Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Data#3 Limited Financial Year 2024 results briefing. All participants are in listen-only mode. We'll hear a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you'll need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I'd now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Brad Colledge, CEO and MD. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, and good morning, and thank you for joining us for the briefing of Data#3's FY 2024 results. I'm joined by Cherie O'Riordan, our CFO, who will be covering our FY 2024 financial highlights a little later in the presentation. For those registered with our IR, you should have the presentation in front of you now, or the presentation is also being lodged with the ASX. So we'll be calling out some slide numbers as we proceed through the presentation, just to ensure people know where we are at. So, I'll kick off then, just for those that are not familiar with us, Data#3 is an ASX two hundred listed IT services and solutions provider in Australia and Pacific Islands. Our vision is to harness the power of people and technology for a better future.
We have 47 years of experience in evolving our solutions to enable our customers' success, and we partner with world-leading technology vendors. We are delivering the digital future for our customers through our solutions that we'll talk about further throughout the presentation. In terms of the agenda, we'll review the FY 2024 highlights. Cherie will then provide a more detailed financial overview. I will then cover IT sector trends and AI, and round out with our strategy and outlook before closing with Q&A. Let's begin with the financial highlights on slide 5. Comparing against FY 2023, our net profit before tax is up over 16% to AUD 62.1 million. Earnings before interest and tax was up 5%, gross sales up by 7.6% to a record AUD 2.8 billion, and gross profit was up 7.8% to AUD 270 million.
As we saw with net profit before tax growth, we delivered earnings per share growth of 16.9%. We are pleased to announce a healthy dividend of AUD 0.255 per share, which is an increase of 16.4% with a payout ratio of 91.1%. The growth rates reported, while moderate compared to previous financial periods, are a solid achievement in the context of the challenging economic conditions experienced by many during FY 2024. Our business model is largely protected from times of economic downturn through our government and large corporate customer base. However, it was not the market in FY 2024 to exceed market growth rates without impacting gross margins.
I'm pleased to report that we have balanced sales growth with sustainable earnings growth in a competitive market and under subdued economic conditions, and that we enter FY 2025 with a strong core business and pipeline. Let's move on to slide six and the FY 2024 overview. Our company growth continues to build, as evidenced by increasing gross sales, which is in line with the Australian IT market. This is because the breadth of our offerings, our track record for delivering our large private sector and government customers, and the strength of our supplier relationships. We're also pleased to report that our recurring business in FY 2024 has grown to 67%, boosted by growth in managed services and software solutions of 12% and 11%, respectively, in line with our strategy.
Down slightly on prior year, our infrastructure solutions business was impacted by customers ordering in advance of requirements in prior periods, in turn, slowing down ordering and decision-making in the current period. Our people numbers increased slightly in FY 2024, and we continue to strengthen our capabilities in managed services and technical product sales roles. Our supply chain returned to normal late in FY 2023, and we are seeing the benefit of efficient working capital management and growing average cash position with our record interest income. Once again, we achieved huge success with national, international vendors and industry awards, notably Global Software Partner of the Year with Cisco and Microsoft Global Surface Awards, and pleasingly, awards focused on our people and sustainability.
I transitioned to the role of CEO and MD effective the first of March, following Laurence Baynham's retirement from the role, and Mark Esler is now our chair after six years as a non-executive director. These changes are part of a measured transition process. We'll now move to slide 7, and I'll summarize some operational highlights. From an operational perspective, FY 24 had a number of high points. Multi-cloud solutions continued to drive transformation for our customers, and our services provide value in leveraging and managing cloud environments. We have also seen very rapid acceleration of Generative AI in the last 12 months and have been able to capitalize on the opportunity. You'll hear more about that in the strategy section.
Security continues to be our fastest-growing area and a top priority for our customers as they respond to the ever-evolving and increasing threat of cyber breaches, seen by many as their number one business and risk management imperative. We have a strong balance sheet and continue to be efficient in managing our working capital. Our customer experience initiatives and our own investment in technology were successful in driving better levels of service, raising customer satisfaction scores. Our vendors continued to support us and recognize us, helping customers to identify Data#3 as their preferred partner. Overall, it was a successful FY 2024. Assisting customers on their digital transformation journey remains key to our strategy. We continue to invest in solutions in their foundation layer through multi-cloud, Modern Workplace, security, data and analytics, and connectivity.... all the advanced technologies and ultimately our customers' digital transformation. We did this effectively in FY 2024.
We ended the year as the number one partner in Australia with major part, technology partners Microsoft, Cisco and HP. The relationships we forge in our vendor partners with our vendor partners allow us to deliver leading edge solutions to our customers. We invest significantly in our capability with these partners, and our certifications differentiate us in market. Slide ten now. In FY 2024, we continued to convert our investments into awards and recognitions. In addition to many vendor awards, which include the consecutive global awards for both Microsoft and Cisco, we also won numerous security awards, reflecting our dedication to continually improving the security posture with our customers. Even more pleasingly, Data#3 was recognized as one of Australia's best places to work in IT by Great Place to Work Australia and named HRD Employer of Choice for the ninth year in a row.
These awards reflect our ongoing commitment to creating a supportive, inclusive, and engaging workplace and workplace culture that enables our employees to thrive and deliver outstanding results for our customers. Data#3 was also a recipient of the Enlightened Growth Leadership Award by the Frost & Sullivan Institute, an award that considers the synergy between financial growth, corporate social responsibility, and environmental, social, and governance. Our sustainability initiatives are an ever-increasing part of our fabric, and it's great to be recognized for our progress. And finally, Data#3 recently was inducted into the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame in recognition of the company's continued excellence and outstanding innovation in providing technology solutions and services throughout Australia. On that note, I'll hand over to Cherie to cover our financials in more detail.
Thanks, Brad, and good morning, everyone. It's my pleasure to now share an overview of our FY 2024 financial results. We achieved growth in gross sales of 7.6% in FY 2024 to a record AUD 2.8 billion. Slide 12 shows a steady year-on-year increase in gross sales over the past 6 years, representing a compound annual growth rate, or CAGR, of over 14% since FY 2019. This sales growth is supported by a gradual increase in recurring gross sales to 67% in FY 2024, as we see a gradual shift in customers' preferences towards as a service and annuity-based offerings. We continue to grow gross sales of multiyear licensing agreements and longer-term services contracts. We saw strong demand in the education, health, and resource sectors this financial year, and strong growth across most states, reflecting increased market share.
Slide 13 presents a graphical view of our earnings and dividend trends over time. Our goal remains to deliver sustainable earnings growth, and we are pleased to report that the growth in gross sales and gross profit, complemented by additional interest income, have continued our earnings growth trend this year despite the high inflationary economic environment. In terms of CAGR, we've achieved 19% CAGR in profit before tax since FY 2019. Each graph shows our consistent performance and successful growth strategy as we've achieved steady growth in all metrics spanning several years. As Brad mentioned earlier, basic earnings per share increased by almost 17%, and the full year dividend increased by 16.4%, representing a payout ratio of 91%.
The fully franked final dividend of AUD 0.129 will be paid on 30th September 2024, with a 16th September record date and represents a total FY 2024 dividend of AUD 0.255. Moving on to slide 14 now. This financial year, we undertook a detailed review of our software licensing and vendor-delivered maintenance support agreements to reassess whether we are acting as principal or agent under these agreements, which resulted in a change to our revenue accounting policy and comparatives have been restated. The statutory revenue presented in our FY 2024 financial statements includes the reclassification of software licensing and vendor-delivered maintenance support revenues on a net basis in accordance with this change in policy.
I'd like to emphasize that this is a statutory presentation change only, and the company will continue to measure operational performance and report on a gross sales basis in addition to reporting statutory revenues. Our company is comprised of a diversified portfolio of IT products and services, and the chart on slide 15 breaks the total gross sales into three broad functional areas: infrastructure solutions, software solutions, and services, and their underlying business units. This chart shows the change in sales mix over time, with the strongest growth in software, which is also where most of our multi-cloud sales are recognized. I'll provide more detail on these areas with the next slide. It's important to remember there are very significant interdependencies between these different business areas, and our solutions typically comprise a combination of infrastructure, software, and services.
Our main product-related businesses achieved sales growth of 7.2%, in line with the broader market growth rate, including software licensing sales growth, which increased by 11% to AUD 1.8 billion. Infrastructure sales were down slightly on the prior period, as we saw some delays in customer decision making around larger networking and infrastructure projects, and customers were consuming pre-ordered goods, as reported in the first half. Our infrastructure sales are also linked to and supplemented by sales of maintenance support contracts, particularly those under enterprise agreements, which are reported under services. The combined infrastructure and maintenance business grew by 2% in FY 2024. Our combined services sales growth increased by almost 10% to AUD 376 million, reflecting a mixture of growth rates across the portfolio of businesses.
Consulting sales were down slightly on the prior periods due to the highly competitive market, with slightly reduced demand. However, profitability improved this half as we proactively managed our cost base. We saw solid increases in sales across projects, maintenance and managed services, winning new customers and contracts. And P eople Solutions recruitment sales declined by 11.6% to AUD 60 million, following a particularly strong prior period that benefited from post-pandemic increased labor market activity. We achieved solid growth in gross profit of 7.8% to AUD 270.1 million in FY 2024, and preserved gross margins in a highly competitive market. The table on slide 16 shows total gross profit and margin on growth sales, in addition to the breakdown by product and services.
Total margin on growth sales was consistent with the prior period at 9.8% or 33.5% on a statutory revenue basis. Services growth, gross profit increased by 8.6% on FY 2023, with margins relatively consistent at around 36%. Overall, net profitability of the services business improved on the prior year through gradual scale and continued cost management. We onboarded several new managed services customers again this year and commenced transitioning our largest ever contract in Q4. Pleasingly, we also had low rates of attrition with none related to customer dissatisfaction. The initial transition phase for new contracts requires investment, with profitability generally increasing from year two onwards. Overall, profitability will be blended as we continue to scale this business.
The product-based gross profit increased by 6.7% to over AUD 134 million, with margins on gross sales consistent with FY 2023 at 5.7%. A solid achievement in a highly competitive market. While our FY 2024 infrastructure result was negatively impacted by customers ordering in advance of requirements in FY 2023, and following the supply chain challenges experienced in recent years, we are seeing improved sales of networking hardware into FY 2025. Sales of end user computing were up 3% in a declining market, and sales of collaboration tools were also up. As mentioned earlier, product sales are supplemented by sales of maintenance support agreements, which were up almost 27% on the prior period.
We are seeing results from our strategy to accelerate the growth of services, and the pleasing growth in the higher margin areas of professional services and managed services has helped stabilize the overall blended gross margin. More importantly, the net profitability of our services business overall has improved. Our objective remains to continue to deliver sustained earnings growth in the absolute value of gross profit, which we've been successful in doing over several years, and we believe this is a more important measure of success than the blended gross margin percentage. As mentioned earlier, FY 2024 was a year of increased competition, with fewer deals to compete for in some areas, which in turn created margin pressure and some competitors reduced pricing to win business.
We managed to grow at market rates while maintaining gross margins, which speaks to our continued value proposition and strong position in the markets in which we operate. We expect to continue to deliver solid growth in services, which will boost the overall gross profit over time. You can see our growth in total gross profit in the left-hand chart of slide 17, and the total margin on gross sales trend. As previously mentioned, we achieved growth in gross profit of 7.8% in FY 2024, which was a solid achievement considering the highly competitive markets in which we operated, together with the subdued economic conditions caused by higher interest rates, high inflation, and global geopolitical conflicts during the financial year.
Some customers deliberated on non-discretionary IT spending this year, which resulted in fewer deals to compete for, and the year saw some competitors lower pricing to gain market share, putting pressure on our ability to gain leverage off our relatively fixed cost base, particularly in the product side of our business. We manage our internal staff costs and operating expenses very closely, and the chart on the right of the slide shows the trends for these costs and how they compare to the total gross profit. Our internal cost ratio, which is staff and operating expenses as a percentage of gross profit, is one of our key measures of operating leverage. This ratio has improved from 88% in FY 2016 to 80.6% in FY 2024. However, it is up slightly from 80.3% in FY 2023.
This is due to our continued investments in services, people, and systems, in addition to inflationary pressures on wages and general operating expenses. In addition to the slightly lower GP of a relatively fixed cost base, as discussed earlier. Spend on IT projects increased in FY 2024 as we completed work to enhance and consolidate e-commerce platforms, implemented new payroll system and customer success platform, and uplifted cybersecurity, among others. These projects will realize benefits, both financial and non-financial, over several years. Where contracts allow, we pass wage and cost increases through to customers via annual contract pricing reviews. This is not an immediate adjustment, and our ability to increase prices in a highly competitive and price-driven market, such as that seen during FY 2024, must be balanced with the risk of losing business.
The product business also contains more fixed sales and pre-sales resources, and this business was most impacted by the delayed decision making this year. Longer term, we expect to improve operating leverage gradually across our business by continuing to gain internal efficiencies through enhanced systems and processes, enabling us to achieve greater scale with incrementally less headcount, particularly in parts of our higher margin services business. The next slide, number eighteen, shows the key points on the P&L statement. Statutory revenue was relatively flat year-on-year, following restatements relating to the change in our revenue policy and was impacted by reduced hardware sales, which were presented on a gross principal basis.
Our pre-tax earnings benefited from interest income of AUD 9.7 million, compared to AUD 3.5 mil in the prior period, as our higher cash position, a result of the company's growth in growth sales and diligent working capital management, benefited from the increased cash rate. Based on our current cash projections, assuming a slight reduction in the cash rate in Q4 of FY 2025 and no change to our typical cash flow seasonality, interest income is expected to be approximately AUD 8.6 million for FY 2025. This assumes an average cash position of around AUD 200 million at an average rate of just over 4%. Looking at the expenses section of the P&L now, the first four lines represent cost of sales. Deducting those items from the revenue from contracts with customers gives statutory gross profit.
The next line, labeled internal employee and contractor costs, comprises our internal staff costs, which increased by 7.6% to just over AUD 190 million. This reflects 2% growth in headcount compared to FY 2023, predominantly billable services staff, as well as general remuneration increases in line with the market, but higher than those experienced in the prior year due to wage inflation and a competitive labor market for skilled technology labor. The sum of the remaining expenses lines gives the other operating expenses, and that increased by about 13% from AUD 24.3 million to AUD 27.6 million, with increases in travel, insurance, and software costs predominantly related to managed services systems and which will mostly be recovered through customer billing. Also, increased spend on IT projects, as mentioned earlier.
The balance sheet is shown on slide 19, and I'll now quickly run through the key points. Our balance sheet remains strong and debt-free. The traditional fourth quarter sales spike inflates the current trade receivables and trade payable balances at 30th June, and typically generates large temporary cash surpluses at year-end. A key trade receivables measure is average day sales outstanding, and that was 26 days at the end of the year, down from 33 days in the prior period, which was impacted by collection delays caused by the supply chain issues and associated partial shipment of orders. Inventory holdings returned to normal levels in FY 2023 and are comprised of allocated stock. That is, products held in our warehousing and configuration centers, pending delivery to customers.
The fourth quarter sales spike skews the working capital at year-end, so I've included a working capital analysis on slide 20 to help illustrate the seasonal impact. The chart shows the changes in the working capital components reported at 30th June and 31st December over the last five years. The key point to note is that the underlying working capital position, as shown by the yellow line, remains stable despite the significant seasonal fluctuations between the reported period ends. We have a very efficient working capital model, and the working capital cycle is typically very short or even negative, so our business is effectively self-funding. This is due to our relatively low inventory levels, our short collection cycle, and the favorable trade terms offered by our suppliers. Lastly, slide 21 shows the cash flow statement and summarizes the key points.
The sales seasonality has a significant impact on the operating cash flows due to the high volume of sales in May and June each year, and the timing differences in the collections from customers and payments to suppliers around 30th June each year. This causes the typical operating cash outflow in the first half of the next financial year. The net cash inflow from operating activities was AUD 86.2 million in FY 2024 versus AUD 291 million in the prior period. This is primarily the result of a higher number of customers electing to pay early and pre-30th June 2023, in addition to the realization in FY 2023 of carry forward inventory and debtors relating to supply chain issues in the preceding years....
One point of comparison is the average daily cash balance, which was around AUD 217 million this year, compared to AUD 121 million in the prior period, due to the much higher 30 June 2023 surplus cash position carried into FY 2024, as explained, and the year-on-year growth in gross sales. These cash balances typically include sizable temporary surpluses due to the working capital cycle, and the average cash position tends to be lower in the second half. The other points to note are the relatively low levels of capital expenditure and the high dividend payout ratio of over 91%. Many thanks for joining this briefing. I'll now hand back to Brad to take you through industry trends and the company's strategy and outlook.
Thank you, Cherie. Let's take a few minutes to review the technology industry trends in AI, plus our strategy and outlook. In calendar year 2024, Gartner expects annual global tech spending to increase 7.5% to approximately $5.26 trillion. Sales growth generated from software is expected to grow at 13%, exceeding $1 trillion globally for the first time. Software has increased at the highest rate over the past few years compared to all other categories. We've experienced this growth with Software as a Service offerings such as Microsoft 365. Devices are expected to return to growth, to grow by 5% this year, compared to a decrease in 2023. Data#3 had growth last year, so return to positive industry growth is positive for Data#3.
IT services growth is steady at 7%, and communication services remain low at 3%. The standout is data center, which is expected to grow by 24%. Most of this will be seen in hyperscalers such as Microsoft as they build generative AI processing capability. What this means for Data#3 is additional capacity from our vendors to sell into our customers as part of our integrated solutions. We also expect customers to reinvest in their own data center capability to provide additional processing power. It is approximately one year since Data#3 and a select few others were invited into the Microsoft Copilot Early Adopter program. Since then, we have seen the full release of Copilot and customers taking the time to understand the potential of Gen AI capability within their organizations.
We reported a number of readiness assessments Data#3 was undertaking with customers, and that momentum has continued. Having completed readiness assessments, customers are now piloting solutions and moving to production. The process we are providing customers has proven successful in assisting with their adoption, and we've seen advantages across multiple sectors. While the technology platform provides opportunity for Data#3's software and infrastructure business, we continue to see opportunity for our services business in information governance and security and organizational change management. Our FY 2024 strategy remains consistent and is adaptable to industry trends. Let's look at a summary of our strategy before commenting on the outlook. Customer success remains at the center of our strategy. The more successful our customers become, the more successful we become. The inputs to customer success are our remarkable people, innovative solutions, and operational excellence.
We've consistently enabled customer success, in turn, delivering sustained financial performance for Data#3. Slide 28 shows our innovative solutions. Our ability to integrate these solutions is what sets us apart. We are finding now that nearly all of these solutions are embedded with AI. We see opportunity right throughout the solutions lifecycle, from consulting to adoption with our project services and ongoing management with our managed services. We've spoken to the AI infrastructure and multi-cloud opportunity. However, there is opportunity in assisting organizations to meet their sustainability goals. 73% say that becoming a sustainable business is a top priority. Our solutions start with our vendor partners, and they are well advanced to providing sustainable solutions. HP also have a Partner Impact program, for which Data#3 just received a five-star rating for our sustainability initiatives around people, planet, and community.
The number of cybersecurity incidents continue to grow, and so does the opportunity to assist customers across devices, the network, and cloud. The devices opportunity is huge and driven by post-COVID refresh, Windows 11 upgrade, and the demand for AI PCs. Data#3's unique device and service offering is adding value to many of our customers, making the procurement and management of the device more seamless. We see this on slide 30, where the focus of students is on learning. Data#3's Device as a Service offering for the International School of Western Australia has students achieving their goals with their new HP notebook computers. Our solution supports digital learning initiatives, has improved the user experience, and provided a more interactive environment for the students, while procurement and management of the device is made easier for the schools and parents.
This solution provides modern, reliable, and secure devices that are fit for purpose. Moving on to slide 31. Our competitive advantages, when combined, make us a unique organization in the Australian IT market. In addition to our people, partners, expertise, and innovation, it's our agility to respond to the changing market dynamics, supported by our strong financial position and market-leading brand, that provide comfort to customers in choosing Data#3 as their preferred technology partner. On slide 32, that comfort leads to long tenure, and over time leads to increased spend. The longer the tenure of our customers, the more they become familiar with our broader capability.... We see this on slide 33, where the average sales and GP has increased post-pandemic as we extend our engagement across our portfolio of solutions, including higher GP services.
So in summary, as we look to the outlook, we expect continued growth for our services business and is expected to be accelerated by the demand for AI solutions. We also see further profitability from our managed services business as we continue to onboard new customers. Multi-cloud security will see growth with a continued trend towards annuity offerings. Infrastructure solutions is expected to see potential ongoing challenges with delayed decision making, particularly in networking. However, we'll benefit from the uptick in multi-cloud and end-user computing infused with AI. Data#3 is well-placed to leverage the AI opportunity and to continue to provide sustainable growth while having a positive impact on the local economies and communities in which we operate. Consistent with previous practice, we won't be providing specific FY 2025 guidance.
In line with previous years, we continue to expect a sales peak in the months of May and June, and our goal remains to continue to deliver sustainable earnings growth. Thank you, and we'll now open for Q&A.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up your handset to ask a question. Please note to limit yourself to one question and one follow-up, then return to the queue. Thank you. Our first question comes from Chris Gawler of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Chris, are you on the line with us, sir?
Yes. Good morning, Brad and Cherie. Can you hear me okay?
Yes, Chris.
Good morning. Yes.
Cool. No, no worries. Sorry for that. I had a problem with my headset. Firstly, just a question in terms of the outlook commentary, in terms of the challenging trading conditions. I note that you flagged some customer decision-making deferrals back in February as well, and some nascent competition emerging. Just interested, if you could give us a bit of a sense for what you're seeing now versus then?
Yeah, absolutely, Chris. So we had a very strong Q4, and in fact, we had our best ever June, which is just fantastic. However, we also had very high expectations, so we are frustrated a little, as is the market in general, with some of the delayed decision making, which is there for a variety of reasons. Customers still pausing as they assess the economic environment and their position in the economic environment, and also the myriad of technology platforms that now are available, in particular, with AI and how that affects the new, newer products coming and when they should be making the decisions to move forward. So we've navigated that with many of our customers, but still a little, little frustrated in some ways of the prolonged decision making just continuing in general.
Okay. Yep. So things are maybe still a little bit slower than you would like, but have sequentially gotten better since February.
Yes.
Is the way to take that?
Yes, absolutely.
Okay, and then just one more question in terms of the cost outlook for FY 2025. Just noted a comment you make about onboarding one of your largest-ever managed services contracts in the fourth quarter. I know that often, as you say, the profitability is lower at the start and then ramps in the second year of the deal. Just interested how we should think about the internal cost ratio into FY 2025, and if there's any kind of timing issues with the ramp-up of some of these bigger projects.
Yeah. Thanks, Chris. So I think the challenges with the ICR in FY 2024 and us not being able to deliver significant improvements in it were more related to the slight softness in the infrastructure business off a relatively fixed cost base. And as you know, we deliver a lot of business in May and June, and we rely on, you know, all of our sales resources to deliver that level of business. So the ICR was more related to the economic environment and the trading conditions in the infrastructure business than the managed services onboarding of new contracts. We have improved the way we, contract with our new customers in terms of being reimbursed for some of those transition costs.
I won't say they're fully reimbursable, but we have learned, as we scale up, to get better at building in those initial costs into our contracts. So I don't expect that to have too much of a significant impact on the ICR as such. The ICR improvements will come more from us generating the desired levels of scale from the product business and continuing to look at just generally the way that we operate, in the most efficient way possible.
Okay, very clear. Thanks, guys. I'll jump back in the queue.
Thanks, Chris.
Thank you. Next question will be from Apoorv Sehgal of UBS. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, Brad, Cherie, Steve. Just as a follow-up to the points you're making around delayed decision-making, is that potentially a factor with the Queensland election coming up in October? Is that something that tends to slow down decision-making in the lead up to an election like that? Obviously, Queensland is a pretty important state for you. And is that something that could play a role in, like, first half 2025 as well?
Yeah, potentially, absolutely. It's, you know, with elections, it's interesting. There's existing contracts largely aren't affected. However, we do see that even some purchasing decisions under those existing contracts might be delayed, and also the signing of new contracts. As you know, we've been through this many times. However, the reality is that we may see some Queensland business shift from the first half into the second half. But I guess the good news from that is that we still have plenty of time in the financial year to still assist the governments with their requirements post-election, because that should be well out of the way by Christmas.
Mm-hmm. And just as one more question as a bit of a follow-up to that. The Queensland Government, in their June budget, talked about the Smarter Spending, Better Jobs plan, where they talked about driving AUD 3 billion of cost savings over the next four years. And in the budget report, they specifically mentioned reducing the use of external consultants. I'm just curious if you've seen an impact from that already, and might that potentially have an impact going forward, please?
Not really, and maybe that's because, you know, the level of consulting that we do is not material, perhaps, across government. However, what we are also find is that, you know, we've got a very strong projects business, and our projects business is based on outcomes with the customers rather than just contractors. So, through our projects business, which is outcome-based and managed services, we would expect that that would still continue.
Okay. Very good. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Next question will be from Ed Woodgate of Jarden. Please go ahead.
Hi, team, and well done on navigating a tough environment. So yeah, interesting question just on the Queensland Government cost out, but I think that's been answered. I might just ask you guys to talk to what you've been seeing as far as orders from infrastructure hardware. So appreciate you've been seeing deferrals in decision making, but can you just talk as to what the order growth is year on year, similar to, say, like, how Cisco reports? And then is there any kind of disclosure you can provide as to what the revenue impact of any backlogs you're recycling in the second half of the full year, please?
Sure. The, you know, Cisco is a vendor that they do report on, on orders. We tend to report on profitability after the order's been delivered. So, having said that, the order pipeline and the opportunity pipeline is a leading indicator, as opposed to a lagging indicator. And overall, we've got some pretty healthy pipeline. So the three factors are, you've got pipeline leads to orders, leads to profitability, and we've got great pipeline, as with Cisco, we're seeing in their last quarter. And we've seen good orders in our FY and also the start of FY 2025.
Just the other anomaly with Cisco there it is that their end of financial year is end of July as well. So, while we had to close our books off on the 30th of June, Cisco was still processing orders for their FY through to the end of July.
Okay, thanks. And then, is there any, just to ask a follow-up question, is there any color you can provide on the, what the backlog might have been?
So backlog is back to normal, really, and in terms of our back order, and Cisco are well improved on the supply chain. So it's sort of really back to a post-pandemic level. Their inventory and back order are quite back to what we'd say, normal levels, if you like.
Okay, thanks. And then just quickly, so, there seems to be a new disclosure in relation to your customer cohorts. If I'm reading it correctly, you've got 1,000 new customers in FY 2024, which seems to be a great outcome. Just hoping you can provide some color on what's driven that. And are these smaller customers than you've historically targeted, any sort of change in, I guess, the segments you're targeting?
Yeah, I think it's probably more around customers versus customer groups. And so while we absolutely have had great success with new customers, but there's probably some alignment that we'd need to look at between the customers and customer groups. So I may need to get back to you on that, Ed. And the second part of your question was?
Oh, well, are you targeting smaller customers or targeting different industries? Is there anything that's-
Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I guess the answer to that is, we do see opportunity, but particularly with Microsoft in that medium business. I won't say necessarily small business, because we don't deal in consumer or small business. But we have seen good success in particularly Microsoft around the Cloud Solution Provider program, which is that next level down from their enterprise agreements.
Okay. And then just one final one for me before I jump back in the queue is, so appreciate it's tough for you to provide guidance, given so much product revenues written in May and June. But can you comment on what your expectations are for services growth? Like, should it continue at a similar growth trend? Are there any verticals that might accelerate or decelerate? Particularly, I guess, you know, consulting with Gen AI or maybe project services with the slightly weaker demand for networking hardware.
Yeah, I guess the short answer there is, Ed, we're absolutely looking for continued growth with services. As you saw in the numbers, we had great progress with professional services and managed services last year. With BA, while we didn't grow the revenue as much as we would like, we did have better success from a profitability perspective. And BA, in particular, has great opportunity around the AI piece, particularly around that security and governance and change management piece, that I spoke about earlier, as it leads into then the technology consulting around the platform.
We've got, I guess, good aspirations around our Business Aspect and also continued growth with the managed services as we not only onboard those larger enterprise managed services, as we mentioned earlier, but also develop out our packaged managed services around specific offerings, targeting particular customer requirements.
Yeah. Okay, great. Actually, sorry, just one more question, because I've had quite a bit of inbound on it. The services GPM, and apologies if you've already addressed this completely, but that contracted about 400 basis points, half on half into the second half versus first half of services. So, I mean, is that just mix shift to maintenance services, or has there been any, you know, individual vertical GP margin compression?
No, nothing to call out, Ed. As you know, the services gross margin only includes direct contractor costs. So often slight movements could just be the changing mix of contractors FTEs. So we had contractor numbers in services go backwards slightly, and we onboarded new FTEs in their place.
Okay, got it. And yeah, once again, congrats. It's a very tough environment out there from what we've heard from everyone on the channel. So, keep what you're doing. It is still impressive, even if it's maybe not what everyone would hope it is right now. So thanks very much.
Thanks, Ed.
Thank you. Next question will be from Chenny Wang of MS. Please, go ahead.
Morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just first one in terms of those, you know, product gross margins. Like, historically, the second half has always been quite materially lower than the first half, but that was kind of mostly flat, half on half, and also up versus the second half of 2023. Understand, yeah, there's been probably some mix shifts with some of the delayed decision making, but can you kind of help us understand the dynamics at play there, and also how we should think about those margins going forward? Thank you.
Just a little bit more information. Let's see. I guess Jenny, good to hear you. Thank you for your question. I guess one of the... We sort of addressed it, but it may have been sort of glossed over in the content because there's a fair bit of content. With the infrastructure solutions, while we do see a continued slowdown in that networking piece, we are still looking at for growth in that networking piece, sort of aligned to that market growth, which is at around the 3%.
But we do see also opportunity in end-user compute and also data center as well. So we still see opportunity in that infrastructure space, even though we are seeing some delayed decision making. I guess the other piece just around the relationship between the infrastructure product business and the maintenance services, and this is relevant particularly to Cisco, is the maintenance services, which is services including vendor services. It includes a lot of the support agreements that are sold in line with the infrastructure solutions agreements.
So you know, we have seen a little bit of a shift of some of the profitability from the product through to the maintenance areas within the business. And that's also from a Cisco software perspective, that sits on the network is also recognized in that area as well. So when we look at the business, the infrastructure business, we're actually looking at the infrastructure and maintenance combined as well, but we understand we need to report the services businesses separately as well. So just wanted to mention that to you then, in terms of we are still seeing healthy activity across the infrastructure of the business.
If we hadn't, if we didn't have the infrastructure business, we wouldn't have that uptick in maintenance that we're seeing now.
... Yeah, thanks, Brad. My question was actually just in terms of your product segment, so your infrastructure solutions plus your software solutions, and just kind of the gross margin profile in that product segment. I guess, you know, you guys delivered, I think it was 5.6% gross margins for FY 2024, and, you know, that segment has been on a decline for a number of years now, but looks like you guys are actually seeing some stabilization there on that product gross margin.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, so apologies for that.
So just-
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yep. So the product margin is actually quite stable and healthy. When we report on product in general, we're talking about the infrastructure product and also software product.
Okay.
As you know, a lot of the relative. Well, in that column on slide 15, the relative gross margin for software is quite low on some of those very high revenue gross sales and deals as well. It's that the blend between software solutions and infrastructure solutions that provides the resultant product gross margin percentage of 5.7%.
Okay. All, all good. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Next question will be from Adam Dellaverde of Taylor Collison. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Brad, Cherie, and Steve. I just wanted to ask a question around headcount growth. I know we're kind of had a big growth in the prior year, in FY 2022, and then, sorry, FY 2023, and it looks like 2% headcount growth in FY 2024. I'm just interested in your plans for FY 2025 in terms of adding heads and what kind of wage inflation you're still seeing.
Yeah, sure, Adam. So yeah, as you say, we did see an increase of 2% in FY 2024, which represented about 30 staff. Most of those were billable services staff, which sit below the line, as you know. So those people are obviously brought on to service new customers. And we've been quite deliberate in not bringing or attempting to not bring on too many headcounts across other areas of the business, other than we had a few people onboarded in the product space in specialist sales roles to drive strategic growth in future periods. So in terms of what we expect to happen with headcount into the future, as always, it's subject to the amount of new business that we win.
We try to manage our back office headcount as closely as we can and achieve that leverage that we've spoken to previously. I don't know if that answers your question.
Just so directionally similar to 2% or back to trends closer to revenue growth, like?
Yeah, look, I probably expect it to be a little bit more next year. If we can achieve incrementally more growth in the services business, you know, we might need more staff across the project services and managed services business to onboard new contracts, but I can't predict that until that business is won.
Yeah, the other thing, I guess, Adam, is the general dynamic nature of the industry is fast evolving, and we like to think that we're fairly agile as well. So, I guess our staffing levels will vary based on the market opportunity. So if we, for example, feel that we need to put some more resource around particular AI initiatives, we may move some people around within the business, but we may also bring on some additional resources on the basis that that return on the investment is going to be there as well.
If, I guess, in direct answer to your question, we're not looking at bringing on a substantial head count just for the sake of it.
Yeah, and just to answer your question on wage inflation, we saw about 5.5% in FY 2024, which we're hoping has now peaked and should, yeah, at least carry forward into next year, if not hopefully reduce.
Got it. And so implicitly, all of the things, all the initiatives that you're trying to do with AI and, the project pipeline that you're handling, that that's going to be handled mostly in FY 2025 through the sort of the people infrastructure you have in place?
Correct. Absolutely. Yeah, we and if you think about solutions as well, there's AI embedded into the PCs. So we have existing people that are selling PCs, going through all the training required around explaining the benefits of the AI PC to our customers, our software solutions people, they're the people that are having the discussions around Microsoft Copilot and whatnot. So, because AI is sort of being overlaid across our existing solutions, we don't necessarily have to create a whole new like a AI team per se, although we are bolstering some areas where we feel there's faster growth.
Great. Thank you. And just maybe one final one. Just in terms of the pipeline, I'm kind of curious. I'm not sure how much you can talk about, but how is the pipeline shifting? I know last couple of years, there's been a fair bit of, like, commercial projects. There's been stadiums in the past. Talked about data centers in the Pacific. I'm just curious in how the incoming or the leading pipeline compares and whether that has any impact on the kind of margins you can get or the follow-ons?
Overall, it has. It's not really shifting that much. We still have a pipeline that includes some of those larger infrastructure projects like we've had in the past. You know, some of those can take a couple of years to come to fruition, of course. But we've also seen some good mid-market, our commercial business and our government sector across federal, state, and local remain strong. So, I guess the short answer to your question in terms of it, is it shifting? We're not seeing it shift significantly, no.
Okay. Well, just, I'm looking at the spending as sort of the hospitals, and there's education, and, you know, mining maybe isn't is a little bit tougher. So, like, are you, how sensitive is it in terms of pipeline to the fortunes of those individual categories versus, you know, just normal inertia? I don't know if I've answered that well, but.
Yeah, like, I guess you're asking really, is it some of those big infrastructure projects provide a spike to business, and then where do we find the business afterwards scenario? I guess we do have a pretty diverse customer base. You know, so some of those infrastructure projects, if you even just pick up the, you probably know about the, whether we win them or not is another story, but the huge activity, even just within Queensland, around building and extending hospitals, for example, we'll see infrastructure projects commence around the Brisbane Olympics. We're still involved in a number of stadium projects in the southern states. So, yeah, there's certainly opportunity.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is a follow-up from Apoorv Sehgal of UBS. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Thank you for taking one follow-up question. Just on Cisco's networking business, if consensus, analyst consensus forecasts are right for their global networking sales, it's basically going to bottom out kind of right now in their July half, get sort of less negative in second half of calendar year 2024, before turning back to positive from first half calendar year 2025. Would that roughly be the right kind of trajectory that you'd probably expect for your infrastructure sales as well? Like, you know, a little bit less negative at the top line in the upcoming December half, before hopefully getting back to that positive territory, June half 2025?
Yeah, I guess our dip, although it did affect our numbers a little, our dip wasn't as severe as the Cisco global dip. So, we're still expecting to continue to grow that business, even at lower rates, rather than being a less negative in the first half, for example. And then, certainly, as we enter into a calendar year 2025, we expect that to accelerate a little bit further.
So I guess we would be aligned with what Cisco are seeing, but it would be a bit of a smoother road in that regard, in terms of our involvement with Cisco in that market.
Got it. Thanks, guys.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Our next question will be from Ed Woodgate from Jarden. Another follow-up question. Please go ahead.
Oh, hi, Brad [inaudible] . Just very quickly, on Generative AI services revenue, is there? I imagine that wasn't a big impact in FY 2024. I don't know if you can call out a specific number there, but maybe more interestingly, are there any leading indicators you can talk about the potential impacts, for Generative AI on services next year into the medium term?
Yeah, last year, we were calling out a number of the readiness assessments that we're working on. We've got, as you know, some great initial momentum with that, which is fantastic, and I guess rather than just necessarily reporting every single readiness assessment that we're involved in now, we are seeing those move forward from a readiness assessment into pilots and production environments, so we're not calling out specific numbers per se, and at the end of the day, it'll also be... It's a bit like cloud, you know, in some ways. It's actually really hard to report on because it's infused with our services projects overall.
A services project may be just purely focused on an AI initiative, but typically, what's going to happen is it'll be a services project that includes an AI component in it. It's, it'll be increasingly harder to call out specifically, other than to say that by having that AI capability in our services team, it really underpins the growth that we're looking at from our services business, both from a consulting project and managed services perspective.
Thanks. That's, that's very helpful. And then just one final clarification. Apologies, it was just a bit of a bad line for me at least. So just, can you just confirm what the interest revenue guidance number is, and then also that below-the-line managed services profitability has improved?
Yeah, so I think I've given guidance of about AUD 8.5 million in interest income, or that's certainly what we've used to build out our internal budgets, Ed, but if anyone gets what will happen with the cash rate, that's the current estimate. And yes, I can confirm that managed services and services overall net profitability has improved in FY 2024.
Got it. Okay. Thanks again. Cheers.
Thanks.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I'll hand the call back to Mr. Colledge for closing remarks.
Thank you very much. Well, look, thank you very much, everybody, for your time this morning. There's always a lot of content to cover in the briefings, and really appreciate the questions. Of course, if you have any further questions over time, we are more than happy to address them. But overall, Data#3 had a good year, with the market that in which we're operating, and we're really excited about the opportunity that FY 2025 is going to provide Data#3, with the skill sets and the team that we have on board. So, thank you very much for your time, and we will speak to you again. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. That does conclude our conference today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.