across the world.

謝謝泰勒，大家下午好。今天，我想談談 3 個主題：Cognizant 第四季度和全年業績、對 2023 年進展的評估以及對 2024 年重點和展望的展望。年，並利用這12 個月深入了解公司的客戶關係、營運、服務組合、市場環境、財務和文化。我已經會見了大約 400 名客戶，並建立了定期傾聽我們世界各地的員工並與他們交談的節奏。

My full year immersion into everything Cognizant has confirmed my belief in the high level of initiative and motivation of our nearly 350,000 employees as well as my belief in the company's distinctive core strengths. I have confidence in our potential to increase our revenue growth, and I'll have more to say about this in a few minutes.

我一整年對 Cognizant 一切事務的投入證實了我對我們近 35 萬名員工的高度主動性和積極性的信念，以及我對公司獨特核心優勢的信念。我對我們增加收入成長的潛力充滿信心，幾分鐘後我將對此進行更多闡述。

Let's start with the fourth quarter where we delivered on our commitments while continuing to implement our cost management program. To call out 3 highlights, first, we executed well, delivering revenue within our guidance range despite ongoing macroeconomic pressures and meaningfully exceeded our adjusted operating margin expectations. Second, we made further progress on our goal to increase the percentage of large deals, new clients and business in the overall mix. And third, we saw continued improvement in our voluntary attrition.

讓我們從第四季度開始，我們兌現了我們的承諾，同時繼續實施我們的成本管理計劃。列舉三個亮點，首先，我們執行得很好，儘管宏觀經濟壓力持續存在，但我們的收入仍保持在我們的指導範圍內，並且大大超出了我們調整後的營業利潤率預期。其次，我們在提高大宗交易、新客戶和業務在整體結構中的比例的目標上取得了進一步進展。第三，我們看到我們的自願減員持續改善。

Q4 revenue of $4.8 billion was in line with the guidance range we provided last quarter. Year-over-year, Q4 revenue was down 1.7% as reported or down 2.4% in constant currency. The quarter developed much as we expected as clients remained cautious and limited the discretionary spending.

第四季營收為 48 億美元，符合我們上季提供的指導範圍。報告顯示，第四季營收年減 1.7%，以固定匯率計算下降 2.4%。該季度的發展與我們的預期基本一致，因為客戶保持謹慎並限制了可自由支配的支出。

Our Q4 adjusted operating margin of 16.1% was meaningfully stronger than we anticipated. Driven by savings from our next-gen cost management program and better execution on our operational efficiencies. We sustained our large deal momentum in the quarter, winning 7 deals exceeding $100 million each. Of these 7 deals, 2 were new business and 5 were a mix of renewals and expansions. I am especially pleased to see our continued decline in employee attrition, trailing 12-month voluntary attrition for our tech services business declined to 13.8%. That is down 2.4 percentage points sequentially and down 12 points year-over-year.

第四季調整後營業利益率為 16.1%，明顯高於我們的預期。得益於我們下一代成本管理計劃的節省和更好地執行我們的營運效率。我們在本季保持了大宗交易勢頭，贏得了 7 筆交易，每筆金額超過 1 億美元。在這 7 筆交易中，2 筆是新業務，5 筆是續約和擴張的混合業務。我特別高興看到我們的員工流動率持續下降，過去 12 個月我們技術服務業務的自願離職率下降至 13.8%。季減 2.4 個百分點，較去年同期下降 12 個百分點。

Turning to the full year. Revenue of $19.4 billion was down slightly from the prior year and in line with the guidance we set on our Q3 call. A strong Q4 margin performance enabled us to achieve a full year adjusted operating margin of 15.1% compared with a guidance of approximately 14.7%.

轉至全年。營收為 194 億美元，較上年略有下降，符合我們在第三季電話會議中設定的指導。第四季強勁的利潤率表現使我們全年調整後營業利潤率達到 15.1%，而指導值約為 14.7%。

We ended Q4 with a trailing 12 months booking growth of $26.3 billion, up 9% year-over-year, resulting in a book to bill of 1.4x. For 2023, about 30% of our TCV exceeded $50 billion-plus deals compared with approximately 20% in the previous year. We signed 17 deals that exceeded $100 million TCV, $100 million TCV. Total TCV for deals above $100 million increased 42% year-over-year.

截至第四季末，我們過去 12 個月的預訂量成長了 263 億美元，年增 9%，預訂率達到 1.4 倍。 2023 年，我們約 30% 的 TCV 交易超過 500 億美元以上，而前一年約為 20%。我們簽署了 17 筆 TCV 超過 1 億美元的交易，1 億美元的 TCV。 1 億美元以上交易的總 TCV 年增 42%。

Several factors contributed to this progress. We have reoriented our teams to large deal demand generation and execution across all service lines. We have strengthened our ability to seed, shape and sell large deals. And we have made progress in industrializing delivery with automation and productivity tools to create repeatable solutions and enable a consistent and efficient delivery operating model for large deals.

有幾個因素促成了這項進展。我們對我們的團隊進行了重新定位，以適應所有服務線的大宗交易需求產生和執行。我們增強了播種、塑造和銷售大型交易的能力。我們透過自動化和生產力工具在工業化交付方面取得了進展，以創建可重複的解決方案，並為大型交易提供一致、高效的交付營運模式。

Turning to our business segments where Jatin will cover our financial performance, I want to comment on our 2 largest segments. In Financial Services, while responding to a demand environment that remains challenging, we are increasing our efforts to stimulate growth. We have installed new leaders in a number of key positions across the segment. We have invested in consulting and commercial resources and targets of industries and in partner relationships.

談到我們的業務部門，Jatin 將報告我們的財務業績，我想談談我們最大的兩個部門。在金融服務領域，在應對仍充滿挑戰的需求環境的同時，我們正在加強刺激成長。我們在該領域的許多關鍵職位上任命了新的領導者。我們投資於諮詢和商業資源以及行業目標和合作夥伴關係。

We are also focused on expanding our service offerings and on enhancing our industry solutions powered by new technologies like generative AI. In Health Sciences, as the health care industry continues to undergo major transformation, we believe Cognizant is well positioned to become the nucleus of an emerging healthcare ecosystem through our platform's data and solutions.

我們也致力於擴大我們的服務範圍，並加強由產生人工智慧等新技術支援的產業解決方案。在健康科學領域，隨著醫療保健產業持續經歷重大轉型，我們相信 Cognizant 已做好充分準備，透過我們平台的數據和解決方案成為新興醫療保健生態系統的核心。

With these dynamics in mind, we are investing in the expansion of our TriZetto platform and our health care BPaaS solution capabilities. We are also capitalizing on the opportunity GenAI presents to the health care market. For instance, LLMs can be used to streamline payer administrative processes, automate clinical documentation and enhance clinical decision support systems. I remain confident in the value of our health sciences portfolio provides to clients.

考慮到這些動態，我們正在投資擴展 TriZetto 平台和醫療保健 BPaaS 解決方案功能。我們也利用 GenAI 為醫療保健市場帶來的機會。例如，法學碩士可用於簡化付款人管理流程、自動化臨床文件並增強臨床決策支援系統。我對我們的健康科學產品組合為客戶提供的價值仍然充滿信心。

For example, Fortrea recently chose Cognizant as its technology transformation partner to deploy a modern secure digital ecosystem to help bring treatments to patients faster while strengthening its position in the life sciences industry. And Takeda, a global biopharma company with whom we have had a long relationship, has selected us to help modernize their infrastructure and application management in support of digital transformation.

例如，Fortrea 最近選擇 Cognizant 作為其技術轉型合作夥伴，部署現代安全數位生態系統，幫助更快地為患者提供治療，同時鞏固其在生命科學產業的地位。與我們有著長期合作關係的全球生物製藥公司武田 (Takeda) 選擇我們來幫助其實現基礎設施和應用管理現代化，以支持數位轉型。

Now let's turn to an assessment of how we move the company forward in 2023. To begin, we made considerable progress enhancing 3 core strengths that, taken together, I believe, Cognizant set apart in the market. First, industry expertise. In 2023, we further deepened our expertise at the intersection of technology and industry use cases to deliver industry-specific solutions in service of business outcomes. We also enhanced our collaboration and co-creation with clients and the broader partner ecosystem to stitch together industry-leading capabilities. A good example is our strategic partnership with ServiceNow to advance the adoption of AI-driven automation across industries.

現在讓我們評估一下我們如何在 2023 年推動公司前進。首先，我們在增強 3 個核心優勢方面取得了相當大的進展，我相信，將這些優勢結合起來，Cognizant 在市場上脫穎而出。第一，行業專業知識。 2023 年，我們進一步深化了在技術和產業用例交叉方面的專業知識，以提供針對業務成果的產業特定解決方案。我們也加強了與客戶和更廣泛的合作夥伴生態系統的協作和共同創造，以整合業界領先的能力。一個很好的例子是我們與 ServiceNow 的策略合作夥伴關係，以推動人工智慧驅動的自動化在各行業的採用。

We are also collaborating with ServiceNow to enhance Cognizant's WorkNEXT modern workplace services solution with generative AI. WorkNEXT aims to provide more intuitive and personalized experiences for employees while helping to better quantify and improve the return on experience for enterprise customers.

我們也與 ServiceNow 合作，透過產生人工智慧來增強 Cognizant 的 WorkNEXT 現代工作場所服務解決方案。 WorkNEXT旨在為員工提供更直覺、個人化的體驗，同時協助更好地量化和提高企業客戶的體驗回報。

A second core strength, we are collaborative partners to our clients. As mentioned on our Q3 call, our annual client Net Promoter Score survey hit a historic high for Cognizant last year. Our empathy for clients is a part of our DNA, and we believe we have become even better at listening carefully to, learning from and working with clients to earn their trust, solve their problems and help them succeed.

第二個核心優勢是，我們是客戶的合作夥伴。正如我們在第三季電話會議中提到的，我們的年度客戶淨推薦值調查去年創下了 Cognizant 的歷史新高。我們對客戶的同理心是我們 DNA 的一部分，我們相信，我們在認真傾聽、向客戶學習並與客戶合作方面變得更加出色，以贏得他們的信任、解決他們的問題並幫助他們取得成功。

Third, we are passionate innovators. Last April, we launched Cognizant's BlueBolt grassroots innovation program, calling on all our employees to help us solve client problems, look for unmet or latent client needs and challenge the status quo. In just 9 months, our employees generated more than 100,000 ideas, 21,000 of which we have already implemented. We expect to augment our BlueBolt program through a new collaboration with Microsoft to launch the Innovation Assistant, a generative AI-powered tool built on Azure OpenAI Service.

第三，我們是充滿熱情的創新者。去年四月，我們啟動了 Cognizant 的 BlueBolt 基層創新計劃，號召所有員工幫助我們解決客戶問題，尋找未滿足或潛在的客戶需求並挑戰現狀。在短短 9 個月內，我們的員工提出了超過 100,000 個想法，其中 21,000 個我們已經實施。我們希望透過與 Microsoft 的新合作來增強我們的 BlueBolt 計劃，推出創新助手，這是一個基於 Azure OpenAI 服務構建的生成式 AI 驅動工具。

Shortly after my arrival, we consolidated our performance objectives, the way we measure success. So just 3 long strategic priorities, long-term strategic priorities: become the employer of choice in our industry, accelerate revenue growth and simplify our operations.

我到達後不久，我們就鞏固了我們的績效目標，這是我們衡量成功的方式。因此，只有 3 個長期策略重點，長期策略重點：成為我們行業的首選雇主、加速收入成長並簡化我們的營運。

I'll touch on our progress beginning with employer of choice. Our voluntary attrition improved throughout 2023 to multiyear lows, while our employee engagement scores improved. To capitalize Cognizant's entrepreneur spirit, we have given greater autonomy and accountability to business unit leaders. This is helping increase our responsiveness to client needs and market conditions.

我將從選擇的雇主開始談論我們的進展。 2023 年，我們的自願離職率有所改善，降至多年來的最低點，而我們的員工敬業度得分也有所提高。為了發揮 Cognizant 的企業家精神，我們賦予業務部門領導更大的自主權和責任。這有助於提高我們對客戶需求和市場狀況的回應能力。

We remain committed to providing our teams with continuous learning, upskilling and professional development. In 2023, 90% of our global workforce spent time in learning, with 270,000 of our employees acquiring at least 1 new skill or proficiency and 88,000 completing AI and generative AI courses. We've also established programs to provide more opportunities for employees to advance their careers. I'm pleased to say we promoted nearly 30,000 people across the company last year. Later this month, we'll bring together our entire employee population in gatherings, physical and virtual, to recognize excellence across the business with Cognizant's company-wide awards program, The Impact Awards.

我們仍然致力於為我們的團隊提供持續學習、技能提升和專業發展。到 2023 年，我們全球 90% 的員工都花在學習上，其中 27 萬名員工獲得了至少 1 項新技能或熟練程度，88,000 名員工完成了人工智慧和生成式人工智慧課程。我們也制定了一些計劃，為員工提供更多職涯發展機會。我很高興地說，去年我們在全公司提拔了近 3 萬名員工。本月晚些時候，我們將召集所有員工進行實體和虛擬聚會，透過 Cognizant 的全公司獎勵計劃「影響力獎」來表彰整個企業的卓越表現。

Late last year, we introduced an initiative called Shakti that will unify our women-centric programs to further advance careers and boost women leadership in technology. Shakti will encompass Cognizant's leadership development programs for our senior level women globally and for our mid-level women in India, along with our paid upskilling program for women returning to work after a career break.

去年年底，我們推出了一項名為 Shakti 的倡議，該倡議將統一我們以女性為中心的計劃，以進一步推動職業發展並提升女性在科技領域的領導力。 Shakti 將涵蓋 Cognizant 針對全球高級女性和印度中級女性的領導力發展計劃，以及針對職業中斷後重返工作崗位的女性的帶薪技能提升計劃。

Our second performance objective is to accelerate revenue growth. We've invested heavily in platform-centric approaches to further differentiate Cognizant in select industries. I've talked about our core platform such as TriZetto in healthcare, Shared Investigator in life sciences and asset performance and smart manufacturing, to name a few.

我們的第二個績效目標是加速營收成長。我們在以平台為中心的方法上投入了大量資金，以進一步使 Cognizant 在特定行業中脫穎而出。我已經談到了我們的核心平台，例如醫療保健領域的 TriZetto、生命科學領域的 Shared Investigator、資產績效和智慧製造等等。

Last year, we also began industrializing solutions for the next wave of technologies with our AI portfolio. We introduced Cognizant Neuro IT Operations, our AI-led platform built to reduce the complexity and cost of enterprise infrastructure. We launched Cognizant Skygrade, our cloud orchestration platform designed to help clients to rapidly transition to modern cloud-native architectures.

去年，我們也開始利用人工智慧產品組合將下一波技術的解決方案工業化。我們推出了 Cognizant Neuro IT Operations，這是我們的人工智慧主導平台，旨在降低企業基礎設施的複雜性和成本。我們推出了 Cognizant Skygrade，這是我們的雲端編排平台，旨在幫助客戶快速過渡到現代雲端原生架構。

In addition, we introduced Cognizant Neuro AI developed to speed clients' adoption of generative AI. With Neuro AI, we are able to quickly build AI enablement use cases for clients that are specific to their businesses. And just last week, we expanded our GenAI portfolio with the introduction of Cognizant Flowsource developed to help engineering teams deliver high-quality code faster with increased control and transparency.

此外，我們還推出了 Cognizant Neuro AI，旨在加速客戶採用生成式人工智慧。借助 Neuro AI，我們能夠快速為客戶建立特定於其業務的 AI 支援用例。就在上週，我們擴展了 GenAI 產品組合，推出了 Cognizant Flowsource，該軟體旨在幫助工程團隊透過增強控制和透明度更快地交付高品質程式碼。

Today, we have over 250 early engagements that incorporate the use of generative AI. Some examples are creating a virtual code for a diabetic patient for a pharma company, predicting the size of target audiences for a TV network, conducting sentiment analysis and summarization of user comments for a large bank, developing a field services expert adviser for a manufacturer, enabling conversational intelligence for an insurance call center, and auto generating a sales pitch for a tech company. We have another 350-plus opportunities in our pipeline that we are planning to scale.

如今，我們有超過 250 個早期專案都採用了生成式人工智慧。一些例子包括為製藥公司的糖尿病患者創建虛擬代碼、預測電視網絡的目標受眾規模、為大型銀行進行情緒分析和用戶評論總結、為製造商開發現場服務專家顧問、為保險呼叫中心提供對話智能，並為科技公司自動產生銷售宣傳。我們正在計劃擴大另外 350 多個機會。

We aim to infuse AI not only into our core offerings but into everything we do including using generative AI to create industry and functional services. It's worth mentioning that one of our integrated practices, intuitive operations and automation, which helps clients build and run modern operations, crossed $2.5 billion of revenue in 2023. Our tech-driven modern BPO and automation services helps clients achieve higher levels of productivity and reap benefits of generative AI in their core processes.

我們的目標不僅是將人力智慧融入我們的核心產品中，而且融入我們所做的一切中，包括使用生成式人工智慧來創建行業和功能服務。值得一提的是，我們的整合實踐之一——直觀的操作和自動化，幫助客戶建立和運行現代化運營，在2023 年的收入突破了25 億美元。我們技術驅動的現代BPO 和自動化服務幫助客戶實現更高水準的生產力並獲得收益生成式人工智慧在其核心流程中的優勢。

We strive to stay tuned to market shifts, which is why last month, we acquired Thirdera, an Elite ServiceNow Partner that specializes in solutions for the ServiceNow platform. Adding Thirdera brings an -- on a nearshore global presence to own ServiceNow business group. With Thirdera, we'll continue to advance the efforts of our strategic partnership with ServiceNow to build a $1 billion combined business focused on AI-driven automation.

我們努力關注市場變化，因此上個月我們收購了 Thirdera，這是一家專門從事 ServiceNow 平台解決方案的精英 ServiceNow 合作夥伴。 Thirdera 的加入為自己的 ServiceNow 業務集團帶來了近岸全球影響力。透過 Thirdera，我們將繼續推動與 ServiceNow 的策略合作夥伴關係，打造專注於人工智慧驅動自動化的價值 10 億美元的合併業務。

Our third performance objective is to simplify our business. We executed well on our next-gen program, which is aimed at simplifying our operating model, optimizing corporate functions and consolidating and realigning work space to reflect the post-pandemic work environment. Our cost management enabled us to achieve a 2023 adjusted operating margin performance that exceeded our expectations from earlier in the year.

我們的第三個績效目標是簡化我們的業務。我們的下一代計劃執行得很好，該計劃旨在簡化我們的營運模式、優化公司職能以及整合和重新調整工作空間以反映疫情後的工作環境。我們的成本管理使我們能夠實現 2023 年調整後營業利潤率表現，超出了我們今年早些時候的預期。

Simplifying a business goes beyond structurally reducing costs. It also helps us become more agile and proactive and innovative. Last year, we further streamlined our operating model in what we -- what was a complex metric structure to focus primarily on our markets and integrated service lines. We are moving towards fewer layers in the organization, which we believe will bring us closer to our clients and associates, help drive strong coordination across the company and further empower account teams to make decisions. In summary, 2023 was a year of strengthening our company's fundamentals.

簡化業務不僅僅是從結構上降低成本。它也幫助我們變得更加敏捷、主動和創新。去年，我們進一步簡化了我們的營運模式，這是一個複雜的指標結構，主要關注我們的市場和綜合服務線。我們正在朝著減少組織層級的方向發展，我們相信這將使我們更接近客戶和員工，有助於推動整個公司的強有力的協調，並進一步授權客戶團隊做出決策。綜上所述，2023年是我們公司基本上面夯實的一年。

Now let's look at -- look to our focus in 2024. We have selected 6 strategic imperatives that will help further sharpen our differentiation across clients' primary needs while strengthening our ability to achieve our performance objectives. These imperatives are to grow in select industries, expand internationally, build large deal capabilities, capture the AI opportunity, deliver our talent strategy and implement our IT road map. In the interest of time, I'll focus on only one of those initiatives, which is capturing the substantial AI opportunity.

現在讓我們來看看 2024 年的重點。我們選擇了 6 項策略要務，這將有助於進一步增強我們在滿足客戶主要需求方面的差異化，同時增強我們實現績效目標的能力。這些當務之急是在選定的行業中發展、進行國際擴張、建立大型交易能力、抓住人工智慧機會、實施我們的人才策略並實施我們的 IT 路線圖。由於時間關係，我將只關注其中一項舉措，即抓住大量的人工智慧機會。

Although consumer use of generative AI is starting to explode, enterprise use cases have been ramping slowly. That said, we expect the pace of enterprise adoption to pick up soon and believe that, after a slow takeoff, movement up the S-curve will accelerate sharply. The results we have seen from initial GenAI proof of concepts are very increasing. We believe system integrators like Cognizant will play a major role in managing, governing and optimizing generative AI initiatives at scale. This includes building accuracy in output, reducing hallucinations, continued reinforced learning and testing, incorporating transparency and accountability, and iteratively driving performance optimization. Therefore, as mentioned on our prior calls, we expect to invest approximately $1 billion in our generative AI capabilities over the next 3 years, spanning people, platforms, partnerships and M&A.

儘管消費者對生成式人工智慧的使用開始爆炸性成長，但企業用例卻一直在緩慢成長。也就是說，我們預計企業採用的步伐將很快加快，並相信在緩慢起飛後，S 曲線的上升將急劇加速。我們從最初的 GenAI 概念驗證中看到的結果正在不斷增加。我們相信像 Cognizant 這樣的系統整合商將在大規模管理、治理和優化生成式人工智慧計畫方面發揮重要作用。這包括建立輸出的準確性、減少幻覺、持續強化學習和測試、納入透明度和問責制以及迭代推動性能優化。因此，正如我們先前的電話會議中所提到的，我們預計在未來 3 年內投資約 10 億美元用於我們的生成人工智慧能力，涵蓋人員、平台、合作夥伴關係和併購。

We believe generative AI is becoming a driving force for the economy and society. In partnership with Oxford Economics, Cognizant developed and published a new economy impact study ahead of last month's World Economic Forum that predicts generative AI could inject up to $1 trillion into the U.S. economy over 10 years.

我們相信生成式人工智慧正成為經濟和社會的驅動力。 Cognizant 在上個月的世界經濟論壇之前與牛津經濟研究院合作開發並發布了一項新的經濟影響研究，該研究預測生成式人工智慧可能在 10 年內為美國經濟注入高達 1 兆美元。

Our research also predicts that 90% of the jobs will be disrupted in some way by this technology. From 2023 to 2032, the percent of jobs with high exposure scores, meaning the degree to which an occupation will be affected by generative AI, could increase from 8% to 52%, setting the stage for a profound shift in how we approach work productivity and economic growth.

我們的研究也預測，90% 的工作將在某種程度上受到這項技術的干擾。從2023 年到2032 年，具有高暴露分數的工作百分比（意味著某個職業受生成人工智慧影響的程度）可能會從8% 增加到52%，這為我們實現工作效率的方式發生深刻轉變奠定了基礎和經濟成長。

One last topic to cover and that's the demand environment. We see little change from the assessment we have provided in recent quarters about uncertain and weak discretionary spending in the early part of 2024. Given the clients are experiencing a period that has brought both change and uncertainty together, we expect them to continue to focus on reducing costs, consolidating vendors, modernizing their data and processes, and increasing the productivity so that they can apply savings to AI-led transformation.

最後一個要討論的主題是需求環境。我們認為，與最近幾季提供的有關2024 年初可自由支配支出的不確定性和疲軟的評估相比，變化不大。鑑於客戶正在經歷一個變化和不確定性並存的時期，我們預計他們將繼續專注於降低成本、整合供應商、實現數據和流程現代化以及提高生產力，以便將節省的資金用於人工智慧主導的轉型。

On a closing note, we celebrated our 30th anniversary just last month. We have stood the test of time, and we are determined to sustain and extend the momentum we have created last year. As optimistic as I was about our company's future when I joined last January, I'm doubly so now. Whatever the future may hold, I believe we are in a significantly strong position today than we were 1 year ago to seize the market opportunity ahead.

最後，我們上個月剛慶祝了成立 30 週年。我們經受住了時間的考驗，我們決心維持和延續去年創造的勢頭。去年一月加入公司時，我對公司的未來非常樂觀，現在更加樂觀。無論未來如何，我相信我們今天比一年前處於更有利的地位，可以抓住未來的市場機會。

Now it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Jatin, who joined us on December 4, for his initial observations about Cognizant and additional details on the quarter.

現在，我很高興將電話轉給 Jatin，他於 12 月 4 日加入我們，以了解他對 Cognizant 的初步觀察以及有關本季的更多細節。

Thank you, Ravi, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm very excited to join Cognizant and would like to thank the entire organization for such a warm welcome. I would also like to thank Jan for helping me in making the onboarding experience so seamless.

謝謝拉維，大家下午好。我很高興加入 Cognizant，並感謝整個組織的熱情歡迎。我還要感謝 Jan 幫助我讓入職體驗變得如此順暢。

I have always admired Cognizant's growth mindset, client centricity and the entrepreneurial culture. While it has only been 2 months since I joined, the energy and passion across the organization are apparent. I have also had the opportunity to participate in our global sales kickoff events in January. This has further strengthened my conviction in Cognizant's capability and our market opportunity.

我一直很欣賞 Cognizant 的成長心態、以客戶為中心和創業文化。雖然我加入​​才兩個月，但整個組織的活力和熱情是顯而易見的。我還有機會參加一月份的全球銷售啟動活動。這進一步增強了我對 Cognizant 能力和市場機會的信心。

I'm excited to partner with Ravi and the entire leadership team to build on the progress we have made in 2023 as we strive to reach our full growth potential. In doing so, I believe there is a tremendous opportunity to create long-term sustainable value for our associates, clients and shareholders.

我很高興能與 Ravi 和整個領導團隊合作，在 2023 年取得的進展的基礎上再接再厲，努力充分發揮成長潛力。透過這樣做，我相信我們有巨大的機會為我們的員工、客戶和股東創造長期可持續的價值。

With that, let's turn to our fourth quarter and full year revenue results. Fourth quarter revenue was $4.8 billion, representing a decline of 1.7% year-over-year or a decline of 2.4% in constant currency. Year-over-year performance includes approximately 90 basis points of growth from our acquisitions. This led to full year revenue of $19.4 billion, which declined 0.4% year-over-year or 0.3% in constant currency. Year-over-year growth includes approximately 110 basis points of growth from acquisitions. Ravi discussed Financial Services and Health Services, which declined 6.6% and 2.7% year-over-year in constant currency, respectively.

接下來，讓我們看看第四季和全年的收入結果。第四季營收為 48 億美元，年減 1.7%，以固定匯率計算下降 2.4%。年比業績包括我們的收購帶來的約 90 個基點的成長。這導致全年營收為 194 億美元，年減 0.4%，以固定匯率計算下降 0.3%。年比成長包括約 110 個基點的收購成長。 Ravi 討論了金融服務和醫療服務，以固定匯率計算，這兩個服務分別同比下降 6.6% 和 2.7%。

So I will quickly comment on our other 2 segments. Products and Resources revenue was roughly flat year-over-year in constant currency, which included contribution from recently completed acquisitions and the ramp of new business. This helped offset the macro-driven discretionary spending pressure. We saw relatively better performance in North America, particularly among auto, utility, and travel and hospitality clients. Communication, media and Technology revenue increased 2% in constant currency. The growth reflected the benefit from recently completed acquisitions and the ramp of new bookings.

所以我將快速評論我們的其他兩個部分。以固定匯率計算，產品和資源收入同比大致持平，其中包括最近完成的收購和新業務成長的貢獻。這有助於抵消宏觀驅動的可自由支配支出壓力。我們在北美看到了相對較好的表現，特別是在汽車、公用事業、旅遊和酒店客戶中。以固定匯率計算，通訊、媒體和技術收入成長了 2%。這一增長反映了最近完成的收購和新預訂量增加的好處。

Now moving on to margins. During the quarter, we incurred approximately $40 million of costs related to our NextGen program. This negatively impacted our GAAP operating margin by approximately 90 basis points. Excluding this impact, adjusted operating margin was 16.1%. Year-over-year, margin included savings from our NextGen program and tailwinds from the depreciation of the Indian rupee. This helped partially offset increased compensation costs. As a reminder, the prior year period also included a negative impact from a noncash impairment charge related to a health sciences customer.

現在轉向邊緣。本季度，我們產生了大約 4000 萬美元與 NextGen 計劃相關的成本。這對我們的 GAAP 營運利潤率產生了約 90 個基點的負面影響。排除此影響，調整後營業利益率為 16.1%。與去年同期相比，利潤率包括我們的 NextGen 計劃帶來的節省以及印度盧比貶值帶來的推動力。這有助於部分抵銷增加的補償成本。提醒一下，上一年期間還包括與健康科學客戶相關的非現金減損費用的負面影響。

Our GAAP tax rate in the quarter was 26%. Adjusted tax rate in the quarter was 25.4%. Q4 diluted GAAP EPS was 1.11, which is $1.11 and Q4 adjusted EPS was $1.18.

我們本季的 GAAP 稅率為 26%。本季調整後稅率為25.4%。第四季度稀釋後 GAAP 每股收益為 1.11，即 1.11 美元，第四季度調整後每股收益為 1.18 美元。

Now we turn to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with cash and short-term investments of $2.6 billion or net cash of $2 billion. DSO of 77 days was flat sequentially and increased 3 days year-over-year, driven by our business mix. Free cash flow in Q4 was $659 million, which brings full year 2023 free cash flow to $2 billion or approximately 95% of the net income. This was slightly ahead of our expectations.

現在我們轉向資產負債表。截至本季末，我們的現金和短期投資為 26 億美元，淨現金為 20 億美元。在我們業務組合的推動下，77 天的 DSO 與上一季持平，但比去年同期增加 3 天。第四季的自由現金流為 6.59 億美元，這使得 2023 年全年自由現金流達到 20 億美元，約佔淨利潤的 95%。這稍微超出了我們的預期。

During the quarter, we repurchased over 4 million shares for $313 million and returned $146 million to shareholders through our regular dividend. For the full year, we returned about $1.7 billion to shareholders, including $1.1 billion through share repurchases and $591 million through our regular dividend. As of December 31, we had $1.8 billion remaining under our share repurchase authorization.

本季度，我們以 3.13 億美元回購了超過 400 萬股股票，並透過定期股息向股東返還了 1.46 億美元。全年，我們向股東返還約 17 億美元，其中透過股票回購返還 11 億美元，透過定期股息返還 5.91 億美元。截至 12 月 31 日，我們的股票回購授權仍有 18 億美元。

Turning to our forward outlook. For the first quarter, we expect revenue in the range of $4.68 million to $4.76 billion, representing a year-over-year decline of 2.7% to 1.2% or a decline of 3% to 1.5% in constant currency. Our guidance assumes currency will have a positive impact of approximately 30 basis points.

轉向我們的未來展望。我們預計第一季營收在 468 萬美元至 47.6 億美元之間，年減 2.7% 至 1.2%，以固定匯率計算下降 3% 至 1.5%。我們的指導假設貨幣將產生約 30 個基點的正面影響。

For the full year, we expect revenue to be in the range of $19 billion to $19.8 billion, which is a decline of 1.8% to growth of 2.2% year-over-year or a decline of 2% to growth of 2% in constant currency. Inorganic contribution is expected to be up to 100 basis points, and we anticipate approximately 20 basis points positive impact for the year from the currency.

就全年而言，我們預計收入在 190 億美元至 198 億美元之間，年減 1.8%，年增 2.2%，或同比下降 2%，同比增長 2%。貨幣。無機貢獻預計將高達 100 個基點，我們預計貨幣對今年的正面影響約為 20 個基點。

Our NextGen program remained on track this quarter, and we still expect to incur total cost of approximately $300 million. This includes $229 million incurred in 2023 and our expectation for an additional $70 million in 2024. There are no changes to our savings assumption from NextGen, and we still intend to reinvest the majority of the savings in the growth opportunity in 2024 and beyond.

本季我們的 NextGen 計劃仍按計劃進行，預計總成本仍約為 3 億美元。這包括 2023 年產生的 2.29 億美元以及我們預計 2024 年額外產生的 7,000 萬美元。我們對 NextGen 的節省假設沒有變化，我們仍然打算將大部分節​​省重新投資於 2024 年及以後的成長機會。

Moving on to adjusted margins. We are pleased with the strong finish to 2023, which allowed us to deliver a full year adjusted operating margin of 15.1% versus our guidance of 14.7%. In 2024, we continue to expect 20 to 40 basis points of operating margin expansion. This represents an adjusted operating margin range of 15.3% to 15.5%. We remain focused on driving further efficiency in our business model through improved utilization, increased operational discipline and automation of tools and processes. We are also introducing guidance for net interest income versus our prior practice of providing gross interest income. For the full year, we anticipate net interest income of approximately $40 million. Our expectations for the full year adjusted tax rate is 24% to 25%.

繼續調整利潤。我們對 2023 年的強勁表現感到高興，這使我們能夠實現全年調整後營運利潤率 15.1%，而我們的指導值為 14.7%。 2024 年，我們繼續預期營業利潤率將擴大 20 至 40 個基點。這代表調整後的營業利潤率範圍為 15.3% 至 15.5%。我們仍然專注於透過提高利用率、加強營運紀律以及工具和流程的自動化來進一步提高我們的業務模式效率。與我們先前提供總利息收入的做法相比，我們也推出了淨利息收入指南。我們預計全年淨利息收入約為 4000 萬美元。我們對全年調整後稅率的預期為24%至25%。

For the full year, we expect free cash flow will represent about 80% of net income. This includes an anticipated negative impact of approximately $360 million because of a ruling on January 8 in India relating to a previously disclosed 2016 tax matter in connection with share repurchase transactions undertaken by our Indian subsidiary. The ruling required Cognizant to deposit the funds with India tax authorities to proceed with our appeals process. The funds deposited with tax authority were previously held in bank deposits under lien and as of December 31 were presented on our balance sheet under long-term investments.

我們預計全年自由現金流將佔淨利的80%左右。這包括印度 1 月 8 日就先前披露的與我們印度子公司進行的股票回購交易有關的 2016 年稅務事項做出的裁決，預計將產生約 3.6 億美元的負面影響。該裁決要求 Cognizant 將資金存入印度稅務機關，以繼續我們的上訴程序。存放在稅務機關的資金以前以留置權形式以銀行存款形式持有，截至 12 月 31 日，這些資金已在我們的資產負債表中的長期投資項下列出。

The outflow will negatively impact our operating cash flow but will not impact the cash and cash equivalent amounts on the balance sheet, and therefore, we do not anticipate any impact to our capital allocation priorities. Final amounts refunded to Cognizant or due to tax authorities will be determined at the end of the appeals process. We continue to believe that we have complied with all tax regulations applicable to this matter in accordance with the law and intend to vigorously defend our position.

資金流出將對我們的營運現金流產生負面影響，但不會影響資產負債表上的現金和現金等價物金額，因此，我們預計不會對我們的資本配置優先事項產生任何影響。退還給 Cognizant 或稅務機關的最終金額將在上訴流程結束時確定。我們仍然認為，我們已依法遵守適用於此事的所有稅務法規，並打算大力捍衛我們的立場。

Moving on to capital allocation. We expect to return over $1 billion to shareholders in 2024, including at least $400 million through share repurchases and $600 million through regular dividends. We will also continue to pursue acquisition opportunities aligned with our strategy. For the full year, we therefore expect to deploy more than 100% of free cash flow given the negative impact of the free cash flow from the aforementioned additional deposit with the India tax authorities. Based on our anticipated share repurchases, our guidance for shares outstanding is approximately 497 million. This leads to our full year adjusted earnings per share guidance of $4.5 to $4.68.

繼續進行資本配置。我們預計到 2024 年將向股東返還超過 10 億美元，其中至少 4 億美元透過股票回購，6 億美元透過定期股息。我們也將繼續尋求符合我們策略的收購機會。鑑於上述印度稅務機關額外存款對自由現金流的負面影響，我們預計全年將部署超過 100% 的自由現金流。根據我們預期的股票回購，我們對已發行股票的指引約為 4.97 億股。這導致我們全年調整後每股盈餘指引為 4.5 美元至 4.68 美元。

With that, we'll be open to take the questions.

這樣，我們將願意接受提問。

(Operator Instructions) And our first question comes from the line of Ashwin Shirvaikar with Citi.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自花旗銀行的 Ashwin Shirvaikar 線路。

Jatin, welcome. My first question is with regards to bookings, if you can provide some color as it relates to ACV versus TCV expectations, new versus renewals by sizing perhaps. I know you provided by count. And in terms of just cadence of when you expect new contracts to start kicking in and influencing growth, if you can comment on that, that would be great.

賈廷，歡迎。我的第一個問題是關於預訂，您是否可以提供一些顏色，因為它與 ACV 與 TCV 期望、新與續約相關（可能是尺寸）。我知道你是由伯爵提供的。就您預計新合約何時開始生效並影響成長的節奏而言，如果您能對此發表評論，那就太好了。

Thank you, Ashwin. I hope you're doing well. And I'm going to start -- this is Ravi, and I'm going to start and ask Jatin to chip in. If you look at how we shaped our 2023 bookings, we have significant upside on the category above $50 million, above $100 million and actually above [$450 million] TCV. Because these are large deals, managed services, cost takeout opportunities, because 2023 was a lot of them, it also has a longer period, if I may, in comparison to shorter deals in the range of, say, $0 million to $5 million or $0 million to $10 million.

謝謝你，阿什溫。我希望你一切都好。我要開始了，我是 Ravi，我要開始請 Jatin 幫忙。如果你看看我們如何塑造 2023 年的預訂量，就會發現我們在 5000 萬美元以上的類別上有顯著的增長空間。1 億美元，實際上高於[4.5 億美元] TCV。因為這些是大型交易、託管服務、成本削減機會，因為 2023 年有很多此類交易，所以與 000 萬美元到 500 萬美元或000 萬美元到 1000 萬美元。

The $0 million to $10 million deals, actually, they kind of get consumed in the same year as they form, and it is actually, in some ways, driven by the discretionary spend. So we have more skewness. We don't comment on the ACV versus TCV. We don't publicly say that, but we have more skewness on large deals in comparison to the smaller deals. The large deals, actually, we have significantly gone up over the previous years.

實際上，000 萬美元到 1000 萬美元的交易在形成的同一年就被消耗掉了，而且在某種程度上，它實際上是由可自由支配支出驅動的。所以我們有更多的偏度。我們不對 ACV 與 TCV 進行評論。我們沒有公開這麼說，但與小型交易相比，我們對大型交易的偏度更大。實際上，我們的大額交易比前幾年大幅增加。

Also, we have new renewables, new expansion -- I mean, renewals, new expansions and new logos in the mix. I would say, we again have a significant upside on new and expansion. Like we have commented on the numbers of deals, I think even in the TCV numbers, you will find new business and expansion being very, very high. In fact, we also made a point to make sure that we published some of these names in the market. For example, this quarter, the important ones we published is Fortrea and -- Fortrea is one of the customers we signed a large deal with. We also published one on Takeda.

此外，我們還有新的再生能源、新的擴建——我的意思是，更新、新的擴建和新的標誌混合在一起。我想說，我們在新建和擴建方面再次有顯著的優勢。就像我們對交易數量的評論一樣，我認為即使在 TCV 數字中，您也會發現新業務和擴張非常非常高。事實上，我們也特意確保在市場上發布其中一些名稱。例如，本季度，我們發布的重要內容是 Fortrea，並且—Fortrea 是我們簽訂大筆交易的客戶之一。我們還在武田發表了一篇。

So effectively, what it does is it gives you a good backlog for the future because the large deals have a longer period, so they give you a good backlog for the future. But they also have a runway into the current year where you win, but they have a bigger runway into the future years as you go forward. When we did 2023, we didn't have that luxury from 2022 because the large deal proportion was much lower. Now that we are entering 2024, what we've won in 2023 will contribute to 2024. It did contribute to '23, but it'll contribute more to '24, and it will create a backlog for the future.

如此有效，它的作用是為您的未來提供良好的積壓，因為大型交易的周期較長，因此它們為您的未來提供良好的積壓。但他們也有一條通往你獲勝的當年的跑道，但隨著你的前進，他們也有一條更大的通往未來幾年的跑道。當我們進行 2023 年時，我們沒有像 2022 年那樣的奢侈，因為大宗交易的比例要低得多。現在我們已經進入2024年，我們在2023年贏得的成果將為2024年做出貢獻。它確實為'23做出了貢獻，但它將為'24做出更多貢獻，並且將為未來創造積壓。

Now the question is what does it do to our revenues. As much as it starts to contribute to revenues, it -- there is also a discretionary softness, which we had in 2023, which kind of -- a portion of it sets off. So the question is, in 2024, how much is the discretionary going to hold, depending on which you could see the impact. I mean it's unknown at this point of time, early in the year, what is going to happen to discretionary in 2024. Discretionary in 2023 went down, and it kind of made up -- it kind of got neutralized by the extraordinary run we had on large deals. 2024, we don't know what's going to happen to discretionary, but it will -- the '23 wins will contribute to it. And the continued momentum in '24 will contribute to it as well.

現在的問題是這對我們的收入有何影響。儘管它開始對收入做出貢獻，但我們在 2023 年就出現了可自由支配的疲軟，其中一部分引發了這種疲軟。所以問題是，到 2024 年，可自由支配權將持有多少，具體取決於您可以看到的影響。我的意思是，在今年年初的這個時候，尚不清楚 2024 年全權委託業務會發生什麼。2023 年全權委託業務下降了，但它有所彌補——它被我們非凡的運作所抵消了。在大額交易上。 2024 年，我們不知道自由裁量權會發生什麼，但它會發生——23 年的勝利將對此做出貢獻。 24 年的持續動能也將對此做出貢獻。

So as it relates to your outlook, what are you assuming beyond 1Q in terms of discretionary? And if discretionary does not actually come back to a good extent, would you still expect things like the investment in consulting relationships, partnerships and so on to at least incrementally contribute? Or are we just in a waiting game?

因此，由於這與您的前景相關，您對第一季之後的可自由支配權有何假設？如果自由裁量權實際上並沒有在很大程度上恢復，您是否仍然期望對諮詢關係、合作夥伴關係等的投資至少能逐步做出貢獻？或者我們只是在等待遊戲？

So Ashwin, if you do the math, you will notice that there is some sequential growth assumed in our numbers. So if you do the math, you will get that there is sequential growth assumed in our numbers. We have good traction on cost takeout, vendor consolidation, AI-led productivity deals. Those are the large deals we're winning. So we want to double down on those opportunities. We think we have a winning formula, and we will continue to run on it, which will give us the new business and which will give us the expansion on our existing clients. So discretionary today is unknown. I mean -- and that's why, if you notice, our guidance range is broader because we do not know what we do not know.

所以阿什溫，如果你計算一下，你會注意到我們的數字假設有一些連續成長。因此，如果您進行數學計算，您會發現我們的數字中假設存在連續增長。我們在成本削減、供應商整合、人工智慧主導的生產力交易方面擁有良好的吸引力。這些是我們正在贏得的大筆交易。因此，我們希望加倍抓住這些機會。我們認為我們有一個成功的秘訣，我們將繼續堅持下去，這將為我們帶來新業務，並擴大我們現有的客戶。所以今天的自由裁量權是未知的。我的意思是——如果你注意到的話，這就是為什麼我們的指導範圍更廣泛，因為我們不知道我們不知道什麼。

But our thesis is very simple. We are going to be prepared for a comeback of discretionary. We're going to be fully prepared for it. We will gear our operating engine. We'll gear our fulfillment engine, and we'll double down as it comes so that we don't miss the opportunity.

但我們的論文非常簡單。我們將為自由裁量權的捲土重來做好準備。我們將為此做好充分準備。我們將調整我們的運轉引擎。我們將調整我們的履行引擎，並在它到來時加倍努力，這樣我們就不會錯過機會。

Equally, on a separate swim lane, we've got a winning formula on large deals for cost takeout, which will remain irrespective of discretionary comes back or not. So we're going to ride on them as well. We're going to continue on that momentum from 2023, which has contributed to new business and new logos. So we will go behind it. So we want to be prepared on one swim lane, and we're going to double down on the other one. And if that comes back, we want to be seizing those opportunities.

同樣，在一條單獨的泳道上，我們有一個關於成本削減的大型交易的製勝公式，無論是否有酌情回報，該公式都將保持不變。所以我們也將騎在他們身上。我們將從 2023 年起繼續保持這一勢頭，這為新業務和新標誌做出了貢獻。所以我們會追隨它。因此，我們希望在一條泳道上做好準備，並在另一條泳道上加倍努力。如果這種情況再次出現，我們希望抓住這些機會。

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

我們的下一個問題來自黃天欽與摩根大通的對話。

The margin outlook was encouraging, so I was hoping for little more detail on the gross margin versus operating margin dynamic. It sounds like utilization rates should improve. You talk about NextGen benefits, productivity, pricing, that kind of thing. So I just want to make sure understand the call-outs for the -- for margins for the year, across gross margin and operating margin, if that's okay. That's all I had.

利潤率前景令人鼓舞，因此我希望獲得有關毛利率與營業利潤率動態的更多詳細資訊。聽起來利用率應該要提高。你談論下一代的好處、生產力、定價等等。因此，我只是想確保了解年度利潤率、毛利率和營業利潤率的要求（如果可以的話）。這就是我所擁有的一切。

Sure, Tien-Tsin. The -- I think the opportunity exists on both lines, and the drivers would be clearly different. The driver for gross margin would be really the efficiency of operations kicking in. We have quite a bit of utilization upside that one can capture as the growth return. The second is really deploying the tools and processes relate -- around AI and automation to get some operational benefits out. So that's the opportunity on gross margin apart from the traditional opportunity around pyramid and Gen Zs and related traditional measures.

當然可以，田津。我認為這兩條線都存在機會，而且驅動因素明顯不同。毛利率的驅動因素實際上是營運效率的提高。我們有相當多的利用率上升空間，人們可以將其視為成長回報。第二個是真正部署相關的工具和流程——圍繞人工智慧和自動化，以獲得一些營運效益。因此，除了圍繞金字塔和 Z 世代以及相關傳統衡量標準的傳統機會之外，這就是毛利率的機會。

On operating margin, definitely, there will be an upside on SG&A front led by some of the cost takeout related with the tail end of NextGen program that will complete in 2024. So I would be -- I mean, we'll work on both, and we'll see where we go by the individual lines. But overall, we think we have sufficient actions around the overall expansion we have spoken about.

就營業利潤率而言，毫無疑問，SG&A 方面將會有上行空間，這主要是由於與將於2024 年完成的NextGen 計劃的尾部相關的一些成本支出所致。所以我會- 我的意思是，我們將在這兩方面開展工作，我們將透過各個線路查看我們的去向。但總的來說，我們認為我們圍繞著我們所說的整體擴張採取了足夠的行動。

Just to add to what Jatin said, we're very pleased with our performance on the NextGen program. We do think we have an opportunity for a full year impact this year on the NextGen program. Equally, as Jatin also pointed out, in addition to the classical levers and gross margin, we do have -- I mean, classical levers being better operational efficiency, higher utilization, better pyramid, higher offshoring. I mean all of these are -- we are very encouraged with the progress.

補充一下 Jatin 所說的，我們對 NextGen 計畫的表現非常滿意。我們確實認為今年我們有機會對 NextGen 計劃產生全年影響。同樣，正如賈汀還指出的那樣，除了經典槓桿和毛利率之外，我們確實擁有——我的意思是，經典槓桿是更好的運營效率、更高的利用率、更好的金字塔、更高的離岸外包。我的意思是，所有這些——我們對這些進展感到非常鼓舞。

But we also have this unique opportunity to share the productivity benefits with our clients, which is the technology arbitrage versus the labor arbitrage driven by generative AI tooling. And I think we are ahead of the curve, which is the reason why we are winning a lot of these large deals and sharing those benefits of productivity, which will then start to contribute to growth in operating margin as we go forward.

但我們也有這個獨特的機會與客戶分享生產力優勢，即科技套利與生成式人工智慧工具驅動的勞動力套利。我認為我們處於領先地位，這就是為什麼我們贏得了許多此類大筆交易並分享生產力帶來的好處的原因，隨著我們的前進，這將開始為營業利潤率的成長做出貢獻。

Our next question comes from the line of Moshe Katri with Wedbush Securities.

我們的下一個問題來自韋德布希證券公司的 Moshe Katri。

Jatin, welcome. It will be great to work with you again. So a couple of questions. If we are looking at revenue growth and we're looking at the deal flow that you've been winning since you came onboard, Ravi, when do you think we could see that inflection point in revenue growth, especially as you start seeing some of these deals ramping on top of what you won last year and obviously factoring the fact that it takes some time for these deals to ramp? That's my first question.

賈廷，歡迎。很高興再次與您合作。有幾個問題。如果我們正在關注收入增長，並且我們正在關注自您加入以來您一直在贏得的交易流，拉維，您認為我們什麼時候可以看到收入增長的拐點，特別是當您開始看到一些這些交易在您去年贏得的交易之上不斷增加，並且顯然考慮到這些交易需要一段時間才能增加這一事實？這是我的第一個問題。

Thank you, Moshe. Good to hear from you again. The wins in 2023 started to ramp in 2023. Of course, they have a partial benefit in the first year, and they start to get to more benefits in the second and the third year. Equally, the momentum, as we got into the back end of last year, we actually had more new business, more new logos in the percentage mix of our large deals, which means it will have higher impact in the future years. So what this really does to us is it makes our business sticky. It increases our backlog for the future. And therefore, you're entering the year with tail velocity.

謝謝你，摩西。很高興再次收到你的來信。 2023年的勝利從2023年開始增加。當然，他們在第一年有部分收益，在第二年和第三年開始獲得更多收益。同樣，當我們進入去年年底時，我們實際上在大型交易的百分比組合中擁有更多新業務、更多新徽標，這意味著它將在未來幾年產生更大的影響。所以這對我們真正的作用是讓我們的業務具有黏性。它增加了我們未來的積壓工作。因此，您將以尾部速度進入這一年。

The only unknown in the mix is the $0 million to $5 million deals, which are discretionary in nature. And they kind of neutralize -- if they fall off, they kind of neutralize what you win on the large deals. I think part of that happened in 2023 because discretionary was pretty soft in 2023. 2024, we do not know what's going to happen to discretionary. Otherwise, I would say, the flow of those deals, the large deals is continuing and it will strengthen in '24 and '25 when it will actually be fully realized.

其中唯一未知的是 000 萬至 500 萬美元的交易，這些交易本質上是酌情決定的。它們會抵消——如果它們失敗，它們就會抵消你在大筆交易中贏得的收益。我認為部分情況發生在 2023 年，因為全權委託在 2023 年相當疲軟。2024 年，我們不知道全權委託會發生什麼。否則，我想說，這些交易、大型交易的流動仍在繼續，並將在 24 年和 25 年真正完全實現時加強。

What it does though is -- I mean, the unknown in the mix is how much does that get neutralized by soft discretionary. If the discretionary is not soft, it comes back. We want to be prepared. It then starts to show the momentum. So it's 1an interesting thought because it's not about the large deals. It's also about the small deals because if the small deals start to neutralize, even if they plateau, then the large deals will start to show revenue momentum. That's how I see it.

但它的作用是——我的意思是，混合中的未知數是軟自由裁量權在多大程度上抵消了這種影響。如果自由裁量權不軟，它就會回來。我們希望做好準備。然後它開始顯示出勢頭。所以這是一個有趣的想法，因為它與大交易無關。這也與小額交易有關，因為如果小額交易開始中和，即使它們處於穩定狀態，那麼大筆交易也將開始顯示出收入動能。我就是這麼看的。

So we are executing to these deals pretty well. And you know this, Moshe, that, in the first year, they always start with transition. They start with a slower trajectory. And then once they take off, they get to a steady state of revenue. So that, I'm not as worried about. I continue to believe that we are in good shape on that. What certainly I do not know is discretionary.

所以我們很好地執行了這些交易。摩西，你知道這一點，在第一年，他們總是從過渡開始。他們以較慢的軌跡開始。一旦他們起飛，他們就會達到穩定的收入狀態。所以，我並不那麼擔心。我仍然相信我們在這方面狀況良好。我當然不知道的是自由裁量權。

Okay. Okay. That makes sense. And then the second one is more related to strategy. I've always been intrigued in terms of what Cognizant does with TriZetto. And that used to be a pretty big part of your health care practice. And I think you've indicated during our first introduction when you came onboard that you will be taking a second look at TriZetto and trying to kind of maybe revive the business. Are there any actions that you're doing there to -- for us to see more of that reflected in the numbers in the health care vertical?

好的。好的。這就說得通了。第二個與策略更相關。我一直對 Cognizant 對 TriZetto 的研究很感興趣。這曾經是醫療保健實踐中相當重要的一部分。我認為您在我們第一次介紹時就已經表示，當您加入時，您將重新審視 TriZetto，並嘗試重振該業務。你們正在採取什麼行動——讓我們看到更多的這些行動反映在醫療保健垂直領域的數字中？

Moshe, I have to say this. The health care ecosystem for Cognizant is the strongest in the market. It's an industry, which will go through significant transformation. So we are on a pole position in health care -- in the health care economy, all the way from payer provider, pharma benefits management to life sciences. We have an extraordinary strength of platforms plus services.

摩西，我必須這麼說。 Cognizant 的醫療保健生態系統是市場上最強大的。這是一個將經歷重大轉變的行業。因此，我們在醫療保健領域處於領先地位——在醫療保健經濟中，從付款提供者、藥物福利管理到生命科學。我們擁有非凡的平台和服務優勢。

Just look at the order of magnitude of what we do on TriZetto, 250-million-plus claims on an annual basis approximately, 100-million-plus enrollments on an annual basis. We do 3 billion electronic data interchange transactions. So we have an extraordinary story of TriZetto. 60-plus percent of the U.S. insured population goes through our platforms. It's the fulcrum and the nucleus of our health care ecosystem.

只要看看我們在 TriZetto 上所做的工作的數量級，每年大約有 2.5 億多索賠，每年約有 1 億多註冊。我們進行了 30 億筆電子資料交換交易。因此，我們就有了 TriZetto 的非凡故事。 60% 以上的美國參保人口透過我們的平台進行購買。它是我們醫療保健生態系統的支點和核心。

So we're going to invest and double down on it and seize the opportunities, which come on this transformational journey for our clients. This is going to be a sector, which will significantly transform, and we have an exciting clientele base across the spectrum. We've invested on generative AI. We have done multiple announcements last year of embedding generative AI including our partnership with Microsoft on the OpenAI piece, which we have embedded into the entire stack. So we are very excited about TriZetto. I am actually doubly sure that, that is going to be an integral part of our health care strategy for the future.

因此，我們將加強投資力度，抓住機遇，為我們的客戶帶來轉型之旅。這將是一個將發生重大轉變的行業，我們在各個領域都擁有令人興奮的客戶群。我們投資了生成式人工智慧。去年，我們發布了多項關於嵌入生成式 AI 的公告，包括我們與 Microsoft 就 OpenAI 部分進行的合作，我們已將其嵌入整個堆疊中。所以我們對 TriZetto 感到非常興奮。我實際上雙重確信，這將成為我們未來醫療保健策略的一個組成部分。

Our next question comes from the line of Surinder Thind with Jefferies.

我們的下一個問題來自 Surinder Thind 和 Jefferies 的對話。

On just the -- on the AI component and the potential acceleration that you may see as the year progresses, when you roll out these new products and services, is there a pricing conversation that you have with clients? Is there a way to price this differently? Can you command more? Or is it just that the expectation is you'll get a lot more in consulting services down the road? Can you maybe provide some color on that?

只是關於人工智慧元件以及隨著時間的推移你可能會看到的潛在加速，當你推出這些新產品和服務時，你是否與客戶進行了定價對話？有沒有辦法以不同的方式定價？你能指揮更多嗎？或只是期望您將來會獲得更多諮詢服務？你能提供一些顏色嗎？

Surinder, that's a great question. Thank you for that. I would say 3 swim lanes, Surinder. The first is the last mile holding. The ability to take foundational models, which are available in the market and create a funnel to make them enterprise-grade, which is the work you have to do on the last mile, all the way from managing, governing and orchestrating large language models or foundation models, and that's a variety of things. It starts from accuracy of the models to reducing hallucinations to doing performance cost optimization to reinforced learning. Unlike software, generative AI goes through reinforced learning even after you implement it because it learns through the process. So there is a lot of heavy lift needed to take the foundation models and make it production grade, enterprise grade.

蘇林德，這是一個很好的問題。謝謝你。我想說的是 3 條泳道，Surinder。首先是最後一公里控股。能夠採用市場上可用的基礎模型並創建一個管道使其成為企業級的，這是您在最後一英里必須做的工作，從管理、治理和編排大型語言模型或基礎模型，這是各種各樣的事情。它從模型的準確性開始，到減少幻覺，到進行表現成本最佳化，再到強化學習。與軟體不同，生成式人工智慧即使在實施之後也會經歷強化學習，因為它會在這個過程中學習。因此，需要付出大量努力才能採用基礎模型並使其成為生產級、企業級。

And I think we have a unique opportunity, and I'm excited about what I have actually seen with the platforms we have built, the platforms we announced to the market and how we are helping our clients to get there. We have 250-plus prototypes running. We have 350 plus in the pipeline. Whenever those CapEx cycles trigger off, I think we are in a good position to monetize on that. That's the first swim lane. So it's -- you could call it consulting in your language, the way you put it, but it is actually a bunch of things we want to work on.

我認為我們有一個獨特的機會，我對我們所建立的平台、我們向市場宣布的平台以及我們如何幫助我們的客戶實現這一目標的實際看到感到興奮。我們有 250 多個原型正在運行。我們正在籌備 350 多個項目。每當這些資本支出週期觸發時，我認為我們都處於有利的位置來從中獲利。那是第一條泳道。所以，你可以用你的語言稱之為諮詢，用你的說法，但這實際上是我們想要做的很多事情。

There is a second swim lane, I would say, which is about how do you apply it to your productivity. And that kind of switches on to 2 things. How -- what does it do to developer productivity? What does it do to technology life cycles all the way from design to testing to writing code to all of it? And I call them 2 subsegments because 1 is to cannibalize the business you do and share the benefits with your clients. The second is to go and cannibalize -- or rather go and propose something provocative on the work we don't do as an incumbent, but we could actually create better productivity to our clients. And one of the reasons why we are winning those large deals is that's a pivot on our large deal story. We actually go and disrupt client landscapes with -- which is where we are not incumbents with not just labor arbitrage but arbitrage powered by AI.

我想說，還有第二條泳道，它是關於如何將其應用於您的生產力。這涉及到兩件事。它對開發人員的生產力有何影響？從設計到測試再到編寫程式碼，它對技術生命週期有何影響？我將它們稱為 2 個細分市場，因為第一個細分市場是蠶食你所做的業務並與你的客戶分享利益。第二個是去蠶食——或者更確切地說，對我們作為現任者不做的工作提出一些挑釁性的建議，但我們實際上可以為我們的客戶創造更好的生產力。我們贏得這些大筆交易的原因之一是這也是我們大筆交易故事的支點。我們實際上是在顛覆客戶的格局——這就是我們不僅是勞動力套利，而且是人工智慧驅動的套利的現有者。

So I would say there are opportunities all through, all the way from applying it to the landscapes to -- applying productivity to the technology life cycles, be it our business we do or be it where we are not an incumbent. And I would say this is a pervasive opportunity. It will be a short -- it will be a slow takeoff, but it will be a short cycle of a slow takeoff, and it will then get into a sharp S-curve, as I mentioned on my preliminary comments.

因此，我想說，從將其應用於景觀到將生產力應用於技術生命週期，無論是我們從事的業務還是我們不擔任的業務，都存在機會。我想說這是一個普遍的機會。這將是一個短暫的——這將是一個緩慢的起飛，但這將是一個緩慢起飛的短週期，然後它將進入一個急劇的 S 曲線，正如我在初步評論中提到的那樣。

So it's a very pervasive technology. It diffuses very fast, and it has a very good distribution network. So I'm excited about the prospects, excited about the investments we're making, excited about how we're staying relevant with our clients. We've also embedded it into our platforms like Trizetto. So we are equipped to seize these opportunities as the CapEx cycles of generative AI trigger to enterprise-grade work.

所以這是一項非常普遍的技術。它的傳播速度非常快，並且擁有非常好的分銷網絡。因此，我對前景感到興奮，對我們正在進行的投資感到興奮，並對我們如何與客戶保持聯繫感到興奮。我們還將其嵌入到 Trizetto 等平台中。因此，隨著生成式人工智慧的資本支出週期觸發企業級工作，我們有能力抓住這些機會。

That's helpful. And then as a follow-up, just to kind of tease out what you're seeing in the discretionary spend environment, I guess the question I would ask is how much more can clients really pull back on that spectrum of spend. And then I guess the counterquestion here would be, given the relative economic resiliency, why aren't clients spending more at this point. Like what's holding them back? Like what do they need to see? Or what are they signaling to you of when they're willing to perhaps take some risk?

這很有幫助。然後作為後續行動，只是為了梳理一下您在可自由支配支出環境中看到的情況，我想我要問的問題是客戶真正可以在該支出範圍上減少多少。然後我想這裡的反問題是，考慮到相對的經濟彈性，為什麼客戶此時不增加支出。是什麼阻礙了他們？例如他們需要看到什麼？或者當他們願意承擔一些風險時，他們向你發出了什麼訊號？

So let me start and ask Jatin to chip in. I would say, the discretionary spend, if you take an industry view, is the most in banking, financial services and insurance. That's a sector, which is burdened with high interest rates. And because of the high interest rates, there is a wait and watch and a kind of a pause on discretionary work. Remember, these are -- financial services is one of those sectors, which also has strong technology retail organization. So what they outsource is dependent on how much is the discretionary.

因此，讓我先請賈廷出一份力。我想說，如果從產業角度來看，可自由支配支出最多的是銀行、金融服務和保險領域。這是一個背負著高利率負擔的行業。由於利率高，人們需要等待和觀望，並暫停一些可自由支配的工作。請記住，金融服務是這些行業之一，它也擁有強大的科技零售組織。因此，他們外包什麼取決於可自由裁量權的多寡。

Let's see how the interest rates shape up in the year. And normally, what I have seen based on my experience is if there are 1 or 2 repeatable cycles of interest rate adjustments downwards, we will start to see the spend to come back. Discretionary is also tied to transformational work. That means transformational work normally takes off when there is a period of certainty.

讓我們看看今年的利率如何變化。通常情況下，根據我的經驗，如果有 1 到 2 個可重複的利率下調週期，我們將開始看到支出回升。自由裁量權也與變革性工作連結在一起。這意味著變革工作通常會在一段確定的時期開始啟動。

I've said this before in my remarks that we see this as a period of uncertainty and a period of change. I mean the changes -- the change ahead of us is such a positive catalyst. So if the uncertainty starts to go away, I think the change will trigger discretionary to come back.

我之前在演講中說過，我們認為這是一個不確定的時期和一個變革的時期。我指的是變化——我們面前的變化是一個積極的催化劑。因此，如果不確定性開始消失，我認為這項變化將引發自由裁量權的回歸。

It's also a year where, at the back end of the year, we -- in many parts of the world, there are elections, so I don't know what impact it does to discretionary. But the AI cycle can trigger the discretionary back. The interest rates drop can trigger the discretionary back. Financial services is the biggest one. So we are hoping that the stability in that sector based on interest rate cuts can drive that discretionary back. So it's a little bit of -- I'm waiting for how the interest rates shape up in this year to really say whether it's going to come back or not.

今年年底，世界許多地方都會舉行選舉，所以我不知道這會對自由裁量權產生什麼影響。但人工智慧週期可以觸發自由裁量權的回歸。利率下降可能會觸發可自由支配權的回歸。金融服務業是其中最大的一項。因此，我們希望基於降息的該行業的穩定能夠推動這種自由裁量權的回歸。所以，我正在等待今年利率的走勢，才能真正判斷利率是否會回來。

Yes. So Surinder, my -- this is Jatin. I will just add to say that there is this -- if you see the history of IT services industries and shocks and sharp recoveries is always some event led. And as we all know, the current situation is not a shock. It's not an event. It is an overall high interest cost across the spectrum of the yield curve, which is weighing down on minds of decision-maker.

是的。蘇林德，我的──這是賈廷。我想補充一點，如果你看看 IT 服務業的歷史，衝擊和急劇復甦總是由某些事件導致的。而眾所周知，目前的情況並不令人震驚。這不是一個事件。整個殖利率曲線範圍內的整體利息成本都很高，這給決策者帶來了壓力。

It is difficult to call when the discretionary comes back, it's very sector specific. And it is a little novel from what the world has seen in the last 20 years, where there was 1 big event and then you actually saw interest rates go down very, very sharply, very quickly, and there was a bounce back of the demand. This time, it is a new slowdown that we are -- and I'm sure all our customers are coping to this in terms of how they react to it.

當全權委託人回來時很難打電話，因為它是針對特定行業的。這是過去 20 年世界所見的一個小故事，發生了一件大事件，然後你實際上看到利率下降得非常、非常急劇、非常快，而需求卻出現了反彈。這一次，我們面臨著新的放緩——我確信我們所有的客戶都在應對這個問題，他們對此的反應如何。

Also, one other, I would say, one other event in the mix is during the COVID era, there was a heavy discretionary in many sectors. And that's going to -- that went through -- that's kind of gone through a course correction, if I may, including the fact that there was uncertainty. So it's going to be an interesting year to watch on discretionary and that's probably -- as we go through the year, we'll probably get more visibility on it.

另外，我想說的是，其中的另一件事是在新冠疫情期間，許多行業都有很大的自由裁量權。如果可以的話，這將是——這將經歷——這將經歷一次路線修正，包括存在不確定性的事實。因此，這將是觀察自由裁量權的有趣的一年，而且隨著我們度過這一年，我們可能會對此有更多的了解。

Our next question comes from the line of James Faucette with Morgan Stanley.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的 James Faucette。

Great. Really appreciate all the color and detail you're giving today. I'm wondering, just in terms of the larger deals that you've talked about, can you talk about the [traction] there of win rates for Cognizant? It sounds like you're pretty confident, et cetera. But just wanted to get a sense for how you're perceiving your competitiveness right now in the market.

偉大的。非常感謝您今天提供的所有顏色和細節。我想知道，就您談到的較大交易而言，您能否談談 Cognizant 的勝率[吸引力]？聽起來你很有信心，等等。但只是想了解您如何看待自己目前在市場上的競爭力。

Yes. So you would have noticed that these large deals we are doing, we're doing based on a differentiated value proposition, and we are holding our pricing. I mean that's one of the reasons why our margins were good enough -- good in 2023. And we gave 20 to 40 basis points improvement this year.

是的。因此，您可能已經注意到，我們正在進行的這些大型交易是基於差異化的價值主張進行的，並且我們保持定價不變。我的意思是，這就是我們的利潤率足夠好的原因之一——在 2023 年仍然不錯。今年我們的利潤率提高了 20 到 40 個基點。

Our strength on our large deals is the following. We are able to unify the company together with the velocity, which is in line with what our clients are looking for. I mean the velocity of these deals is very high because these are cost takeout, vendor consolidation kind of deals. So you need the velocity. You need the unification of -- to come together. It's in our DNA. So I have kind of energized the DNA, if I may, in 2023, and that has helped us significantly.

我們在大宗交易上的優勢如下。我們能夠將公司與速度統一起來，這符合我們客戶的需求。我的意思是這些交易的速度非常高，因為這些都是成本削減、供應商整合等交易。所以你需要速度。你們需要團結起來。它存在於我們的 DNA 中。因此，如果可以的話，我在 2023 年為 DNA 注入了活力，這對我們有很大幫助。

The second I would say is there are sectors where we have strong capabilities. And in those sectors, we are a formidable force. We can be provocative in those sectors. We don't need to wait for a request for a consolidation or a request for productivity. We can actually work with our clients. We are very sticky. I mean we are also a company over the 30 years of Cognizant's heritage. We are very sticky to our clients, so we could be provocative with bold ideas. I see that as trait and an integral part of the DNA. And as a CEO of the company, I've been able to lead those provocative conversations with our clients. That has helped us significantly. We have an extraordinary front-end team if I may.

第二個我想說的是，我們在某些​​領域擁有很強的能力。在這些領域，我們是一股強大的力量。我們可以在這些領域採取挑釁行動。我們不需要等待合併請求或生產力請求。我們實際上可以與客戶合作。我們很黏人。我的意思是，我們也是一家擁有 30 年高知特傳統的公司。我們對客戶有很強的黏性，所以我們可以用大膽的想法來挑釁。我認為這是一種特質，也是 DNA 的一個組成部分。作為公司的首席執行官，我能夠與我們的客戶進行那些具有挑釁性的對話。這對我們幫助很大。如果可以的話，我們擁有一支出色的前端團隊。

The third, I would say, is our execution muscle, which we built in the last 1 year, I'm very proud about it. And that has helped us to not just deliver these deals well but also hold our margins as we execute these deals.

第三，我想說的是我們的執行力，這是我們在過去一年建立起來的，我對此感到非常自豪。這不僅幫助我們很好地交付了這些交易，而且在執行這些交易時保持了我們的利潤。

The last one, I would say, in the mix is we also have, I would say, uniquely a differentiated value proposition related to productivity led by automation and AI, which can actually help to that provocative bold thinking to support construction of these deals and share the benefits about the extraordinary opportunity AI provides to us. So I would say these are the 3 or 4 things, which have helped us to win deals. And I would like to continue on that momentum in 2024.

我想說的最後一個是，我們還有一個與自動化和人工智慧主導的生產力相關的獨特的差異化價值主張，這實際上有助於激發大膽的思維，以支持這些交易的構建和分享人工智慧為我們提供的非凡機會的好處。所以我想說的是，這三、四件事幫助我們贏得了這筆交易。我希望在 2024 年繼續保持這一勢頭。

That's great. And then wanted to ask is -- it's interesting, in each of the last couple of quarters, you've increased net headcount slightly. I think, usually, that's taken as a positive indicator. Can you just talk about, as you're maintaining headcount even in the face of potentially being down as much as 2% at the bottom end of your guided range this year, how you're thinking about managing that? And is the nature of the people you're adding and retaining just to serve kind of these larger deals that you've already booked? And how much of it is just in anticipation that more discretionary and smaller deals could come back? Just trying to get a sense for how you're thinking about managing head count and what we should take from that.

那太棒了。然後想問的是——有趣的是，在過去幾個季度中，你們的淨員工人數都略有增加。我認為，通常，這被視為一個積極的指標。您能否談談，儘管今年的指導範圍下限可能會減少 2%，但您仍保持著員工人數，您是如何考慮管理這一點的？您新增和保留的人員的性質是否只是為了為您已經預訂的這些較大的交易提供服務？其中有多少只是為了預期更多可自由支配的和規模較小的交易可能會回來？只是想了解您是如何考慮管理員工人數的，以及我們應該從中得到什麼。

Yes. So James, this is really a combination of both retaining sufficient flexibility for the growth to come. If the growth comes back, you should have sufficient flexibility on the bench. That's one. And two is really some planned addition that we do systematically to certain skill sets and certain part of our pyramid. That has both contributed to this small addition that you are seeing on the total headcount.

是的。所以詹姆斯，這實際上是兩者的結合，為未來的成長保留了足夠的靈活性。如果成長回來了，你的替補席上應該有足夠的靈活性。這是一個。第二個是我們對某些技能和金字塔的某些部分有系統地進行的一些有計劃的補充。這兩者都促成了您在總人數上看到的這一小幅增加。

Also, just to add to what Jatin said, you should remember, we have an extraordinary story on how well we have done on attrition. I mean we are now really a top-notch player with industry-leading retention plan. I mean we have -- look at where we were at the start of quarter 1 and 2023 to now our attrition has significantly improved. That is also helping us to be ready for the discretionary at any point in time, it comes back because it gives you the capacity and capacity to fulfill.

另外，補充賈廷所說的，你應該記住，我們有一個非凡的故事，說明我們在人員流失方面做得有多好。我的意思是，我們現在確實是一流的參與者，擁有業界領先的保留計劃。我的意思是，看看我們在第一季初和 2023 年的情況，到現在我們的人員流失率已顯著改善。這也幫助我們在任何時候為自由裁量權做好準備，它會回來，因為它給了你實現的能力和能力。

Our next question comes from the line of Ramsey El-Assal with Barclays.

我們的下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的拉姆齊·阿薩爾 (Ramsey El-Assal)。

I wanted to ask you if you could comment on how much visibility or maybe relative visibility you have right now into fiscal '24, and I guess, I mean relative to a more settled normal environment. And I guess the underlying question is are you having to bake in more conservatism into your guidance this year to account for environmental, external factors that are difficult to kind of see through at this point.

我想問您是否可以評論一下您現在對 24 財年的可見度或相對可見度，我想，我的意思是相對於更穩定的正常環境。我想根本的問題是，你是否必須在今年的指導中加入更多的保守主義，以考慮目前很難看清的環境和外部因素。

Sure, Ramsey, that -- I mean, this is a typical beginning of the year where we don't know what we don't know. If you really see mathematically, if you dissect our guidance, you would see that there is a certain growth -- sequential growth that we have assumed during the course of the year. So there is a certain growth assumption that we are walking in with. But environment remains uncertain, and it's certainly a slower start to the year, as Ravi indicated in his opening remarks.

當然，拉姆齊，我的意思是，這是典型的年初，我們不知道我們不知道什麼。如果你真正從數學角度來看，如果你剖析我們的指導，你會發現有一定的成長——我們在這一年中假設的連續成長。因此，我們正在遵循一定的成長假設。但正如拉維在開場白中所指出的那樣，環境仍然不確定，今年的開局肯定會放緩。

Got it. Okay. And then a quick follow-up for me. Could you also give us your view on the extent to which clients are prepared to embrace generative AI? How much work still needs to be done on core sort of underlying technologies at this point for enterprises to start taking advantage of the new technology?

知道了。好的。然後是我的快速跟進。您能否向我們介紹一下您對客戶接受生成式人工智慧的準備程度的看法？目前企業還需要在核心底層技術上做多少工作才能開始利用新技術？

I would say, in some areas, we are seeing more confidence. The 2 big areas I want to highlight is employee productivity, and the second is customer service. We see them getting faster to production grade. Employee productivity is amplifying human potential, as we call it. Customer service always had uniquely opportunities here because, remember, when robotic process automation, which is down the chain and the continuum of AI and generative AI, we also had the most adoption there. These are the 2 areas where they're ready.

我想說，在某些領域，我們看到了更多的信心。我想強調的兩大領域是員工生產力，第二是客戶服務。我們看到它們更快達到生產水準。正如我們所說，員工生產力正在放大人類潛力。客戶服務在這裡總是有獨特的機會，因為請記住，當機器人流程自動化（它是人工智慧和生成人工智慧的鏈條和連續體）時，我們在那裡也得到了最多的採用。這是他們已經準備好的兩個領域。

I think the things they're grappling with is, as I mentioned -- and the need of a system integrator like Cognizant plays an important role. The things they're grappling with is the accuracy of the models, the explainability of the models, the traceability of the data sets so that the explainability could be judged. I mean, remember, this is output, which is coming out from a computer, which is building logic, which means you need to have explainability behind it to make it responsible enough.

正如我所提到的，我認為他們正在努力解決的問題是，像 Cognizant 這樣的系統整合商的需求發揮著重要作用。他們要解決的問題是模型的準確性、模型的可解釋性、資料集的可追溯性，以便判斷可解釋性。我的意思是，記住，這是輸出，來自計算機，它正在構建邏輯，這意味著你需要在其背後具有可解釋性，以使其足夠負責。

And I think the other thing they're grappling with is -- I mean, we call that hallucinations, but that's what it means in different ways. The other thing they are grappling with is performance versus cost so that they can make it production grade. But we will -- it will disrupt -- 1 of the studies we did with Oxford economics is it will disrupt 90% of the jobs. Some jobs will get disrupted more. Some jobs will get disrupted less. The tasks within jobs will get disrupted. And we created something called an exposure score on jobs, which gives us the opportunity to figure out which jobs will actually go through more disruption.

我認為他們正在努力解決的另一件事是——我的意思是，我們稱之為幻覺，但這就是它在不同方面的含義。他們正在努力解決的另一件事是性能與成本，以便他們可以達到生產等級。但我們將——它將擾亂——我們與牛津經濟學所做的一項研究是，它將擾亂 90% 的工作。有些工作會受到更多幹擾。有些工作受到的干擾會更少。工作中的任務將會被打亂。我們創建了一種稱為工作暴露評分的東西，這使我們有機會弄清楚哪些工作實際上會受到更多幹擾。

But at a high level, I would say, these are the 2 broad areas where customers are probably going to be more prepared to cross the bridge on embracing generative AI into enterprises. Needless to say, this is going to be one of the most pervasive technologies in our times. So I'm excited about the prospects, but I'm equally getting prepared to what it means for a system integrator.

但我想說，從較高的層面來看，客戶可能會在這兩個廣泛的領域中做好更充分的準備，跨越將生成式人工智慧引入企業的橋樑。不用說，這將成為我們這個時代最普遍的技術之一。因此，我對前景感到興奮，但我同樣也準備好了解這對系統整合商意味著什麼。

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the call back to management.

女士們先生們，我們的問答環節到此結束。我想將電話轉回給管理階層。

Great. Thank you all for your interest in Cognizant and for joining our call. We look forward to catching up next quarter. Thank you.

偉大的。感謝大家對 Cognizant 的關注並加入我們的電話會議。我們期待下個季度迎頭趕上。謝謝。

This concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect. Enjoy the rest of your evening.

今天的會議到此結束。您現在可以斷開連線。享受你餘下的夜晚。