WNS (Holdings) Ltd (WNS) 2022 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to the WNS Holdings Fiscal 2022 Fourth Quarter and Full Year Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this call is being recorded for replay purposes. Now I'd like to turn the call over to David Mackey, WNS' Executive Vice President of Finance and Head of Investor Relations. David?

Thank you, and welcome to our fiscal 2022 Fourth Quarter and full year earnings call. With me today on the call, I have WNS' CEO, Keshav Murugesh; WNS' CFO, Sanjay Puria; and our COO, Gautam Barai.

A press release detailing our financial results was issued earlier today. This release is also available on the Investor Relations section of our website at www.wns.com.

Today's remarks will focus on the results for the fiscal fourth quarter and full year ended March 31, 2022. Some of the matters that will be discussed on today's call are forward-looking. Please keep in mind that these forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those factors set forth in the company's Form 20-F. This document is also available on the company website.

During this call, management will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide useful information for investors. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP results can be found in the press release issued earlier today. Some of the non-GAAP financial measures management will discuss are defined as follows: net revenue is defined as revenue less repair payments; adjusted operating margin is defined as operating margin excluding amortization of intangible assets, share-based compensation and goodwill impairment; adjusted net income, or ANI, is defined as profit excluding amortization of intangible assets, share-based compensation, goodwill impairment and all associated taxes. These terms will be used throughout the call.

I would now like to turn the call over to WNS' CEO, Keshav Murugesh. Keshav?

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. We are pleased with WNS' financial results in the fiscal fourth quarter and our overall performance in fiscal 2022. Net revenue for the fourth quarter came in at $275 million, representing a year-over-year increase of 20.4% on a reported basis and 21.9% constant currency. Sequentially, net revenue increased by $14 million or 5.3% on a reported basis and 5.4% constant currency. In the fourth quarter, the company added 10 new logos and expanded 33 existing relationships. WNS also delivered strong adjusted operating margins of 21.5% and grew adjusted EPS by 33% year-over-year. Sanjay will provide further details on our fourth quarter and full year financial performance in his prepared remarks.

While the company executed extremely well and delivered solid financial results this past year, fiscal 2022 was not without its challenges. During the year, WNS successfully navigated significant pandemic-related business volatility across our 12 global delivery locations, including the impacts of the Delta and Omicron surges. The fluctuating infection rates resulted in shifts back and forth between work from office and work from home and volume changes with several key clients as well. In addition, increasing digital demand across industries, combined with global labor shortages, created resource supply pressure, which impacted our compensation costs and attrition rates. Despite these obstacles, fiscal 2022 was a milestone year for WNS. The company accelerated full year revenue beyond the $1 billion mark, delivering organic constant currency growth of more than 16%, our highest rate since becoming a public company in 2006.

In addition, we signed 36 new clients and expanded 108 existing relationships, which also represent record high levels. In support of top line management, WNS added more than 8,000 net employees, pushing our global head count past the 52,000 FTE mark. Full year revenue growth was broad-based across all segments of our business, including continued progress in servicing Internet-based clients. In fiscal 2022, revenue from these digital disruptors grew 29% year-over-year and now represent 19% of total company revenue. From a delivery perspective, WNS successfully managed the pandemic-related volatility and resource supply constraints, serviced our clients' rapidly evolving GPM requirements and maintained our industry-leading margins at 21.4%. We were able to achieve these margins while continuing to make the necessary strategic investments in areas such as domain expertise, technology-enabled solutions, digital consulting and transformation, advanced analytics, cybersecurity and the training and reskilling of our global employee base.

As a result of our efforts, adjusted EPS in fiscal 2022 grew more than 25% to $3.41. I'm also pleased with the progress the company continues to make on the ESG front. This past year, WNS was able to prioritize our employees' safety and welfare during a global pandemic, enhance cybersecurity protocols for both in-office and at-home delivery models, take steps to reduce our carbon emissions, improve our diversity and inclusiveness metrics as reflected in the 2022 Bloomberg Gender Equality Index, and expand our corporate social responsibility efforts through the WNS Cares Foundation, including support for displaced families in U.K. Additionally, WNS has kicked off efforts towards adoption of the science-based targets and the United Nations Global Compact initiatives and is actively evaluating additional ESG standards and frameworks which are most relevant to our business. We also plan to release our second annual corporate sustainability report in May.

While we are happy with our fiscal 2022 performance, we are equally excited about the opportunities for WNS in fiscal '23 and beyond, including a robust BPM demand environment, differentiated positioning in the market and healthy business momentum. Today, we continue to see increased demand for BPM solutions as clients look to leverage technology and automation to help transform their business models as well as achieve their strategic goals. Key objectives include optimizing efficiency and cost, leveraging data and analytics to enhance decision-making, improving the end customer experience and generating new revenue streams. Increasingly, clients also recognize the need to partner with a firm like WNS, who can help them design, build and run their business processes. The decision to partner is being driven by the clients' need for accessed -- for access of specialized talent, digital technologies, process expertise, domain, thought leadership and speed to market.

With this favorable demand backdrop, WNS enters fiscal 2023 with a healthy pipeline and strong top line momentum. Our deal pipeline, which is broad-based across verticals, services and geographies, is the healthiest it has ever been. The pipeline continues to transition towards higher-end services and solutions, including digital consulting and transformation, advanced analytics and domain-centric offerings. We are also seeing more large end-to-end transformational opportunities in the pipeline and reduced sales cycles for the expansion of existing relationships. Part of the pipeline health is the result of an expanded farming opportunity, which is directly attributable to the acceleration of new logos signed over the past few years. Today, we have 147 clients of more than $1 million to farm, with 103 of these clients currently generating only $1 million to $5 million annually. These relationships provide us with a solid foundation for growth and excellent expansion opportunities and as we help these clients move forward with their strategic BPM initiatives.

In addition, we exit fiscal 2022 with existing -- with improved revenue momentum, having accelerated our year-over-year constant currency revenue growth over the past 3 quarters. WNS also has the opportunity for a continued recovery in our travel vertical, which has the potential to add 2% to our top line growth rate as and when volumes return. All of this momentum comes with the added benefit of our recurring, highly visible as well as resilient business model. That being said, as a company, we must remain vigilant with respect to pandemic-related volatility and incremental challenges in labor supply, wage inflation as well as attrition. We also recognize the need to invest in our business, both organically and inorganically, based on the long-term opportunity in the BPM space. The company has built a strong M&A pipeline, and we are working diligently to find the right assets, leverage our healthy balance sheet and accelerate our capabilities. I am confident that we have a focused, disciplined process in place for evaluating opportunities, and we will continue to follow this approach, which has proven to be successful for us.

In summary, we believe that the market for BPM services, driven by digitization, has never been better and that WNS is -- that WNS remains extremely well positioned to capitalize on this opportunity. The company will continue to focus on driving best-in-class execution, investing to differentiate our capabilities, and fostering our corporate culture of innovation and co-creation. We believe these efforts will enable WNS to deliver long-term sustainable business value for our clients, shareholders, employees as well as global communities. I would now like to turn the call over to our CFO, Sanjay Puria, to further discuss our results as well as outlook. Over to you, Sanjay.

Thank you, Keshav. In the fiscal fourth quarter, WNS net revenue came in at $275 million, up 20.4% from $228.3 million posted in the same quarter of last year and up 21.9% on a constant currency basis. Sequentially, net revenue increased by 5.3% on a reported basis and 5.4% on constant currency basis. Sequential revenue improvement was broad-based across most verticals, services and geographies and driven by new logos, expansion of existing relationships and increased travel volumes. In the fourth quarter, WNS recorded $1.7 million of short-term high-margin revenue. Adjusted operating margin in quarter 4 was 21.5% as compared to 20.8% reported in the same quarter of fiscal 2021 and 21.4% last quarter.

Year-over-year, adjusted operating margin increased as a result of operating leverage on higher volumes, improved productivity, high-margin short-term revenue and currency movements net of hedging. This benefit more than offset employee wage increases and higher facility-related and travel costs. Sequentially, margins increased as a result of operating leverage on increased volumes, high-margin short-term revenue and currency movements net of hedging. These benefits were largely offset by higher G&A costs and additional facility-related and travel expenses.

The company's net other income expense was $0.9 million of net income in the fourth quarter as compared to $0.2 million of net expense reported in quarter 4 of fiscal 2021, and negligible net income or loss last quarter. Year-over-year, the favorable variance is attributable to increased interest income on higher cash balances and lower interest expense related to operating leases and debt repayment. Sequentially, the favorable variance is the result of $0.6 million of interest income on a tax refund and increased interest income driven by higher cash balances. WNS effective tax rate for quarter 4 came in at 19.7%, down from 22.6% last year and down from 20.6% last quarter. Both year-over-year and sequentially, the changes in our effective tax rate are the result of changes in our geographical profit mix and in the mix of work delivered from tax incentive facilities. The company's adjusted net income for quarter 4 was $48.3 million compared with $36.7 million in the same quarter of fiscal 2021 and $44.4 million last quarter. Adjusted diluted earnings were $0.95 per share in quarter 4 versus $0.71 in the fourth quarter of last year, and $0.88 last quarter.

This represents 33% growth year-over-year and 8% growth sequentially. As of March 31, 2022, WNS balances in cash and investments totaled $413 million, and the company had no debt. WNS generated $67.9 million of cash from operating activities this quarter, incurred $7.4 million in capital expenditures and made scheduled debt payments of $8.4 million. DSO in the fourth quarter came in at 30 days, the same as reported in both quarter 4 of last year and the previous quarter.

With respect to other key operating metrics, total head count at the end of the quarter was 52,081, and our attrition rate in the fourth quarter increased to 44%, up from 30% reported in quarter 4 of last year, and up from 36% in the previous quarter. The fourth quarter spike in attrition was concentrated at the juniormost levels of the organization and primarily focused on voice-based CX services. The increase was driven by hyperinflation in Sri Lanka and the requirement by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority that employees return to office. We do not believe that this elevated attrition level is impacting or will impact our ability to service clients or accelerate growth. Built seat capacity at the end of the fourth quarter was stable, coming in at 34,494 seats. The seat utilization metrics, which the company typically provides as a measure of infrastructure productivity, are not meaningful given the company operated at 79% work from home globally in quarter 4.

I would now like to provide you with a brief financial summary of fiscal 2022 before discussing our outlook for the coming year. Net revenue in fiscal 2022 came in at $1.027 billion, up 18.2% on a reported basis and up 16.4% on an organic constant currency basis. Full year revenue growth was broad-based across geographies, services, and verticals and driven by strength in both new logo additions and existing client expansions. In addition, WNS' top line was bolstered by a partial recovery of pre-pandemic travel volumes and currency movements net of hedging. The company's fiscal 2022 adjusted operating margin came in at 21.4%, down slightly from 21.5% reported in fiscal 2021. Margin favorability from operating leverage on higher volumes, improved productivity and currency movements net of hedging, were offset by wage increases, the renewal of our paid corporate leave policy, higher infrastructure-related and travel expenses associated with easing pandemic restrictions and a reduction in full year high-margin short-term revenues.

In fiscal 2022, net other income expense improved by $2.8 million as a result of nonrecurring interest income on tax refunds, increased interest income on higher cash balances and lower interest expense on debt and operating leases. Our effective tax rate for the year was 20.7%, down from 23.3% last year as a result of a change in the mix of profits by geography and a onetime tax benefit in quarter 1 of $0.8 million. The combination of solid revenue growth, margin stability, higher interest income, a lower effective tax rate and a reduced share count resulted in our full year adjusted diluted earnings per share improving 25.4%, coming in at $3.41.

In fiscal 2022, the company generated $187.5 million in cash from operations and $159.1 million in free cash. During the year, WNS repurchased 1.1 million shares of stock at a cost of $85 million or $77.31 per share, spent $28.3 million on capital expenditures, and made scheduled debt payments of $16.8 million. We ended the year with a net cash balance of $413 million or approximately $8.06 per diluted share and no debt.

In our press release issued earlier today, WNS provided our initial full year guidance for fiscal 2023. Based on the company's current visibility levels, we expect net revenue to be in the range of $1.098 billion to $1.154 billion, representing year-over-year growth of 7% to 12% on a reported basis and 8% to 14% on a constant currency basis. At the midpoint, constant currency revenue growth is 11%, which represents initial guidance above our historical level of 10%. Revenue guidance assumes an average British pound to U.S. dollar exchange rate of $1.32 for fiscal 2023.

Consistent with our guidance approach in previous years, we currently have 90% visibility to the midpoint of the range, which does not include any uncommitted short-term revenue or improvement in travel volumes beyond quarter 4 levels. Fiscal 2023 guidance assumes a top line headwind of approximately 10%, which factors in year-over-year productivity commitments, known project ramp-downs and prior year short-term revenues. Full year adjusted net income for fiscal 2023 is expected to be in the range of $177 million to $189 million based on a INR 76 to U.S. dollar exchange rate. This implies adjusted EPS of $3.50 to $3.73, assuming a diluted share count of approximately 50.6 million shares. With respect to capital expenditures, WNS currently expects our requirement for fiscal 2023 to be up to $40 million. We'll now open the call for questions. Operator?

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Bryan Bergin with Cowen.

I wanted to ask a question about the annual productivity commitment. So, Sanjay, I think I just heard you say 10% headwind -- a number around 10%, but I think that included more than just the productivity commitments. So can you break that down for us as far as the level you're assuming there in '23 versus last year? And I know you had proactively addressed a number of larger clients last year. Curious if you're doing that again this year for any others.

Yes. So yes, you're right. It assumes more than just the productivity. And just from an overall perspective, that 10%, it has a productivity of 3%, ramp-downs of 6% -- including some of the proactive exit what we have spoken about, like the South Africa, one of the clients we did mention -- as well as the short-term revenue where we don't have a visibility, of 1%. And I would just say that the new normal from a ramp -- from an overall number perspective, which was earlier 5% to 6%, has moved to 7% to 8% due to the digital interventions, the productivity what is required from the client, but it also helps to expand our relationship and to drive more secure relationship from them and the opportunity.

Okay. And then just on the operating margin, it's implied here to be down at the midpoint year-on-year. Can you just talk about the factors driving that op margin trajectory as far as inflation assumptions, return to office assumptions? And also just how to think about how that margin trajectory unfolds as we go through this fiscal year.

So as compared to this year, our -- what we have assumed the operating margin in our guidance at this stage is at 21% for that. And there are a couple of factors which is driving that. Higher wages, because we have seen some of the higher attrition due to -- in my prepared remarks, I did mention about the Philippines and the Sri Lanka, which is at the lowest levels. Return to office, right now, we have assumed at 60% by the end of the year as well as some of the travel coming back, including continuous our investment in the digital journey as well as from a sales perspective. But a lot of these things have been really covered through our productivity, digital intervention and the growth what we'll be having -- what we'll be driving from a next year perspective. So one of the other factors is that we have not -- as we don't have a visibility, we have not factored the short-term revenue what was there during this year with a high margin. In this year itself, that contributed almost 30 basis points. And some of those things are not factored.

So right now, year-over-year comparison, it looks to be just a few basis points down. But as we move forward, have a better visibility, there are opportunities to expand some of those.

Yes. I think just to add to what Sanjay said and to kind of reinforce his message. Obviously, when we give our top line guidance, I think everyone is aware that we don't include the short-term revenues and that we've averaged somewhere between 1% and 2% every year coming from that. But there's also a margin impact that goes with that, because what we've seen is that revenue tends to be extremely high margin because it's gained share or it's outcome based. And as a result, when we don't include that revenue in the full year guidance, we don't include the high margin that's associated with it. So to Sanjay's point, we had $7 million of short-term revenue in fiscal '22 that contributed about 30 basis points to the overall adjusted operating margin that we posted, which was 21.4%. So it really, at the end of the day, kind of explains the big difference between our guidance on the margin line and the fiscal '22 numbers that we posted.

The other thing I want to mention, and Gautam can kind of chime in here a little bit as well, we do have some pretty sizable investments that are baked into fiscal '23, which are covered, including a step function in the sales force. We added 9 new salespeople at the end of the fiscal fourth quarter. You didn't really see it affect the sales and marketing expense in the fourth quarter, but you will see that affect us in fiscal '23. And I think what's really important is we're really kind of maintaining our margins, but we're also funding some of these investments that allow us to both accelerate growth and kind of manage the business going forward.

Yes. Thanks, David. And as Sanjay and David alluded, with the strong momentum that we see across the board with our existing clients and new clients and the hunting cycles, which have shortened, especially in the U.S., the investments across hunting and farming across all regions, i.e., U.S., Europe and U.K. along with APAC, and also increasing our talent across digital streams, transformation streams, actually helps us actually reap the benefits quite early on.

So is it fair to assume that margins will build as we go through the year as you absorb these upfront?

Yes, Absolutely, Bryan. We're obviously set up, the way we look at our business, for Q1 to be a sequential decline. We've got the impact of the productivity commitments that we give to clients as well as the lack of inclusion of short-term revenues in the first quarter. We've got the impact of our wage increases, which are effective April 1. We've got this head count that's coming on. So yes, we're looking at a pretty severe drop in margins and flattish revenues in the first quarter, which is not terribly uncommon for us. I wouldn't be surprised to see revenue effectively flat quarter-over-quarter and the margins down in the 250- to 300-basis point range. But you're correct. As we move throughout the year, we should build both the acceleration of the top line growth and the margin to where we finish with, obviously, as we just kind of noted, at this point, 11% constant currency is the midpoint without any short-term revenue and 21% margins.

Our next question comes from Mayank Tandon with Needham.

This is actually Sam on for Mayank today. Congrats on the results. I wanted to touch first on attrition. Just to dive a little deeper here. Could you talk a little bit more about some of the dynamics in attrition? And then last quarter, you guys mentioned expectations for attrition to stabilize around the 35% level over the next [few] quarters. Is this still the expectation for the upcoming year? And if so, what's the strategy behind hitting that number?

Thanks. This is Gautam over here. Look, we continue to experience elevated levels of attrition, but what is -- what is significant to add over there is the attrition is actually centered around the lower levels of our staff. And the number of interventions that we have made over the course of last year has actually stabilized, in fact, reduced the attrition across some of our mid- to senior level staff and along some of our niche skills. Also, with our unique train and the hire, train and deploy models that we have, our ability to recruit is quite good. And we do not see, and we have not actually seen any issues in terms of delivering to the excellent standards that we have to maintain for our clients.

And just to add what Gautam said, absolutely, all the intervention what we made has really worked, because other than the lowest levels and primarily on the voice side, we have seen the attrition has come down, whether it's on the data or on the niche skills, on the digital and technology. So this was just a sudden surprise from a higher attrition perspective, primarily driven by 2 factors which I did mention in my prepared remarks. One was on the Philippines, where the exemption of the regulations to work from home has been withdrawn. And there's a reaction to that from an employee perspective, as well as on a geopolitical issue in Sri Lanka, where there has been super hyperinflation. So there has been some reaction towards that. And we believe that as soon as this all will settle down and back to the normalization this year, this attrition percentage should come back down.

Yes. Just to add a little bit, because it is an important issue, and obviously, with the elevated attrition numbers this quarter, it's something that everybody wants to and needs to understand. Both Sanjay and Gautam have kind of talked about some of the factors that drove this. And obviously, it was a surprise to us as well. I don't think it was something that was known to anybody in the industry. So this is going to be a common thread, a common theme across anyone who's doing work in geographies like Philippines and Sri Lanka. But I think what's really important is, as we kind of look at how attrition will normalize over time, which we believe it will, it's important to understand that when you look at our business model, the objectives of WNS as a company, the objectives of our clients in terms of where they want work to be performed from, the objectives of our employees and kind of where they want to work from, and also what's going on with the respective local regulators may not be aligned in the short term. So there's going to be some volatility in those attrition numbers as people kind of settle into what the new normal is going to look like longer term.

And honestly, at this point, I don't know that anybody knows that. But as long as we are, as an organization, to Gautam's point, able to maintain the attrition at the lower levels of the organization, as long as it's not affecting our middle to upper tiers, we're very comfortable in our business -- in our ability to run our business.

Got it. That makes sense. That's really helpful. And then just on the travel vertical, that area saw some nice growth this quarter and seems to be trending nicely coming out of the pandemic. Could you guys talk a little bit more about what you're seeing here, what the expectations are for the upcoming year, and how the demand environment looks versus pre-pandemic levels?

Yes. So from a travel vertical perspective, what we are seeing is the volumes are almost back to the pre-COVID levels in terms of our processing and the agents that we have across the board. This is due to 2 factors. One is the domestic travel, which has almost come back to the normal levels pre-COVID. The second is the new processes and the new work that we have gained across the last 2 years that has increased our volumes. What it does not take into account, this potential increase, as business travel continues to increase, along with the residual increase in terms of leisure travel, and that should definitely see our volumes start -- pick up a lot more.

And maybe I'll just add to Gautam, when you mention from a pre-pandemic level, it's overall at the travel vertical. But when you look from a different segments perspective, we do expect, and we believe that there's still an opportunity of almost like 2% of the company's revenue as we move forward because of some of the international travel and some of the other sectors which are still impacted.

Also really important to note that -- and Gautam kind of touched on a little bit -- when you look at the healthy performance this year and when you look at the expectations, at least today, for the healthy performance in fiscal '23, the key driver for that, while we have had some recovery of pre-pandemic volumes, the key driver for that growth has been the addition of new logos and the expansion of the number of processes that we manage for our existing clients. So that's our normal path for growth as a company. We typically don't grow our business by adding volume. We grow by adding new clients, and we grow by adding the number of processes that we manage. Anything that we pick up in terms of volumes through those processes is a bonus because, honestly, we don't have a ton of control over it.

But the reality is what's driving the health in this vertical is the standard approach to our business, the fact that the travel vertical needs our help to digitize their business to move their business forward.

Our next question comes from Maggie Nolan with William Blair.

Nice quarter. I wanted to follow up on some of the conversation around attrition. You projected some confidence in your hiring ability to offset some of this. So could you elaborate a little bit on what you're doing that's differentiated on the hiring side, and how that can help stabilize what's going on with attrition?

Yes, Maggie. This is Gautam. So from what we have is due to our deep verticalized structure, what we have with each of our verticals have strong learning and training academies. And what we do is, through our campus recruitment programs, through our lateral hire programs, we are able to attract a lot of talent and then train them over a period of 6 to 12 weeks in terms of the requisite processes. What that does is gives us a healthy pipeline of domain-centered specialists that can manage the processes for our clients at -- and also at a price point which is lower than the industry norms.

Yes. I would also add to Gautam's comment, Maggie, that when you look at kind of the proof, if you will, obviously as an organization we're not happy with having a 43% attrition rate in the quarter. But despite having a 43% attrition rate, we added 2,500 employees on the net base during the quarter. Despite having a 36% attrition rate for the year, we added almost 8,000 -- more than 8,000 people. So the engine is fully capable of doing that. And to Gautam's point, when you really look at as long as you're not losing the seasoned people, the people that are driving digital, the people that are driving advanced analytics, the ones with domain knowledge, right? The entry level to our business, there is still more than enough supply to meet demand. Actually, there's excess supply.

So we're still able to interview multiple people for every role that we hire. It's as you move up that chain that you run into the real challenges with finding the kinds of talent you need to support your clients.

Okay. And then, Dave, you had mentioned how important those client additions are to the long-term growth narrative. You had really strong client additions this quarter and this year. How many of those are including things like analytics and automation from the onset, and how does that compare to what you were seeing last year?

Yes. I think overall, when you look at the profile -- and Gautam, kind of chime in here with some additional color -- but it's very clear that digitization is a part of every new logo that we're adding, period. Some have more analytics involved on the front end than others, depending on the type of work that we're doing. But I would say even for the stuff that's industry specific or that's F&A driven, there's a component to analytics to everything that we're doing. It's not sold as a separate analytics deal, but there is clearly analytics that are embedded in those processes as well.

Yes, just to add to what Dave said, almost all our deals have a sizable portion of embedded analytics that we actually drive, which is a part of our digital and tech strategy which our clients expect over a year-on-year basis. And this is the nature of the way the deals are structured at the moment, where clients want to see increased transformation benefits that is passed through, which is only -- which can only be provided through an infusion of tech, digital and analytics.

And not just the new logos that we're seeing this in either, Maggie. We talked last year about having a 2% headwind walking into the year because of the new logo -- the existing logos that we renewed early. What we're also clearly seeing is that as our contracts come up, or as we have ongoing discussions with our clients, they're looking to accelerate those productivity improvements through automation and technology across the board, which is why we see another 1% or so headwind to our business on a year-over-year basis. It's now structural. It's because digitization is involved in every discussion that we have.

Our next question comes from Puneet Jain with JPMorgan.

Obviously, in fiscal '22, growth was very strong in travel and Internet verticals. Can you also review performance of insurance and health care clients in fourth quarter as well as talk about the outlook for those 2 verticals?

Yes. Again, both in insurance and health care, we continue to see strong momentum across a broad set of clients. In fact, what is interesting is the amount of large deals that we continue to come across in both these verticals continue to increase. Of course, the closure time for these is a bit longer than the shorter -- the smaller deals. But again, I think it's quite a healthy pipeline that we see in both these verticals, and we are excited about the prospects over the next 12 months with these 2.

And maybe, Puneet, just to add, if you are just referring from the quarter perspective and seeing growth not in proportion to some of the other verticals, we did mention that last year we did renew one of the -- a couple of the large clients from the insurance and the productivity commitments and the digital intervention what we have to do. We are in that process. But as I said, this is making the relationship more stickier as well as the much better expansion opportunity as we move forward. And accordingly, Gautam, the way you alluded is, as we move forward we are going to see more and more traction around it.

And just to add, we are also starting to see an uptick in volumes coming through as travel restrictions, the road restrictions on travel and the COVID-related restrictions are starting to reduce. So the claims volume has started to increase across different geographies. The discretionary spend across elective surgeries and treatments in the U.S. has started to increase. So as these volumes start increasing, we definitely see an increase in terms of our processing capabilities across both these.

And I think at the end of the day, [Puneet], we talked about the broad-based health of the pipeline, I think when you take out some of these one-timers, if you will, and you look at the growth across these vertical segments, there's nothing that we had last year, with the exception of the manufacturing retail vertical which had the large South African client, there isn't a single vertical that we had in fiscal '22 that did not grow double digits. So this is as broad-based as you're going to get. And I think obviously, our comfort and confidence about what fiscal '23 looks like from a growth perspective is pretty healthy because I personally can't remember us ever starting the year at 11%.

Yes. Puneet, this is Keshav. I think lots has been said about the revenue momentum, and I just want to add a little bit in terms of the excitement I personally have about how broad-based this momentum is. We're actually seeing -- while you focus your question on 2 specific verticals, and we spoke about 2 others, the reality is we are actually seeing not just deals in the digital transformation area, deals in analytics, deals in traditional verticals and whatnot, we're actually seeing that, based on the way we operated during the pandemic and we created certainty for clients across a broad spectrum, we are actually seeing a lot of prospects, clients who had not outsourced or actually embarked on this journey of automation, actually now climb this bandwagon. So what we are seeing, what my sales people are telling me, is that every prospect that they're interacting with, even not the traditional kind of names that we have serviced before or spoken to before, are now looking for predictable outcomes in unpredictable kind of times and business variability. All of them want to leverage tech to build completely new business models for themselves. All of them are looking for partners like us to build resilient business models involving more pandemic continuity planning as opposed to the traditional BCP.

Everyone wants control and compliance, and want to ensure that they're working with a partner in these uncertain times who'll take care of the cyber-safety kind of outcomes and finally helping them drive their business transformation agendas, involving -- leveraging domain expertise and things like that. And I think it has become so broad-based that we've actually said that at this point in time we must get after this growth. We must leverage all the investments we have made to drive faster revenue momentum. And even if it means, therefore, taking a minor hit in terms of operating margins because of some of the things that we spoke about in the past, we will not let go of the operative growth momentum at this point in time. So very, very excited about this opportunity.

That's great. Thanks for the clarification. And then second, on wage inflation. I know you talked about seeing hyperinflation in Sri Lanka. Can you also talk about level of wage inflation you expect this year in India, in Philippines and in the U.S.?

So as we all have heard and known that the inflation is really high across all those geographies. But from an overall WNS perspective, we're expecting the wage inflation to be 10% for next year. Historically, it was always at an average of 8%. This year, it was 9% because some of the intervention what we have to do around the niche skills as we spoke about, and which in fact has started providing us the result. So in our guidance, right now, as an average, 10% has been already baked into.

Yes. And then just to clarify, Puneet, the inflation issue that we were talking about in Sri Lanka wasn't a wage inflation issue. It was a inflation issue as it related to the overall standard of living within Sri Lanka. So the bottom line is the currency has dramatically devalued. The inflation in that country has honestly gone out of control. And as a result, employees are struggling to make ends meet given how expensive things have gotten in Sri Lanka. So it wasn't the wage inflation for us has spiked. It's the countrywide inflation has spiked.

Our next question comes from Dave Koning with Baird.

Yes, good job. So first of all, just on travel again. I know you did a great job explaining the kind of incremental wins and incremental processes you do. Does that really explain like -- if we look at it relative to calendar '19, you did 128% of revenue of calendar '19 quarter and the prior quarter was only 100%. So you had a huge acceleration in just kind of that relative performance, and the travel market got a little bit better, but not dramatically in the quarter. So is that just fully explained by kind of the new wins and new processes and not really travel picking up kind of sequentially?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Okay. Wow, that's -- those are incredible wins just in growth, kind of organic growth. That's great.

Remember, we talked a lot about how we were taking advantage of the pandemic to kind of reposition ourselves in the travel vertical, how to help clients move forward, how to create service offerings that allowed for things like vaccine cards and so on and so forth, because that all required digitization and automation. So we have definitely been very aggressive in expanding the number of logos that we've added during this time period, and also expanding the types of work and the quantity of work that we did with our existing customers, right? And some of the clients were actually very, very happy with our efforts and how we were able to help them during the pandemic, and as a result they gave us more work as part of that. So we really took advantage of the pandemic to strengthen our relationships with these travel clients. And what you're seeing are the fruits of those efforts.

And also just to add to what David is saying, what is interesting is the new volumes and the ramps that we are picking up along with the new clients are in the high-end digital services and digital voice operations akin to the Internet-based operations that we drive, which actually leads to more stickier revenue, ability to transform more and better margin profile.

Yes. Dave, I'll just mention something here, this is Keshav. I've actually been having lots of excellent conversations with CEOs in the travel space on the other side. And it's interesting, while we've actually done a very decent job from a WNS point of view in terms of grabbing market share, going after new logos and going after very relevant new age kind of businesses with all of these logos, the reality is, all through the last 2.5 years or so, a number of players in the travel space actually reacted to COVID in different ways. Some reacted a little more maturely, some reacted quite immaturely, if you ask me, and a lot of knee-jerk reactions as well. So what has also happened is that in terms of knee-jerk reactions where they had to actually impact their capacities in the short term, now they're all scrambling to get partners like us to help them with -- to recoup. But more importantly, what has also happened is, during this pandemic, all of them have actually restructured their balance sheets, restructured their fleets, completely changed the way they want to go to the market, and that is where they're looking to an exciting partner like WNS helping them in that journey. Travel is not yet fully back. It is still coming back. And from our perspective, therefore, the opportunity around travel during this next year is going to be very, very exciting for us. And it will be in completely new areas, we believe, and very broad-based for WNS.

Yes. It's awesome. Good companies take changing environments and capitalize. You're doing a great job. And then just a second quick follow-up. Tax rate, it seems like we back in to around 23% if we take all the data you gave us. Is that the ballpark?

22% to 23%.

(Operator Instructions) Our next question comes from Vincent Colicchio...

Operator, I think we're ready for next question. Operator.

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

Keshav, to what extent are you benefiting in terms of seeing new client interest due to tight labor conditions and their inability to serve their access to market?

(technical difficulty)

Please stand by, your conference call will resume momentarily.

Vince, are you on the line?

Yes, I am.

Sorry, everyone. Not quite sure what happened. I can tell you for once in a long time, the entire team's together in New York taking this call, so this is not a global issue. But please go ahead. Sorry about that, everyone. Vince, please proceed.

Yes. So Keshav, to what extent are you benefiting from new client interest given the tight labor conditions and their inability to access talent. Are you seeing a lot of new companies do outsourcing for this reason?

Actually, Vince, maybe I think a few of them would be asking for solutions around that. But I think the bulk really are getting after the core of our transformation message, the fact that we understand their business domains very well, the fact that they get comfort around the fact that we have invested so much in technology, the fact that obviously we are able to leverage analytics to the hilt. And we have so much of experience across the entire industry delivering digital transformation for them. So I think what is actually happening, Vince, at this point in time is a lot of clients who were earlier trying to do some of these things themselves have now realized that they do not want to get caught in terms of any potential uncertainty in the future, and they would rather go with a trusted partner who is capable of making all these investments at the back end and who has a real solid track record in terms of delivery.

And I think that's what they're looking for: a partner who can deliver certainty, a partner that is investing in all of these new exciting areas and a partner, to some extent, that will lead them out of the darkness.

And you had mentioned, in your prepared remarks, tuck-in M&A. Could you review for us what may be at the top of your list currently in terms of focus?

Sure. So our focus really is around any core capability that will -- which is accretive, but will also enhance some of our core verticals or horizontal capability, right? So from our perspective, there is this choice of build versus buy in terms of digital, finance and accounting, analytics and also potentially anything transformational that we may want to look at in terms of some of our larger key core businesses as well. So it's a very interesting stage at this point in time where we have a very solid pipeline that we're looking at. Some of them will be smaller-sized kind of assets, but add huge capability to WNS, some of them could be significantly larger.

Yes. I think at the end of the day, Vince, it becomes kind of the same 3 key areas that we're looking for: digital and digital transformation, advanced analytics and anything from an industry-specific perspective that helps us deepen our capabilities and differentiate our service offerings within that vertical.

Our next question comes from Ashwin Shirvaikar with Citi.

So my question is on sales productivity. Could you remind us what's typical, given that you are making a number of these incremental sales investments? What do you normally expect in terms of when salespeople become productive? And also could you remind us where you stand in that process of making these investments?

Sure. So Ashwin, I think, when you look at the sales productivity side of it, the expectations, for example, around hunting are dramatically different than the expectations around farming. Clearly, if we're going to put a seasoned sales person into an account with the goal of expanding that relationship, the expectations are that those folks will generate revenue in fairly short order. When you start looking at hunting, however, given, for example, for larger deals, RFP cycles and things that can last anywhere between 6 months and 18 months depending on the size and scope, the expectations are much lower. So it's mixed. Some of this should be able to deliver benefits in fiscal '23, more around the farming side versus the hunting side, which will really be able to generate more benefits fiscal '24 and beyond, which is, to be honest, when you look at it, we've gone roughly, I believe, 18 months since the last step function that we've taken in sales. So somewhere between 12 and 18 months to a step function. When you look at the hiring that we did in the fourth quarter, we added 9 people. We finished last fiscal '21 with 112 salespeople. We finished fiscal '22 with 121. Those adds were all relatively late in the quarter. So there was virtually no contribution in fiscal '23 revenue from those sales adds. These should be '23, '24, '25 productivity. And again, the sooner we make the next step function, obviously, the sooner we're confident in the productivity of the existing team and our ability to accelerate beyond.

My next question, I know a lot has been asked on this call about wage inflation, but could you talk specifically wage inflation versus pricing? Because that's a very frequent question we get from investors, is what percent of contracts have once-a-year COLA pricing, what might have other contractual conditions that enable you to price more seamlessly, could you kind of characterize how investors should think about that timing issue?

Yes. So from a -- to offset really the wage, majority of our contracts definitely do have a COLA built in, though it is capped, and it is linked to the inflation from a client geography perspective. Also, as and when we are going from a new deals perspective, all those wage inflations are being factored as part of the cost. But what the client really looks forward is more from their total cost of ownership. And that is what we are able to really offset, some of this inflation costs through our digital intervention or our technology and automation what we drive and provide as a solution to our client, what Gautam and Keshav was alluding, that every day is all about the transformation as well as the digital intervention over there, including the embedded analytics, yes.

The short answer is, Ashwin, it helps us. It covers a part of it. But between the fact that it's pegged to indices that are not necessarily aligned to wages and it's pegged to geographies that are not necessarily aligned to where we deliver from, it's never going to cover the full impact of wages. There's no way we're passing on our wage increases to our clients. We're able to pass on a portion, it's capped, but it's really the productivity, the efficiency, the digitization, that enables us to maintain margins and to offset the impact of wage increases.

And also just to add to what Dave mentioned, as we continue to add more end-to-end processes along with digital and tech interventions across new deals, we are actually able to attract premium pricing, which also offsets some of the pressures that we have.

At this time, we have no further questions in the queue. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.