Descartes Systems Group Inc (DSGX) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to The Descartes Systems Group quarterly results conference call. (Operator Instructions) This call is being recorded on Wednesday, March 1, 2023.

女士們先生們，下午好，歡迎參加笛卡爾系統集團季度業績電話會議。 （操作員說明）此通話記錄於 2023 年 3 月 1 日，星期三。

I would now like to turn the conference over to Scott Pagan. Please go ahead.

我現在想將會議轉交給 Scott Pagan。請繼續。

Thanks, and good afternoon, everyone. Joining me remotely on the call today are Ed Ryan, CEO; and Allan Brett, CFO. And I trust that everyone has received a copy of our financial results press release that was issued earlier today.

謝謝，大家下午好。今天遠程加入我的電話會議的是首席執行官 Ed Ryan；和首席財務官 Allan Brett。我相信每個人都收到了我們今天早些時候發布的財務業績新聞稿的副本。

Portions of today's call, other than historical performance, include statements of forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These statements are made under the safe harbor provisions of those laws. These forward-looking statements include statements related to our assessment of the current and future impact of geopolitical and economic uncertainty on our business and financial condition; Descartes' operating performance, financial results and condition; Descartes' gross and operating margins and any variation in those margins; cash flow and use of cash; business outlook; baseline revenues, baseline operating expenses and baseline calibration; anticipated and potential revenue losses and gains; anticipated recognition and expensing of specific revenues and expenses; potential acquisitions and acquisition strategy; cost reduction and integration initiatives; and other matters that may constitute forward-looking statements.

今天電話會議的部分內容，除歷史表現外，還包括適用證券法含義內的前瞻性信息聲明。這些聲明是根據這些法律的安全港條款作出的。這些前瞻性陳述包括與我們評估地緣政治和經濟不確定性對我們的業務和財務狀況的當前和未來影響相關的陳述；笛卡爾的經營業績、財務業績和狀況； Descartes 的毛利率和營業利潤率以及這些利潤率的任何變化；現金流量和現金使用；業務前景；基線收入、基線運營費用和基線校準；預期和潛在的收入損失和收益；特定收入和費用的預期確認和支出；潛在的收購和收購戰略；降低成本和整合舉措；以及其他可能構成前瞻性陳述的事項。

These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Descartes to differ materially from the anticipated results, performance or achievements implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors are outlined in the press release and in the section entitled certain factors that may affect future results in documents filed and furnished with the SEC, the OSC and other securities commissions across Canada, including our management's discussion and analysis filed today.

這些前瞻性陳述涉及已知和未知的風險、不確定性、假設和其他因素，這些因素可能導致笛卡爾的實際結果、業績或成就與此類前瞻性陳述所暗示的預期結果、業績或成就存在重大差異。這些因素在新聞稿和提交給 SEC、OSC 和加拿大其他證券委員會的文件中標題為“可能影響未來結果的某些因素”的部分中進行了概述，包括我們管理層今天提交的討論和分析。

We provide forward-looking statements solely for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans relating to the future. You are cautioned that such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. We don't undertake or accept any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect any change in our expectations or any change in events, conditions, assumptions or circumstances on which any such statement is based, except as required by law.

我們提供前瞻性陳述的目的僅僅是為了提供有關管理層當前預期和未來計劃的信息。請注意，此類信息可能不適合用於其他目的。我們不承擔或接受任何義務或承諾公開發布任何前瞻性陳述的任何更新或修訂，以反映我們預期的任何變化或任何此類陳述所依據的事件、條件、假設或情況的任何變化，除非法律要求。

And with that, I will turn the call over to Ed.

有了這個，我會把電話轉給埃德。

Great. Thanks, Scott, and welcome, everyone, to the call. We had an excellent fourth quarter and year with record financial results. We've also made some significant investments in the business. We're excited to go over those with you and give you some perspective about the business environment we see right now. But first, let me give you a road map for this call.

偉大的。謝謝斯科特，歡迎大家來電話。我們有出色的第四季度和年度業績，創紀錄的財務業績。我們還對該業務進行了一些重大投資。我們很高興與您一起回顧這些，並讓您對我們現在看到的商業環境有一些看法。但首先，讓我為您提供本次電話會議的路線圖。

I'll start with highlighting some aspects of our financial results, how our business performed in the last quarter and some investments we've made. I'll then hand the call over to Allan, who will go over the Q4 and annual financial results in more detail. I'll then come back and provide an update on the current business environment and how our business is calibrated, and we'll then open it up to the operator to coordinate the Q&A portion of the call.

我將首先強調我們財務業績的某些方面，我們的業務在上個季度的表現以及我們進行的一些投資。然後我會把電話轉給艾倫，他將更詳細地審查第四季度和年度財務業績。然後我會回來提供有關當前業務環境的更新以及我們的業務是如何校準的，然後我們會將其開放給接線員以協調電話的問答部分。

So let's get started by looking at our year. Key metrics we monitor include revenues, profits, cash flow from operations and return on investment. For this past year, we had record performance in each of those areas. Total revenues were up 14% in the year, with services revenues up 15%. Net income and earnings per share were both up 18%, while adjusted EBITDA was up 16%. We generated almost $200 million in cash from operations, representing 89% of adjusted EBITDA, 92% if you exclude the acquisition earnout payments we made during the year that went through cash from operations, a good headwind to have considering how well the acquisitions performed and contributed to our businesses.

那麼讓我們從回顧我們的一年開始吧。我們監控的關鍵指標包括收入、利潤、運營現金流和投資回報。在過去的一年裡，我們在每個領域都取得了創紀錄的表現。全年總收入增長 14%，其中服務收入增長 15%。淨收入和每股收益均增長 18%，而調整後的 EBITDA 增長 16%。我們從運營中產生了近 2 億美元的現金，佔調整後 EBITDA 的 89%，如果排除我們在當年通過運營現金支付的收購收益付款，則為 92%，考慮到收購的執行情況和為我們的業務做出了貢獻。

And the year ended strongly for us as well. We had record Q4 quarterly revenues, with services revenues up 14%. We had record profits of almost $30 million in net income and $55 million of adjusted EBITDA. We generated more than $50 million of cash from operations, representing 91% of our adjusted EBITDA. And we use that cash flow and our balance sheet to make further investments in our business. So a very strong financial quarter and year for us.

對我們來說，這一年也結束了。我們的第四季度季度收入創歷史新高，其中服務收入增長了 14%。我們的淨利潤達到創紀錄的近 3000 萬美元，調整後的 EBITDA 達到 5500 萬美元。我們從運營中產生了超過 5000 萬美元的現金，占我們調整後 EBITDA 的 91%。我們利用現金流和資產負債表對我們的業務進行進一步投資。因此，對我們來說，這是一個非常強勁的財務季度和年度。

These results happened in a very challenging foreign exchange environment. Our annual revenues would have been $14 million higher if we use last year's FX rates, and our quarterly revenues would have been $3 million higher. While we're fairly naturally hedged, we still faced some foreign exchange headwinds to adjusted EBITDA. Allan will go into this in more detail later, however, strong results that might have been even stronger in a different foreign exchange environment.

這些結果發生在極具挑戰性的外匯環境中。如果我們使用去年的匯率，我們的年收入將增加 1400 萬美元，而我們的季度收入將增加 300 萬美元。雖然我們相當自然地進行了對沖，但我們在調整後的 EBITDA 方面仍然面臨一些外匯逆風。艾倫稍後將對此進行更詳細的介紹，然而，在不同的外匯環境中，強勁的結果可能會更加強勁。

At the end of the year, we had $276 million in cash and were debt-free, with an undrawn $350 million line of credit that we just extended the term on. We used some of that cash after the year to buy GroundCloud, which I'll discuss in a few minutes. However, we remain well-capitalized, cash-generating, debt-free and ready to continue to invest in our business. We believe a company like ours is well positioned to continue to thrive in market conditions like these.

到年底，我們擁有 2.76 億美元的現金，沒有債務，還有 3.5 億美元的未動用信貸額度，我們剛剛延長了期限。一年後，我們用部分現金購買了 GroundCloud，我將在幾分鐘後討論。然而，我們仍然資本充足、產生現金、無債務，並準備繼續投資我們的業務。我們相信像我們這樣的公司有能力在這樣的市場條件下繼續蓬勃發展。

There are some areas in our business that were very strong in the fourth quarter. Our data content businesses continue to have high demand, particularly in denied party screening as companies continue to deal with complying with the myriad of new sanctions that have come out relating to the conflict in the Ukraine. Our transportation management businesses saw strong growth, with demand for MacroPoint's real-time visibility shipments across all modes leading the way. And we saw a good seasonal bump in e-commerce volumes to end the year. Transportation volumes were otherwise as we would expect in our business to end the year given seasonality.

我們業務的某些領域在第四季度非常強勁。我們的數據內容業務仍然有很高的需求，特別是在被拒絕方篩選方面，因為公司繼續處理遵守與烏克蘭衝突有關的無數新制裁。我們的運輸管理業務增長強勁，對 MacroPoint 跨所有模式的實時可見性出貨量的需求處於領先地位。到年底，我們看到電子商務交易量出現了良好的季節性增長。考慮到季節性，運輸量與我們預期的業務將在年底有所不同。

Descartes was able to deliver superior financial performance last year while continuing to invest in our business. We continued our approach of making both organic and acquisition investments. On the organic side, the improvement we saw this past fiscal year in organic growth was helped by the customer-facing investments we made in our business in the year and in the prior fiscal years.

Descartes 去年在繼續投資於我們的業務的同時，實現了卓越的財務業績。我們繼續採用有機投資和收購投資的方法。在有機方面，我們在過去一個財政年度看到的有機增長的改善得益於我們在當年和前一個財政年度對我們的業務進行的面向客戶的投資。

We expanded our sales and marketing groups. We created a pillar focused on internal management oversight structure. We established and expanded a customer success group designed to improve the customer experience and identify additional ways our customers can get value from using our solutions and consequently improve our revenue and customer retention. These investments were made while balancing, achieving our immediate financial targets and positioning the company even better for the future.

我們擴大了銷售和營銷團隊。我們創建了一個以內部管理監督結構為重點的支柱。我們建立並擴大了一個客戶成功小組，旨在改善客戶體驗，並確定客戶可以通過使用我們的解決方案獲得價值的其他方式，從而提高我們的收入和客戶保留率。這些投資是在平衡、實現我們的近期財務目標和使公司在未來更好地定位的同時進行的。

This fiscal year was no exception to that organic investment. We organically added more than 150 people to our business this year. Many of those roles were designed to help us with future organic growth, with sales, customer success and development continuing to be a focus area for hires. We believe we built a resilient business that our customers can rely on for their needs today and tomorrow, and that's a key reason we continue to invest for not just the business we have today, but the business we'll have in the near future.

本財年的有機投資也不例外。今年我們的業務自然增加了 150 多人。其中許多角色旨在幫助我們實現未來的有機增長，銷售、客戶成功和發展仍然是招聘的重點領域。我們相信我們建立了一個有彈性的業務，我們的客戶可以依賴它來滿足他們今天和明天的需求，這是我們繼續投資的一個關鍵原因，不僅是我們今天擁有的業務，而且是我們在不久的將來將擁有的業務。

We take that same customer-centric approach to considering acquisition investments in our business. Last fiscal year, we brought 4 new businesses into Descartes, with our customers continuing to see e-commerce as a growth and focus area. We combined with NetCHB in February 2022 to strengthen our e-commerce customs filing capabilities as our customers expressed interest in enhanced routing and scheduling solutions that leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning. We combined with Foxtrot in April. And with our customers moving more and more small parcel goods, particularly in e-commerce, we teamed up with XPS in June of 2022.

我們採用同樣以客戶為中心的方法來考慮對我們業務的收購投資。上一財年，我們將 4 項新業務帶入 Descartes，我們的客戶繼續將電子商務視為增長和重點領域。我們於 2022 年 2 月與 NetCHB 合併，以加強我們的電子商務海關備案能力，因為我們的客戶表示對利用人工智能和機器學習的增強路由和調度解決方案感興趣。我們在四月份與 Foxtrot 合併。隨著我們的客戶移動越來越多的小包裹貨物，尤其是在電子商務中，我們於 2022 年 6 月與 XPS 合作。

Our last deal of the fiscal year was in January when we combined with Supply Vision. Our logistics service provider customers are in the midst of a big push to digitize their operations, both internal and customer facing. We've made several historical investments to help them out, including containers Portrix and QuestaWeb. With Supply Vision, we're adding to that arsenal of tools to help logistics service providers better manage the life cycle of shipments for their customers. It's a comprehensive digital system that helps them quote, route and book shipments through to final delivery. And when combined with our real-time shipment visibility solutions like MacroPoint, it provides comprehensive end-to-end solution for them. We can also link Supply Vision into the Global Logistics Network, giving Supply Vision customers broad access to a community of trading partners and services that can enhance their own business. While there was less than a month of Supply Vision in our Q4 results, we're thrilled with the early returns and excited to have the Supply Vision team on board. Welcome to them all.

我們本財年的最後一筆交易是在 1 月份，當時我們與 Supply Vision 合併。我們的物流服務提供商客戶正在大力推動內部和麵向客戶的運營數字化。我們進行了幾項歷史投資來幫助他們解決問題，包括容器 Portrix 和 QuestaWeb。借助 Supply Vision，我們正在增加工具庫，以幫助物流服務提供商更好地為他們的客戶管理運輸的生命週期。這是一個全面的數字系統，可幫助他們對貨物進行報價、路線安排和預訂直至最終交付。當與我們的實時貨運可見性解決方案（如 MacroPoint）結合使用時，它可以為他們提供全面的端到端解決方案。我們還可以將 Supply Vision 鏈接到全球物流網絡，使 Supply Vision 客戶能夠廣泛訪問貿易夥伴和服務社區，從而增強他們自己的業務。雖然我們第四季度的結果中 Supply Vision 不到一個月的時間，但我們對早期回報感到興奮，並很高興有 Supply Vision 團隊加入。歡迎大家。

Finally, at the end of the fiscal year, we ended up closing one of the larger acquisitions we've done. And like the previous acquisitions I've described, this one was very much guided by customer demand and input. Starting from even before the pandemic, final-mile delivery to homes and businesses has become a critical part of the logistics cycle. There are tens of thousands of independent final-mile delivery specialists and carriers in North America alone, before you even consider all the private fleets also making these deliveries. With the increased delivery volumes, our customers have been eager for more help to make these delivery operations more efficient, reliable and safe.

最後，在本財年末，我們完成了一項規模較大的收購。就像我之前描述的收購一樣，這次收購在很大程度上受到客戶需求和投入的指導。甚至從大流行之前開始，向家庭和企業的最後一英里交付已成為物流週期的關鍵部分。僅在北美就有數以萬計的獨立最後一英里交付專家和承運人，甚至不考慮所有私人車隊也在進行這些交付。隨著交付量的增加，我們的客戶一直渴望獲得更多幫助，以使這些交付操作更加高效、可靠和安全。

GroundCloud is the perfect fit for this market. It provides a robust solution that helps independent final-mile delivery companies manage their operations with particular specialization for service providers who are performing the bulk of their deliveries for large transportation brands such as FedEx, Amazon or Frontdoor Collective. The platform lets them receive delivery orders, plan and execute the routes, train and monitor driver performance, manage their assets and resources and analyze their operating efficiency.

GroundCloud 非常適合這個市場。它提供了一個強大的解決方案，幫助獨立的最後一英里交付公司管理他們的運營，特別是服務提供商為 FedEx、Amazon 或 Frontdoor Collective 等大型運輸品牌執行大量交付。該平台讓他們可以接收送貨訂單、規劃和執行路線、培訓和監控司機績效、管理他們的資產和資源並分析他們的運營效率。

GroundCloud is also integrated to video telematics solutions to provide driving event detection and verification, combining with reactive coaching solutions to improve driver safety. It's a great solution for the market and an excellent complement to our investment in ship track for the carrier market. GroundCloud is a well-run and profitable business with lots of room for future growth with independent last-mile delivery companies.

GroundCloud 還集成到視頻遠程信息處理解決方案中，以提供駕駛事件檢測和驗證，並結合反應式指導解決方案以提高駕駛員安全性。這是一個很好的市場解決方案，也是對我們在承運人市場船舶軌道投資的極好補充。 GroundCloud 是一家經營良好且盈利的企業，未來有很大的發展空間，擁有獨立的最後一英里交付公司。

What really distinguishes GroundCloud is its specialization and attention to driver safety. They've done an excellent job of creating and providing easily digestible driver training video content deliverable to driver's mobile devices. We've seen increased attention to driver and worker safety through our broader customer base, particularly in private fleet. This is often driven by environmental, social and governance views of having safer roads for our communities and safer work environments, but also for economic reasons due to the high cost of accidents, litigation and resulting insurance impact.

GroundCloud 的真正與眾不同之處在於其對駕駛員安全的專業化和關注。他們在創建和提供易於理解的駕駛員培訓視頻內容方面做得非常出色，這些內容可交付給駕駛員的移動設備。通過我們更廣泛的客戶群，特別是在私人車隊中，我們已經看到越來越多的人關注司機和工人的安全。這通常是受環境、社會和治理觀點的驅動，即為我們的社區提供更安全的道路和更安全的工作環境，但也出於經濟原因，因為事故、訴訟和由此產生的保險影響成本高昂。

We believe the GroundCloud safety and driver training solutions can be very helpful to our private fleet clients in having safer businesses and a meaningful impact on their communities. We're very excited to have GroundCloud as part of Descartes. Welcome to the whole team. We look forward to being able to report back on what we've been able to accomplish together in the near future.

我們相信 GroundCloud 安全和駕駛員培訓解決方案可以非常有助於我們的私人車隊客戶擁有更安全的業務並對他們的社區產生有意義的影響。我們很高興 GroundCloud 成為 Descartes 的一部分。歡迎加入整個團隊。我們期待能夠在不久的將來報告我們共同完成的工作。

With that, let me just summarize and then hand over to Allan to give the full financial details on the year and quarter. We had record financial results. The business performed well. We believe that's a good reflection of the value that our customers continue to get from our solutions and the hard work that our team continues to put in for our customers. Even with broader economic challenges last year, including big foreign exchange headwinds, we were able to achieve our targets, and we did it while continuing to invest in our business to drive our longer-term growth.

有了這個，讓我總結一下，然後交給 Allan 來提供年度和季度的完整財務細節。我們取得了創紀錄的財務業績。業務表現良好。我們相信，這很好地反映了我們的客戶繼續從我們的解決方案中獲得的價值，以及我們的團隊繼續為客戶付出的辛勤工作。即使去年面臨更廣泛的經濟挑戰，包括巨大的外匯逆風，我們仍然能夠實現我們的目標，並且我們在繼續投資於我們的業務以推動我們的長期增長的同時做到了這一點。

We continue to make internal investments in customer-facing roles to drive future organic growth. We also invested in 4 acquisitions to address areas where our customers continue to see growth. We ended the year in a great financial shape with a large customer roster and a high percentage of recurring revenues.

我們繼續對面向客戶的角色進行內部投資，以推動未來的有機增長。我們還投資進行了 4 次收購，以解決我們的客戶持續增長的領域。我們以良好的財務狀況結束了這一年，擁有龐大的客戶名單和高比例的經常性收入。

We ended the year with $276 million in cash, $350 million in available credit and a market opportunity where we can continue to grow the business for our customers, both organically and through acquisition. And following the year, we used some of that cash to complete one of the largest acquisitions to date. We remain focused on profitable growth so that we can continue to ensure that our customers have a secure, stable and growing technology partner that can help them with their challenges well into the future. My thanks to all Descartes team members for everything they've done to contribute to a great year and continuing to have our business in an enviable position for future success.

年底，我們擁有 2.76 億美元的現金、3.5 億美元的可用信貸和市場機會，我們可以通過有機和收購的方式繼續為客戶發展業務。次年，我們使用部分現金完成了迄今為止最大的收購之一。我們仍然專注於盈利增長，這樣我們就可以繼續確保我們的客戶擁有一個安全、穩定和不斷發展的技術合作夥伴，可以幫助他們應對未來的挑戰。我感謝所有 Descartes 團隊成員所做的一切，他們為這一偉大的一年做出了貢獻，並繼續使我們的業務處於令人羨慕的位置，以取得未來的成功。

I'll now turn the call over to Allan to go through our annual and Q4 financial results in more detail. Al?

我現在將電話轉給艾倫，讓他更詳細地了解我們的年度和第四季度財務業績。艾爾？

Okay. Thanks, Ed. As indicated, I'm going to walk you through our financial highlights for our fourth quarter and year ended January 31. We are pleased to report record quarterly revenues of $125.1 million this quarter, an increase of 11% from revenues of $112.4 million in Q4 of last year. This revenue growth was achieved despite the continued headwind from FX, resulting from a strong U.S. dollar.

好的。謝謝，埃德。如前所述，我將向您介紹我們截至 1 月 31 日的第四季度和年度的財務亮點。我們很高興地報告本季度創紀錄的季度收入 1.251 億美元，比第四季度的 1.124 億美元增長 11%去年的。儘管美元走強導致外匯持續逆風，但仍實現了收入增長。

On an FX-neutral basis, our revenue growth would have been over $3 million higher in Q4, meaning that our revenue growth year-over-year would have been over 14% for Q4. Our revenue mix in the quarter continued to be very strong, with services revenue increasing 14% to $113.4 million, up from $99.5 million in the fourth quarter last year, with services revenue increasing to 91% of total revenue this quarter, up from 89% of total revenue in Q4 last year.

在外匯中性的基礎上，我們第四季度的收入增長將超過 300 萬美元，這意味著我們第四季度的收入同比增長將超過 14%。我們在本季度的收入組合仍然非常強勁，服務收入從去年第四季度的 9950 萬美元增長 14% 至 1.134 億美元，本季度服務收入佔總收入的比例從 89% 增至 91%去年第四季度的總收入。

Removing the impact of both the recent acquisitions as well as the negative impacts from FX that we have mentioned, on a like-for-like basis, we would estimate that our growth in services revenue from new and existing customers would have been approximately 9.5% in the quarter when compared to the same quarter last year. Professional services and other revenue, including hardware revenue, came in at $10.0 million or 8% of revenue, down slightly from $11.7 million or 10% of revenue as a result of lower hardware revenue as well as a decrease in professional service as more of our solution sales require less implementation or configuration work, which is certainly consistent with our long-term plans.

除去最近收購的影響以及我們提到的外彙的負面影響，在類似的基礎上，我們估計我們來自新客戶和現有客戶的服務收入增長約為 9.5%本季度與去年同期相比。專業服務和其他收入（包括硬件收入）為 1000 萬美元，佔收入的 8%，略低於 1170 萬美元或收入的 10%，這是由於硬件收入下降以及專業服務減少，因為我們的更多解決方案銷售需要較少的實施或配置工作，這當然符合我們的長期計劃。

In addition, license revenue came in at $1.7 million compared to $1.2 million last year in the fourth quarter, consistent at just 1% of revenue. For the year, revenue was a record $486.0 million, up 14.4% from revenue of $424.7 million in the previous year. Again, the foreign exchange headwinds on revenue were significant all of last year with a negative impact on revenue of $14 million from FX. As a result, revenue growth was closer to 18% on a currency-neutral basis. For the year, services revenue came in at $435.7 million, up 15% from $378.7 million in Q4 last year.

此外，許可收入為 170 萬美元，而去年第四季度為 120 萬美元，僅佔收入的 1%。全年收入達到創紀錄的 4.86 億美元，比上一年的 4.247 億美元增長 14.4%。同樣，去年全年外匯對收入的不利影響很大，對外匯收入產生了 1400 萬美元的負面影響。因此，在貨幣中性的基礎上，收入增長接近 18%。全年服務收入為 4.357 億美元，比去年第四季度的 3.787 億美元增長 15%。

Gross margin increased to 77% of revenue for the fourth quarter and the year, up from gross margin of 76% for the fourth quarter and the entire period last year. The slight improvement in gross margin is consistent with the operating leverage that we would expect to achieve as a result of the continued growth in our business. Operating expenses in the fourth quarter and the year ended January 31 increased primarily related to the impact of recent acquisitions, but also as a result of additional investments that we've made in our business over the past year, primarily, as Ed said, in the areas of marketing, sales, product development and network security.

第四季度和全年的毛利率增至佔收入的 77%，高於去年第四季度和整個期間的 76% 的毛利率。毛利率的小幅改善與我們預期因業務持續增長而實現的經營槓桿一致。第四季度和截至 1 月 31 日的年度的運營費用增加主要與近期收購的影響有關，但也由於我們在過去一年中對我們的業務進行的額外投資，主要是，正如 Ed 所說，營銷、銷售、產品開發和網絡安全領域。

Adjusted EBITDA came in at a record $55.4 million in the fourth quarter, up 11% from adjusted EBITDA of $50.1 million in the fourth quarter last year. And while we continue to be fairly naturally hedged to foreign exchange rates, our adjusted EBITDA would have also been higher if it were not for the negative impact from FX this quarter. Simply put, the euro and British pound were weaker to the U.S. dollar than the Canadian dollar in this period, resulting in this loss on the adjusted EBITDA line.

第四季度調整後的 EBITDA 達到創紀錄的 5,540 萬美元，比去年第四季度的調整後 EBITDA 5,010 萬美元增長 11%。雖然我們繼續相當自然地對沖匯率，但如果不是因為本季度外彙的負面影響，我們調整後的 EBITDA 也會更高。簡而言之，在此期間，歐元和英鎊兌美元的匯率低於加元，導致調整後的 EBITDA 線上出現虧損。

Looking at the annual results. As a result of the revenue growth and gross margin expansion from continued leverage that we described earlier, we continue to see strong adjusted EBITDA growth to a record $215.2 million or 44.3% of revenue for the year, up 15.9% from $185.7 million or 43.7% of revenue last year. We should note that for the fifth year in a row, as a percentage of revenue, our adjusted EBITDA continued to increase as we benefited from the operating margin -- sorry, the operating leverage as we grow the business.

看看年度業績。由於我們之前描述的持續槓桿帶來的收入增長和毛利率擴張，我們繼續看到調整後的 EBITDA 強勁增長，達到創紀錄的 2.152 億美元，佔全年收入的 44.3%，比 1.857 億美元或 43.7% 增長 15.9%去年的收入。我們應該注意到，連續第五年，作為收入的百分比，我們調整後的 EBITDA 繼續增加，因為我們受益於營業利潤率 - 對不起，隨著我們業務的發展，經營槓桿。

With these solid operating results, cash flow generated from operations came in at $50.6 million or 91% of adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter this year, up 11% from operating cash flow of $45.5 million or 91% of adjusted EBITDA in Q4 last year. For the year, cash flow from operations was $192.4 million or 98% of adjusted EBITDA, up from $176.1 million or 95% of adjusted EBITDA last year.

憑藉這些穩健的運營業績，今年第四季度運營產生的現金流量為 5060 萬美元，佔調整後 EBITDA 的 91%，比去年第四季度的運營現金流 4550 萬美元或調整後 EBITDA 的 91% 增長了 11%。今年，運營現金流為 1.924 億美元，佔調整後 EBITDA 的 98%，高於去年的 1.761 億美元，佔調整後 EBITDA 的 95%。

In addition, we should note that as a result of the stronger-than-expected results on the past acquisitions of both ShipTrack and containers, we ended up paying an additional $5.6 million in earnouts compared to our original estimates were made at the time of those acquisitions. And as a result, those additional cash payments went through our cash flow from operations this year.

此外，我們應該注意到，由於過去收購 ShipTrack 和集裝箱的結果強於預期，與我們當時的最初估計相比，我們最終額外支付了 560 萬美元的收益收購。因此，這些額外的現金支付通過了我們今年的運營現金流。

Excluding the impact of those additional earnout payments, cash flow from operations would have been approximately 92% of adjusted EBITDA for the year. Going forward, we expect to continue to see strong operating cash flow conversion in the range of 85% to 90% of our adjusted EBITDA for the years ahead, of course, subject to unusual events and quarterly fluctuations.

排除這些額外的盈利支付的影響，來自運營的現金流量將約為當年調整後 EBITDA 的 92%。展望未來，我們預計未來幾年將繼續看到強勁的經營現金流轉換，占我們調整後 EBITDA 的 85% 至 90%，當然，這會受到異常事件和季度波動的影響。

From a GAAP earnings perspective, net income for the fourth quarter came in at $29.8 million, up 55% from net income of $19.2 million in the fourth quarter last year. For the year, net income was $102.2 million or $1.18 per diluted common share, up 18.4% from $86.3 million or $1 per diluted common share last year.

從 GAAP 收益的角度來看，第四季度的淨收入為 2980 萬美元，比去年第四季度的淨收入 1920 萬美元增長了 55%。全年淨收入為 1.022 億美元或每股稀釋普通股 1.18 美元，比去年的 8630 萬美元或每股稀釋普通股 1 美元增長 18.4%。

Overall, as Ed mentioned earlier, we're certainly pleased with our operating results for fiscal 2023 as our continued revenue growth allowed us to invest in several areas of our business while still allowing us to achieve 15.9% growth in adjusted EBITDA, expand our adjusted EBITDA margin to 44.3% of revenue and achieve growth in our cash flow from operations for the year.

總體而言，正如 Ed 之前提到的，我們對 2023 財年的經營業績當然感到滿意，因為我們持續的收入增長使我們能夠投資於我們業務的多個領域，同時仍然使我們的調整後 EBITDA 實現 15.9% 的增長，擴大我們調整後的 EBITDA EBITDA 利潤率達到收入的 44.3%，並實現全年運營現金流的增長。

If we look at the balance sheet, our cash balances totaled $276.4 million at the end of January, and we did not have any borrowings under our credit facility at the end of the year. As I mentioned, subsequent to year-end, on February 14, we announced we used approximately $138 million of our existing cash balances to complete the GroundCloud acquisition, which Ed described in detail a little earlier. As a result, we still have approximately $138 million in cash balances as well as $350 million available to us to draw under our credit facility for future acquisitions. So clearly, we continue to be well capitalized to allow us to consider all acquisition opportunities in our market, consistent with our business plan.

如果我們查看資產負債表，我們在 1 月底的現金餘額總計 2.764 億美元，並且在年底我們的信貸額度下沒有任何借款。正如我提到的那樣，在年底之後的 2 月 14 日，我們宣布我們使用了現有現金餘額中的大約 1.38 億美元來完成對 GroundCloud 的收購，Ed 早些時候對此進行了詳細描述。因此，我們仍有大約 1.38 億美元的現金餘額以及 3.5 億美元可供我們根據未來收購的信貸額度提取。很明顯，我們繼續擁有充足的資本，使我們能夠根據我們的業務計劃考慮市場上的所有收購機會。

As we look to the current year, our fiscal 2024, we should note the following. After incurring approximately $6.1 million in capital additions this past year, we expect to incur approximately $5 million to $7 million in additional capital expenditures this coming year. We expect amortization expense will be approximately $15 million for fiscal 2024, with this figure being subject to adjustment for foreign exchange rates -- foreign exchange rate changes and any future acquisitions.

當我們展望今年，即我們的 2024 財年時，我們應該注意以下幾點。在去年增加約 610 萬美元的資本後，我們預計來年將增加約 500 萬至 700 萬美元的資本支出。我們預計 2024 財年的攤銷費用約為 1500 萬美元，該數字會根據匯率調整——匯率變化和任何未來的收購。

Our income tax rate in the fourth quarter came in at approximately 17.5% of pretax income, resulting in a tax rate for the year of approximately 24%, which is slightly lower than our statutory tax rate, mainly as a result of the reversal of certain -- uncertain tax positions that we recorded in Q4 of this year. Looking at FY '24, we currently expect that our tax rate could be low -- slightly lower than our statutory tax rate if certain other uncertain tax positions are released. As a result, we're expecting the tax rate to be in the range of 22% to 27% of our pretax income in our fiscal 2024.

我們第四季度的所得稅率約為稅前收入的 17.5%，導致全年稅率約為 24%，略低於我們的法定稅率，主要是由於某些逆轉的結果- 我們在今年第四季度記錄的不確定稅收狀況。展望 24 財年，我們目前預計我們的稅率可能會很低——如果某些其他不確定的稅收狀況被釋放，我們的稅率將略低於我們的法定稅率。因此，我們預計 2024 財年的稅率將在稅前收入的 22% 至 27% 之間。

Although, as always, we should add that our tax rate may fluctuate from quarter-to-quarter from onetime tax items that may arise as we operate internationally across multiple countries. And finally, we currently expect stock compensation to be approximately $10 million to $11 million for fiscal 2024, subject to any future equity grants as well as any future forfeitures of stock options or share units.

不過，一如既往，我們應該補充一點，我們的稅率可能會因我們在多個國家/地區開展國際業務而產生的一次性稅項而逐季波動。最後，我們目前預計 2024 財年的股票薪酬約為 1000 萬至 1100 萬美元，這取決於未來的任何股權授予以及未來股票期權或股份單位的任何沒收。

And with that, I'll turn it back over to Ed to wrap up with our baseline calibration.

然後，我將把它轉回給 Ed，以結束我們的基線校準。

Thanks, Allan. We're already a month into our new fiscal year and quarter. We've already been busy by completing the acquisition of GroundCloud. We're excited about the upcoming year and our business. However, we remain cautious about the broader economic circumstances that are out there. There's high interest rates, higher inflation, a pervasive conflict in the Ukraine that's into its second year and the various recessionary pressures and economic discussion. We've seen some companies taking actions to ready their business for what may come. So for us, we will be cautious in the face of uncertainty. Supply chain and logistics continues to be a critical business function for our customers regardless of the economic circumstances.

謝謝，艾倫。我們已經進入新的財政年度和季度一個月了。我們已經忙於完成對 GroundCloud 的收購。我們對即將到來的一年和我們的業務感到興奮。然而，我們對更廣泛的經濟環境仍持謹慎態度。利率高，通貨膨脹率高，烏克蘭的普遍衝突已經進入第二年，還有各種經濟衰退壓力和經濟討論。我們已經看到一些公司正在採取行動，為可能發生的事情做好準備。所以對我們來說，面對不確定性，我們會保持謹慎。無論經濟形勢如何，供應鍊和物流仍然是我們客戶的關鍵業務功能。

I wanted to share some areas that our customers are monitoring and to shape the market that we're currently operating in. The first is U.S. ocean container imports are at pre-pandemic levels. Based on public data available through our data mine service, it's clear that there was a pullback in ocean imports over the past 6 months starting in August. Current volumes are 15% to 20% lower than the pandemic highs, but are consistent with the levels we saw in 2019 and 2020.

我想分享我們的客戶正在監控的一些領域，並塑造我們目前經營的市場。首先是美國海運集裝箱進口量處於大流行前水平。根據通過我們的數據挖掘服務提供的公共數據，很明顯，從 8 月開始的過去 6 個月中，海運進口出現了回落。目前的交易量比大流行期間的高點低 15% 到 20%，但與我們在 2019 年和 2020 年看到的水平一致。

There's less impact from COVID delays in China. Part of the reason for the pullback in ocean imports was China's approached to Zero COVID, with many businesses critical to the international logistics and supply chains either shuttered or severely understaffed. Recently, China has eased up on that policy, and so our customers anticipate goods may start to flow more freely.

COVID 延誤在中國的影響較小。海運進口減少的部分原因是中國接近零 COVID，許多對國際物流和供應鏈至關重要的企業要么關閉，要么人手嚴重不足。最近，中國放寬了該政策，因此我們的客戶預計貨物可能會開始更自由地流動。

The next is port transit delays. Port transit delays have improved. As volumes came off a bit, the backlog that had been seen at many ports has begun to work through. We're no longer seeing ocean ports with long lines of ships offshore and containers that are otherwise starting to move through the ground system more efficiently.

其次是港口運輸延誤。港口過境延誤有所改善。隨著數量的減少，許多港口出現的積壓已經開始得到解決。我們不再看到海港在海上排起了長隊，集裝箱開始更有效地通過地面系統移動。

The next is U.S., ocean imports have shifted to East Coast ports. There's been a recent trend where volumes have shifted to East Coast ports. That's likely, in part, due to continued labor challenges on the West Coast. There still isn't a contract in place with the dock workers and new regulations impacting truck drivers being classified as employees rather than independent contractors in California. Our customers are mindful of this import flow change when making their decisions.

其次是美國，海運進口已轉移到東海岸港口。最近有一種趨勢，即貨物量已轉移到東海岸港口。這在一定程度上可能是由於西海岸持續的勞動力挑戰。仍然沒有與碼頭工人簽訂合同，並且影響卡車司機的新法規在加利福尼亞被歸類為僱員而不是獨立承包商。我們的客戶在做出決定時會注意到這種進口流程的變化。

Ocean freight rates are expected to come down. During the pandemic, ocean rates surged almost $20,000 a container from pre-pandemic $2,000 to $3,000 level. The spring period is when many shippers and carriers negotiate their freight rates for the upcoming year. Our customers are expecting that rates will come down, and that may be a catalyst for volumes to increase over time.

預計海運費率將下降。在大流行期間，海運費從大流行前的 2,000 美元飆升至每集裝箱近 20,000 美元至 3,000 美元。春季是許多托運人和承運人協商來年運費的時候。我們的客戶期望利率會下降，這可能會成為交易量隨時間增加的催化劑。

Next, our customers anticipate that shipment volumes may increase as the year progresses. Prior to this past holiday season, many retailers had excess inventory, and accordingly, didn't order or ship as much to replenish inventory. Now that we're through the holiday period, we're hearing retailers and mindful of the broader economic circumstances, but are cautiously looking to replenish inventories. That may have retailer-driven shipment volumes increase as the year progresses.

接下來，我們的客戶預計出貨量可能會隨著時間的推移而增加。在過去的這個假期之前，許多零售商庫存過剩，因此沒有訂購或發貨來補充庫存。現在我們已經度過了假期，我們正在聽取零售商的意見並註意更廣泛的經濟環境，但正在謹慎地尋求補充庫存。隨著時間的推移，零售商驅動的出貨量可能會增加。

Next, final-mile delivery is still key. During the pandemic, e-commerce volumes grew at unprecedented rates. We're still seeing growth in e-commerce, just not as strong as during the pandemic. E-commerce growth has, in part, contributed to a continued focus on the importance of last-mile delivery. Gone are the days of a home delivery of anything being a novelty. Recently, Target announced that it was investing $100 million into its network to improve next-day and final-mile delivery. And Amazon just announced it's enhancing its delivery options. The final mile is still a big topic for retailers, and our recent acquisition investments reflect that feedback.

接下來，最後一英里交付仍然是關鍵。在大流行期間，電子商務量以前所未有的速度增長。我們仍然看到電子商務的增長，只是不如大流行期間那麼強勁。電子商務的增長在一定程度上促使人們持續關注最後一英里交付的重要性。將任何新奇事物送貨上門的日子已經一去不復返了。最近，Target 宣布將向其網絡投資 1 億美元，以改善次日送達和最後一英里送達。亞馬遜剛剛宣布它正在增強其交付選項。最後一英里仍然是零售商的一個重要話題，我們最近的收購投資反映了這一反饋。

The next is ESG focus impacts supply chain and logistics. Environmental, social and governance discussions in board rooms are having a meaningful impact on supply chain and logistics decisions. Our customers are looking for detailed information from their trading partners so they can meet and report on their own ESG goals. Also, our customers need this information to show their compliance with existing and pending regulations addressing such issues as use of force labor, environmental impact of operations and trading with restricted parties. We've recently seen several countries roll out additional sanctions on entities and people connected with the Ukraine conflict so we anticipate compliance and ESG reporting solutions will continue to get mind share with our customers.

其次是 ESG 重點影響供應鍊和物流。董事會會議室中的環境、社會和治理討論正在對供應鍊和物流決策產生有意義的影響。我們的客戶正在從他們的貿易夥伴那裡尋找詳細信息，以便他們能夠實現並報告他們自己的 ESG 目標。此外，我們的客戶需要此信息來表明他們遵守現有和未決的法規，這些法規解決了使用勞動力、運營對環境的影響以及與受限方進行貿易等問題。我們最近看到幾個國家對與烏克蘭衝突有關的實體和個人實施了額外的製裁，因此我們預計合規性和 ESG 報告解決方案將繼續受到我們客戶的關注。

So those are some of the things we're hearing from our customers and seeing in our business, things that also inform our calibration for the quarter. Our business is designed to be predictable and consistent. We believe that stability and reliability are valuable to our customers, employees and our broader stakeholders. To deliver this consistency, we continue to operate from the following principles. Our long-term plan is for our business to grow adjusted EBITDA 10% to 15% annually. We grow through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions. We take a neutral party approach to building operated solutions on our Global Logistics Network. We don't favor any particular party. We run our business for all supply chain participants connecting shippers, carriers, logistics service providers and customs authorities.

因此，這些是我們從客戶那裡聽到並在我們的業務中看到的一些事情，這些事情也為我們對本季度的校準提供了信息。我們的業務旨在實現可預測性和一致性。我們相信穩定性和可靠性對我們的客戶、員工和更廣泛的利益相關者都很有價值。為了實現這種一致性，我們繼續按照以下原則運作。我們的長期計劃是讓我們的業務每年以 10% 至 15% 的速度增長調整後的 EBITDA。我們通過有機增長和收購相結合實現增長。我們採取中立方的方式在我們的全球物流網絡上構建運營解決方案。我們不偏袒任何一方。我們為連接托運人、承運人、物流服務提供商和海關當局的所有供應鏈參與者開展業務。

When we overperform, we try to reinvest that overperformance back into our business. We focus on recurring revenues and establishing relationships with customers for life. And finally, we thrive on operating a predictable business that allows us forward visibility to our revenues and investment paybacks. In our annual report, we've provided a comprehensive description of baseline revenues, baseline calibration and their limitations. We typically provide calibration as of the first day of the fiscal period. However, with the GroundCloud acquisition happening on February 14, we've updated calibration to that date and included those aspects of GroundCloud for which we feel we have sufficient visibility to at this point.

當我們表現超常時，我們會嘗試將超額表現重新投資到我們的業務中。我們專注於經常性收入並與客戶建立終生關係。最後，我們依靠經營可預測的業務而茁壯成長，這使我們能夠提前了解我們的收入和投資回報。在我們的年度報告中，我們全面描述了基準收入、基準校準及其局限性。我們通常在會計期間的第一天提供校準。然而，隨著 GroundCloud 的收購發生在 2 月 14 日，我們已經更新了該日期的校準，並包括我們認為目前我們有足夠可見性的 GroundCloud 的那些方面。

As of February 14, 2023, using a foreign exchange rate of $0.75 to the Canadian dollar, 1.07 to the euro and 1.21 to the Great Britain pound, we estimate that our baseline revenues for the first quarter of 2024 are approximately $117 million. And our baseline operating expenses are approximately $74 million. We consider this to be our baseline adjusted EBITDA calibration of approximately $43 million for the first quarter of 2024 or approximately 37% of our baseline revenues as at February 14, 2023.

截至 2023 年 2 月 14 日，使用 0.75 美元兌加元、1.07 美元兌歐元和 1.21 美元兌英鎊的匯率，我們估計我們 2024 年第一季度的基準收入約為 1.17 億美元。我們的基準運營費用約為 7400 萬美元。我們認為這是我們 2024 年第一季度約 4300 萬美元的基準調整後 EBITDA 校準值，約占我們截至 2023 年 2 月 14 日基準收入的 37%。

Last quarter, we indicated that our targeted adjusted EBITDA operating margin range of 40% to 45%. Last year, in Q1 and Q2, we were at 44%. In Q3, we were at 45%. And in Q4, we were at 44%. We're maintaining that same 40% to 45% for this fiscal year. As we've indicated in the past, we anticipate that our margin will vary in that range, given such things as foreign exchange movements and completing larger acquisitions that are operating below our aggregate margin at the time of acquisition.

上個季度，我們表示我們的目標調整後 EBITDA 營業利潤率範圍為 40% 至 45%。去年，在第一季度和第二季度，我們的比例為 44%。在第三季度，我們的比例為 45%。在第四季度，我們的比例為 44%。我們在本財年保持同樣的 40% 至 45%。正如我們過去所指出的那樣，我們預計我們的利潤率將在該範圍內變化，考慮到諸如外匯變動和完成收購時低於我們總利潤率的大型收購等因素。

GroundCloud is a profitable, cash-generating business and one of the larger acquisitions we've ever done. However, GroundCloud currently operates at a lower margin than Descartes' target aggregate adjusted EBITDA margin, primarily as a result of its revenue mix with higher professional services from in-person safety training courses that complement the software platform. So we anticipate that for Q1, our adjusted EBITDA operating margin could be lower than Q4 by between 1 and 2 percentage points as we work on integrating this business into Descartes. We've included that margin impact into our consideration in providing our Q1 calibration.

GroundCloud 是一項有利可圖的現金產生業務，也是我們進行過的大型收購之一。然而，GroundCloud 目前的運營利潤率低於 Descartes 的目標總調整後 EBITDA 利潤率，這主要是由於其收入組合與來自補充軟件平台的現場安全培訓課程的更高專業服務。因此，我們預計，對於第一季度，我們調整後的 EBITDA 營業利潤率可能會比第四季度低 1 到 2 個百分點，因為我們致力於將這項業務整合到 Descartes 中。在提供 Q1 校準時，我們已將邊際影響納入考慮範圍。

We've got lots of exciting things planned for our business this year. We've already completed some exciting acquisitions and other investments that we believe will be a big benefit to our customers. It remains an uncertain broader economic environment, but we believe our prudent track record of execution, solid capital structure and customer focus will serve us well to have a great fiscal year.

今年，我們為我們的業務計劃了許多激動人心的事情。我們已經完成了一些激動人心的收購和其他投資，我們相信這將為我們的客戶帶來巨大利益。它仍然是一個不確定的更廣泛的經濟環境，但我們相信我們審慎的執行記錄、穩固的資本結構和以客戶為中心將有助於我們有一個偉大的財政年度。

Thanks to everyone for joining us on the call today. As always, we're available to talk to you about our business in whatever manner is most convenient for you. And with that, I'll turn the call over to the operator to handle the Q&A portion of the call.

感謝大家今天加入我們的電話會議。一如既往，我們隨時可以以您最方便的方式與您討論我們的業務。然後，我將把電話轉給接線員來處理電話的問答部分。

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Matt Pfau from William Blair.

（操作員說明）您的第一個問題來自 William Blair 的 Matt Pfau。

Ed, just circling back to all the macro comments that you made. Maybe just help us understand what the impact you're seeing on your business from those comments is. Are you seeing any impact on either transactions or deal closures as a result of some of the items you called out?

艾德，回到你所做的所有宏觀評論。也許只是幫助我們了解您從這些評論中看到的對您的業務的影響是什麼。您是否發現您提出的某些項目對交易或交易關閉有任何影響？

Minor, but there's parts of our business that are really doing well right now to call a few of those during in the call. And while our ocean business was being impacted minor way by shipment buyings being down, we had other parts of the business booming. So I think that's why you see the results you saw today.

次要，但我們業務的某些部分現在確實做得很好，可以在通話中打電話給其中一些。雖然我們的海運業務受到出貨量下降的輕微影響，但我們業務的其他部分卻在蓬勃發展。所以我認為這就是您看到今天結果的原因。

Okay. Great. Then in terms of acquisitions, I think larger acquisitions is an area that you called out where there was perhaps a bigger discrepancy between valuations you were willing to pay and where valuation expectations were. You made a larger acquisition with GroundCloud. Is that sort of signal that market's opening back up? Or maybe just some comments in terms of what you're seeing there?

好的。偉大的。然後在收購方面，我認為更大的收購是你提到的一個領域，你願意支付的估值與估值預期之間可能存在更大的差異。您對 GroundCloud 進行了更大規模的收購。這是市場重新開放的信號嗎？或者也許只是就您在那裡看到的內容髮表一些評論？

Yes. Ever since, it's a healthy market for that. The prices can be all over the place depending on the company and who's selling them and what bank's representing and things like that. But we're certainly seeing lots of opportunity out there. And you can see we just pulled off 2 acquisitions in the past couple of months. So we certainly see a market that's open for business.

是的。從那以後，這是一個健康的市場。價格可能無處不在，具體取決於公司、誰在銷售它們、銀行代表什麼等等。但我們確實看到了很多機會。你可以看到我們在過去幾個月剛剛完成了 2 次收購。因此，我們當然會看到一個對企業開放的市場。

(Operator Instructions) Your next question comes from the line of Paul Treiber from RBC Capital Markets.

（操作員說明）您的下一個問題來自 RBC 資本市場的 Paul Treiber。

Just hoping that you could elaborate on some of the financial details for GroundCloud. Specifically, you mentioned the mix of professional services is higher than your business. How should we think about the mix there? And then any additional comments you could provide on the company's revenue or growth or the main to the profitability is different than Descartes.

只是希望您能詳細說明 GroundCloud 的一些財務細節。具體來說，您提到專業服務的組合高於您的業務。我們應該如何考慮那裡的混合？然後，您可以就公司的收入或增長或主要盈利能力提供的任何其他評論都與笛卡爾不同。

Okay. Yes. Let me handle that at a high level, and I'll see if Allan has any other comments. But if you think about their business, they're providing training services to customers. A lot of it is based on driver feedback on telematics devices where they're seeing drivers do certain things during the day, and then they're recommending them for video-based training at night when they're maybe in their cab or before they go to work the next morning.

好的。是的。讓我在高層處理這個問題，我會看看 Allan 是否還有其他意見。但是，如果您考慮一下他們的業務，就會發現他們正在為客戶提供培訓服務。其中很多是基於司機在遠程信息處理設備上的反饋，他們看到司機在白天做某些事情，然後他們建議他們在晚上可能在駕駛室里或之前進行基於視頻的培訓第二天早上去上班。

At the same time, when they start those businesses off, when they start new customers off, they go through a comprehensive training program that involves on-site training. That's why you see a little higher professional services rates in those businesses than maybe Descartes' accustomed to. Normally, we say in our business today, we would like it if there was no professional services because that would mean the products were all easy to install and no one had to get anything complicated to get them in, but there's obviously products even in our business that are more sophisticated and take a little while to put in.

與此同時，當他們開始這些業務時，當他們開始新客戶時，他們會接受包括現場培訓在內的綜合培訓計劃。這就是為什麼你會看到這些企業的專業服務費率比笛卡爾所習慣的要高一些。通常，我們在今天的業務中說，如果沒有專業服務，我們會喜歡它，因為這意味著產品都很容易安裝，沒有人需要做任何復雜的事情才能安裝它們，但顯然即使在我們的產品中也有產品更複雜的業務，需要一些時間才能投入使用。

GroundCloud is kind of the same. When they get a new customer, as part of the process, they provide a comprehensive training program for all the drivers and then specific behavior-based training as the driver's driving routes during each business day and they're seeing errors being made and they're recommending them based on those errors for videos that they might watch at night. I don't know if you have anything to add to that, Allan, but...

GroundCloud 有點相同。當他們獲得新客戶時，作為流程的一部分，他們會為所有司機提供全面的培訓計劃，然後在每個工作日提供基於特定行為的培訓作為司機的駕駛路線，他們看到了錯誤，他們重新根據他們可能在晚上觀看的視頻的這些錯誤向他們推薦。我不知道你是否有什麼要補充的，艾倫，但是......

Yes. Not a lot. I think from a revenue perspective, it still fits the mold of what we want to buy, which is predominantly a recurring revenue business. In this case, yes, the professional service and other category will be higher than Descartes number. We were at 8%, 9%, it will probably be double that percentage, but it still fits the exact multiples we want, which is very predictable subscription-based business recurring.

是的。不是很多。我認為從收入的角度來看，它仍然符合我們想要購買的東西的模式，這主要是一項經常性收入業務。在這種情況下，是的，專業服務和其他類別將高於笛卡爾數。我們當時是 8%、9%，它可能會是這個百分比的兩倍，但它仍然符合我們想要的精確倍數，這是非常可預測的基於訂閱的業務經常發生。

Okay. That's helpful. It's just sort of -- it puts it in the ballpark, so that's helpful. And then how do you see it integrating with the remainder or complementing the remainder of your existing mobile routing and telematics business?

好的。這很有幫助。這有點——它把它放在了球場上，所以這很有幫助。那麼您如何看待它與其餘部分的整合或對您現有移動路由和遠程信息處理業務的其餘部分的補充？

Well, think about it, we're helping these same types of companies plan routes every day. So it's a very similar customer base. We do business with a lot of delivery companies that are doing daily route plans in our routing software to deliver to the home. And that's a great customer base to sell this into. But like a lot of the companies that we've bought, they have a certain type of customer they go after, and they have a couple of hundreds of them or a couple of thousands of them, whatever it is. And we have a couple of hundred or a couple of thousand more than that. And so we're able to go out and quickly bring our solutions to a much broader audience, and that's a big advantage for us when we buy a company like GroundCloud.

嗯，想一想，我們每天都在幫助這些相同類型的公司規劃路線。所以這是一個非常相似的客戶群。我們與許多送貨公司有業務往來，這些公司在我們的路線軟件中製定每日路線計劃以送貨上門。這是一個很好的客戶群來銷售它。但就像我們收購的許多公司一樣，他們有特定類型的客戶，他們有幾百個或幾千個，不管是什麼。我們還有幾百或幾千。因此，我們能夠走出去，迅速將我們的解決方案帶給更廣泛的受眾，這對我們收購像 GroundCloud 這樣的公司來說是一個很大的優勢。

Okay. And then just one last one. Just can you speak to the impact of an inflation on your business? To what degree or not have you updated pricing for inflation? And how do we think about it from a cost point of view?

好的。然後就是最後一個。您能談談通貨膨脹對您的業務的影響嗎？您在多大程度上更新了通貨膨脹定價？我們如何從成本的角度考慮它？

So we've had some impact from all of it. You probably heard us say in the past that we typically only raise prices in the areas where our costs are going up directly. So we have avoided in the past inflation-based price increases on our network and the transaction-type businesses. That changed when the inflation rates went up to 7%, 8% and maybe higher around the world over the last couple of years.

所以我們已經從所有這些中產生了一些影響。您過去可能聽我們說過，我們通常只會在成本直接上升的領域提高價格。因此，過去我們在網絡和交易型業務中避免了基於通貨膨脹的價格上漲。當過去幾年全球通貨膨脹率上升到 7%、8% 甚至更高時，情況發生了變化。

And we started to make some adjustments to customer prices, minor compared to maybe what some other companies were doing. So I would say it was fairly well received for a price increase within our customer base and is probably seen as fair. And on the cost side, we've certainly seen some of it, and we certainly have some cost to proceed in some of our numbers, our costs are going up maybe a little faster than we might have otherwise. But we're more than making up for that with growth in our business.

我們開始對客戶價格進行一些調整，與其他一些公司所做的相比可能是微不足道的。所以我想說，在我們的客戶群中，價格上漲受到了相當多的歡迎，並且可能被認為是公平的。在成本方面，我們肯定已經看到了其中的一些，而且我們肯定有一些成本可以繼續我們的一些數字，我們的成本上升可能比我們可能有的要快一點。但我們不僅僅通過業務增長來彌補這一點。

Your next question comes from the line of Justin Long from Stephens.

你的下一個問題來自 Stephens 的 Justin Long。

Following up on the GroundCloud acquisition, is there anything you can share on what financial targets need to be achieved in order for that earnout to be paid? And out of the gate, anything you can help us -- or could you help us with the kind of year 1 revenue contribution we should be expecting from this business?

在收購 GroundCloud 之後，您是否可以分享需要實現哪些財務目標才能支付收益？從一開始，您可以為我們提供任何幫助——或者您能幫助我們實現我們應該從這項業務中獲得的第一年收入貢獻嗎？

Let me start with that, at least. As -- we're not going to get into specifics because I don't want to provide competitive information out there to people that might not be on our side. But suffice it to say, like every acquisition we've done, when we have an earnout, we are more than happy to pay it. In other words, if they can get the growth that's set forth in the earnout, it's great for our business. So let's hope that, that happens in this one as well.

至少讓我從這個開始。因為 - 我們不會詳細說明，因為我不想向可能不站在我們這邊的人提供競爭信息。但我只想說，就像我們所做的每一次收購一樣，當我們有收益時，我們非常樂意支付。換句話說，如果他們能夠獲得收入中規定的增長，那對我們的業務來說是件好事。所以讓我們希望，這也發生在這一次。

Suffice it to say, if you could see it, it's a fairly significant number in the GroundCloud acquisition that some substantial growth for them to get there. So let's see what happens, but we would hope that, that does happen and be more than happy to pay the earnout if we got there. Allan, I don't know if you have any more detail you want to provide.

我只想說，如果你能看到它，那麼在 GroundCloud 收購中這是一個相當重要的數字，他們實現了一些實質性的增長。因此，讓我們看看會發生什麼，但我們希望那確實會發生，並且如果我們到達那裡，我們會非常樂意支付收益。艾倫，我不知道你是否有更多的細節要提供。

No, just generally, the way we build out those acquisitions, any time we have an earnout, we are thrilled to pay the entire earnout. It will meet our financial metrics if it grows to the levels that will require us to pay the earnout. So this is -- and that's just -- this business is entirely consistent with that. We'd be happy to pay that earnout.

不，一般來說，我們建立這些收購的方式，只要我們有收益，我們就會很高興支付全部收益。如果它增長到需要我們支付收益的水平，它將滿足我們的財務指標。所以這就是——這就是——這項業務與此完全一致。我們很樂意支付這筆收益。

Okay. And when you say meet your financial objectives, are you saying that it would be within that target margin range if the revenue objectives are achieved?

好的。當你說達到你的財務目標時，你是說如果實現收入目標，它會在目標利潤率範圍內嗎？

I'm more speaking to getting our payback on our acquisitions. When we deploy that capital, we're looking to get our money back in 5 to 7 years, a 15% to 20% return. And we think we can achieve that if, at any level within that earnout with 0 or whether we hit that earnout. That's what...

我更多的是在談論我們的收購回報。當我們部署這筆資金時，我們希望在 5 到 7 年內收回我們的資金，回報率為 15% 到 20%。我們認為，如果在 0 的賺取範圍內的任何級別，或者我們是否達到該賺取，我們都可以實現這一目標。就是這樣...

Maybe I can add to that, Justin. Our earnouts are almost always -- in fact, any time I can think of, they're based on revenue, getting to revenue targets. We take it on ourselves to manage the cost of the business and help make it more profitable over time. So the targets are usually not anything more than growth in revenue.

也許我可以補充一點，賈斯汀。我們的收入幾乎總是——事實上，在我能想到的任何時候，它們都是基於收入，達到收入目標。我們自己承擔管理業務成本的責任，並隨著時間的推移幫助提高利潤。因此，目標通常只是收入的增長。

Understood. And Allan, I think you mentioned earlier that excluding FX, organic growth was about 9.5%. Anything you can share on the impact from transactional volumes within that number? And then I guess on the 150 organic headcount adds this year, what are you assuming for organic growth going forward as you make that investment?

明白了。艾倫，我想你之前提到過，不包括外彙在內，有機增長率約為 9.5%。關於該數字內交易量的影響，您有什麼可以分享的嗎？然後我猜想今年增加了 150 名有機員工，您在進行這項投資時對未來的有機增長有何假設？

I'll take the first one, and then, Ed, if you want to talk to the headcount. But as far as the organic growth, that's our estimated growth within the services category. You know our services are split between transactional and subscription.

我會第一個，然後，Ed，如果你想和總人數談談。但就有機增長而言，這是我們在服務類別中的估計增長。您知道我們的服務分為交易服務和訂閱服務。

Now for the most part, both are growing. Our subscriptions tend to be some of the higher growth areas of the business. But growth a little bit slanted towards subscription, but both growing, adding up to that 9.5%. Ed, on head count, did you want to make a comment?

現在，在大多數情況下，兩者都在增長。我們的訂閱往往是業務中增長最快的一些領域。但增長有點傾向於訂閱，但兩者都在增長，加起來達到 9.5%。 Ed，關於人數，你想發表評論嗎？

Yes, sure. So I mean, it's a full year ahead of us, and we obviously reserve the right to adjust course depending on what happens in the business. You probably saw that last year. I don't think the plan on having that many last year, just the business started performing very well, and we needed more people and went out and got them. I think roughly, our plans are maybe increase to half that, but I wouldn't read too much into that. If things go well, we could see us increasing that. If the economy stalls more, we would probably reduce that just to be prudent operators of the business.

是的，當然。所以我的意思是，這比我們早了整整一年，我們顯然保留根據業務中發生的情況調整路線的權利。你可能在去年就看到了。我不認為去年有那麼多人的計劃，只是業務開始表現得很好，我們需要更多的人，然後出去招募他們。我粗略地認為，我們的計劃可能會增加一半，但我不會過多解讀。如果一切順利，我們可以看到我們增加了它。如果經濟停滯不前，我們可能會減少這種情況，只是為了謹慎地經營業務。

You probably heard me say in the past couple of quarters, hey, there's a lot of economic uncertainty, and we were starting to remove our pedal from -- our foot from the gas pedal and kind of not press the brake like you may have seen a lot of other technology companies do, but certainly cover it just to make sure we don't get ourselves into any trouble.

你可能在過去幾個季度聽到我說，嘿，有很多經濟不確定性，我們開始把我們的踏板從——我們的腳從油門踏板上移開，而不是像你看到的那樣踩剎車許多其他科技公司也這樣做，但肯定會掩蓋它只是為了確保我們不會給自己惹上任何麻煩。

Starting to, it seem, come out of that right now with the headlines I'm reading in the newspapers. So we'll see what happens. But for the most part, we've planned for about half the growth that you saw in headcount organically last year in the coming year, and we'll adjust accordingly as we see how the business launched.

看起來，現在我正在閱讀報紙上的頭條新聞，開始擺脫這種局面。所以我們將看看會發生什麼。但在大多數情況下，我們計劃在來年實現員工人數有機增長的一半左右，我們將根據業務的開展情況進行相應調整。

Your next question comes from the line of Daniel Chan from TD.

你的下一個問題來自 TD 的 Daniel Chan。

Ed, you talked about GroundCloud having a higher mix of professional services driving a lower EBITDA margin. Just wondering whether for you to get their EBITDA margin more in line with your target, whether you have to change their business model to reduce that PS mix? And if so, how do you do that? And how long will it take for you to get those margins up to where you want it to be?

Ed，你談到 GroundCloud 擁有更高的專業服務組合，從而降低了 EBITDA 利潤率。只是想知道您是否要讓他們的 EBITDA 利潤率更符合您的目標，您是否必須改變他們的商業模式以減少 PS 組合？如果是這樣，你是怎麼做到的？您需要多長時間才能將這些利潤率提高到您想要的水平？

Certainly, we have some thoughts about how to do it. They were providing one-on-one training classes for individual companies. We could see ourselves doing more of that virtually. And with larger audiences, that may end up having us over time have a much more profitable professional services or training mixed.

當然，我們對如何去做有一些想法。他們為個別公司提供一對一的培訓課程。我們可以看到自己在虛擬中做更多的事情。有了更多的觀眾，隨著時間的推移，這可能最終會讓我們擁有利潤更高的專業服務或混合培訓。

One of the big things in any software company is just selling more of the stuff. When you -- if you have 100 customers and you're providing software and writing software for those 100 customers, if you make it 200 customers, invariably, that company is going to be more profitable. You're writing the same piece of code for now double the amount of people.

任何軟件公司的一件大事就是銷售更多的東西。當你 - 如果你有 100 個客戶並且你正在為這 100 個客戶提供軟件和編寫軟件，如果你使它成為 200 個客戶，那家公司總是會更有利可圖。您正在為現在翻倍的人數編寫相同的代碼。

And if they're all paying a fair price, your profits go up, which has been a big part of our growth in EBITDA over the past 10 years as we get a bigger and bigger customer base and, therefore, have a bigger and bigger group of people that go sell our next acquisition into. And I think we might see the same from GroundCloud over time.

如果他們都支付合理的價格，你的利潤就會增加，這是過去 10 年我們 EBITDA 增長的重要組成部分，因為我們的客戶群越來越大，因此，我們的客戶群越來越大將我們的下一次收購出售給的一群人。而且我認為隨著時間的推移，我們可能會從 GroundCloud 看到同樣的情況。

That makes sense. And then shifting gears a bit, just wondering if there's any impact from the Windsor framework that just got passed.

這就說得通了。然後稍微換檔，只是想知道剛剛通過的溫莎框架是否有任何影響。

We're still analyzing it, but they've established a green lane and a red lane, much like a seat passenger traffic. We understand that both lanes are going to continue to have a filing. So at first blush, my gut is that there's not going to be a ton of impact to our business, negative or positive.

我們仍在分析它，但他們已經建立了一條綠色車道和一條紅色車道，就像座位客運一樣。我們知道兩條通道都將繼續提交申請。所以乍一看，我的直覺是不會對我們的業務產生太多影響，無論是負面的還是正面的。

Your next question comes from the line of Robert Young from Canaccord Genuity.

你的下一個問題來自 Canaccord Genuity 的 Robert Young。

The couple of the macro comments and questions around the transactions. I get the sense that maybe that was a minor headwind. And so if you could clarify that and then maybe just give a refresher on how minimum contracts protect that or if that's still in place, maybe just maybe a refresher there.

圍繞交易的一些宏觀評論和問題。我覺得這可能是一個小逆風。因此，如果你能澄清這一點，然後也許只是回顧一下最低合同如何保護它，或者如果它仍然存在，也許只是在那裡複習一下。

Yes. I mean, I called out the ocean business. And actually, if I look at the Datamyne stats, it's actually starting to recover in January and into early February. So I'm expecting that if you're going to kind of mentioned that the China effect kind of easing up in -- right after Christmas, I kind of suspect that's what we're seeing right now.

是的。我的意思是，我召集了海洋業務。實際上，如果我查看 Datamyne 統計數據，它實際上在 1 月和 2 月初開始恢復。所以我希望，如果你要提到中國效應在聖誕節後有所緩和，我有點懷疑這就是我們現在所看到的。

Truck and air were still pretty strong, and I see air getting stronger in the last couple of weeks based on the Datamyne stats. So we'll see. But the impact in this past quarter was minor. I mean we had plenty of stuff that made up for it or more than made up for it and had us kind of beating our projections for the last quarter because a bunch of businesses we're firing on off full cylinders, and we had an ocean business that was only down slightly. So all in all, pretty good news for us.

卡車和空氣仍然很強勁，根據 Datamyne 的統計數據，我看到過去幾週空氣變得更強。所以我們拭目以待。但對上個季度的影響很小。我的意思是我們有很多東西可以彌補或超過彌補它，並且讓我們在上個季度超過了我們的預測，因為我們正在開足馬力的業務，我們有一個海洋僅略有下降的業務。總而言之，這對我們來說是個好消息。

Okay. And then you touched on my second question around China. There's a lot of news about the reopening and the impact. Maybe it's more on air travel. Just is that not having a more positive impact?

好的。然後你談到了我關於中國的第二個問題。關於重新開放和影響的消息很多。也許更多的是關於航空旅行。只是這沒有產生更積極的影響嗎？

Yes, I think it is. I was just kind of mentioning in the ocean space, so we're starting to see a pickup in the stats we get from governments over the past month or so. And I think that's exactly what's going on. I think their Zero COVID policy ended, I think, mid-December or something like that, and people started to get back to work and eventually factories get reopened and start producing more stuff and retailers get through Christmas.

是的，我想是的。我只是在海洋空間中提到，所以我們開始看到過去一個月左右從政府那裡獲得的統計數據有所回升。我認為這正是正在發生的事情。我認為他們的零 COVID 政策在 12 月中旬或類似的時候結束了，人們開始重返工作崗位，最終工廠重新開工，開始生產更多的東西，零售商也度過了聖誕節。

And as I mentioned, we thought a lot of retailers were selling stuff that they had ordered pretty early last Christmas. And as the stock -- as the shelves emptied out, they're now looking to replenish those things now that a bunch of factories are open in China. So my guess is maybe it's a little better than most, but still, I don't know exactly what's going to happen. But I think I'm starting to see the -- in the past couple of weeks, the impact of that and the increased trade volumes.

正如我提到的，我們認為很多零售商都在銷售他們去年聖誕節早些時候訂購的東西。隨著庫存——隨著貨架的清空，他們現在正在尋求補充這些東西，因為中國有很多工廠開張了。所以我的猜測是它可能比大多數人好一點，但我仍然不知道會發生什麼。但我想我開始看到——在過去的幾周里，這種影響和貿易量的增加。

Okay. And last question, just a little clarification in the press release, the 40% to 45% adjusted EBITDA range. I think the quote from you, Allan. Maybe the way I read it, it seemed to suggest it was inclusive of M&A forward. I just want to make sure I'm not reading that incorrectly. The 40%, 45% doesn't include any anticipated future M&A, that's just up to this point?

好的。最後一個問題，只是在新聞稿中做了一點澄清，即 40% 至 45% 的調整後 EBITDA 範圍。我想引用你的話，Allan。也許以我的閱讀方式，它似乎暗示它包含了未來的併購。我只是想確保我沒有讀錯。 40%、45%不包括任何預期的未來併購，就到此為止了？

Well, yes, just remember that it's an EBITDA margin range. So barring us buying stuff in massive, and you can see here with GroundCloud, it has a bit of a negative impact on our overall margins because we bought a company that makes less money as a percentage of revenue than we do, but still only a point or 2. That was a fairly large acquisition for us.

好吧，是的，請記住這是一個 EBITDA 利潤率範圍。所以除非我們大量購買東西，你可以在這裡看到 GroundCloud，它對我們的整體利潤率有一點負面影響，因為我們收購了一家收入佔收入百分比低於我們的公司，但仍然只有一個點或 2。這對我們來說是一筆相當大的收購。

So yes, no, I think we are trying to say we'll be in that 40% to 45% margin range. If we did something gigantic, sure. If you go outside of that's way more profitable than us, it would move up. If it's less profitable than us, it moves down. But net-net, I'd be surprised if it changed outside of that range, 40% to 45% based on acquisitions.

所以是的，不，我想我們試圖說我們將在 40% 到 45% 的保證金範圍內。如果我們做了一些巨大的事情，當然。如果你走出那比我們更有利可圖的方式，它會上漲。如果它的利潤低於我們，它就會向下移動。但是淨淨，如果它超出這個範圍，我會感到驚訝，基於收購的 40% 到 45%。

Your next question comes from the line of Kevin Krishnaratne from Scotiabank.

你的下一個問題來自豐業銀行的 Kevin Krishnaratne。

Question for you just on competition or potential competition. Understanding you cover several areas in the broader logistics ecosystem. Just curious, given the momentum that we're seeing in the space, is there any particular areas where you're seeing new competitors or outsized funding from private equity or anything in that regard, areas that are hot? I'm curious what you're seeing and how well you may be positioned in these areas. Are these areas you may be willing to direct more of your attention to from an M&A perspective?

關於競爭或潛在競爭的問題。了解您涵蓋更廣泛的物流生態系統中的多個領域。只是好奇，考慮到我們在該領域看到的勢頭，是否有任何特定領域你看到新的競爭對手或來自私募股權或任何相關領域的超額資金，這些領域是熱門領域？我很好奇你看到了什麼，以及你在這些領域的定位如何。從併購的角度來看，您是否願意更多關注這些領域？

Yes. Thanks, Kevin. We're seeing -- over the last several years, we're seeing a lot more money coming into this space, which I think is good news. I mean you're talking about it in terms of being a competitor, but understand there are also potential acquisition candidates for us, which is as much how we think of it as competition.

是的。謝謝，凱文。我們看到——在過去的幾年裡，我們看到更多的資金進入這個領域，我認為這是個好消息。我的意思是你是在作為競爭對手談論它，但要知道我們也有潛在的收購候選人，這與我們將其視為競爭的方式一樣多。

Competitors come up with new ideas, and we watch 10 of them get started, and we get to see who is the best 1 or 2 guys out there. And maybe one day, we'll end up buying one of those companies. And that tends to be more the way we think about it. But yes, it's absolutely. There's been a ton more investment in the space, and I think that's great news.

參賽者提出了新的想法，我們觀看了其中 10 位參賽者的起步，然後我們可以看看誰是最好的 1 或 2 個人。也許有一天，我們最終會收購其中一家公司。這往往是我們思考它的方式。但是，是的，這絕對是。在這個領域有更多的投資，我認為這是個好消息。

Is there any -- is it just pretty widespread? I'm just curious if there's any particular areas that are popping up.

有沒有 - 它非常普遍嗎？我只是好奇是否有任何特定的區域正在彈出。

Well, you can see the supply chain visibility space is hot. We were the first mover in that space buying MacroPoint. MacroPoint has some competitors that have also attracted a ton of investment. And there's more people popping up in that space all the time. They're also potential customers of ours, right? They need access to the data that we have because we do business with most of the freight brokers in North America. We tend to have more data than any of our competitors in that space and are able to sell that to other people who are building their own supply chain visibility tools but don't have access to a network like ours. So that's been great for us.

嗯，你可以看到供應鏈可見性空間很熱。我們是該領域購買 MacroPoint 的先行者。 MacroPoint 的一些競爭對手也吸引了大量投資。而且一直有更多的人湧入那個空間。他們也是我們的潛在客戶，對吧？他們需要訪問我們擁有的數據，因為我們與北美的大多數貨運經紀人有業務往來。我們往往比該領域的任何競爭對手擁有更多的數據，並且能夠將這些數據出售給正在構建自己的供應鏈可見性工具但無法訪問像我們這樣的網絡的其他人。所以這對我們來說很棒。

You can see all these IoT devices that you're starting to see come out, and I suspect we're just at the beginning of this, but people are making smaller and smaller things to put in packages, to put in pallets, to put in planes and trucks and containers and everything else. And I'll tell you what's happening to your product while it's moving, where it is, what temperature it's at, did it get a hard bounce, all kinds of stuff like that. So you can eventually build software around that to help the big manufacturers and retailers make better decisions about what's going on in their supply chain based on these IoT devices that are out there. So I think we're at the beginning of that right now, hundreds, if not thousands, of companies that start up based on that. And we're really excited about it because that's all information that we can use to help our customers get better results.

你可以看到所有這些你開始看到的物聯網設備問世，我懷疑我們才剛剛開始，但人們正在製造越來越小的東西來放入包裝、放入托盤、放置在飛機、卡車、集裝箱和其他所有東西中。我會告訴你你的產品在移動時發生了什麼，它在哪裡，它處於什麼溫度，它有沒有硬反彈，諸如此類的各種事情。因此，您最終可以圍繞它構建軟件，以幫助大型製造商和零售商根據現有的這些物聯網設備，就其供應鏈中發生的事情做出更好的決策。所以我認為我們現在正處於起步階段，數百家（如果不是數千家）公司都是以此為基礎的。我們對此感到非常興奮，因為這是我們可以用來幫助客戶獲得更好結果的所有信息。

Got it. I appreciate those comments. Maybe to continue on the M&A, I know it's definitely been picking up a bit, assets getting a little bit bigger. Can you -- it's been a while. I think the last several acquisitions you made have been all cash. I know in the past, MacroPoint did include some stock. I'm just curious about your philosophy on purchase price for acquisitions, your decision on mix of cash and equity? Any thoughts there?

知道了。我很欣賞這些評論。也許繼續進行併購，我知道它肯定有所回升，資產變得更大了。你能——已經有一段時間了。我認為你最近幾次收購都是現金。我知道過去，MacroPoint 確實包括一些股票。我只是想知道你對收購價格的看法，你對現金和股權組合的決定？有什麼想法嗎？

I mean we try to be cash buyers. When people get -- when you see stock getting pitched in a deal, it's usually because the people that own the business have asked for some component of it to be in Descartes stock. Oftentimes, they go, hey, we're buying some company for, say, $50 million. And they're going on, I'll take $40 million of it in cash and $10 million of it in stock. And if they request it from us, that's good news for us.

我的意思是我們試圖成為現金買家。當人們得到 - 當你看到股票在交易中被推銷時，通常是因為擁有該企業的人要求其某些組成部分在笛卡爾股票中。通常，他們會說，嘿，我們要以 5000 萬美元的價格收購某家公司。他們還在繼續，我將拿走其中的 4000 萬美元現金和 1000 萬美元股票。如果他們向我們提出要求，那對我們來說是個好消息。

We're not really up for -- we're not looking for reasons to dilute our shareholders. But if the owner of our business says, hey, I want you to buy the company. I want to pick you guys to be the buyer, and I want to take back some Descartes stock, we look at that as something that we should do, right? And now I have an owner in that business. It's probably going to still work here and probably going to be very vested in our success. So that's something we'll almost always say yes to.

我們並不是真的 - 我們不是在尋找稀釋股東的理由。但如果我們公司的老闆說，嘿，我要你買下這家公司。我想選擇你們作為買家，我想收回一些笛卡爾股票，我們認為這是我們應該做的事情，對吧？現在我有了那家公司的老闆。它可能仍會在這裡發揮作用，並且可能會非常依賴我們的成功。所以這是我們幾乎總是會同意的事情。

Got it. Maybe just the last one for me, just a question on the sort of your marketing spend and efforts. I think it was just over a year ago when you kind of talked about more meaningfully stepping up the efforts there, the customer success team, the new digital marketing initiatives. I'm just wondering how that's been progressing? Are you happy with the ROI? Is there anything you could share there in terms of net retention, share of wallet increases? Is there anything that you're seeing or that you're willing to share in terms of the return on that step-up that you've been through?

知道了。也許對我來說只是最後一個，只是關於你的營銷支出和努力的問題。我想就在一年多以前，當你談論更有意義地加強那裡的努力時，客戶成功團隊，新的數字營銷計劃。我只是想知道這進展如何？您對投資回報率滿意嗎？在淨保留率、錢包份額增加方面，您有什麼可以分享的嗎？關於你所經歷的提升的回報，你有什麼看到或願意分享的嗎？

We're very happy with it. I don't know that I want to release any more retention stats than we already do. We think it's been very helpful for us. We're -- we've had enough success with it in the last year that we're starting to roll it out now in Europe as well. And we think it's -- as our business gets bigger, we need to do things like that to stay as close to the customers as we were when we were a small company. And we think investments like this are the smart thing to do. And the good news is we went and did it over the last 2 years, and it really worked well, and we're doing more of it as a result.

我們對此非常滿意。我不知道我是否想發布比我們已經發布的更多的保留統計數據。我們認為這對我們很有幫助。我們 - 我們在去年取得了足夠的成功，我們現在也開始在歐洲推出它。我們認為，隨著我們的業務越來越大，我們需要做這樣的事情，以便像我們還是一家小公司時那樣貼近客戶。我們認為這樣的投資是明智之舉。好消息是我們在過去 2 年裡一直在做這件事，它確實運作良好，因此我們正在做更多的事情。

Your next question comes from the line of Steven Li from Raymond James.

你的下一個問題來自 Raymond James 的 Steven Li。

Maybe a question for Allan to start. Can I check with you, so the overall organic growth is around 7.5% at constant currency, Allan?

也許是艾倫開始的問題。我可以和你核實一下嗎，艾倫，按固定匯率計算，整體有機增長率約為 7.5%？

Yes. So in the prepared comments, we mentioned 9.5% growth in services revenue. We did see a slight drop in professional service and other revenue. It was partly hardware, a little bit on the P&L side.

是的。因此，在準備好的評論中，我們提到了服務收入增長 9.5%。我們確實看到專業服務和其他收入略有下降。它部分是硬件，有點在損益方面。

When you blend those together for the fourth quarter, we are somewhere in that 7.5%, 8% range. But most important for us is going to be that long-term growth in services, which is highly recurring revenue for us. So 9.5% on services coming down to sort of that 7.5%, 8% on the total revenue.

當你將第四季度的這些混合在一起時，我們處於 7.5%、8% 的範圍內。但對我們來說最重要的是服務的長期增長，這對我們來說是高度經常性的收入。因此，服務的 9.5% 下降到 7.5%，佔總收入的 8%。

Got it. And I was curious, given the higher PS mix with GroundCloud, does that not mean that the services organic growth going forward is going to miss those PS organic growth from GroundCloud? Is it better to look at the overall organic growth?

知道了。我很好奇，考慮到更高的 PS 與 GroundCloud 的組合，這是否意味著未來的服務有機增長將錯過 GroundCloud 的 PS 有機增長？看看整體有機增長是否更好？

Sorry, I didn't catch your question.

對不起，我沒聽清你的問題。

Because I believe your services organic growth, you exclude PS revenues from that, right? And I was asking, given your recent acquisition, GroundCloud, a lot of -- well, a higher mix of their revenues is PS. Looking at services organic growth, would we be missing the organic growth coming from those PS revenue streams from GroundCloud?

因為我相信你的服務有機增長，所以你從中排除了 PS 收入，對嗎？我問的是，鑑於你最近收購了 GroundCloud，很多——嗯，他們收入的更高組合是 PS。看看服務的有機增長，我們是否會錯過來自 GroundCloud 的 PS 收入流的有機增長？

Yes. Listen, we're obviously going to try to grow that business, both on the subscription side for the software as well as the PS side. I mean realistically, for us, the subscription piece should grow faster if we execute to our plan. We will continue to focus on both elements, but -- and we'll just disclose to you as we go. I mean we're disclosing services revenue growth because that's the most relevant number for us and the long-term piece of the business, but both will be important, and we'll message accordingly.

是的。聽著，我們顯然會嘗試在軟件訂閱方面和 PS 方面發展這項業務。我的意思是，實際上，對我們來說，如果我們執行我們的計劃，訂閱部分應該會增長得更快。我們將繼續關注這兩個要素，但是 - 我們只會在進行時向您透露。我的意思是我們正在披露服務收入增長，因為這對我們來說是最相關的數字，也是業務的長期部分，但兩者都很重要，我們會相應地傳達信息。

Got it. And then, Ed, just given your comments there, so shipment volumes on one side and then -- but other part is booming. With this organic growth like 7%, 8%, high single digit, would it be a good base for this year? Or we can do better than that?

知道了。然後，Ed，剛剛在那裡給出了你的評論，所以一方面的出貨量然後 - 但其他部分正在蓬勃發展。有了 7%、8% 的高個位數有機增長，它會成為今年的良好基數嗎？或者我們可以做得更好？

Well, I mean, we think we're going to be in that range. I mean we always kind of plan to run our business in the 4% to 6% organic revenue growth range and trying to get 10% to 15% EBITDA growth out of that. You've seen us do much better than that in the past years. But if the economy kind of went into a boom period there for a year or 2 and it started to come back down, we're pretty happy being in that 9% range right now. And just think that came from quality of acquisitions growth that we put -- quality of acquisitions that we brought on in the past, a little bit of it from customers thinking that supply chains and logistics is a lot more important than they thought it was pre-pandemic. And yes, I'm hopeful that, that range stays up in that 8%, 9%, but we'll just have to see.

嗯，我的意思是，我們認為我們會在那個範圍內。我的意思是，我們總是計劃在 4% 到 6% 的有機收入增長范圍內經營我們的業務，並試圖從中獲得 10% 到 15% 的 EBITDA 增長。你已經看到我們比過去幾年做得更好。但是，如果那裡的經濟進入繁榮期一兩年，然後開始回落，我們很高興現在處於 9% 的範圍內。想想看，這來自我們提出的收購增長的質量——我們過去帶來的收購質量，其中有一點來自客戶認為供應鍊和物流比他們認為的更重要-大流行。是的，我希望這個範圍保持在 8%、9% 的水平，但我們只需要拭目以待。

Got it. And then, Ed, you also -- your comment, you said shipping volumes may increase for the year. So does that mean maybe we see a slower first half and maybe better second half in terms of organic growth as well?

知道了。然後，Ed，你也 - 你的評論，你說今年的運輸量可能會增加。那麼，這是否意味著就有機增長而言，我們上半年可能會放緩，下半年可能會更好？

Yes. I mean I don't want to make predictions a year out. But if our customers do well like that, yes, I would expect our business to continue to do better and better over time.

是的。我的意思是我不想在一年後做出預測。但如果我們的客戶那樣做得好，是的，我希望我們的業務隨著時間的推移繼續做得越來越好。

Got it. And then a couple of questions on your recent acquisitions. So GroundCloud, what has been the growth profile in recent years? And was it all organic?

知道了。然後是關於您最近收購的幾個問題。那麼 GroundCloud，近年來的增長情況如何？這一切都是有機的嗎？

It was. They're a fast-growing company, and it was all organic.

它是。他們是一家快速發展的公司，而且一切都是有機的。

So sorry, did you say double digit in terms of growth, Ed?

抱歉，Ed，您說的是兩位數的增長嗎？

I didn't call out specific digits. But it's a fast-growing company. It's one of the reasons we wanted to buy it. And we think we have an opportunity to expose it to a lot more customers. And as a result, maybe continue that growth into the future.

我沒有說出具體數字。但它是一家快速發展的公司。這是我們想要購買它的原因之一。我們認為我們有機會向更多客戶展示它。因此，也許會在未來繼續這種增長。

Got it. And then maybe an update on the XPS, I remember the earnout there was sizable. How are they doing so far? And would you expect them to be hitting their earnout targets this year?

知道了。然後可能是 XPS 的更新，我記得那裡的收入相當可觀。到目前為止，他們的表現如何？您是否希望他們今年能達到盈利目標？

I don't know if I could speak to the earnout targets. But yes, they're doing very well since they've gotten here. It's been a great business for us, and we're really happy we bought it. I'm not going to comment on the earnout until we -- they get there. But we're very happy with the acquisition so far, let's put it that way.

我不知道我是否可以與盈利目標交談。但是，是的，自從他們來到這里以來，他們做得很好。這對我們來說是一項偉大的業務，我們很高興我們買了它。在我們——他們到達那里之前，我不會對收益發表評論。但到目前為止，我們對此次收購非常滿意，讓我們這樣說吧。

Your next question comes from the line of Scott Group from Wolfe.

您的下一個問題來自 Wolfe 的 Scott Group。

So is there a lot of -- is there much seasonality to the revenue at GroundCloud? Or should we try and take -- should we take like the bump in the baseline for Q1 and annualize that? I'm just trying to figure out the right way to try and ballpark full year revenue?

那麼，GroundCloud 的收入是否有很多季節性因素？或者我們應該嘗試採取——我們應該像第一季度的基線那樣採取措施並將其年化嗎？我只是想找出正確的方法來嘗試估計全年收入？

It's a fairly consistent performing business, yes. There's not a ton of seasonality.

是的，這是一個相當穩定的表現業務。沒有太多的季節性。

But is it a kind of business where you would expect the actual revenue to outperform the baseline like we see in the rest of the business?

但它是否是一種業務，您會像我們在其他業務中看到的那樣，期望實際收入超過基線？

I don't know the exact numbers, but yes, with most of our business, we're expecting a baseline. And then quarter-to-quarter, there'll be some increase in the business as we get the actual results in. And I think GroundCloud would probably be no different.

我不知道確切的數字，但是是的，對於我們的大部分業務，我們都期望有一個基線。然後逐個季度，隨著我們獲得實際結果，業務會有一些增長。我認為 GroundCloud 可能不會有什麼不同。

Okay. And then I know it's obviously the very beginning of the year. You always talk about 10% to 15% EBITDA. I think you've pretty much get there to the high end or exceed it every year. I know it's early, but what's the visibility to repeating that again this year?

好的。然後我知道這顯然是一年的開始。你總是談論 10% 到 15% 的 EBITDA。我認為你幾乎每年都達到或超過高端。我知道現在還早，但今年再次重複這種情況的可見性如何？

We don't take our bonuses when we don't get to 15%. So we're all planning on getting to 15%. I think we've beaten it 15 years in a row, Scott. And I obviously can't make a promise about it, but that's certainly our intention is to be at 15% or better. Let's say, 10% to 15%, and we do our darndest to get to 15%.

當我們沒有達到 15% 時，我們不會領取獎金。所以我們都計劃達到 15%。我認為我們已經連續 15 年擊敗它，斯科特。我顯然不能對此做出承諾，但這肯定是我們的意圖是達到 15% 或更高。比方說，10% 到 15%，我們盡最大努力達到 15%。

Your next question comes from the line of Raimo Lenschow from Barclays.

你的下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的 Raimo Lenschow。

This is Jeremy on for Raimo. I was just wondering if you could share a bit more detail on how the e-commerce business is trending. Would you say like it's reached more of a steady state post deceleration from the pandemic? Or really, any color you can share there would be helpful.

這是 Raimo 的 Jeremy。我只是想知道您是否可以分享更多關於電子商務業務趨勢的細節。你會說它在從大流行病中減速後達到了更穩定的狀態嗎？或者實際上，您可以在那里分享的任何顏色都會有所幫助。

Sure. Thanks, Jeremy. So we had massive growth coming out of the pandemic in end of '20 and 2021, like a lot of e-commerce companies had. I think we ended up in a different circumstance soon thereafter. A lot of e-commerce companies that we saw went flat. That's not what happened to us. We kind of went back to our normal low double-digit growth coming out of that, and we continue to see that be the case right now.

當然。謝謝，傑里米。因此，我們在 20 年底和 2021 年從大流行中獲得了巨大的增長，就像許多電子商務公司一樣。我想我們很快就陷入了不同的境地。我們看到的很多電子商務公司都表現平平。那不是發生在我們身上的事。我們有點回到正常的低兩位數增長，我們現在繼續看到這種情況。

It's a very nice business for us. It continues to grow at a nice pace every quarter. And yes, we're still seeing -- I don't want to use the word flat because it's -- the growth rates are flat, but it's still growing nicely every quarter and every year coming out of that big blip in the beginning of the pandemic. When I read the newspapers about some other e-commerce results, I don't think we're subject to the same things that they are. I mean maybe because we're selling a lot more new customers so we continue to get growth even if e-commerce sales are flat for a quarter or so.

這對我們來說是一項非常好的業務。它每個季度都繼續以良好的速度增長。是的，我們仍然看到——我不想使用持平這個詞，因為它——增長率是持平的，但它在每個季度和每年都在從年初的那個大波動中恢復過來。大流行。當我在報紙上讀到其他一些電子商務結果時，我認為我們所受的影響與它們不同。我的意思是，也許是因為我們銷售了更多的新客戶，所以即使電子商務銷售額在一個季度左右持平，我們也會繼續實現增長。

There are no further questions at this time. Ed Ryan, please proceed.

目前沒有其他問題。 Ed Ryan，請繼續。

Okay. Thanks, everyone. Appreciate all your time today, and I hope to see you as we're out on the road in the coming weeks. And otherwise, I look forward to reporting back to you next quarter. Have a great night, and thanks for your time.

好的。感謝大家。感謝你今天所有的時間，我希望在接下來的幾周里見到你。除此之外，我期待下個季度向您報告。祝你度過一個愉快的夜晚，感謝你的時間。

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

女士們，先生們，今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的參與。您現在可以斷開連接。