Guidewire Software Inc (GWRE) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to the Guidewire Fourth Quarter and Full Year Fiscal 2023 Financial Results Conference Call.

您好，歡迎參加 Guidewire 2023 財年第四季度和全年財務業績電話會議。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員說明）

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Alex Hughes, Vice President, Investor Relations. Thank you, Alex. You may begin.

提醒一下，本次會議正在錄製中。現在我很高興向您介紹主持人，投資者關係副總裁 Alex Hughes。謝謝你，亞歷克斯。你可以開始了。

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Alex Hughes, Vice President of Investor Relations, and with me today is Mike Rosenbaum, Chief Executive Officer and Jeff Cooper, Chief Financial Officer. The complete disclosure of our results can be found in our press release issued today as well as in our related Form 8-K furnished to the SEC, both of which are available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Today's call is being recorded, and a replay will be available following the conclusion of the call.

謝謝你，接線員。大家下午好。我是投資者關係副總裁 Alex Hughes，今天與我在一起的是首席執行官 Mike Rosenbaum 和首席財務官 Jeff Cooper。我們的結果的完整披露可以在我們今天發布的新聞稿以及我們向 SEC 提供的相關表格 8-K 中找到，這兩個表格都可以在我們網站的投資者關係部分找到。今天的通話正在錄音，通話結束後將進行重播。

Statements made on the call include forward-looking ones regarding our financial results, products, customer demand, operations, the impact of local, national and geopolitical events on our business and other matters. These statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions and are based on management's current expectations as of today and should not be relied upon as representing our views of any subsequent date. Please refer to the press release and the risk factors and documents we file with the SEC, including our most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q and our prior and forthcoming annual reports on Form 10-K filed and duly filed with the SEC for information on risks and uncertainties and assumptions that may cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in such statements.

電話會議上發表的聲明包括有關我們的財務業績、產品、客戶需求、運營、地方、國家和地緣政治事件對我們業務的影響以及其他事項的前瞻性聲明。這些陳述受到風險、不確定性和假設的影響，並且基於管理層截至目前的當前預期，不應被視為代表我們對任何後續日期的觀點。請參閱新聞稿以及我們向 SEC 提交的風險因素和文件，包括我們最近向 SEC 提交的 10-Q 表格季度報告以及之前和即將向 SEC 提交並正式提交的 10-K 表格年度報告可能導致實際結果與此類聲明中規定的結果存在重大差異的風險、不確定性和假設。

We also will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures to provide additional information to investors. All commentary on margins, profitability and expenses are on a non-GAAP basis unless stated otherwise. A reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP measures is provided in our press release. Reconciliations and additional data are also posted in the supplemental on our IR website.

我們還將參考某些非公認會計準則財務指標，為投資者提供更多信息。除非另有說明，所有關於利潤率、盈利能力和費用的評論均基於非公認會計原則。我們的新聞稿中提供了非公認會計原則與公認會計原則措施的調節。調節表和附加數據也發佈在我們 IR 網站的補充資料中。

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

現在，我將把電話轉給邁克。

Thank you, Alex. Good afternoon, and thanks, everyone, for joining today. I want to start the call by expressing a sincere appreciation to everyone on the Guidewire team for all of their hard work and determination these last few years. Pivoting a software company, leading its category to a new cloud delivery model was never going to be easy. But I think that if we're being honest, sometimes it felt harder than expected. But the culture of this company and the determined approach to steady and daily progress all contributed to and culminated in what ended up being a fabulous result for us this fiscal year.

謝謝你，亞歷克斯。下午好，謝謝大家今天的加入。在通話開始時，我想向 Guidewire 團隊的每個人表示衷心感謝，感謝他們過去幾年的辛勤工作和決心。推動一家軟件公司轉型，引領其行業採用新的雲交付模式絕非易事。但我認為，如果我們說實話，有時會感覺比預想的要困難。但這家公司的文化以及對穩定和日常進步的堅定態度都促成並最終為我們帶來了本財年的神話般的業績。

The fourth quarter sales results were unprecedented and validate that we are very clearly on the right track. We are steadily building a franchise that will have a lasting and positive impact on the P&C insurance industry and will produce the durable, profitable long-term growth that is commensurate with a vertical market leader. We closed 17 cloud deals in the quarter, bringing our total for the year to 37. We finished the year at $763 million in ARR, up 15% and just under $900 million in fully ramped ARR, up 17%. And it's something that I'm particularly proud of, we finished the year at a positive operating margin significantly ahead of our plan.

第四季度的銷售業績是前所未有的，這證明我們顯然走在正確的軌道上。我們正在穩步建立特許經營權，這將對財產和意外傷害保險行業產生持久和積極的影響，並將產生與垂直市場領導者相稱的持久、盈利的長期增長。我們在本季度完成了 17 筆雲交易，使全年總數達到 37 筆。全年我們的 ARR 達到 7.63 億美元，增長 15%，全面提升的 ARR 接近 9 億美元，增長 17%。這是我特別自豪的事情，我們以正營業利潤率結束了這一年，大大提前了我們的計劃。

Underlying these results is a growing acceptance in the industry that the cloud solution we have built is the logical next-generation platform capable of supporting the P&C industry's requirements, goals and aspirations. We are uniquely positioned to be the industry's innovation platform and are now working with carriers of all sizes all over the world to help them engage with customers in new and more efficient ways to innovate and respond to market dynamics quickly with new products and distribution channels and to optimize their operations to help manage through a very challenging business dynamic.

這些結果的背後是業界越來越認可我們構建的雲解決方案是能夠支持財產與意外傷害行業的要求、目標和願望的邏輯下一代平台。我們擁有成為行業創新平台的獨特優勢，目前正在與世界各地各種規模的運營商合作，幫助他們以新的、更有效的方式與客戶互動，通過新產品和分銷渠道進行創新并快速響應市場動態，優化運營，幫助應對極具挑戰性的業務動態。

The financial results this fiscal year clearly demonstrate a market position and sense of conclusion to what I would say was our cloud transformation. We are very clearly now the leading cloud platform serving our industry, and this position affords us the opportunity to redirect our focus towards the products and innovation that enable insurers to engage, innovate and grow efficiently. As I said, it was an incredible end to an incredible year, and I want to call out several key takeaways that are important for us strategically.

本財年的財務業績清楚地展示了我們的市場地位和我所說的雲轉型的結論。顯然，我們現在是服務於我們行業的領先雲平台，這一地位使我們有機會將重點轉向產品和創新，使保險公司能夠有效參與、創新和增長。正如我所說，這是令人難以置信的一年的令人難以置信的結束，我想指出對我們具有戰略意義的幾個關鍵要點。

First, we saw broad-based strength in our insurance suite on the Guidewire Cloud platform. We made notable progress up market with Tier 1 insurers. We saw momentum in all key geographies and continue to see balanced momentum in both new logos and on-prem to cloud migrations. The sales success this quarter is a great validation of our platform and ecosystem centered approach and bolsters our confidence in our go-forward position in the market. Sales highlights in the quarter includes phenomenal progress with Tier 1 insurers, closing 11 Tier 1 deals this quarter. This includes a win at Progressive Insurance, one of the leading insurance brands in North America, where our partnership is specific to their non-personal auto lines of business and a full suite win at Allstate Canada.

首先，我們在 Guidewire 雲平台上的保險套件中看到了廣泛的優勢。我們在一級保險公司的高端市場取得了顯著進展。我們看到了所有關鍵地區的勢頭，並繼續看到新徽標和本地到雲遷移的平衡勢頭。本季度的銷售成功充分驗證了我們以平台和生態系統為中心的方法，並增強了我們對市場領先地位的信心。本季度的銷售亮點包括與一級保險公司取得的顯著進展，本季度完成了 11 筆一級交易。其中包括贏得北美領先保險品牌之一 Progressive Insurance 的勝利，我們的合作夥伴關係專門針對他們的非個人汽車業務線，以及贏得加拿大 Allstate 的全套服務。

Based on the success this quarter, we now have some form of core systems relationship with 13 of the top 15 insurers globally, including 12 with Guidewire Cloud and with exciting potential to expand these relationships over time. This fact validates the strategic focus that we have always placed on this specific segment of the market and is very demanding and unique set of requirements. We also drove further global expansion of GWCP with 3 wins in Europe and 2 in our Asia Pacific market. This international success was highlighted by a major commitment from IAG, a leading Australian insurer to adopt PolicyCenter on Guidewire Cloud Platform. This is a tremendous validation of our platform approach and combined with the local insurance content required to ensure Guidewire is the right choice in every key market we serve.

基於本季度的成功，我們現在與全球15 強保險公司中的13 家建立了某種形式的核心系統關係，其中12 家與Guidewire Cloud 建立了某種形式的核心系統關係，並且隨著時間的推移，我們具有擴展這些關係的令人興奮的潛力。這一事實證實了我們始終將戰略重點放在這一特定市場領域，並且提出了非常苛刻且獨特的要求。我們還進一步推動了 GWCP 的全球擴張，在歐洲市場取得了 3 場胜利，在亞太市場取得了 2 場胜利。澳大利亞領先的保險公司 IAG 做出了在 Guidewire 雲平台上採用 PolicyCenter 的重大承諾，突顯了這一國際成功。這是對我們平台方法的巨大驗證，並與確保 Guidewire 成為我們服務的每個關鍵市場的正確選擇所需的本地保險內容相結合。

As I have mentioned in previous calls, we continue to see signals from the market that there is opportunity for us in competitive takeouts. And in Q4, we completed an agreement with West Bend Mutual Insurance to move their claims processes to ClaimCenter on the Guidewire Cloud Platform. Competitive displacements are rare in our industry, and I believe our recent momentum in this area speaks to our track record, strength of platform and growing market alignment to our vision. And finally, it was great to see InsuranceNow also achieve a competitive takeout at a Tier 3 insurer, which represented its largest win in the last 5 years.

正如我在之前的電話會議中提到的，我們繼續從市場中看到信號，表明我們在競爭性外賣中存在機會。在第四季度，我們與 West Bend Mutual Insurance 達成協議，將他們的索賠流程轉移到 Guidewire 雲平台上的索賠中心。在我們的行業中，競爭性替代是罕見的，我相信我們最近在這一領域的勢頭證明了我們的業績記錄、平台實力以及不斷增長的市場與我們願景的契合度。最後，很高興看到 InsuranceNow 也實現了對三級保險公司的競爭，這是其過去 5 年來最大的勝利。

As I mentioned in last quarter's call, P&C insurers are working through a challenging and complex environment that has stressed almost every insurance company in the world. The decision to embark on a core transformation in the midst of this market dynamic is consequential, and I believe supports the fact that our relationship with these carriers is highly strategic and expected to last decades. It was very gratifying to see so many of the deals we were working on this quarter close, and I look forward to driving the follow-through expected of us based on the trust that they have placed in our company.

正如我在上季度的電話會議中提到的，財產和意外傷害保險公司正在面臨充滿挑戰和復雜的環境，這給世界上幾乎所有保險公司帶來了壓力。在這種市場動態中進行核心轉型的決定是重要的，我相信這支持了這樣一個事實：我們與這些運營商的關係具有高度戰略性，預計將持續數十年。看到我們本季度正在進行的如此多的交易完成，我感到非常高興，我期待著基於他們對我們公司的信任，推動我們的後續工作。

Turning to adoption. We continue to make progress in cloud deployments with 13 go-lives on Guidewire Cloud Platform in the quarter, and we enter our new fiscal year positioned for continued success. Supporting this momentum is a healthy and growing ecosystem of SIs who continue to be valuable partners as we transition the industry to cloud. We finished the quarter with over 23,000 Guidewire consultants in our systems integrator ecosystem and over 8,000 of these are now cloud certified, a total that grew 53% this fiscal year.

轉向收養。我們在雲部署方面繼續取得進展，本季度 Guidewire 雲平台上有 13 個上線，我們進入新財年，為繼續取得成功做好了準備。支持這一勢頭的是一個健康且不斷發展的 SI 生態系統，在我們將行業轉向雲的過程中，SI 仍然是有價值的合作夥伴。本季度結束時，我們的系統集成商生態系統中有超過 23,000 名 Guidewire 顧問，其中 8,000 多名顧問現已獲得云認證，本財年總數增長了 53%。

Additionally, we continue to drive more efficiency in our cloud product and company overall. Jeff will talk more about this in a minute, but the significant improvements we are driving in cloud efficiency, along with better operating leverage means we crossed back into positive operating margin this year. The work that Diego Devalle and our development teams are doing to not only ensure we're building out a secure and reliable service, but also beat their efficiency targets was tremendous. This is a meaningful milestone that we were able to achieve ahead of plan, and it gives us increased confidence that we will continue to grow -- steadily grow into our target model.

此外，我們將繼續提高雲產品和公司的整體效率。傑夫將在一分鐘內詳細討論這一點，但我們在雲效率方面推動的重大改進以及更好的運營槓桿意味著我們今年重新實現了正運營利潤率。 Diego Devalle 和我們的開發團隊所做的工作是巨大的，不僅確保我們構建安全可靠的服務，而且還超越了他們的效率目標。這是我們能夠提前實現的一個有意義的里程碑，它讓我們更有信心繼續成長——穩步成長為我們的目標模型。

Finally, our pipeline entering fiscal '24 is healthy as we continue to enhance the capability of our platform with each release as we continue to grow our ecosystem of partner applications in our marketplace. As we continue to hone our analytics and data offerings, the value proposition we offer to our customers improves and our competitive position improves. This sets us up well for the new year and gives us a clear path to our fiscal '25 targets of $1 billion in ARR and 14% non-GAAP operating margin.

最後，我們進入 24 財年的渠道是健康的，因為我們繼續在每個版本中增強我們平台的功能，同時我們繼續在市場中發展我們的合作夥伴應用程序生態系統。隨著我們不斷完善我們的分析和數據產品，我們為客戶提供的價值主張得到改善，我們的競爭地位也得到改善。這為我們新的一年奠定了良好的基礎，並為我們實現 25 財年 10 億美元的 ARR 和 14% 的非 GAAP 營業利潤率目標提供了明確的道路。

Jeff will talk more about our deal dynamics and how they translate to ARR and fully ramped ARR. But coming out of a tremendous Q4, we feel great about the business, our pipeline, the success customers are seeing in our platform, and how we are tracking towards our long-term targets. Last comment before turning it over to Jeff. While we are proud of the work we have done to put us in a position to hit our financial targets, we are more proud of the potential we've created to meaningfully and positively impact the industry we serve. Our position as the leading cloud platform for the P&C industry affords us the opportunity to now amplify our focus on the business processes and decisions that drive improved insurance outcomes. We can legitimately improve the efficiency of the broader industry, which ultimately helps people, families and corporations better manage and transfer risk. I'm very excited about this potential, and I'm confident in sitting on behalf of everyone at Guidewire that we are all motivated to continue driving this mission forward.

Jeff 將更多地談論我們的交易動態以及它們如何轉化為 ARR 和全面提升的 ARR。但在經歷了巨大的第四季度後，我們對業務、我們的管道、客戶在我們平台上看到的成功以及我們如何跟踪我們的長期目標感到非常滿意。將其交給傑夫之前的最後評論。雖然我們為我們為實現財務目標所做的工作感到自豪，但我們更為我們所創造的潛力感到自豪，這些潛力對我們所服務的行業產生了有意義和積極的影響。我們作為財產與意外險行業領先的雲平台的地位使我們有機會現在更加關注業務流程和決策，以推動改善保險結果。我們可以合法地提高更廣泛行業的效率，最終幫助人們、家庭和企業更好地管理和轉移風險。我對這種潛力感到非常興奮，我有信心代表 Guidewire 的每個人，我們都有動力繼續推動這一使命向前發展。

With that, I'll turn it over to Jeff to discuss the financials.

有了這個，我會把它交給傑夫來討論財務問題。

Thanks, Mike. Fourth quarter ARR ended at $761.4 million, up 15% year-over-year on a constant currency basis ahead of our expectations. As a reminder, we measure ARR on a constant currency basis throughout the year and then update ARR for year-end FX rates. Making this update modestly impacted ARR by $1.1 million, resulting in ARR of $762.5 million. This outcome was ahead of our expectation due to very strong sales activity in the quarter. As Mike noted, this Q4 saw tremendous execution and was our largest quarter ever. Fully ramped ARR, which is defined as the fully ramped annual price outlined in our customer contracts grew 17% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. This is a meaningful acceleration compared with 14% growth last year and again, is a reflection of the better-than-expected Q4 sales activity.

謝謝，邁克。第四季度 ARR 為 7.614 億美元，按固定匯率計算同比增長 15%，超出了我們的預期。提醒一下，我們全年以固定貨幣為基礎衡量 ARR，然後更新年末外匯匯率的 ARR。此次更新對 ARR 產生了 110 萬美元的輕微影響，最終 ARR 達到 7.625 億美元。由於本季度的銷售活動非常強勁，這一結果超出了我們的預期。正如邁克指出的那樣，第四季度的執行情況非常好，是我們有史以來規模最大的季度。全面提升的 ARR 定義為我們的客戶合同中規定的全面提升的年度價格（按固定匯率計算）同比增長 17%。與去年 14% 的增長相比，這是一個有意義的加速，反映出第四季度銷售活動好於預期。

Our sales activity in Q4 is a validation of our investment strategy as we work to modernize this industry. Cloud ARR, which includes ARR for all of our cloud products and for customers that have contracted to move to the cloud, grew 28% year-over-year and comprised 59% of total ARR. Total revenue for the year was $905 million, ahead of our expectations due to stronger performance across all components of revenue. Notably, cloud strength continues to be visible in subscription revenue, which was $352 million, up 36% year-over-year. It is exciting to see the progression of our subscription revenue line.

我們第四季度的銷售活動驗證了我們致力於實現該行業現代化的投資策略。雲 ARR（包括我們所有云產品的 ARR 和已簽約遷移到雲的客戶的 ARR）同比增長 28%，佔總 ARR 的 59%。由於所有收入組成部分均表現強勁，全年總收入為 9.05 億美元，超出了我們的預期。值得注意的是，雲的實力在訂閱收入中繼續顯現，達到 3.52 億美元，同比增長 36%。看到我們的訂閱收入線的進展令人興奮。

In 2018, our subscription revenue was just over $30 million, primarily from acquired products. Since that point, we have delivered a 5-year CAGR of 60%. Subscription and support revenue was $430 million, up 25% year-over-year. Turning to profitability for the fiscal year, which we will discuss on a non-GAAP basis, gross profit was $495 million. This was up 18% year-over-year. Overall gross margin was 55% compared to 52% a year ago. Subscription and support gross margin was 55%, an 8 percentage point increase over last year, driven by margin improvement on our subscription line. We are delivering on the expected benefits associated with running a cloud platform at scale.

2018 年，我們的訂閱收入略高於 3000 萬美元，主要來自收購的產品。自那時起，我們的 5 年復合年增長率為 60%。訂閱和支持收入為 4.3 億美元，同比增長 25%。談到本財年的盈利能力，我們將在非 GAAP 基礎上討論，毛利潤為 4.95 億美元。這一數字同比增長 18%。總體毛利率為 55%，而一年前為 52%。訂閱和支持毛利率為 55%，比去年增長 8 個百分點，這得益於訂閱產品線利潤率的提高。我們正在提供與大規模運行雲平台相關的預期收益。

Services gross margin was just under breakeven compared to positive 3.5% a year ago. Notably, in Q4, services gross was positive 10.5% compared to negative 6.4% a year ago. This is due to the multi-quarter strategy that we have been talking about for some time that includes moving away from fixed bid arrangements, lowering our reliance on subcontractors, and increasing overall services utilization rates. We are pleased with our progress here and expect this to continue into FY '24 and beyond.

服務毛利率略低於盈虧平衡點，而一年前為正值 3.5%。值得注意的是，第四季度服務業總額增長 10.5%，而去年同期為負 6.4%。這是由於我們一段時間以來一直在討論的多季度戰略，包括擺脫固定投標安排、降低對分包商的依賴以及提高整體服務利用率。我們對我們在這裡取得的進展感到高興，並期望這種情況能夠持續到 24 財年及以後。

Operating income was $11.7 million, better than our guidance range due to higher-than-expected total revenue, strong expense management and better-than-expected services gross profit. Overall stock-based compensation was $143 million for the year, up 4% and a little higher than our expectations due to low employee attrition levels. Share repurchase activity in 2023 more than offset the effects of stock-based compensation dilution. Total shares issued and outstanding ended at $81.4 million compared with $84.1 million ended last year. For the year, we bought 4 million shares at an average price of $64.78 per share. Operating cash flow ended the year at $38 million.

由於總收入高於預期、強有力的費用管理和好於預期的服務毛利潤，營業收入為 1170 萬美元，好於我們的指導範圍。由於員工流失率較低，全年股票薪酬總額為 1.43 億美元，增長 4%，略高於我們的預期。 2023 年的股票回購活動足以抵消股票薪酬稀釋的影響。截至去年末，已發行和流通股總額為 8,140 萬美元，而去年為 8,410 萬美元。這一年，我們以每股 64.78 美元的平均價格購買了 400 萬股股票。年底營業現金流為 3800 萬美元。

We are pleased with our collections in the quarter. We ended the quarter with $927.5 million in cash, cash equivalents and investments. After multiple years of strategic investment in our business to drive our industry's adoption of cloud core systems, a key priority in 2023 was to drive efficiency and margin expansion. We are pleased to see strong progress with key profitability measures this year. We are confident in the long-term cash generation potential as we have established our cloud leadership and accelerated our market-leading position.

我們對本季度的產品系列感到滿意。本季度結束時，我們的現金、現金等價物和投資為 9.275 億美元。經過多年對我們的業務進行戰略投資以推動行業採用雲核心系統後，2023 年的首要任務是提高效率和利潤率擴張。我們很高興看到今年關鍵盈利指標取得了強勁進展。我們對長期現金產生潛力充滿信心，因為我們已經建立了雲領導地位並加速了我們的市場領先地位。

Now let me turn to our outlook. For fiscal 2024, we expect ARR of between $846 million and $858 million, representing 12% constant currency at the midpoint. In FY '25, we expect ARR growth to accelerate to 16% to 17%. The driving force behind these growth rates are committed to ramps embedded into our cloud contracts. As I've already noted, full ramped ARR grew 17% this year. This is the highest growth on this metric since 2019. When we look at the shape of the ramps for deals sold in fiscal 2023, we see a pronounced acceleration of annual fees in year 3, which is our fiscal 2025.

現在讓我談談我們的前景。對於 2024 財年，我們預計 ARR 在 8.46 億美元至 8.58 億美元之間，相當於按固定匯率計算的中值 12%。 25 財年，我們預計 ARR 增長將加速至 16% 至 17%。這些增長率背後的驅動力致力於嵌入我們的雲合同中。正如我已經指出的，今年全面提升的 ARR 增長了 17%。這是自 2019 年以來該指標的最高增長。當我們查看 2023 財年銷售交易的坡道形狀時，我們發現第 3 年（即 2025 財年）的年費明顯加速。

Total revenue for the year is expected to be between $976 million and $986 million. We expect that subscription revenue will be approximately $471 million, representing 34% growth. Support revenue will decline by about $8 million year-over-year as a result of the continued migration of our installed base to cloud, resulting in approximately $541 million in subscription and support revenue. As a reminder, support revenue attaches to term license customers for cloud customer support activities are included in the subscription fee.

今年的總收入預計在 9.76 億美元至 9.86 億美元之間。我們預計訂閱收入約為 4.71 億美元，增長 34%。由於我們的安裝基礎持續遷移到雲端，支持收入將同比下降約 800 萬美元，從而導致訂閱和支持收入約為 5.41 億美元。請注意，定期許可證客戶因雲客戶支持活動而獲得的支持收入包含在訂閱費中。

We expect license revenue to decline due to steady progress on cloud migrations. Our outlook for services revenue is approximately $200 million. We are shifting more services work to our partners who have made large investments to align with our cloud approach. This approach allows us to work together with our partners to standardize this industry on Guidewire Cloud Platform. We expect total gross margins for the year to be approximately 60%. Subscription and support gross margins to be approximately 59% and professional services gross margins to be approximately 15%. We are pleased with this progression as we work to continue to drive margin improvement. With respect to operating income, we expect an operating income of between $62 million and $72 million for the fiscal year. We expect growth in operating expenses to continue to be muted in fiscal year 2024.

由於雲遷移的穩步進展，我們預計許可證收入將下降。我們的服務收入預期約為 2 億美元。我們正在將更多的服務工作轉移給我們的合作夥伴，他們已經進行了大量投資，以與我們的雲方法保持一致。這種方法使我們能夠與合作夥伴共同努力，在 Guidewire 雲平台上標準化該行業。我們預計今年的總毛利率約為 60%。訂閱和支持毛利率約為 59%，專業服務毛利率約為 15%。我們對這一進展感到高興，因為我們致力於繼續推動利潤率的提高。在營業收入方面，我們預計本財年的營業收入在 6200 萬美元至 7200 萬美元之間。我們預計 2024 財年運營費用增長將繼續放緩。

Cash flow from operations in fiscal 2024 is expected to be between $95 million and $125 million. Our CapEx expectations for the year are between $20 million and $25 million, including $15 million in capitalized software development costs. Our Q1 outlook can be found in our earnings press release, but let me provide a bit more color. Given the strong sales activity in Q4, we did not have many deals slip into Q1, so we expect typical seasonality for our first quarter, which impacts sequential ARR growth expectations. We expect subscription and support revenue of approximately $123 million and services revenue of approximately $43 million.

2024 財年運營現金流預計在 9500 萬美元至 1.25 億美元之間。我們今年的資本支出預期在 2000 萬至 2500 萬美元之間，其中包括 1500 萬美元的資本化軟件開發成本。我們的第一季度展望可以在我們的收益新聞稿中找到，但讓我提供更多信息。鑑於第四季度的強勁銷售活動，我們沒有太多交易進入第一季度，因此我們預計第一季度會出現典型的季節性因素，這會影響連續的 ARR 增長預期。我們預計訂閱和支持收入約為 1.23 億美元，服務收入約為 4300 萬美元。

Also, annual employee bonuses and commission expenses related to Q4 sales are paid out in Q1, which impacts cash flow. As a result, we expect cash flow from operations to follow a similar pattern to what we experienced last year. Finally, let me make a comment about our FY '25 targets that we have been tracking for some time now. We will address this in more detail at our Analyst Day, but I wanted to make a comment quickly here. As Mike noted, we remain focused on achieving our target of $1 billion in ARR and the strength of Q4 sales activity demonstrates the path to achieving that goal. Total revenue is also tracking to our prior range.

此外，與第四季度銷售相關的年度員工獎金和佣金費用在第一季度支付，這會影響現金流。因此，我們預計運營現金流將遵循與去年類似的模式。最後，讓我對我們已經跟踪了一段時間的 25 財年目標發表評論。我們將在分析師日更詳細地討論這個問題，但我想在這裡快速發表評論。正如 Mike 指出的那樣，我們仍然致力於實現 10 億美元的 ARR 目標，而第四季度銷售活動的強勁勢頭證明了實現這一目標的路徑。總收入也回到了我們之前的範圍。

On the margin side, we're progressing a bit ahead of plan that we discussed at last Analyst Day and our expectations for subscription and support gross margin, total gross margins, operating margins and cash flow from operations margins for fiscal 2025 are now expected to finish closer to the high end of previously discussed ranges. We are thrilled with the progress we made in FY '23 to allow us to deliver increasing confidence towards our long-term targets. We have built a tremendous cloud company at Guidewire, and I want to give special thanks to the finance team for helping Guidewire manage through what has been a complicated business model transition. In summary, we're proud of what the team was able to accomplish in fiscal 2023 and are excited for what fiscal 2024 will bring.

在利潤率方面，我們的進展比我們在上一次分析師日討論的計劃要提前一些，我們對2025 財年訂閱和支持毛利率、總毛利率、營業利潤率和運營利潤率現金流的預期預計將達到收盤接近先前討論的範圍的高端。我們對 23 財年取得的進展感到非常興奮，這使我們對長期目標的信心不斷增強。我們在 Guidewire 建立了一家巨大的雲公司，我要特別感謝財務團隊幫助 Guidewire 管理複雜的業務模式轉型。總之，我們為團隊在 2023 財年取得的成就感到自豪，並對 2024 財年將帶來的成就感到興奮。

With that, let's open the call to questions.

接下來，讓我們開始提問。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員說明）

Our first question is from Dylan Becker with William Blair.

我們的第一個問題是迪倫·貝克爾和威廉·布萊爾提出的。

Great job here. And Mike and Jeff, it seems like the tone is really clear on the model transition. I guess maybe starting with Jeff, obviously, the encouraging sales activity here, there's still some moving parts and I appreciate the color on kind of the '25 targets. I guess can you help us kind of give a sense of what's instilling that confidence relative to the time-based outcomes of the ramped activity, sounds like subscription is very healthy, maybe a little bit of an offset on the services front, but just kind of level set some of the puts and takes relative to the guide and outlook for '24 and '25?

這里幹得好。邁克和傑夫，似乎關於模型轉型的基調非常明確。我想也許從 Jeff 開始，顯然，這裡令人鼓舞的銷售活動，仍然有一些活動部件，我很欣賞 25 年目標的顏色。我想你能幫助我們了解一下是什麼在灌輸相對於基於時間的活動結果的信心，聽起來訂閱非常健康，也許在服務方面有點抵消，但只是善良相對於“24”和“25”的指南和前景，設定了一些看跌期權和採取的水平？

Yes, absolutely. We're thrilled with the activity we saw in Q4. And as you know, we are cloud contracts typically contain multiple years of committed fees in the contracts. We call these ramps, right? So the shape of these ramps can be impacted by a number of factors, including our insurers rollout schedule, their implementation strategy and the business case to potentially support that investment. We noted last quarter that we were thrilled with the activity and what we're seeing in the environment and our ability to transact with some of these ramps, we're taking a little bit more time to develop.

是的，一點沒錯。我們對第四季度看到的活動感到興奮。如您所知，我們的雲合同通常包含多年的承諾費用。我們稱這些為坡道，對嗎？因此，這些斜坡的形狀可能會受到許多因素的影響，包括我們的保險公司的推出時間表、他們的實施策略以及可能支持該投資的業務案例。我們在上個季度指出，我們對這項活動、我們在環境中所看到的以及我們與其中一些坡道進行交易的能力感到興奮，我們需要更多的時間來開發。

Ultimately, I really care the most about getting to an attractive fully ramped value and I was thrilled with the activity that we saw in the quarter to drive to that outcome. That also is what underpins our fully ramped ARR growth of 17%. And so as we inspected the cohort analysis and the deals that underpin kind of the activity in Q4, we did see a little bit of a slower development and that had an impact in how we -- in our outlook for how much of our ARR will come off of the backlog in FY '24. But we also see a material acceleration in FY '25, giving us really good line of sight into some of the longer-term targets that we talked about. So in general, just thrilled with the activity to set us up the foundation for as we think about FY '24 and FY '25.

最終，我真的最關心的是獲得一個有吸引力的全面提升的價值，我對我們在本季度看到的推動這一結果的活動感到興奮。這也是我們 ARR 全面實現 17% 增長的基礎。因此，當我們檢查隊列分析和支撐第四季度活動的交易時，我們確實看到發展有點緩慢，這對我們對 ARR 的預期產生了影響。 24 財年完成積壓工作。但我們也看到了 25 財年的實質性加速，這讓我們對我們談到的一些長期目標有了非常好的視野。因此，總的來說，我們對 24 財年和 25 財年奠定基礎的活動感到非常興奮。

Great. Okay. That's super helpful. Mike, maybe switching over to you. You too kind of from a foundational level, right, the idea of what an intelligent core and embedded analytics can look like and how that courses a shift in these underwriting models. You called out an emphasis on product innovation, but how does this shift the strategic importance of what a core system can look like versus maybe what it was in the traditional sense and how that incentivizes change from both a carrier perspective but also kind of fuels your ongoing innovation road map there as well?

偉大的。好的。這非常有幫助。邁克，也許換給你吧。您也從基礎層面開始了解智能核心和嵌入式分析是什麼樣子以及如何改變這些承保模式的想法。您強調了對產品創新的重視，但這如何改變核心系統的戰略重要性，而不是傳統意義上的系統，以及這如何從運營商的角度激勵變革，同時也推動您的變革。還有正在進行的創新路線圖嗎？

Thanks, Dylan. Great question. And I think it winds up very much to what we -- what I was talking about in the script in terms of carriers being aligned with our strategic vision for the platform and where we're taking Guidewire. I think if you think about just the most basic maybe boring definition of what a core platform needs to be. It needs to be a system of record database for policy claims and builds. But we see an opportunity to do so much more with that platform because really doing anything innovative with -- at an insurance company necessitates a connection to that core system of record.

謝謝，迪倫。很好的問題。我認為這很大程度上取決於我們在劇本中所討論的內容，即運營商與我們平台的戰略願景以及我們將 Guidewire 的發展方向保持一致。我認為，如果你只考慮核心平台需要的最基本的、可能無聊的定義。它需要成為一個用於保單索賠和構建的記錄數據庫系統。但我們看到了利用該平台做更多事情的機會，因為在保險公司真正做任何創新都需要與核心記錄系統連接。

And so it's not just analytics, it's integration, it's the digital interfaces that they need to be able to build to connect to customers, to connect to agents, to connect to brokers, it's also workflow systems to drive better efficiency and automation. And obviously, as you say, is analytics and embedding intelligence into the system. We've worked incredibly hard to ensure that any piece of data, any business process you're running on this core platform, we're capturing every transaction. We're storing every change, every single thing that's happening on that platform and stored in our data platform, available to these companies to be able to run the operational analytics that they need to be able to run just to do business to be able to connect into the financial systems as they need to be able to use to do business and to do the complex sort of multi-period, period-over-period predictions and deep analytics that really basically allow them to make better insurance decisions.

因此，這不僅僅是分析，而是集成，是他們需要能夠構建的數字接口，以連接到客戶、連接到代理、連接到經紀人，它也是工作流程系統，以提高效率和自動化。顯然，正如您所說，是分析並將智能嵌入到系統中。我們非常努力地工作，以確保您在這個核心平台上運行的任何數據、任何業務流程，我們都能捕獲每筆交易。我們正在存儲該平台上發生的每一個變化、每一件事情，並存儲在我們的數據平台中，供這些公司使用，以便能夠運行他們需要運行的運營分析，以便能夠開展業務連接到金融系統，因為他們需要能夠用來開展業務並進行複雜的多周期、跨週期預測和深度分析，這實際上使他們能夠做出更好的保險決策。

We want all of that to be easier and easier and easier for our customers in this industry to harness and leverage. And like I said, it's like broad and more efficient, better insurance industry. We think we've done that with this platform, and we're starting to see that I don't know, attitude, that reality picked up in the demand that we see for the product and the execution that we saw in Q4 in this fiscal year. So I really do like the question because we think that the industry is going to get smarter and get more efficient, and we're excited to be part of it.

我們希望這個行業的客戶能夠越來越容易地利用和利用這一切。就像我說的，這就像更廣泛、更高效、更好的保險業。我們認為我們已經通過這個平台做到了這一點，我們開始看到我不知道的態度，我們在第四季度看到的產品需求和執行中看到了現實。財政年度。所以我真的很喜歡這個問題，因為我們認為這個行業將變得更加智能、更加高效，我們很高興能成為其中的一部分。

Our next question is from Kevin Kumar with Goldman Sachs.

我們的下一個問題來自高盛的凱文·庫馬爾。

Mike, on your comment on displacing other vendors. I think that's 2 quarters in a row that you called that out. So I'm curious, is there a specific pain point or some common themes that's catalyzing these modernizations? And do you view this as a durable theme going forward?

邁克，關於您對取代其他供應商的評論。我想你已經連續兩個季度這麼說了。所以我很好奇，是否有特定的痛點或一些共同的主題正在催化這些現代化？您認為這是一個持久的主題嗎？

There's -- yes, thanks for the question. It certainly depends. I would say part of it is just a bit of frustration with incumbent vendors. And it's not specifically one. It's like the -- there's multiple installed vendors where this is coming up. I'd say there's a bit of frustration associated with this. But maybe that frustration is better understood in the context to, what I'd say, alignment to our innovation vision and the track record that we have been able to establish with our platform and with the successful production implementations that are now live and running on the system.

是的，謝謝你的提問。這當然取決於。我想說，部分原因是對現有供應商的一些不滿。而且它並不是特定的一個。這就像——有多個已安裝的供應商正在出現這種情況。我想說，與此相關的有點令人沮喪。但也許這種挫敗感可以更好地理解，我想說的是，與我們的創新願景和我們通過我們的平台建立的跟踪記錄以及現在正在運行的成功生產實施保持一致系統。

I think if I think about my 4 years at Guidewire, there's been an absolute change in the perspective around us painting a vision and partnering with companies to go ahead and sell it and get through the project to get it implemented and get it live and get it running. But this is now much more something that's becoming the norm, something we're feeling very confident in, something that the systems integrators are feeling very confident in and alignment to that vision helps sort of juxtaposed to the experience that these companies might be having with other vendors.

我想，如果我回想一下我在 Guidewire 的 4 年，我們周圍的觀點發生了絕對的變化：描繪願景、與公司合作、繼續銷售、完成項目、實施、上線並獲得收益。它正在運行。但現在這已經成為常態，我們對此非常有信心，系統集成商也對此非常有信心，並且與這一願景的一致性有助於與這些公司可能擁有的體驗並列。其他供應商。

And so it is a couple of quarters in a row that we're seeing this. We called it out because we thought it was important to sort of identify that this is a reasonable redefinition of how we think about total addressable market like in one case, you could think of Guidewire is only targeting what you might call legacy systems. But if you open that up, broaden the perspective to systems that are already kind of modernized, but not modernized to Guidewire. That's a significant positive change for us. And so every quarter that we see these examples, we're very, very excited about it. And excited to tell you, but more excited to welcome other customers to the fold and to the Guidewire ecosystem.

因此，我們已經連續幾個季度看到這種情況。我們之所以提出這一點，是因為我們認為重要的是要確定這是對我們如何看待整個可尋址市場的合理重新定義，就像在一種情況下，您可以認為Guidewire 僅針對您所謂的遺留系統。但如果你打開它，將視野拓寬到已經現代化的系統，但還沒有現代化到 Guidewire。這對我們來說是一個重大的積極變化。因此，每個季度我們看到這些例子時，都會感到非常非常興奮。我們很高興地告訴您，但更高興的是歡迎其他客戶加入並加入 Guidewire 生態系統。

Great. That's really helpful. And then I wanted to ask about the migration acceleration, specialization that's being rolled out to your partners. I guess what's the implication there in terms of TCO to migrate? And in general, are you feeling more confident in terms of the pipeline of migrations?

偉大的。這真的很有幫助。然後我想詢問有關向您的合作夥伴推出的遷移加速和專業化的問題。我想遷移的 TCO 意味著什麼？總的來說，您對遷移渠道是否更有信心？

We're definitely feeling more confident about identifying all of the things that we need to do to ensure that these projects go smoothly. And what we're excited about extending that expertise, that learning to the SI ecosystem so that we have a broader group of people, sort of more horsepower that we can bring to bear in successfully executing these migrations. I wouldn't necessarily say that it's going to change the pipeline or the run rate of that business for us. We work hard to do that. It's more so the signal that I think you should see is we're confident enough in these programs to now start to extend it to the partners and build that specialization with these specific partners so that we can ensure -- like I said, we've got enough horsepower to meet the demand as we go forward to the next few years.

我們肯定對確定確保這些項目順利進行所需要做的所有事情更有信心。我們很高興能夠擴展這種專業知識，學習 SI 生態系統，以便我們擁有更廣泛的人員群體，我們可以在成功執行這些遷移時發揮更大的作用。我不一定會說這會改變我們該業務的管道或運行率。我們努力做到這一點。我認為您應該看到的信號更重要的是，我們對這些計劃有足夠的信心，現在開始將其擴展到合作夥伴並與這些特定合作夥伴建立專業化，以便我們可以確保- 就像我說的那樣，我們'我們有足夠的馬力來滿足未來幾年的需求。

Really, it's been great to see the balance in the bookings for us over the past couple of quarters between new business and new deals and then also the migration of our customer base, which is progressing very well. So yes, glad that you picked up on that program, I guess, that we've launched this quarter.

確實，很高興看到過去幾個季度我們的新業務和新交易之間的預訂平衡，以及我們客戶群的遷移，進展非常順利。所以，是的，很高興您接受了我們本季度推出的該計劃。

Our next question is from Parker Lane with Stifel.

我們的下一個問題來自 Parker Lane 和 Stifel。

Mike and Jeff, in the context of 17 cloud deals, 13 go-lives here, it looks like the outlook for 2024 fiscal is fairly conservative. Is that primarily a reflection of the pronounced acceleration of ramps in '25? Or is there something else you're baking in there?

Mike 和 Jeff，從 17 筆雲交易、13 筆上線的角度來看，2024 財年的前景似乎相當保守。這主要反映了 25 年斜坡的明顯加速嗎？或者你還在裡面烤別的東西嗎？

Yes. I think it's two things. One, like Jeff said, we have very good visibility into what internally we call the waterfall, right, like contracted ARR that will flow into the model based on agreements that we've already done. Jeff explained that the shape of the ramps that we've already completed, already contracted give us pretty good visibility into what we should expect in '24, what should we expect in '25 and beyond. Then we add to that a projection based on the pipeline we see for fiscal '24, and that gets us to the guide that we provided.

是的。我認為這是兩件事。一，就像傑夫所說，我們對內部所謂的瀑布有很好的了解，對吧，就像合同ARR，它將根據我們已經達成的協議流入模型。傑夫解釋說，我們已經完成、已經簽約的坡道形狀讓我們能夠很好地了解 24 年、25 年及以後的預期。然後我們根據我們看到的 24 財年的管道添加一個預測，這使我們得到了我們提供的指南。

But what's really critical if you really want -- I think you really want to understand how powerful the business is and how great we're doing right now. If you got to look at the 17% growth in fully ramped ARR, and we looked at hey, are we still confident in the fiscal '25 targets. And based on the flow of the ARR coming in off the ramps in fiscal '25, we felt comfortable that we could stick with that. And we could guide to that, effectively signal that acceleration in ARR growth year-to-year. So that's what's driving it.

但如果你真的想要的話，真正重要的是——我認為你真的想了解我們的業務有多麼強大以及我們現在做得有多好。如果你看看 ARR 全面增長 17%，我們會看看，嘿，我們對 25 財年的目標是否仍然充滿信心？根據 25 財年 ARR 的流入情況，我們感到可以堅持下去。我們可以引導這一點，有效地表明 ARR 逐年加速增長。這就是推動它的因素。

Like it's may be a unique business that we have so much visibility into the out years of the committed contracts that we do. But it is the nature of the relationships that we sign up for. And it was a great, great year for us on bookings, and it was nice to be able to get these deals signed and to be able to add as much fully ramped ARR this year as we did.

就像它可能是一項獨特的業務一樣，我們對我們所做的承諾合同的過去幾年有如此多的了解。但這是我們簽署的關係的本質。對於我們的預訂來說，今年是非常非常好的一年，很高興能夠簽署這些交易，並且能夠像我們一樣今年增加盡可能多的全面增加的 ARR。

Got it. Very helpful. And Jeff, just one for you here, a quick one. Is the solid profit outlook for next year more a reflection of the improvements you made on subscription and support gross margins, services or a combination of both?

知道了。很有幫助。傑夫，這裡只是給你一個，一個快速的。明年穩健的利潤前景是否更多地反映了您在訂閱和支持毛利率、服務或兩者的組合方面所做的改進？

Yes. I mean, look, it's -- the subscription and support margins are ultimately going to drive the long-term cash generation of this business. And so the improvements we've made there have been significant, and that's the key driver. But the services organization returning back to positive margin in Q4, I think we have a very solid plan to continue to drive that margin moving forward. I almost think this year, as we look at the services business, we're pushing a lot of work to our partners. We think that that's healthy. We want to do the very strategic high-value work.

是的。我的意思是，看，訂閱和支持利潤最終將推動該業務的長期現金生成。因此，我們在那裡所做的改進是顯著的，這是關鍵的驅動力。但服務組織在第四季度恢復了正利潤率，我認為我們有一個非常可靠的計劃來繼續推動該利潤率向前發展。我幾乎認為今年，當我們審視服務業務時，我們正在向合作夥伴推送大量工作。我們認為這是健康的。我們想做非常具有戰略意義的高價值工作。

And as we manage that business, we're going to manage more to gross profit dollar basis. And so if the revenue was a little bit below our expectations, but came in above our $30 million gross profit dollar that's implied into our guide. That's a good outcome for Guidewire. So -- but we feel confident in that the organization's ability to contribute, which is great.

當我們管理該業務時，我們將更多地以毛利潤為基礎進行管理。因此，如果收入略低於我們的預期，但高於我們指南中隱含的 3000 萬美元毛利潤。這對於 Guidewire 來說是一個很好的結果。所以，但我們對該組織的貢獻能力充滿信心，這非常棒。

Our next question is from Matt VanVliet with BTIG.

我們的下一個問題來自 BTIG 的 Matt VanVliet。

I guess following up a little bit on that last point. Looking at the overall margin profile. Obviously, with the fully ramped deals impacting more of FY '25, maybe that is sort of the underlying answer that you get more cloud efficiency as you get more and more of those deals ramped up. But are there any specific levels or key indicators that you look to point us to at really expanding the gross margin on the cloud business, realizing those efficiencies of scale and being able to truly wind down some of the support costs on the legacy business? Or is it a little too early to tell given some complexity around the mix shift as it happens from more of your customers migrating?

我想對最後一點進行一些跟進。看看整體利潤率概況。顯然，隨著全面增加的交易對 25 財年的影響更大，也許這就是潛在的答案：隨著越來越多的交易增加，您將獲得更高的雲效率。但是，您是否希望向我們指出任何具體水平或關鍵指標，以真正擴大雲業務的毛利率，實現規模效率並能夠真正減少遺留業務的一些支持成本？或者考慮到混合轉變的一些複雜性，因為更多客戶遷移而發生這種情況，現在判斷是否有點為時過早？

I'm going to take a quick pass at this and I'll let Jeff add to it. Expanding margins in my view are going to happen by selling more cloud, continuing to sell more cloud deals, continuing to ramp those deals over time into the fully ramped values as you say. And executing as we have been continuously to improve the efficiency of the cloud platform. So it's both of those things. So we're increasing top line against a fixed headcount expense that we manage very carefully, and we're continuously optimizing the way that we're using these services such that the platform becomes more efficient each period, each release.

我將快速介紹一下這一點，然後讓傑夫補充。在我看來，擴大利潤將通過銷售更多的雲、繼續銷售更多的雲交易、隨著時間的推移繼續將這些交易提升到您所說的完全提升的價值來實現。我們一直在執行，不斷提高雲平台的效率。所以這兩件事都是如此。因此，我們正在根據我們非常仔細管理的固定人員費用來增加收入，並且我們不斷優化我們使用這些服務的方式，以便平台在每個時期、每個版本都變得更加高效。

So the two of those things combined are what drive the improved margins. I don't want people to think that we're dependent on these, like, I think, what did you say, retiring the sort of first phase or like, let's say, legacy versions of the cloud. We're going to work with those customers to migrate them to our Guidewire Cloud Platform. But as I've said, I think in previous calls and other quarters, the -- our targets are not dependent on those transitions. We can achieve -- we're going to do right by those customers, and we're going to manage through that with them but we're going to be able to grow into these margins and execute through these engineering projects, the efficiencies we need to hit those targets. That's the way I see it.

因此，這兩件事的結合推動了利潤率的提高。我不希望人們認為我們依賴於這些，比如，我想，你說什麼，淘汰第一階段或類似的雲的遺留版本。我們將與這些客戶合作，將他們遷移到我們的 Guidewire 雲平台。但正如我所說，我認為在之前的電話會議和其他季度中，我們的目標並不依賴於這些轉變。我們可以實現——我們將為這些客戶做正確的事，我們將與他們一起管理，但我們將能夠增長這些利潤並通過這些工程項目執行，我們的效率需要達到這些目標。我就是這麼看的。

Yes. And I'd just add. I mean, look, I think as we manage through this transition, the outset, we started kind of more some of those early cohorts learning what the cloud requirements were. We developed Guidewire Cloud Platform. We standardized our customers on that platform. And now we are scaling that. I think you've heard us talk for some period of time that we hired a bit in building out a cloud operations function to make sure that we had folks ready to make sure that the early cohorts were successful. And now as we're scaling the platform, we can leverage that investment. So we don't need to add incremental cloud operations head count because we've hired ahead of that demand curve and now we're seeing the scale benefits that we had planned for.

是的。我只想補充一下。我的意思是，我認為，當我們完成這一轉變時，從一開始，我們就開始讓一些早期群體了解雲的需求是什麼。我們開發了Guidewire雲平台。我們在該平台上標準化了我們的客戶。現在我們正在擴大這一規模。我想你已經聽我們談論了一段時間，我們僱傭了一些人來構建雲運營功能，以確保我們有人員準備好確保早期群體的成功。現在，當我們擴展該平台時，我們可以利用該投資。因此，我們不需要增加增量雲運營人員數量，因為我們已經在需求曲線之前進行了招聘，現在我們看到了我們計劃的規模效益。

In general, this is playing out kind of the way we thought it would. Now the other thing that is embedded in here is that ARR follows cash collection cycles. And so we have this dynamic that we talked about, where we're seeing a really healthy step-up in FY '25. When we look at the cohort of the deals sold in FY '23. Subscription revenue normalizes that under ASC 606. And so we are seeing very healthy and durable subscription revenue growth. And the midpoint of our guide implies kind of continued 30-plus percent subscription revenue growth, which is also obviously contributing to the margin expansion story.

總的來說，事情的發展方式與我們想像的一樣。這裡嵌入的另一件事是 ARR 遵循現金收款週期。因此，我們看到了我們所討論的這種動態，我們在 25 財年看到了真正健康的進步。當我們查看 23 財年出售的交易隊列時。訂閱收入在 ASC 606 下實現了正常化。因此，我們看到訂閱收入增長非常健康且持久。我們指南的中點意味著訂閱收入持續增長 30% 以上，這顯然也有助於利潤率擴張。

Okay. Very helpful. And I know John Mullen has been in the head of the sales organization here for quite a while now. Anything you'd point to that has been, as you look back kind of a meaningful shift in either the process or just the flat-out execution? And then you touched on kind of the continued expansion of the SI partnerships. Would you credit him with much of that? Or is it really just a maturation of the industry, they've been investing in the Guidewire practice for a long time, and he's just sort of enhanced that? Anything you'd highlight that he's really kind of brought to the table that has been a sea change for Guidewire?

好的。很有幫助。我知道約翰·馬倫 (John Mullen) 擔任這裡銷售組織的負責人已經有一段時間了。當您回顧過去時，您認為流程或只是全力執行方面發生了有意義的轉變嗎？然後您談到了 SI 合作夥伴關係的持續擴展。你會把這大部分歸功於他嗎？或者這真的只是行業的成熟，他們已經投資 Guidewire 實踐很長時間了，而他只是在某種程度上增強了這一點？您有什麼想強調的，他的加入確實給 Guidewire 帶來了巨大的變化？

Yes. John has been an incredible addition to the leadership team here. I would also say that David Laker, who joined us has been an incredible addition, Michael Mahoney has been an incredible addition to the leadership team. We feel great about the customer components of our team. And now it also give a lot of credit to Christina Colby, who's our Chief Customer Officer, and what she's done to ensure that we've driven the follow-through around making sure that these projects are successful. I feel great about the team and the innovation and the energy that this team has brought to the company. It's for sure their contribution. It's also part for sure, driven by the maturation of the product and the general increased experience that we have as an organization and the ecosystem around what it takes to be successful with these projects.

是的。約翰對這裡的領導團隊來說是一個令人難以置信的補充。我還要說，加入我們的大衛·萊克（David Laker）是一個令人難以置信的補充，邁克爾·馬奧尼（Michael Mahoney）對於領導團隊來說是一個令人難以置信的補充。我們對我們團隊的客戶組成部分感到非常滿意。現在，我們也非常感謝我們的首席客戶官克里斯蒂娜·科爾比（Christina Colby），以及她為確保我們推動後續工作以確保這些項目取得成功所做的努力。我對這個團隊以及這個團隊給公司帶來的創新和活力感到非常滿意。這肯定是他們的貢獻。這也是肯定的一部分，受到產品的成熟以及我們作為一個組織和圍繞這些項目成功所需的生態系統所擁有的經驗的普遍增加的推動。

I think we've talked numbers of times about the conversations that we have with the -- with these insurance buyers, certain not exactly wanting to be on the vanguard of these new programs and wanting to kind of wait until they see the success of other companies who are charting the course ahead of them. Well, that maybe is starting to kick in, right, as you're seeing numbers in the triple digits now of Guidewire Cloud customers and tens of -- maybe not 100 yet, but growing every quarter by over a dozen successful production go-lives. That experience helps us sell. That experience helps gain the confidence we need to get these deals across finish line.

我想我們已經多次談論過我們與這些保險購買者的對話，他們肯定不想成為這些新計劃的先鋒，並希望等到他們看到其他計劃的成功。正在規劃未來發展方向的公司。好吧，這可能已經開始發揮作用了，對吧，因為您現在看到Guidewire Cloud 客戶的數量已達到三位數，還有數十個（可能還不到100 個），但每個季度都會有十多個成功的生產上線。 。這種經驗有助於我們進行銷售。這種經驗有助於我們獲得完成這些交易所需的信心。

So certainly, it's John and the rest of the team that we've added, but it's also a lot of things that contribute to that success. And I would just highlight one additional thing that I think kind of John has helped us think about, and it's reflected in somewhat in the prepared remarks and how I'm describing where we are as a company is we have an opportunity now to think more deeply about and focus our attention around the insurance specific value that we can embed into our products, into our solutions, into our platform. We spent a huge amount of time and effort around building a platform that was going to work worldwide that was going to be successful, secure, reliable and that was going to enable us to scale this thing efficiently and really run the top Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 insurers all over the world on our platform. And that's never done. I don't want to get ahead of myself and say we're finished because we're not.

當然，我們添加了約翰和團隊的其他成員，但也有很多因素促成了這一成功。我只想強調另一件事，我認為約翰幫助我們思考了這一點，這在某種程度上反映在準備好的評論中，以及我如何描述我們作為一家公司的現狀，我們現在有機會思考更多深入了解並集中我們的注意力圍繞我們可以嵌入到我們的產品、解決方案和平台中的保險特定價值。我們花費了大量的時間和精力來構建一個在全球範圍內運行的平台，該平台將是成功的、安全的、可靠的，這將使我們能夠有效地擴展這個東西並真正運行頂級的一級、一級2、我們平台上有世界各地的三級保險公司。但這從未完成。我不想說我們已經結束了，因為我們還沒有結束。

But it's got to the point now where we can start to refocus our attention around what innovation we can bring to help run claims processes more efficiently to underwrite risks more effectively, to embed analytics more effectively and harness the data and analytics that the system is creating and John has really helped bring that expertise around the insurance industry and what can really move the needle for insurance carriers worldwide. He's really helped us see that. And so I just -- like I said, I'll just sum it up by saying I feel great about the team and it's like a lot of these factors contributing to the success that we saw in the quarter.

但現在我們可以開始重新關注我們可以帶來哪些創新來幫助更有效地運行索賠流程，更有效地承保風險，更有效地嵌入分析並利用系統正在創建的數據和分析約翰確實幫助將這些專業知識帶到了保險行業，並為全球保險公司帶來了真正的推動。他確實幫助我們看到了這一點。所以我——就像我說的，我總結一下，我對團隊感覺很好，很多因素都促成了我們在本季度看到的成功。

Our next question is from Ken Wong with Oppenheimer.

我們的下一個問題來自 Ken Wong 和奧本海默。

Mike, I just wanted to maybe touch on one of the trends you guys called out last quarter in terms of the ARR pushing a little bit to the right and some of that caused by some kind of DWP visibility across your customers. You guys didn't really mention it this quarter. Is it fair to assume that perhaps some of that has started to fade? Or in any case, any update on that front?

邁克，我只是想談談你們上個季度提出的趨勢之一，即 ARR 稍微向右推，其中一些是由客戶的某種 DWP 可見性引起的。你們這個季度並沒有真正提到這一點。可以公平地假設其中一些可能已經開始消失嗎？或者無論如何，這方面有任何更新嗎？

Sure. So we definitely are continuing to work through and deal with a very challenging environment for the insurance industry. And that still exists. We called it out in Q3. We touched on it a bit. I touched on it a tiny bit in this quarter. We did, however, see an exceptional sales result in the quarter. And what I would chalk that up to is the idea that the insurance companies can see the investment in Guidewire stretching way beyond the immediate economic conditions that they're operating through right now. And even in some cases, thinking about Guidewire as a mechanism for dealing with these challenges more effectively if they have an agile, reliable core system that is not holding them back, but instead enabling them to connect with customers in different ways to open up new channels to brokers, operate their claims processes more effectively.

當然。因此，我們肯定會繼續努力解決和應對保險業面臨的非常具有挑戰性的環境。這種情況仍然存在。我們在第三季度就提出了這一點。我們稍微觸及了它。我在本季度稍微觸及了它。然而，我們確實看到了本季度出色的銷售業績。我認為保險公司可以看到對 Guidewire 的投資遠遠超出了他們目前運營的直接經濟條件。即使在某些情況下，如果他們擁有靈活、可靠的核心系統，而不是阻礙他們，而是使他們能夠以不同的方式與客戶建立聯繫，從而開闢新的領域，那麼可以將Guidewire 視為一種更有效地應對這些挑戰的機制。經紀人的渠道，更有效地運作他們的索賠流程。

So it is still a challenge. And I would say it does have an impact on the types of deals and the structures of the deals that we are negotiating and closing with these companies. But we were able to have, as I said, an exceptional outcome in the quarter. And so both things can be true. But -- so that reality, I suppose, in the insurance industry still exists, and we're working with our customers very carefully to help them navigate this.

所以這仍然是一個挑戰。我想說，這確實對我們正在與這些公司談判和完成的交易類型和結構產生影響。但正如我所說，我們在本季度取得了出色的成果。所以這兩件事都可能是真的。但是，我想，保險行業的現實仍然存在，我們正在與客戶非常仔細地合作，幫助他們應對這一問題。

Yes, the only thing I would add is last quarter, we talked about being cautiously optimistic about our ability to transact through this environment. I think coming out of Q4, we're obviously thrilled with our ability to transact. But we did see -- and we talked about this in the prepared remarks, we are seeing some of these ramps taking a little bit longer than what we had seen historically to materialize into meaningful ARR that has that impact in FY '25 more so than FY '24. So we are continuing to see that theme that we kind of introduced last quarter a bit, but obviously thrilled with our ability to transact in the quarter.

是的，我唯一要補充的是上個季度，我們談到對我們在這種環境下進行交易的能力持謹慎樂觀的態度。我認為從第四季度開始，我們顯然對我們的交易能力感到興奮。但我們確實看到了——我們在準備好的發言中談到了這一點，我們看到其中一些斜坡需要比我們歷史上看到的更長的時間才能實現有意義的ARR，這對25 財年的影響比我們歷史上看到的要長一些。 24 財年。因此，我們繼續看到我們上個季度引入的主題，但顯然對我們在本季度的交易能力感到興奮。

Got it. Got it. Yes. Great to see the fantastic results in this tough environment. And then, Jeff, just quickly on subscription and support gross margins, '25, again, a nice step-up from where you guys are closing out in -- I mean, sorry, '24 from where you guys are closing on fiscal '23. I guess when I look at the exit trajectory, you guys are at $58 million. Can you maybe walk us through some of the puts and takes in I guess, to -- why would it be higher building off of what was a very strong Q4 number?

知道了。知道了。是的。很高興看到在這個艱難的環境中取得的出色成果。然後，傑夫，很快就訂閱和支持毛利率，“25，再一次，比你們關閉的地方有一個很好的進步 - 我的意思是，抱歉，‘24，你們關閉財政的地方’ 23.我想當我查看退出軌跡時，你們的價值為 5800 萬美元。您能否向我們介紹一些我認為的看跌期權和買入期權，以了解為什麼在非常強勁的第四季度數據的基礎上會更高？

Yes. Obviously '23 delivered a lot of margin expansion. And over the last 18 months, this has been a huge focus for us. I think we've executed quite well. There's a variety of things that we've kind of taken advantage of to kind of have that move in '23. As we look ahead to '24, we have a lot of deals that were transacted. And so we'll start to see those customers using the platform. We're seeing our existing customers start to use the platform in a bit more scale. So we're -- we have that flowing through our model, combined with the overall revenue growth. But I think as we look ahead, we're proud of the trajectory we're seeing in '24 and how that sets us up for kind of both our near-term and long-term targets.

是的。顯然，23 年利潤率大幅增長。在過去 18 個月裡，這一直是我們關注的重點。我認為我們執行得很好。我們利用了很多東西來在 23 年實現這一目標。當我們展望 24 年時，我們已經達成了很多交易。因此，我們將開始看到這些客戶使用該平台。我們看到現有客戶開始更大規模地使用該平台。因此，我們的模型中融入了這一點，並結合了整體收入的增長。但我認為，展望未來，我們對 24 年所看到的軌跡感到自豪，這也為我們實現近期和長期目標奠定了基礎。

Our next question is from Michael Turrin with Wells Fargo.

我們的下一個問題來自富國銀行的邁克爾·特林。

This is David Unger on for Michael Turrin tonight. Just one for me. Great to see the meaningful cash on the balance sheet with a seasonally strong 4Q. Can you guys remind us the best way to think about capital allocation, pecking order at this point in the cycle?

我是大衛·安格（David Unger），今晚替邁克爾·特林（Michael Turrin）發言。只給我一個。很高興看到資產負債表上有大量現金，並且第四季度表現強勁。你們能否提醒我們考慮資本配置的最佳方式，即在周期的此時點上的優先順序？

Yes. Look, I mean, we are -- we benefit from having a very strong balance sheet. Our customers appreciate. These are long-term consequential decisions that our customers are making. So they certainly appreciate seeing a well-capitalized companies that they can partner with. When we talked about this in the past, we've talked about what do we really need as a minimum cash balance to support running the operations of business, and we've talked about that kind of in that kind of $400 million to $500 million range. We have been doing some share repurchase activity.

是的。聽著，我的意思是，我們受益於擁有非常強大的資產負債表。我們的客戶很欣賞。這些是我們的客戶正在做出的長期重大決策。因此，他們當然很高興看到可以與他們合作的資本充足的公司。當我們過去討論這個問題時，我們討論過我們真正需要什麼作為支持業務運營的最低現金餘額，我們討論過 4 億至 5 億美元的那種。範圍。我們一直在進行一些股票回購活動。

And then we obviously think over the long term, we are a logical acquirer in our space. So maintain some cash for strategic cash. That's how we think about it. And we're in an environment now where we feel very good about where we are in the cloud transition. And so it's possible that you could see us be a bit more strategic and start thinking about M&A a bit more, although we will continue to be price disciplined and cautious with respect to M&A.

然後，我們顯然從長遠來看，我們是我們領域的合乎邏輯的收購者。因此，保留一些現金作為戰略現金。我們就是這麼想的。我們現在所處的環境讓我們對雲轉型的進展感到非常滿意。因此，您可能會看到我們更具戰略性，並開始更多地考慮併購，儘管我們將繼續在併購方面保持價格紀律和謹慎態度。

Our next question is from Michael Funk with Bank of America.

我們的下一個問題來自美國銀行的 Michael Funk。

Maybe a two part, if I could. You mentioned earlier that fewer deals slipped into 1Q, and that contributed to the guidance for 1Q. Maybe also, in addition to answering that question, I think anything unique happened there. To talk about the pipeline, size of deals in the pipeline, how far along in the pipeline those deals are? And then how that contributes to the confidence in guidance for the year?

如果可以的話，也許可以分為兩部分。您之前提到，第一季度的交易數量減少，這對第一季度的指導做出了貢獻。也許除了回答這個問題之外，我認為那裡還發生了一些獨特的事情。談論管道、管道中交易的規模、這些交易進展到什麼程度？那麼這如何有助於增強人們對今年指導的信心呢？

Yes, sure. Like we said, it was a very strong close for us in Q4, just relative to the percentages that you would normally expect in terms of deals closing, which validates in a lot of ways, our vision and team and execution. So this is phenomenal. Sometimes, you end up with deals slipping into the first quarter as software companies. And when you have a great Q4, you have fewer deals slip into Q1. So that factors slightly into the Q1 perspective, that's like better news, right? You want to close the deals early, it's not bad news.

是的，當然。正如我們所說，這對我們來說是第四季度非常強勁的收盤，僅相對於您通常預期的交易完成百分比而言，這在很多方面驗證了我們的願景、團隊和執行力。所以這是驚人的。有時，作為軟件公司，您最終會在第一季度完成交易。當第四季度表現出色時，進入第一季度的交易就會減少。因此，這稍微影響了第一季度的前景，這就像更好的消息，對吧？如果你想儘早完成交易，這不是壞消息。

Speaking to the pipeline, we are -- we have a lot of confidence in the visibility that we have for the fiscal year. The position that we're in now is only strengthening, as I described in my prepared remarks. We feel good about the product, we feel good about the customer success. We feel good about the track record, feel good about the competitive position, all of those things are pointing the right direction. We've worked real hard over the past couple of years to drive a more linear business throughout the year. So pulling as much of the deals earlier in the fiscal year as we possibly can.

就管道而言，我們對本財年的可見度充滿信心。正如我在準備好的發言中所描述的那樣，我們現在所處的地位只會得到加強。我們對產品感覺良好，我們對客戶的成功感覺良好。我們對往績記錄感覺良好，對競爭地位感覺良好，所有這些都指向正確的方向。在過去的幾年裡，我們非常努力地推動全年業務的線性發展。因此，我們會在本財年早些時候盡可能多地完成交易。

And that also gives us just building confidence, I'd say, in our ability to project how we're going to do. But the other thing to keep in mind is like there's a percentage of what we closed that flows into this year's ARR but a significant amount we closed, like Jeff talked about, flows the ramps into fully ramped ARR over the next few years. I'm increasingly thinking about Guidewire as a multiyear business, and that is the way we transact with our customers. This is the way we think about investing. This is the way we think about running the company.

我想說，這也讓我們對我們計劃如何去做的能力建立了信心。但要記住的另一件事是，我們關閉的產品中有一部分流入了今年的 ARR，但正如傑夫所說，我們關閉的很大一部分將在未來幾年內流入全面增長的 ARR。我越來越將 Guidewire 視為一項多年業務，這就是我們與客戶進行交易的方式。這就是我們思考投資的方式。這就是我們經營公司的方式。

These are decades long relationships that we're establishing and the durability of the relationships really speaks to that. And so that's -- it's like almost like -- Yes, we talk about Q1, we're also talking about the fiscal year. And then we're also talking about fiscal year '25. And that's why -- it's just -- we feel a lot of -- we feel a very good sense of confidence in the business and how it's -- how we're executing right now and why we think it's appropriate or we think it's reasonable for us to project that acceleration in ARR into fiscal '25. So hopefully, that gives you enough of the sense of how confident we are in the business right now.

我們正在建立長達數十年的關係，這些關係的持久性確實說明了這一點。所以，這幾乎就像是——是的，我們談論第一季度，我們也在談論本財年。然後我們還談論 25 財年。這就是為什麼 - 只是 - 我們對業務以及它的情況 - 我們現在如何執行以及為什麼我們認為它是適當的或我們認為它是合理的感到非常有信心讓我們將 ARR 的加速預測到 25 財年。希望這能讓您充分了解我們目前對這項業務的信心。

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to hand the floor back over to Mike Rosenbaum for any closing comments.

目前沒有其他問題。我想將發言權交還給邁克·羅森鮑姆（Mike Rosenbaum），請他發表最後的評論。

I just wanted to say thanks, everybody, for participating in the call today. We -- it was an exceptional Q4 for us, an exceptional fiscal year. We're really excited about the prospects of the business going forward. And I just wanted to say, hopefully, we'll see all of you at our Connections event and Analyst Day that is coming up in November. We'll see you in Nashville. Looking forward to hosting everybody and not seeing everybody in person if you can make it. So thanks very much.

我只想對大家參加今天的電話會議表示感謝。對我們來說，這是一個特殊的第四季度，一個特殊的財政年度。我們對業務的未來前景感到非常興奮。我只是想說，希望我們能在 11 月份舉行的 Connections 活動和分析師日上見到大家。我們納什維爾見。期待接待大家，如果可以的話，不要親自見到大家。非常感謝。

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

今天的會議到此結束。此時您可以斷開線路。感謝您的參與。