Good day, and welcome to the earnings call of IRIS Business Services Limited for the quarter and year ended March 31st 2024. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. We have Mr. S. Swaminathan, CEO; Mr. K. Balachandran, CFO; Ms. Deepta Rangarajan, Whole Time Director; Mr. P. K. X. Thomas, CTO of the company. I now hand the conference over to Mr. S. Swaminathan. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Just a word of caution before we start. I'm actually at an airport, and if occasionally I go on mute, it's because announcements are being made at the airport. I think it's been an extraordinarily good year, thanks to the South African contract that we won last year. And, from where we were about six, seven years ago, to come to this year, this stage, where we have just crossed INR 100 million in revenue, I think it's a big deal. And, I'm grateful to all of our colleagues for making this happen. And, given, given the performance, as I said, I think the nature of performance will keep changing from time to time. This whole year has actually been driven by the first business, which is the collect business of the company.
As you know, the business has three parts: Collect, Create, and Consume. Collect helps with regulators, Create with enterprises, and Consume the data analytics part. The Collect business is the one that actually drove performance this year. Though increasingly, our focus is on Create, we're also trying to take the Create business away from mandate-led opportunities to other areas, which we will see going forward. But I think the momentum that we have, the team that we have and the cash that we have in the bank, going forward, we will soon be able to take over cash in the bank. All this gives us the confidence that we should be able to mount a reasonable attempt at capturing more market share. How we translate capture into revenues going forward is something that we will determine then.
But actually before I get on to anything of that sort, I'll let Balu take you through. I think the presentation will be in a moment. I'll let Balu take you through the broad numbers before we get to the difference. Over to you, Balu. I think we also have Sarvo on the call, who is our recent sales hire. He comes with a lot of experience on the SaaS sales front, so he's also available if you want to pose any questions to him. We also have Anup, who's been working on taking Carbon beyond the mandate. We also have several other colleagues joining us, who we can always turn to for questions, if you have specific questions on specific areas. But we'll start with Balu. Balu, over to you.
Thank you very much, Swaminathan. I hope all of you can hear me. Good evening, and it's great to see a nice turnout for this conference call. It's also good to meet with all of you after a gap of, uh, six odd months. As usual, I'll quickly run through some of the highlights of our financial performance for the year ended March 2024. I hope some of you have seen our investor presentation, which we uploaded on the Exchange website a few hours ago. Coming to financial performance for the last quarter, you will see that we have pretty much carried the momentum that we have shown in the previous nine months, previous quarters, just that we have done a wee bit better this quarter.
The top-line growth is a tad more compared to the previous quarters, while at the PBT level, we have done a bit better as well. However, we continue to maintain that it is best to look at our company's growth trajectory from a 12-month perspective. For the full year, we have grown at about 37%, while the EBITDA increased by 45%. At the same time, the profit before tax nearly doubled. Taking a quick look at the expenses, you would see that costs have nearly kept pace, little less, with the top line, given our need to spend on growing the business, especially on the Create side. So that continues. And as expected, and as Swaminathan mentioned, this year's performance has been boosted by a stellar turnout from the Collect segment, which grew as much as 70%.
On the other hand, the Create segment growth was more sedate, though, in terms of number of customer additions, I would say it is quite decent as well. So let me just, you know, go through a couple of interesting financial indicators. I'm happy to report that our return on net worth, the key ROE, has moved up substantially to 21% from the previous year's 14%. But if I look at the number from a return on average net worth, we do it at the end of the March balance sheet figure. But if you look at it from an average point of view, this will be even better.
So that is something which is quite gratifying, especially, especially to me, given the fact that we need to use our capital, you know, in a very wise manner. The other thing I would like to highlight is that we have done quite reasonably well on our collection process. Collection efficiencies have improved, with the result that receivables as days of sales have reduced to about 80 days, which has also helped our working capital management, as well. And before I wind up, I also want to mention that, you know, our net operating cash flow for the full year is now close to INR 12 crore and more than doubled from the previous year's numbers, which is again quite gratifying. I would say that that is still, you know, a modest number.
We need to make sure that, you know, we do much better going forward. The balance sheet cash position also has improved, which Swami also mentioned, giving us that extra room in spending so that we can scale our SaaS business in a much more, you know, meaningful manner. So that is all from my side at this point of time, and we can perhaps open the, you know, session for Q&A. Swami, over to you.
I think before we get to Q&A, Deepta, you have any opening remarks to make?
Um, no,
Deepta, you're not audible.
You want me to?
Much better, but not significantly so. I think you need to speak into the mic, whatever mic you have.
Okay. Okay. No, no, I'll, I'll take anything in the Q&A that comes up.
Thomas, do you have any comments to make?
No, Mr. Thomas. Actually, there is nothing from my side. If there is any questions, I'll certainly have to take it.
Okay. Over to the moderator for any questions that may come up.
Sure. Thank you so much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone phone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Again, if you have a question, please press star and one. The first question is from the line of Mitesh Mehta from Investor. Please go ahead.
Hello. Am I audible?
Yes, sir. Please-
Yeah, you are.
Yeah. Congratulations, first of all, for great set of numbers. My first question is related to marketing plan for Collect business. Like, how do we plan to expand the business and geographical reach for this business? Because I feel that is that holds a very good potential.
So every segment that we have has significant potential. The nature of marketing in the Collect business is very different from the nature of marketing in the Create or the other businesses. The Collect business is largely driven by RFPs, where regulators issue RFPs on which we bid, and then we thereafter win some, and we lose some. So the way we approach this, we approach this segment is by getting in front of as many regulators as possible, and telling them that we are potentially a good partner for them to work with, if they are looking to implement a regulatory filing platform. And that's what we do. So I hope that answers the question. Swami, you wanna add to this?
Okay, second question. My second question is regarding, is there any further plan in company to bifurcate the business or split the business into two, especially to generate more capital for further expansion?
You know, there are always discussions that happen within the company about subdividing the company into various parts, including Collect, Create, and Consume. These are discussions that happen at the board and senior level, and if and when anything comes to fruition, shareholders will be the first to know.
Okay. Okay, thank you. That's-
We always have academic discussions keep happening all the time. You know-
Okay.
Our board is a very active board, and we keep getting asked questions about these plans. So as I said, I mean, once something at the board gets confused, yes, we need to do, I think we'll go ahead and do it.
Okay. Okay, that's it from my side. If I have any question, I'll get into you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rohit Potti, who's an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Thank you for this opportunity, and first, congratulations to the entire team. I mean, INR 100 crore is a great milestone, and it was definitely hard-won, so very happy for all of you guys, and congratulations. My first question is on Collect. South Africa mandate drove majority of the growth this year. So, what proportion of the contract is done, and how much more of the order book is left there, is one question. And the pipeline in Collect, I mean, what after South Africa is, is the other question?
Swami, you want to take that?
Yeah, I can do that. While we don't want to give out precise numbers, I would broadly say that the South African contract, you know, you could say perhaps, you know, about 30%-35% is already, you know, done at this point of time, the current contract shape. Of course, it can expand as we go along, so that's one number that you can keep in mind. And outside that, say that, you know, what I've seen in the... or what we have seen in the last few months, the Collect pipeline is looking more and more interesting. More and more, you know, inquiries getting floated in the market. We are responding as well.
It takes time for, you know, the whole process to, you know, come to fruition and award gets, you know, announced. But I would say that, you know, the pipeline is certainly looking interesting. We don't see much of a problem in terms of, you know, in terms of, you know, not having, you know, not being able to substitute whatever we accrue on the execution of the South African project. That's what I would say at this point of time.
So basically what Balu is saying is that I'll continue to get salaries going forward?
Yeah. So, I'm just curious to know if any tenders, not just up for bid, but any tender results are to be out this year, where you can announce any big deal wins like we did in the past with Bhutan and others?
Yeah, yeah. We are hoping that we would be able to make a few announcements over the course of the next few months. Having said that, we can only do that if, you know, certain paperwork, et cetera, gets complete, and we are confident that, you know, this is something where we can meet the requirements, conditions which, you know, which are required before announcement. Having said that, you know, I wouldn't be surprised that, you know, if you-- before we meet again, there will be some announcements.
Oh, thank you. I mean, yeah, that, that's what I was looking for. I mean, so some tender results are gonna be coming out, so that's good to hear, even if they win or not. So, the other question is on, Create. I mean, it was very heartening to see, I mean, despite no new mandates coming out globally, we still had a 20%-odd growth, which indicates that we are winning market share with, the sales and marketing team that we have right now. So in that context, it'll be great to hear more from the management. I mean, you have had a new hire also, in a chief sales officer, which is satisfying to see as well. We added a product officer and now a sales officer, so great to see.
So it'll be great to hear more on your strategy for winning converting more customers to Carbon going forward. Because on one hand, we understand the product is tricky, so the conversion is difficult. So how do we intend to do that with the absence of new mandates going forward?
So there was one very interesting development this year, which actually surprised all of us. One of our former partners came back to us because they discovered that their current product does not meet the requirements in Europe, like ours does. I think, Deepta or Anu can tell you more about it. Deepta or Anu, one of you can actually take it from... You know more about it than I do.
Yes, sure. Hi, this is Anuradha. So we, we've been working closely with partners in Europe. In fact, one of the early partners that we had signed up, of course, initially they were giving us good business. But then over the course of years, I think they are trying to go global. They're looking for a partner who's able to overall cover and cater to global customer base, which is where Carbon perfectly fits in. It is being positioned as one platform for multiple geo-reporting, multiple regulation reporting. Of course, you know, now of course, we have mandates which is upcoming as well. So it is very, very interesting to see how partners from the past are also reconnecting back to us with possible new opportunities. So however, it's at a very early stage, it's a very early stage conversation.
We need to see how this pans out. Thank you.
Anu, Deepta, you want to take it forward? I understand the Fluence. Deepta, can you talk about it, please?
One more time, Swami. I'm sorry.
Can you talk about Fluence? Can you talk about Fluence?
Anu, I'm not able to hear Swami. Can you talk about what?
Fluence. There's been some conversation with Fluence-
Ah.
where they found that our product was actually a question, that was a question I passed on Anu. She answered a different question altogether.
Correct, correct, correct. So Anu, you wanted to talk about Fluence, where they actually came back to us after evaluating other products and said that our product seems, works far better, the product market fit. I think, Swami, you wanted to speak about that.
Yes. Deepta, you take it. Deepta, you take it.
Okay, sure. If you can hear me okay. So yeah, this is specifically in the European market. We had a partner four-five years ago who actually was reselling our product as well as some other third-party product as well in the marketplace. This year, this partner came back to us and said that they wanted to work with us far more seriously. They actually felt that the other products in the market were not as good as firmly behind, and they felt that IRIS was doing the IRIS Carbon product. I'm so sorry, was doing was much better, especially given the changing complexities of mandates. You know, where you know, where things like text blocks need to be tagged, et cetera, et cetera.
They said that Carbon clearly seems to be a much better product, and we'd like to take this as a new product out. So, you know, we'd like to position this relationship as a new product, and we'd like to take out into market. So I think that that is the key structure from what I'm saying here.
So basically, Rohit, the point I'm trying to make here is the following: Since we operate in multiple geographies, we have had to work with different kinds of mandates. So Carbon has had to deal with multiple, multitude of situations. So if you throw a new situation at us, we probably have seen it before in another country. Therefore, our preparedness for any change in the mandate, by virtue of being in so many countries, is actually much better than people in single markets with just one uniform market. So EU is one uniform market. So if you basically are selling Carbon just to EU, again, that's all that you have.
But if you're selling, Carbon in E.U., in India, in South Africa, and several other markets around the world, you're being thrown different problems from different markets, and therefore, you're able to prepare for a new mandate change or a complexity in the mandate, much more easily than anybody else... So this conversation we've had with our partner is a huge vindication of our strategy of going to multiple markets. That's what I want to say to you.
So it's very interesting to hear. So the revenue from Fluence has started coming or is it?
Not yet. No, no, no, no, it's still early, it's still early. I mean, boy, there is a boy likes girl, she doesn't mean they're getting married.
Okay, understood. So, could we understand... I mean, so, I believe that you mentioned we hired a new sales officer who has focused on the tax base in the past. So it would be great if you can hear from him on the strategy for tax going forward, because I understand the competition sells sort of a market solution and not just one particular piece. So to get the customer to shift from one to another, or one company to another, preferably to IRIS, is a more difficult task, is what I understood.
So how do we, in absence of a mandate, how do we win more clients, and how do we grow create is something that would be great, because I believe from the past you mentioned that pricing is not something we grow on, but we'll rather grow on volumes. So I'll be-
So before I get Sarvo in, maybe Deepta can introduce Sarvo. So Sarvo can answer the question, please.
Sure. So just to, rather than to, okay, maybe Sarvo can hand it over to him, so he can talk a little bit more. If you remember on the last, on the last call, you know, we talked about two things. One was establishing product market fit, and the second was strengthening the sales and marketing infrastructure. From a product market fit point of view, Carbon disclosure management perspective, we have a lot, and we are comfortable. We have got feedback, incorporated it, and, you know, we need to confirm. So if you- as we have done with every other opportunity, it really is the moment, the disclosure management side.
So, on the product side, what's gonna happen to things with each passing release and with each passing user feedback, you know, we have established further and further, six months of product that we just tried to, to-
Deepta, can you introduce Sarvo in terms of... Deepta, can you introduce Sarvo in terms of his background? I mean, that's the whole bit.
Oh, sure, sure. Okay. We can... So, yeah, on the sales and marketing side, we've actually hired in, from a sales leadership point of view, Sarvo. He was on the call the past two days. He's heading, sales, sales and marketing, basically growth for IRIS Carbon. And he comes in from a background of, cloud space. He was earlier with a company called HighRadius. And I think he'll be able to talk to you much more, where he has been part of the ramp-up. And, if you know, if I, if I, if I have it correctly, for, HighRadius is now at about a $350 million ARR. But he's been through much of the, scale-up journey of HighRadius.
And Sarvo is been with us now close to three months, and now started setting the entire sales and marketing pieces in order for us to be able to take Carbon out of scale in the market. And I think Sarvo is on the call. So, Sarvo, you may be able to, it would be if you can introduce yourself, please.
Yep. Yep. Thank you so much, Deepta, and, hi, Rohit, and hi, everyone. As Deepta mentioned, I'm coming from a background of, tax sales, selling to the office of the CFO, and, helped through the growth journey from a $10 million to a $250 million sales, right? Idea is to replicate something similar, here at IRIS Carbon, selling to the office of the CFO. In terms of answering your questions, Rohit, very specifically, I think, our objective is to move towards a non-mandate sales, especially with the disclosure management. We are not going to be focused necessarily on mandate business. Yet we will continue to do what we are doing, but the idea is to, position ourselves where we show value for the disclosure management product and IRIS Carbon as a whole. That's number one.
The second is, I would say there's an awareness that needs to be created. So IRIS Carbon has a great product, but in the North America geography, and to some extent in Europe, there is more awareness that needs to be created. So we are focusing on creating that awareness at the same time, directly as well as via our partners, so that we are able to generate more interest and visibility within the market. So good product plus awareness, hopefully should lead to, an increase in sales. And I'll pause on that. Does that answer your question, Rohit?
No, yeah, that was very helpful. Thank you for answering that so nicely. But, a little more detail would help in the context, and my understanding is, the product that at least the IRIS Carbon sells at, let's say, $5,000-$10,000 per year.
Mm-hmm.
In that context, my understanding is that, so at least because we're selling to the office of the CFO, right?
Mm-hmm.
They just want to get the work done, and a saving of, let's say, $1,000, $2,000 won't cut it, because to relearn the whole thing for the whole office, it becomes a little painful for a $1,000, $2,000 dollar in an entire year, saving. So in that context-
Correct.
How do we go about converting... I mean, if it was a tech adoption or a sale, something like that, it might have been different, or if the saving was an order of magnitude higher, then it would have been different. But in this context, is it not difficult to convert people from the office of the CFO, who might not necessarily be very tech savvy, to switch from one product to the other? In that context, how do we grow, is where I'm coming from.
Yeah, yeah, that's a great question, Rohit. So I think the way we have traditionally sold, I think we have pivoted a little bit of late, where we are trying to understand the overall value, like you rightly called out. What we have observed is the value is a lot higher that we are delivering or saving to our potential clients, and as we quantify the value to them, we are able to position it better internally. To add to that, I would also say that price or cost is one of the factors that customers or our prospects are looking for change. What we are trying to identify is the other factors which is causing that change. So what we then as and when we understand the reasons, so in some cases, I'll give you a small example.
One of our competitors, a big one, is not using Microsoft Word, Excel, et cetera, as their baseline product to work off the disclosure management solution. We are positioning ourselves as you can continue to work using your traditional tools like Microsoft Word and Excel, and not having to move out of them. That gives them a lot more comfort. So there are different things that we are doing, in short, understanding their pain points, and then positioning ourselves accordingly to the situation. May or may not lead to, you know, the dollar delta. Some of them are not looking at, like you said, the dollar value savings, but some of them, a lot of them, are looking at an ROI or a cost savings, and we are trying to quantify that as much as possible, which can add up to a significant number. Does that help?
Thank you. That was. Yeah, that is definitely helpful. I mean, you're talking about ease of use and convenience, which so there is time value as well, which will be very helpful for sure. And so just one last question: so in terms of if the strategy is working out or not, the best indicator for us to track, let's say, over the next two, three years, would be the Create ARR number. Would that be right in thinking to see if the strategy is working going forward?
Absolutely. I, I would call that a lagging indicator, an output metric that you would like to measure. A leading indicator probably would be a growth in pipeline as we move along. So we measure both the leading or input metrics, as well as the lagging, and we get to know whether strategies are working or not, and we make changes as and when needed.
Understood. No, fair enough. I don't think we'll be privy to the leading indicators for confidentiality purposes, perhaps, so I'll look forward to seeing the lagging indicator move up quite heavily going forward.
Absolutely.
Thank you so, so much for your answers, the management. Once again, congratulations to everybody for the INR 100 crore achievement. Really happy to see that. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Deepak Poddar, who's an individual investor. Please go ahead.
Hi, everyone. I'm audible, right?
You're audible, but you're sounding muffled. If you're using the speaker mode, may we request you use the handset mode, please?
Sure. Okay. Firstly, congratulations, you know, on a fantastic set of numbers. I think everyone, you know, did highlight that, right? I had, you know, a couple of questions, right? One is, you know, on the product iDEAL, right, which does the automated, you know, reg reporting, right? Just wanted to understand the sort of, you know, revenue model here. Like, do we, you know, like, invoice our clients, implementation plus, you know, pay-per-usage type of model? You know, and why I'm asking this is, you know, like, we all know the, you know, reporting requirements for banks, financial institutions, are growing, you know, and will continue to grow exponentially. So just trying to, you know, link if, you know, there's a sort of linear, you know, relationship here.
Balu, I got kicked out of the call for a few minutes. I don't know why. So I think I didn't hear the full question. I'll let you take this.
I can take the question. Thank you for asking this. iDEAL is a very important and interesting product in the IRIS portfolio. So we do work with more than one, you know, one model for invoicing. One, of course, when we started out with iDEAL, which is primarily in the BFSI sector, and which typically handles large volumes of data and push the data after doing the validations automatically into the regulators' collection platform. So we initially started with the licensing and AMC model, and that continues- Hello? Yeah, can... I hope-
Yeah, yeah.
I was saying that we initially started with the licensing and AMC model, which also is in vogue at this point of time, and it continues with many of our customers. But we have also have an offer, a subscription model, where people pay as a subscription on an annual basis. And we have, you know, this, I would say maybe, you know, 30%, 40%, 40% of clients are using the subscription model. So both are in vogue. And we do have it on-prem at this point of time, especially in India and Mauritius, where we are in operations. In South Africa, we have also started to offer this product on the cloud as well. So these are products where we feel there's a lot of potential.
Of course, the market is very competitive in Europe, especially where XBRL mandates came in quite some time back. But in other countries, it is just opening up. That's what I would say.
Great. Thank you. Thank you. I had a follow-up question, you know, on the Consume business, right? Again, the expectation would be that, you know, regulators start looking at, you know, all this data for analytics and, you know, even for their policy implementations, right? Now or maybe in the future. You know, given, you know, regulators are a sort of, you know, very niche, client category that, you know, we have-...
Are we seeing that sort of a, you know, discussions, you know, where we are looking at, you know, a help on, you know, understanding and making sense out of all the data, analytics and all of that? Or is it too early, for that?
See, we already have products in the Consume category. For example, if you see our flagship product for banking system for RBI, something called Silk, which basically analyzing the filings made by banks to the RBI, and we help RBI make sense of it and do things. So, yes, so with every customer, depending on the scope of the implementation of the Collect platform, there's also an analytics platform. So when you see the revenues in the case of Consume, a lot of it comes actually from implementation of solutions like that. So we've done something on those lines in Dubai. We've done something on similar lines in Oman. So it's increasingly, you're absolutely right, and great question for that.
Increasingly, customers are, regulators are looking at how to use the data better, and also looking at how to use the data along with other data. So, Balu, you want to mention something about the Dubai opportunity that we got the, the Dubai delivery we did?
So we've got a content mall for our customer, which is Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange. The content mall is a product in which what all data they collect from companies, essentially financial data, can be further repackaged into data APIs and be consumed by the exchange customers. This is one of the, you know, one of the, you know, offerings that we have in the consume space. But outside that, we also do normal analytics. We have done that for central banks as well. So it is, you know, many times bundled along with the overall SupTech offering, which includes collection and analytics.
Thank you. Thanks. And is this space as competitive as the other businesses? I mean, you know, like I mentioned, given our niche client, you know, segment here, is the segment as competitive or we have an advantage there?
I think some regulators see this as a completely different thing altogether. Some regulators see it in combination with the platform that we develop for them. So I think there's no uniform answer. There is competition, but then there is no competition. So it's up to us. So we try to talk to them, talk to our regulators, customers, and basically say, "You know, you can do this, this, this, this, this." Sometimes they bite, sometimes they don't bite. I think more often than not, until now, they've not bitten. But I think increasingly we see a trend where people are saying, "Data ..., I've already collected so much data.
What can I do with it, and what other data streams can I have talking to it?" So the item is a very, very clear-cut answer as to how competitive it is, but our strengths by virtue of what we have, are well known, and therefore we're able to get customers with demand. We've not really focused on it to the extent that we should, except the focus that we do on this one is at the time of the tender itself, that we try to tell them what all they can do with it. So it's not being done as a separate entity because of, as Balu said, the Dubai team, for example, we implemented the platform several years ago. It's only now that they've talked about, started talking about how to leverage the data. So I think to each his own.
So it's competitive, but not competitive, but we're in a good spot. We're in a good space.
Great. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, sir, for the detailed answer.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Yash Naik from Investor. Please go ahead.
Hey, Yash Naik is the last one.
Light on how to grow our business in the Consume segment, considering it is our highest margin segment. So can we, like, see in next four-five years, it is-
Mr. Naik, your line was not audible at the start, so could you please repeat your question?
He just said...
Hello, am I audible now?
Yes, sir.
Yeah. Could you shed some light on how to grow our Consume segment, considering it is our highest margin segment? So can we see the significant growth in the top line also going forward in this segment?
Hello? Balu, you able to take this question? It's about Consume segment.
Line for Mr. Swaminathan has dropped. I'm connecting him back.
Okay. So maybe we can come back to this question, Mr. Naik.
I've just connected him. Just give me a moment. Yes, sir.
Hi, I'm back.
Sir, please can you repeat your question?
Yeah, yeah. So could you shed some light on the, like, Consume segment? It is, like a highest margin segment, so going forward, could we see some growth in the top line also in future, next 4 to 5 year in that segment?
I think the Consume segment is something we've been investing in. Now that... See, when you don't have money, you have to choose where to invest. You invest in Collect and Create. Now that we are slightly better off, we will invest increasingly in the Consume segment, and we see some significant possibilities there. How fast will it go? What all will it grow? See, the Consume segment has other possibilities. We can always offer collect the data for free in return for customers buying Carbon. We can offer data for free for people buying our GST solutions. So Consume segment can also be a marketing tool to acquire customers. Consume segment can also be a revenue-generating business for customers, for, for us. So how we use it is a function of many different factors.
The reason we've not shut down the consume segment obviously, because it's been very, very valuable in terms of helping us acquire customers by using the data from the consume segment as a marketing tool. But you're absolutely right. If we invest in it, we will be able to grow it much bigger, and that's certainly one of the objectives many years ahead.
Yeah, thank you. And, mainly the iDEAL is the revenue coming from that software or, like, application, or it is just for the marketing stuff?
... See, Peridot is completely free. Peridot is completely free.
Yeah.
Therefore, there are no revenues from Peridot. But having said that, today, because we are a GST, we are able to offer data APIs to customers, data APIs to, to lenders, for example, and there are- we have tied up with a few lenders. Gautam, are you there in the call?
Hello? Yes, yes, Tommy, I'm there.
Gautam, Gautam, can you talk about how we are leveraging data APIs?
Yeah. So Peridot, the Peridot app, is completely free, but it actually gives the visibility to end users about the potential of data that it carries. So we've been using these data APIs and providing to, you know, intermediary ERP platforms, as well as some of the lenders to use both consent and non-consent based data for doing this KYC purposes, for credit risk stream monitoring purposes.
Yeah, yeah, helpful. Thank you. And yeah, I have one regarding the ESG mandate. So, are there any, like, updates on that ESG mandate thing? Hello?
Mr. Rohit, answer that, on the ESG mandate.
Hello, am I audible?
Yeah, audible. Yeah.
Yeah, I am asking about the ESG mandate.
Yeah, yeah, we can hear you.
Okay, great. So is it about the ESG mandate?
The ESG mandate. There's a question on ESG mandate and, you know, how is it shaping up?
Okay. So, so the first, the first reason, geographically, where it is, rolling out in Europe, when companies, in a phased manner will, start reporting sustainability reports. It's going to kick in from next year, and, ESG will extend after that. This has grown a little bit slow, but there are still, pockets, in the US reporting state that are also pushing ahead. For example, like California, pushing ahead of the other states. So we expect that the ESG mandates in the US will also start rolling out in major organizations in a couple of years. But right now, for us, immediately, we see Europe as an interesting market, where we will start rolling out our solutions and making it available for ESG reporting as well.
Yeah. Okay, thank you. Just, just to clarify one thing, currently there is no revenue coming out from the ESG mandate, right? Am I correct on this one?
Yes, you're right. You're right.
No.
There is no revenue coming from ESG offering.
Okay. Thank you, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next-
I do want to apologize for constantly getting bounced off the call. I don't know why it's happening. Bangalore airport, where for some reason, the call keeps dropping. So my deepest apologies to everybody who will continue by my being bounced in the call so often.
No problem, sir. So the next question is from the line of Deepak Poddar from Sapphire Capital. Please go ahead.
Oh, yeah, I'm audible, sir?
Yes, you are.
Okay. Sir, many congratulations for a good set of numbers. Sir, first up, I just wanted to understand our annual R&D-
Deeptak, can you speak louder? You started, when you said, "Are you am I audible?" You were very audible. After that, you become completely inaudible because you're too soft.
Now it's better?
Much better. But please please please remind, because-
Yes, yes.
Completely.
Yes. So I was just trying to understand in terms of your R&D spend, I mean, how... What's the annual spend that we need to do, and, and, and, and how much we capitalize and what would be capitalized amount as in our books as of now?
So the nature of our business is that R&D is a continuous spend, and, if you take a look at Carbon, there's always constant improvements happening. There are constant product upgrades happening, and there is constant R&D happening in terms of what the next release should contain. Deepta, you want to take the question on how we approach R&D in the context of Carbon?
Sure. I'm not sure if my voice is clear, and if it is not, I would please request either Danny or Anu to take it. But in short, there is continuous product enhancements, both, both for new modules, such as our disclosure management module, the ESG module, et cetera, as well as for enhancements in functionalities. For example, bringing in, bringing in more, let's say, GenAI into the product or bringing in more analytics capabilities into the product. So all of these come across as continuous R&D investments in both keeping the product current and also taking it ahead of competition.
Yeah. So I was just trying to understand what is in rupees crores, what is the spend that we did in last year, FY 2024?
See, let me come in here, Deepta. So we do have a capitalization, you know, stream, which will be less than the money we spend in R&D, and because certain conditions have to be met before we capitalize. So the capitalization would be about, I would say, about, you know, INR 2.3-2.4 crore for this year. But we do spend the money a little more than that, because some of these, you know, activities are not fitting for capitalization.
How much was the money spent in FY 2024 in R&D?
FY 2024 R&D, on the whole, I wouldn't like to give a number, but I would say capitalization would be about INR 2.3-INR 2.4 crores.
Okay. What would be total amount sitting in our balance sheet, the capitalized amount?
The intangible assets, which includes, which are capitalization, which are in process, would be about INR 4 crore.
... Would be about INR 4 crore. Fair enough. I got it. And my second question is on your sustainability. I mean, this quarter, we saw a good jump in quarter-on-quarter revenue, and better leverage for our company and delivered higher EBITDA margin. So how sustainable is this kind of EBITDA margin, and what sort of growth are we looking at for FY 2025?
See, we don't make any forward-looking statements, but the rest of it, I'll let Balu handle.
Come again? You are not audible, sir.
That's because I'm at the airport. Before I get to the question that you asked, I wanna add one more thing here. You know, there are different people in the company with different skill sets. But for a company like us, don't look at R&D spend as something that happens in isolation. R&D spend for a company like us is largely salaries. R&D spend in many other companies, they have a separate division, they have a separate R&D lab. That's not really how it works here. So we currently have, for example, a gentleman working on one product who is basically gonna figure out how to use LLM for different products. Now, we get lead to something in carbon, we get lead to something in GST, they lead something elsewhere. Well, we are all holding our breath in terms of what could actually happen.
So please don't look at R&D as a complete or separate division that we actually have maintained with a bunch of separate people. R&D is a continuous process for every product, so which is why estimating R&D expenditure separately is a hazardous task. Now, to come back to your question about looking forward for FY 25, we don't make any forward-looking statements at all, so I cannot answer that question about FY 25. Not in, not in any sense.
Okay, fair enough. But, are we seeing, I mean, the northward direction on a going forward basis? I mean, without giving any kind of objective numbers, subjectively, if you can define something, that would be helpful.
I don't make any going forward statements of any kind under any circumstances. I can only tell you that we can only look back and basically say: What have we done? As a company, we are constantly striving to get the maximum bang for the buck. We are constantly striving to invest in areas that gives us the best possible returns, and we are constantly trying to allocate capital depending on where we think the best returns are. Now, what will we do going forward? Well, I think every quarter when we come up with something, we'll actually change. We don't make any forward-looking statements as a matter of policy in the company.
Fair enough. That, that's fair. And, just one last thing: in terms of tax rate, what is the tax rate we are looking at?
That is the revenue tax rate?
Tax rate.
Tax rate, yeah.
Yeah, we are 25%-26% marginal tax rate, but we do have some MAT credit available because we were incurring losses earlier, and we were paying the taxes on the book profits.
Mm-hmm.
We have recognized the deferred tax on the MAT credits this year. So, effective tax rate would be around 10%-12%.
This will continue this effective rate, or it will normalize to 25%-26%?
Yeah, a little bit. For this year, I expect it to continue.
The reduced tax rate, right?
Yes.
Okay, fair enough. All the very best, sir. That's it from my side. Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Rahul Bhangadia from Parami Capital. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. So our biggest competitor in the US, they spend around $150 billion annually on research and development, and still, you know, we have been able to compete quite well. So what has helped us to compete with them in the last few years? And in general, how do you see the competitive intensity going forward in different regions?
I think it's a great question. As I mentioned to you, I mean, I think it's a complete... We don't really account for R&D separately to the fullest extent of R&D. It's a continuous improvement process that actually happens, unless, unlike Workiva. And so I think there are differences in accounting, accounting treatment of R&D. That's what we need to know. Secondly, the reason why we are constantly ahead is because we have a motivated team. You know, I don't know which, which car company, I think it is a Hertz who say that we try harder. So when you have a motivated team working on multiple countries and pulling ideas from multiple countries and bringing it all together onto one platform, you'll actually see constant improvement in the product and constant R&D happening.
As I said, we do what's appropriate, so what applies to South Africa is different from what applies to India. What applies to India is very different from what applies in Singapore. So the fact that we are in so many countries automatically changes the way we approach product development, changes the way we do product deployment. And take, for example, every product that we have, whether it be Carbon, Silk or iDEAL, are products that allow us the comfort of going global. Even if you take a look at GST, our e-invoice experience that we have in India, while the product may not be directly relevant for Malaysia, we are now taking the product to Malaysia, and we're getting some traction there. So I think R&D is something that happens in the marketplace. It's not something that happens in a lab.
If you're constantly close to your customers, if you have your ear to your customers, then the customers tell you what is required, what the new things are. So for example, I mean, the example that Deepta gave earlier, is it, does it require a huge amount of brainpower in the whole world works in works in Microsoft and knowing that that can be a differentiating factor in case of carbon? It doesn't require a genius to do that, because the whole world works in Microsoft. But Workiva being a dominant player and a big player, said, "We are not gonna work with Microsoft. We're gonna work with Registries." They have their own flavor for us. Actually, they've done it. But could they tomorrow move to a web-based environment? Absolutely possible.
So but I, I think the fact that we work close to our customers and we are constantly talking to customers, gives us the comfort to stay ahead of the curve. And we—I, I don't know how many of you have actually seen this. Just like Gartner looks at services, there's a company called G2, which looks at products. And on G2 rankings, we've consistently scored ahead of everybody in the world. Anu, you want to talk about the G2 rankings for a second?
Sure. I hope I'm audible.
Yes, you are. Focus only on G2.
So G2 is an online rating platform, where company customers can give reviews, and G2 also publishes from time to time, like a grid around, like, you know, the satisfaction and the performance of various products. So if you see IRIS Carbon has been ranking high on customer satisfaction, and that has been consistently there. So as an organization, as Kan said, we are a very listening organization. We speak to customers very regularly. We get feedback from customers. That's how we are able to keep our products always up to date, and also we gear up for all future requirements. So this is one of the key reasons how we are able to maintain a consistent ranking in terms of high customer satisfaction on G2.
Of course, comparing to some of the key competitors, if you see on some of parameters from a product perspective, we are in fact, ranking higher than some of the bigger competition which exists in the market. So that is very, very, promising and nice to see as well.
I would actually request every one of you who wants to know more about this thing, to actually visit G2 and look at IRIS comparison with other products. It will be a revelation, I promise you.
Sure, sure. And, how much was the recurring revenues for the entire year? If you could just give that number.
Bali?
Revenue for the whole of the year, FY 2024, would be around INR 60-62.5 crores.
62 crore. Okay, and the same figure for FY 2023 was what, sir?
There have been about 57, roughly.
57. Got it. Okay. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shreyansh Ajmera from retail investor. Please go ahead.
Hello, am I audible?
Yes, sir.
Yes, you are.
Yes. Sir, first of all, congratulations on, for our great set of numbers. I had a couple of questions. So, in terms, this is specific to IRIS Carbon. So how do we place, ourselves against, bigger companies, like, for example, Workiva in, America and Tagetik in Europe? Like, what specific sort of, target market that we are targeting? Like, what kind of company that we are targeting? For example, some of these, some of these competitors have been able to onboard, like, some of these multi-billion dollar organizations. So are, do, are we targeting those, or are we targeting, like, somewhat smaller organizations? How do, how does our target market basically differ from theirs, basically? Hello.
Yeah, yep. So I'll take that question. This is Raghav. So I think, historically, Workiva and some of the other competitors, like you mentioned, have been focused mainly on the enterprise market, so over $1 billion in revenue, kind of, client base. Our target historically has been the mid-market and SMB segment, so anything under $1 billion where we have had been, we have been targeting. Now, having said that, we do have quite a few customers who are also enterprise customers over in revenue. So we've never differentiated necessarily on the basis of what the revenue size of our, customers or prospects are. Moving forward, I think we will also start focusing, we were preparing the product for the enterprise customer, especially from a disclosure management point of view.
Moving forward, we will continue our focus on the mid and SMB segment, but also start entering more and more proactively into the enterprise segment, both in North America as well as Europe.
Okay. And, basically, what is your basically USP, if you would say, or more compared to these organizations? For example, I believe their enterprise is their selling point, right? They can cover, like, five, six department aside from just the CEO, CFO's department. I'm sorry. So, well, what is your selling point basically? Let's say we are good. One is our price, I'm assuming. I've seen the G2 reviews. That's why I'm saying that. So if you could answer that.
No, so I think differentiator, price is one factor, like you rightly called out. But I don't think we are differentiating just alone on the basis of price. I think we have a fantastic product. We need to create more awareness and differentiate based on what value we are adding to our prospects or our customer base. We need to do a more effective job over there, and an ROI-based sale, quantifying that value for them. You know, there might have been more features, functionality in some of our competitive products, but that does not mean that is what the client needs, or it's really solving a pain point or problem for them. We are focused on solving the problem end-to-end for our clients, and I think our service, customer service, after sales service, has been phenomenal, so that's been a big differentiator.
A lot of word of mouth, and reference is what we also focus on.
Okay. And-
Before you want to address this... One second. Before you want to address?
... I think, so, more or less, Eric, I think our pricing is one of it, not all of it. I think we have a superb customer experience, so the quality of service and the integrated bundled services we offer. And of course, the product functionality and the speed of release, which I think Anu said, is different. I think all of that makes for a comprehensive package. So I think like Santosh said, now it's just about making sure that we increase the awareness and get the cadence of getting in front of the right audiences in the market. So that combination is what is going to make the difference.
Great. And what would you say our total addressable market is for IRIS Carbon, in terms of global? If you could have, if you would have a number for me.
Sarvesh?
Okay. I would say it is an addressable market for IRIS Carbon is roughly in the range of $10 billion-$15 billion. So we are probably scratching the surface right now. Work iva estimates it to be a little higher, but I think from our point of view, we think it should be somewhere around this range.
So, $10-$15 billion . Basically, we are banking on the fact that we will keep adding more and more functionality to our product, because that's how this number will grow so high, right?
Not really, not really. See, the point is, the point is that also multi-jurisdictional with Carbon, it's used for different kinds of reporting in different parts of the world. And what Sarvesh said earlier, moving away from the mandate. So whether you add features or not, there is already a core product which can be sold to people. We are able to wean away customers from our competitors at this point in time, quite successfully. So revenues will grow. For revenues to grow, we don't necessarily need to add more and more features. Sure, we will keep adding on more features, but the sales does not depend only on adding new features. We already have a viable product that is currently accepted in the market.
This is regarding Collect. So, based on our November 2023 conference call, we have expanded a lot in Africa. I can see that from your presentation as well. So, how do you see the current RFP pipeline for Collect for the coming year?
See, RFP pipeline, I can't—I don't know much about, because one fine day, a regulator wakes up, issues an RFP, and something actually happens. But what I can say, increasingly RFPs are being issued, and just because RFPs are being issued doesn't mean we will win them. We don't win every single one of them. As I said, regulators are waking up to the need to move such platforms, and increasingly it's happening. As I said, am I prepared to hazard a guess in terms of, how many RFPs will be issued this year? I have no idea. Do I have one hazard guess in terms of what the value of those RFPs will be? I don't have any idea at this point in time.
What I do know is that more and more regulators are waking up, and even surprisingly, regulators we did not expect are waking up and started talking to people and saying, "Can I start looking at this?" And, so some, there are no numbers I can offer you, if that's what you're looking for.
Okay. So a follow-up to this, what is our win rate in terms of RFP, and which market specifically we are focusing on for Collect?
So if you take a look at the win rate, again, that's going to be a number that's difficult to come up with. I'll tell you why. Before COVID, we were winning 55% of the bids that we were putting out. After COVID, which only now that things are picking up, we still have a very small number to go by. So if you have two people in the room and one person leaves, it will look like 50% of the people have actually left, which as you know, it's very hazardous to apply percentages when the number we see is very, very small, and that's where we are. Maybe in about a year or two years' time, so when I give numbers about 55% wins pre-COVID, that was over a 10-year period.
But therefore, and right now, post-COVID, there are very few that will actually happen. Therefore, it's difficult to come up with a number of percentage of wins. As I said, five years from now, our new percentage of wins, it will be a meaningful number. Today, the percentage does not make any sense for anybody at this point in time. And which markets are we tracking? There are 70 countries in the world that have adopted XBRL for their electronic filing, whatever, and which means there are 120 countries that have not done that. Every one of those countries is a potential market. I did not expect, for example, that Bhutan would be an adopter, as they are at this point in time. It's so... And it's surprising, the kind of countries that are actually getting into it. I see some traction in Africa.
I see some traction in here as well. So, this is why you see us spending more and more time in Africa, but nothing significant to report at this point in time. For example, we got some Nigerian clients for banks reporting, even though Nigerian Central Bank is still not ready with the financial reporting, with the reporting platform. So each country is moving at its own pace, but we are reasonably confident that of the 52 countries in Africa, 54 countries in Africa, we expect something to happen going forward now that South Africa and Mauritius have examples to show. So, Africa is certainly an area where we are concentrating.
Also, you may have seen that the CAG of India, the Comptroller and Auditor General, has issued a report about two years ago talking about data standards and how governments in India, state governments and government departments should follow data standards. We see that as a possible, as possibly creating opportunities for us going forward. We don't know where the opportunities will come. We are trying, we're knocking on doors, we're talking to people and, and basically sensitizing them to the CAG report as well. So where will that, the growth come from? I'm not being difficult, I just don't know. You know, I know which doors I'm knocking on, but if I keep start talking about which doors I'm knocking on, the next step is why are we not doing it? What, what, who won, who did not win? These are...
It's a concept that needs to be sold. Structured reporting is a completely new concept, and we are fighting against PDF-based reporting and document-based, paper-based reporting. So we are optimistic, we are confident, but the focus, as I said, is on underserved areas like Africa and many other regulators even in the country are in this.
Thanks a lot. Another question for—just a small follow-up question to this is, from Collect, we receive primarily the project-based revenue. Do we envisage this revenue to convert into annual recurring revenue in the future?
It's not only project-based revenue, there's also a product-based revenue, there's also a licensing revenue, because I find it's sold along with the Collect platform. Are we trying to move it to an annuity-based model? Yes, we are. But are people willing to do that? The answer is no, so far, except for Mauritius. So the Mauritius model gives us hope that regulators across the world will start looking at it. So we are optimistic it will happen, but I think it's a fantastic question. We are trying to move it to an annuity-based model going forward.
Okay, sir. Thank you. Just a small question, that's all I have. So, a few months back, we had gotten the approval for raising our equity capital. So do we have any plans to raise funds in the coming year?
So if I'm very happy to send you a proposal for INR 25 crore. If you want to give to me, I'm very happy to take it from you. As a company, we certainly, while we have INR 16 crore in the bank, we certainly want to add to the war chest to be able to mount a meaningful assault on the markets that we want to get into. We did not raise money earlier because of the way, you know, people, I don't think many people still today have an understanding of our business like you do. I mean, the people on the call have a good understanding of our business, but the majority of people still don't. And I think until such time as that happens, raising capital is difficult.
We raised the operating capital also because we, at that time, were also looking at the shop. We also did it because we want to be prepared in case suddenly some offer came to us from investors, inquiry came to us from investors who wanted to put in money. I'm not saying we are actively in the market looking for money, but I'm also not saying that we are not actively in the market looking for money. We need resources to go to the next level. We, with the INR 16 crore in the bank, I think the equation changes. We have enough to kickstart our activities. Is it enough? I don't think so. How much more do we need? We have some idea. So the answer is yes and no. Complicated answer. You will think I'm being difficult.
I'm not being difficult, I'm just being realistic.
Thank you. Sir, are we looking at debt instead of equity, or is this-
No. Absolutely no. No, no, no, absolutely no. We will not look at debt. We, we're not interested in debt. There have been people who come to us with offers of debt. We will not look at it.
Thanks a lot, sir. That's all from my side.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mitesh Mehta from Investor. Please go ahead.
Thank you once again. I have a few questions. One is, promoter stake is reducing. That is just factor of ESOPs or is from our promoters actively reducing their stake?
It is. I think I urge you to take a look at the filings. You will not find promoters actively reducing their, their holdings.
function of
Please look at the filings. Please look at the filings, you will have the answer.
Okay. My second question is like, we have some INR 16 odd crores cash balance, and we have some INR 5-6 crores short-term borrowings. Is there any specific reasons why borrowings are kept or like companies increasing war chest for some inorganic opportunities?
There is no inorganic opportunity of any kind that we are considering at this point in time. Under the provisions of the bank limit that we have from ICICI, we are required to utilize something, otherwise we end up paying a hefty penalty fee. So some utilization actually happens on the lines that we have from ICICI Bank.
Okay. My last question is pertaining to client mining. Like, do we have an active team, because we have a list of marquee clients. So, do we have a specific team working on client mining?
I think everybody in sales is looking to cross-sell, so we have a number of MCA customers who are also GST customers. We have a number of GST customers who are also MCA customers. And logically, when we have a new offering, we first go to our existing customers. So, is there a separate team for it? No, there's no separate team for it, but cross-selling is an extremely important thing, and even in the context of Europe, as Simon will tell you. Simon, you want to take a question and add to how we are trying to get deep into clients, especially with the non-mandate sector?
Okay. Okay, that's it from my side. Thank you. Thank you.
Simon, you have a question? Simon, did you answer the question?
No. No, I think it is good, but if you want, I can elaborate a little.
Please elaborate. Please elaborate.
Please, please, please.
Sure. So I think the idea is to get into, so we have an existing customer base across the board, to whom we can not just upsell, which basically means more of the same product, but we can also cross-sell. So we've got multiple products across the board that we can sell to them. What we can also do is, there are these large corporates which are globally present and have multiple subsidiary or child organizations, if you want to think of it that way. The objective there is to bring in not just the product, but multiple products across the board. So that's one of the strategies we are looking at, to make footprints within our existing customer base.
Okay.
Does that answer your question?
... Yeah, and, can I request, like, if management thinks, like, we develop a special team for client mining, because the kind of market clients company has, like, we see a lot of potential in, like, increasing per client billing.
When you say client mining, I'm not sure if I understood that right. Can you elaborate?
Like, cross-selling. Cross-selling products as well as servicing services.
Well, I think it's a good solution. I think it's a good solution. We will certainly team up with you on. Thank you. I think it's a great solution. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ketan Athavale from Robo Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello, sir. Thank you for the opportunity, and congratulations on the great set of numbers. I wanted to know if our Q4 margin of 21% is sustainable on an annual basis?
Bali, you want to take that?
Okay. Traditionally, now, you would have seen that our Q4 margins is little more than the, you know, other quarter margins. I mean, said that, I think it depends on the overall volume growth. The volume growth is, you know, robust. I don't see any reason, why the margins, should be less than our higher margins. Quarterly margins should not see so much, but there are certain quarters where, you know, there is, higher volumes happening in certain parts of the business. But overall, you know, margins are, very closely linked to, the overall volumes or overall growth in the top.
Okay, got it. So basically, you are saying-
I just want to mention, one is the EBITDA margin. At the PBT level, you know, we do have some overhead, but overheads are growing at a much lower rate compared to the overall revenues. So that also is something that looks quite promising. So the PBT level, you would see that the PBT doubled, while EBITDA went up by 45%. So that leverage still exists for some more time.
Okay, got it. And, on the employee cost, how much, increase do we expect generally year-on-year?
How much do we expect?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, due to increments or hiring, how much increase do we expect year-on-year?
Okay. So it is hard to put a number because it's different business, different, you know, requirements. For example, in the SaaS business, we definitely want to increase our sales and marketing presence and, you know, make sure that we are covered our markets well in terms of both in-sales sales and some feet on the street. That being said, that we have grown our expenses, employee expenses, about, you know, 28%-30% over the last couple of years, which I think is a fairly, you know, fairly, you know, high number, high percentage. Okay. So, you know, in a business as usual case, I don't see the growth in employee cost going up above these levels.
Okay. Yeah. Thank you so much.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. S. Swaminathan for closing comments.
Thank you. Thank you, everybody, for participating. I'm sorry we went 11 minutes over time. I hope all your questions were answered. Thank you all for your support. And, I just want you to know that, our pride in the company is driven by the financial performance of the company and not the stock performance of the company. However, we are mindful as we in terms of shareholders, and therefore we are mindful of our obligation to do the best that we can to ensure that our financial performance gets improved, going forward, improves quarter on quarter. But it's not a company that you should look at quarter on quarter. It's always look at it in the context of the year, because quarter on quarter is really very misleading numbers, literally. So I am grateful to you for participating in this, in this conference call.
Keep your questions coming. Several people sent me a question a little while, some time ago, asking: Why we are not paying dividend? We are not paying dividend because we increase capital. We need to conserve resources. We need to conserve resources, and dividend paying is not the most optimal way to reward shareholders. I think the day we have enough cash, we end up doing a buyback as opposed to paying dividend. We don't have enough cash right now to do things like that. That's the approach we actually want to take. So if you are looking at a company that pays you dividend quarter on quarter, we are not the company for you. This is not our year-on-year, this is not the company for you, because that's not the approach we are actually going to take.
As far as we are concerned, the money that we have right now needs to be conserved for accelerating our growth for, of our carbon products and other products as well. So I want you to understand that. Keep your questions coming. We may not answer certain questions from time to time, for simple reason, we could be in a silent period, where some people keep reminding us of the questions. But be aware of the silent period when we really want to bring questions, and we answer it at the new admitting premise. So once again, thank you. I want to thank all my colleagues. So my colleagues, in response to, so we complete 20 years of business this year.
So we are actually going to be celebrating with all of our colleagues this Saturday, when we're going to talk about, when we will talk about growth going forward and things there. We want to thank all our internal auditors, our suppliers, our vendors, all of our partners who are taking the company with staff. But all of this can happen only with the support of shareholders. So to each one of you, I'm deeply grateful. Bali, deeply grateful. Deepta, deeply grateful. Thomas, deeply grateful. So please, thank you, and keep it coming, and we will continue to do the best we can to ensure that everyone is with us. Thank you, everyone. Bye-bye.
Thank you, members of the management. On behalf of IRIS Business Services Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.
Thank you.