Good afternoon and welcome. I'm Marie DeScordiac, I'm the new Head of Investor Relations and CSR for Atos Group. It's great to see so many people here today. I also want to welcome those of you who are joining online. We are delighted to share an update of our strategic and transformation plan for the next four years. The entire leadership team is here today with Philippe Salle to present that plan. You will receive a comprehensive series of presentations, and at the end of the session, you will have the opportunity to ask questions. Behind me, you can see on the screen the disclaimer. Let's hope we can all take it a s read and I don't have to go through all of it. Now, the real, real important part of the presentation starts.
Before I welcome Philippe on stage, let's watch a short video of what Atos is about.
All around the world, from San Jose to Brussels, from Munich to Hong Kong, we are proud to be your global AI-powered digital partner. Our end-to-end secure solutions help you shape and run your entire digital journey. Our public and private clients trust us to drive their digital transformation through data and AI services and operate in their most critical environments with cloud and cybersecurity services. With us, be ready to enhance employee experience and boost your organization productivity. We help you live and enjoy a beautiful game wherever you are. Because we combine the best teams, technologies, and partners to reinvent what's possible in the digital era. We are ready to shape the future together.
Good morning, good afternoon, sorry, the day was long. Good afternoon, everybody. Shareholders, bondholders, banks, financial analysts, industry analysts, board members, and of course, what I call the leaders' teams of the group, the top 20 people who are going to run not the show with me tonight, part of it, but the company, which is, I think, more important for the coming years. I would say delivering the plan we're going to explain today. I am very glad to have all of you, I would say, today. We are going to have different topics. I will start with the first topic, which is a stronger group in a growing market. It is just talking about the market and what is, let's say, Atos. Sometimes people say to me, we do not know exactly what you do, so I will try to explain what kind of services we provide.
In fact, after this session today, you have in what we call the BTIC, a lot of different demos if you want to stay after in the different services we have. You can understand what is smart platform, what is digital application, etc. After that, I will share with you what we say the shared ambition of the group, so our ambition, what we want to be for the next four years and, of course, beyond. After that, I will detail the focus plan that we have. There will be different also people we're going to intervene. Jacques-François, the CFO, will then touch about the financial and extra-financial, of course, trajectory, but the financial for Jacques-François.
I will wrap up with two or three slides and, of course, take all the questions in the room and, of course, online for the people who are online. Let's start with the stronger group in a growing market. What is Atos today? Just as a reminder, I give you the, everybody, I think, knows the numbers, know the numbers, the 24 key numbers on the left. 9.6 billion revenues, roughly EUR 200 million of operating margin, so roughly around, let's say, 2%, 74,000 employees, and we are operating in 68 different countries. Now, you can see also on the slide what are the different, excuse me, services that we provide. It's a little bit in advance where what I'm going to say after, but it was difficult for me to say.
I put you the old, I would say, structure, and then we will switch to the new one. Then I will come to that. You have, of course, the %, so you can see also on geographies, the number one market is the USA, around 20%. Number two is Germany, also around 20%. Then you have France, a little bit below. International market, which is the rest of the others, so the rest of U.K., the top five, let's say U.K., Ireland, Belgium, and then international is the rest. In international markets, you have Latin America, Africa, some Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Asia. In terms of industry, you can see public sector and defense, around 26-27%. It's roughly 6-7% in defense, around 20% in public sector.
Financial services and insurance, manufacturing, less than 20%, technology, media, telco, healthcare, and then the resources and services. If I go just one by one on the business line, just to give a flavor, I would say, of what we are providing in types of services, I'm not going to read everything, but I would say it's just, and then you can review after that the presentation that will be on the website. This is exactly what we do. We call that cloud and modern infrastructure. Remember that cloud was on Eviden before. Infrastructure was on the old TechF. We decided to call it, I would say, CMI, excuse me. You can see that we do, of course, infrastructure transformation, migration, of course. We migrate from, I would say, mainframe to cloud, public, private cloud. We do all type of, I would say, cloud infrastructure.
We, of course, manage also on-premise. We have data centers, etc. That's roughly 24% of our revenues. It encompasses, I would say, the cloud from Eviden and the infrastructure from TechF. Second one is cyber services, around 10% of revenues. We do testing, advisory. We do also threat-based management detection, etc. We have, I would say, specialized team that goes to clients, give, of course, I would say, see exactly, I would say, their situation in terms of security. Of course, after that, put the right measures, I would say, to ensure that there is the right level of security. Digital workplace, around 10% also. This is really, I would say, managing material supply and procurement of the workplace, I would say, devices, but we do more than that. We do, of course, 24/7 support.
That is why we have different, I would say, back office in different regions in Mexico, in Europe, and also in Asia. Digital applications, so it is more the part that we are developing custom applications for the customers. It means that they do not choose to have an ERP, which is more smart platforms that we are going to see. It is more, I would say, choosing an ERP on the shelf. We are, of course, installing, I would say, tailoring, I would say, the ERP to the need of the customer. Data and AI, as you can see, a very small piece. I said this morning in the press that we are not late versus the competition, but we are small, but the competition is nowhere also for us.
We definitely think that there is a lot of, I would say, opportunities for us, but we need to catch for sure. Now, I would say this data and AI, and that's why I have decided to have now a VP, EVP of this business line. Smart platforms, this is the ERP. We implemented, I would say, the ERP. Excuse me, digital was not ERP. Smart platform is ERP. There are two ERPs where we are very strong, SAP and ServiceNow. Then we have what we call regional affairs. We still do some VAR, maintenance services, and also some consulting, for example, in the U.K. and Netherlands. I will come back to Eviden after that. That's roughly what is Atos today. Now, we operate, of course, in a market that has a lot of shifts today, technology shift.
I think that there is nothing new for everybody. The first one, of course, AI. Everybody speaks about AI. Although I can say probably most of the people do not understand exactly what is AI because they tend probably to, I would say, not differentiate between machine learning, I would say, and really AI, what is probably LLM. Then you have, of course, the data. A lot of companies have, I would say, data. Most of them, in fact, do not know exactly what to do with it, to extract them or to manage them. Cloud, of course, is a big issue for, I would say, a lot of our customers. They have mainframes, or they have, I would say, their own systems on site, and they want to switch, I would say, to the cloud.
Of course, security, which is, of course, probably a big concern for the CEOs, I would say, worldwide, because we know that any company now is not safe. Everybody can be attacked personally, in fact, in your car, in your home, and, of course, in any company in the world. That is, I would say, the technology. Cloud, data, of course, security, and AI. Demand, of course, I would say, from our customers. The first one is the consolidation of the supplier pool. We are big customers. We want to deal with less and less, I would say, suppliers and providers. The second one, of course, is that there are stricter, I would say, criteria on the request, the RFPs with the ESG, of course, right shoring, smart shoring.
Offshoring for some of them, but some of our clients, like the public sector, do not want us, I would say, to offshore outside of Europe when we, of course, work for public sector in Europe. That is why we need to do nearshoring in Eastern Europe. Of course, sovereignty is coming up, especially, I would say, in Europe now. That gives for us, I think, and for Atos, a big opportunity because we are a European player for sure, our headquarters, let's say, in Europe. Ecosystem shift is just to say that, of course, some of our competitors are changing a little bit their scope. In fact, we see that, I would say, different players, I would say, attacking us or attacking the market that, of course, we need to compete against in the future.
That's roughly the shift that we see in terms of technology, demand, and competition. Now, when we look at the clients, what they see or what they want or what they are looking at, first, they witness some escalating, I would say, IT cost a lot, and probably the most part coming from the software vendors in the last years. I think the, I would say, the inflation coming from COVID was probably a big opportunity for some of them. In fact, I think everybody has witnessed a very high surge in terms of pricing. Of course, data-driven, as I say, a lot of companies have data. Sometimes they do not know exactly what to do with them, what kind of value they can extract, I would say, from this data.
Aging IT stack, it's true for some of our clients, typically, for example, the banking sector, the insurance sector, where they have, I would say, very legacy and older systems. Tricky, I would say, to touch it, of course, because you never know what happens when you have millions of clients. Maximize, of course, the employee experience and customer experience. Security, as I say, it's a big concern for everybody. Compliance and, of course, consolidation of IT system. When you do M&A, of course, what you want after that is to make sure that you have only one system to maintain and operate and not different, I would say, piece of software. Now, the market where we are playing, I think probably it's not new numbers for you. We play in a giant market, a EUR 1.3 trillion size. I will talk about the growth after that.
As you can see, of course, 1.3 trillion compares to the size of Atos. It's, I would say, probably too big for us. When we look at where we are strong in terms of area and when we are strong in terms of, let's say, segments or industries, we are addressing a EUR 400 billion market, which means that we have roughly 2% market share. That's why I said to the team, at 2%, don't complain, we cannot grow, because in fact, in front of us, the market is so huge. As you can see, of course, the growth of the market comes from, I would say, the cloud, the data, the cyber, where there are, of course, a big, we say, double-digit growth. In terms of geographics and geographies, it's more Europe and North America.
As I say, in industries, we say there are some industries that are, in fact, growing faster than others. When we look at growth, this, I would say, was done by Gartner. You can see what was the growth. Probably, let's say, modern growth in 2022, 2025. 2025 probably is not as expected, probably from a lot of people. When I see, in fact, also the guidance from the competition, we see that the market is still soft and we are, in fact, facing this soft market. Atos is a little bit different because we are suffering, of course, from, I would say, the loss of contracts in 2024. We compare, I would say, of course, the comparison for us is a little bit difficult. I would say the good news for us is that it's on a soft market that will pick up.
I definitely think, of course, that this market will restart growing. We estimate, Gartner, not us, that I would say the growth is around 8% per year. That is why, in fact, in our plan, we put 5-7%. I see some comments this morning saying I am completely crazy, probably. The question is that, in fact, we grow below market. So probably we can say also it is not very ambitious because finally the market is at 8% and you can probably do better than that. That is what I would say happened, let's say, on the market. Just for your information, a very nice picture. The market was growing around 2-4%. For Atos, it was minus 3%, minus 2.5% for the reasons that you know, of course. Management distraction for me was probably the big one.
The separation between Tech Foundation and Eviden, of course, has taken a lot of time. I would say the staff was more internally, I would say, focused and externally focused. The financial restructuring, of course, some of our clients decided, I would say, not to renew some contracts because they were afraid that probably we will not be there or alive in 2025. I would say a limitation, when you look at the different segments that we have, we are stronger, I would say, in low growth segments and probably weaker, in fact, in high growth, I would say, segments. All these, I would say, factors explain why I would say we have not been growing at market rate for the past three years. We have a set of strengths. That is, I would say, the power of this company.
As you can see, first, we have a very good workforce. I toured the world. I went from the U.S., India, was in Singapore, most of the countries in Europe where we are. I see a lot of, I would say, experienced staff, engineers, a lot of people that are committed to the company. I think it is a very, I would say, it is a good strength. We are global. We have a global delivery, but we are also a very strong local presence in the different countries where we are. Customer-centric, probably not the biggest strength, but definitely it is going to come. In fact, Clay is going to talk about clients this afternoon. We have an amazing base of customers.
We have, I think, probably a lot of our competitors who should be jealous on the basis of the customers we have on the span in the different sectors. We do not probably have the share, I would say, of wallet in this customer that is enough. In fact, we have the doors open. Definitely, I think that there is a lot of opportunity for Atos. We have, of course, technical desk, CSR, expertise, and of course, sovereign player for Europe. We are a European player, and we can, of course, answer most of the requirements from, I would say, companies or public sectors that are looking for sovereign companies. We are also endorsed by analysts. There are some of them in this room, so I am not going to list everything, but we are considered a leader in different areas by Gartner, IDC, ESG, etc.
We are also trusted by the leading partners, so the hyperscalers, of course, SAP, etc. We have different partners where we work with them. Of course, that recognizes also that we have some knowledge, knowledge that they can push with us, I would say, to jointly, let's say, attack some clients. Just for information in Europe, I give you, we work, in fact, as I say, we have a very span, large portfolio of clients. As you can see, for example, we have put some examples. I am not going to be, I would say, but for example, in financials, you can see that we work on 15 of the top 20 banks in Europe, 6 out of the 10 in healthcare company.
Of course, we are number one in the public sector, telco, 7 of the top 10 clients in Europe, and energy, 5 of the 10. We have really, I would say, the right, I would say, to work with these customers. Now the duty that we have is to make sure that we're going to have a bigger share in the future. What clients expect from us? I have been interviewing probably like 50 clients since I took as Chairman first and then CEO. The first one, of course, is expertise. They want people that are experts in their domains, in cyber, in cloud, etc. We can, I would say, have an exchange, re-insure them when they want to switch, for example, to cloud, when they want to put security. Proactiveness, I definitely think it's one of the weaknesses of Atos.
We are not proactive enough. They want us, in fact, to come and say we have different types of solutions or we can probably do something different. They want, I would say, to have, let's say, a dialogue on an expertise level that is very important. Transformative, of course, is just to make sure, I would say, we accompany our clients in their journey of transformation because a lot of companies right now are putting a lot of money in digital transformation. And combinatory, it means that we have also external partners that can bring, I would say, with us some solutions for the customers. That is it for the first part about the market. I would say overall, it is a big market, growing market. We are quite, I would say, lucky to have this.
Atos, as I would say, has the strengths, I would say, to rebound on this market. Before we continue, I'm going to show you a small video on one client testimonial.
Hi, I'm Jacopo Prissinotti, the Eurocontrol Director Network Management. Eurocontrol is the organization for the safe and efficient aviation in Europe. As you probably all have seen, in Europe and at global level, aviation is booming, and the systems are really too old to manage the high demand which is coming. Eurocontrol, in partnership with Atos, is developing the brand new system with a new open digital architecture to manage the traffic growth of the future in a safe and efficient way. We are now, on the 15th of May, going to go live with the new release, which will see a lot of support from Atos, from the cybersecurity part and managing the platform part, which is crucial.
I'm really appreciative of the work we're doing together with Atos. They have a great team of people which are highly motivated, very flexible, which is allowing this digital transformation journey in the agency of Eurocontrol. Thank you very much.
That's exactly what I say. A lot of our clients have legacy systems that are very old. Sometimes their volume, of course, are popping up, and it's difficult for some of the systems, of course, to cope, I would say, with the increase of their volumes. That's a big opportunity for us. Let's now switch, I would say, to the part number two, which is the share ambition. I'm going to tell you exactly what we want to be or recognize as Atos. Let's go. In a nutshell, we want to be a global AI-powered technology partner shaping secure end-to-end digital journeys.
I will come back, I would say, to the key words of this sentence. Global first. I see some comments in the press saying that we will probably, I don't know, sell the US or we don't need to be in the US or stay in Europe. I think it's a big mistake. As a global or international player, we need to be in the different regions of the world. If we want to talk also to some of the hyperscalers or, I would say, software vendors that are in the US, it's impossible to do that if you are just a European player. We need to stay global. Atos will continue to be a global company. Global, why? Because, of course, you strengthen the global partnership. You have, of course, economies of scale, so you can invest in technology.
You come, of course, the preferred vendors. If you are too small in terms of size, some of our customers, in fact, will put us as, I would say, rank number two in terms of supplier that we do not want. As I say, with economies of scale, we can invest in R&D, but we can also decrease the G&A, so be more efficient. We have also cost efficiencies in our delivery system. Global, I think, is very important. The decision we have taken, supported by the board, is to stay global. The second one is a technology. I think to probably differentiate from the competition, it is very important that we push, I would say, the technology side. I definitely think that sometimes we are too weak in this one. Some of our competitors are very good, in fact, in BPO, in time and material.
I would say for us, that's not exactly where we want to play. We definitely think that we are a technology company and we want to invest in technology. The first thing, of course, is that we're going to hire a CTO who should arrive after the summer. I cannot tell you the name for the moment, but it's somebody also that is going to look at, I would say, the span of R&D that we have and then decide with the different strategy of the business lines and country where we need to invest in terms of R&D projects. Also, we want to invest in R&D because we want to show to the clients that we are differentiated, I would say, from the competition in terms of technology. For this, we're going to invest roughly EUR 500 million in R&D over the next four years.
It's roughly around EUR 100 million this year and up to EUR 150 million in 2028. The idea also is to make sure that we pick the right project. I think we are too spread in terms of R&D today. We need definitely, I would say, to have fewer projects, but with more impact in the future. For that, I need somebody to conduct this. We will continue. We had, I would say, a program of investment with startup that is very little, but definitely, I think it's great for a group like us to open also to the startup ecosystem to take shareholding if we want in some aspects. For example, in cyber, it could be or in data or AI.
The idea for us, of course, is to find people that are a little bit different from us that can bring to us a different kind of solutions. Of course, that can, after that, strengthen the position of Atos in the future. Technology, we are a technology company. Secure, now I'm going to hand over to Pierre-Yves, who is going to talk about cybersecurity.
Thank you, Philippe. Very glad to welcome you all in Besançon again for my part. Yep, it works. My name is Pierre-Yves Jolivet. I'm the head of Refocus Eviden, which is about hardware and software products, including cybersecurity products, as well as leading the overall cyber activities for the group.
I'm a recent joiner to Atos, so I'm very glad to be able to share with you my fresh experience about the great teams we have, the great products we have, and the major projects we deliver to our client. We have talked a lot about digital transformation. We know now that there is no digital transformation without a strong investment in cybersecurity. It has been known for years, especially during COVID, with working from home being something that exposed the IT systems of the companies to a wide breadth of attacks. It is true also in 2025, which is, quote unquote, a normal year for cybersecurity. We still see 15%, one five, 15% increase in the number of attacks and 25% for somewhere.
It will stay true in the decade to come with the investment on AI-powered applications in all the IT systems of our clients, which lead to new threats around their data security. Cybersecurity is a sub-market, but we expect to grow faster for the global IT services. What do we do at Atos in cybersecurity? I will start at the bottom of the page with one number, EUR 1 billion in revenues in cybersecurity, which is 10% of the group. It is a higher intensity of cybersecurity compared to most of our competitors. It is split in basically three parts. At the bottom is all that we do embedded into the projects that all the other business lines of Atos are delivering. The part is specifically on cloud and infra.
On cloud and infra, we are when there is a big project of migration to cloud, we will also supervise the workload of a client. It also can happen on digital workplace when we deliver digital workplace, we deploy, and we deploy endpoint detect and response tools to manage these applications. That is a big part of what we are doing, approximately EUR 500 million. The other part of what we are doing is about best-in-class cybersecurity services that we deliver to clients that ask for a specific RFP in cybersecurity. This is more and more the case. Here we offer an end-to-end portfolio of activities which go from training and advisory to detect and response to installation of cybersecurity products. What is important is that these two blocks, they are delivered by the same teams. We can manage across synergies and efficiencies across these teams.
They are organized both in a local way with 16 security operation centers, but also through global delivery centers, one in India, one in Europe, and one in the Americas. In these global delivery centers and globally in these teams, you have 6,500 cyber employees with 1,000 working to supervise, to manage the security of our clients 24/7, which is a very unique asset for this importance. It explains also why we are recognized as a leader worldwide in cybersecurity and specifically as the number one in managed services in Europe for the cybersecurity of our clients. Speaking of Europe, I would like to draw attention to one part of our portfolio, which is a bit less known, that we have EU sovereign cybersecurity suite of products.
The cybersecurity product market is very wide, and we are focusing on one part, which we think is one of the growing sub-markets, the data protect part, where we do a suite of products that allows you to control your data from data encryption, ID and access management to allow you to access this encrypted data, and digital identity to allow you to prove that you really are who you say you are in the digital world, and you can have a right to this one. Data protection is one of the fastest growing sub-segments of the cybersecurity market. With the renewed focus of Europe on sovereignty, especially sovereignty in tech, we expect this activity to grow faster than the market and to gain market share on our competitors. What do we do with our clients' great projects? I talked about great projects.
It's important that you see that we have not, we have been investing in AI for cybersecurity. We do cybersecurity of AI, but we also use AI for cybersecurity to better serve our clients. You have here three examples for illustrations of clients, three of them working on AI. Siemens Government Technologies, which is operating in the US, has all companies supporting governments. These days, they are submitted to a lot of geopolitical threats, especially complex attacks. We use here AI in our AI threat engine to be able to detect the weak signals of an attacker trying to get into an IT system and to block them before they do any harm. For Eurocontrol, that was a client you heard the great testimony a few minutes. With the cloud and infrastructure business line, we have embedded AI capabilities in our own platform.
We use our own managed detection and response platform to support this client and to reduce the detection and response time, the reaction time when there is a cyber threat. Cybersecurity, we talk a lot about technology because we love that. As we all know, in the cybersecurity process, the human part is sometimes weakening. Here also, the AI-powered applications can help ensure that there is compliance. That is the third illustration that we do for Entity ComeWare, where we use GenAI as a virtual assistant to make sure that it is easy to respect the compliance process and that the identity and access management is well deployed. Three illustrations on AI. For cybersecurity, AI is important, but AI is now. The future of cybersecurity, future threats, is also about the advent of quantum computing, which poses a threat on the encryption.
Thanks to our expertise, we are developing post-quantum crypto-resistant in our cybersecurity products, but also helping our client to prepare an architecture of cybersecurity that will be resistant to this advent of quantum computers. For clients, I think all they have in common, they cover the world. They are all very demanding clients operating in critical infrastructures. We are deploying with them leading-edge products and solutions. It is great when we tell you how good we are and the great clients we work with, but it is even better when you hear it from the mouth of a client. As you know, Atos has been working with the Olympic Games for a long time and up to the Paris Olympic Games of 2024. You will hear now Tony Estanguet talking about how is it to work with Atos on cybersecurity.
Les Jeux Olympiques et Paralympiques, le plus grand événement sportif au monde, suivi par des milliards de téléspectateurs et des millions de spectateurs dans les tribunes, sont un véritable défi technique, technologique et humain. Pour relever ce défi XXL, nous avons besoin des meilleurs dans leur domaine. C'est pour cela que Paris 2024 s'est entouré des meilleurs experts comme Eviden, notre partenaire en produits et services de cybersécurité. Eviden fournit par exemple une solution intégrée de cybersécurité pour l'ensemble du périmètre des Jeux, incluant des services avancés basés sur l'intelligence artificielle. Leur savoir-faire est également clé dans un lieu névralgique des Jeux, le Centre Opérationnel de Sécurité, centre de pilotage des opérations de cybersécurité où des équipes d'Eviden sont directement intégrées. Ce qui compte le plus dans notre collaboration, c'est le travail d'anticipation qui a été fait.
Avec des audits approfondis et des tests de pénétration, Eviden s'assure que nos préparatifs sont à la hauteur des défis numériques actuels. Ensemble, nous anticipons les menaces afin d'offrir un environnement numérique sécurisé pour les athlètes et les spectateurs du monde entier. Alors, merci Eviden pour cet engagement sans faille.
So great customer feedback from Tony Estanguet. Just wanted to give you also a few numbers to back that and to give you a measure of what it is to protect the Olympic Games in terms of cybersecurity. It is not two weeks or three weeks or four weeks actions. It is actually a four-year project working together with the International Olympic Committee, working together with the French National Cybersecurity Agency. In terms of number, it is 55 billion of cybersecurity alerts, which is 25% more than last Olympics. The threat is not going anywhere.
Out of these 55 billion alerts, you have 1,000 potential cybersecurity incidents that have been investigated. At the end, as I'm sure all of you have been able to see enjoying the Paris Olympic Games, there was zero incident impacting the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Neither on TV, neither on internet, neither when you were going through electronic gates to go to the stadium. It is a true testimony to the ability of Atos cybersecurity teams to manage these major projects, to work closely with a client. As a conclusion, if I wanted you to take three things out of what I've said about cybersecurity at Atos, it's one that we have very strong assets to be able to capture the growth in cybersecurity. Two, that we work very closely with all the other BLs and bringing this into all our clients.
Three, that this ability to deliver major projects that we have just seen is a key differentiator for cybersecurity services, but also for the broader services of Atos. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Pierre. You have probably witnessed that Pierre was working with Thales, and that's why there was a slight change. It's normal when you spend some years in a company, then after that, it's difficult to switch to another world. I'm finishing, I would say, the ambition. We were in global technology and secure, not end-to-end. End-to-end, as you can see, when you look at the different phases for a customer between advise, build, integrate, and operate, you can see that we have roughly all the different business lines that can address the different phases of a customer with digital application, as I said, smart platform, etc.
You can see on the left that there is also tech consulting, where we are very weak in this one. We are a small player, in fact. That is one of the questions we are going to answer in the coming months, whether we want to be reinforced in consulting, I would say, to address the problems of the CIO. To have, I would say, a dialogue with CIOs that are more, I would say, at a high level than directly, I would say, going business line by business line and having, I would say, technical discussion. End-to-end is very important, and I think we are quite a unique player, I would say, to have that kind of span in terms of services. Now we can switch to the plan of 2024, excuse me, 2025, 2028.
For the next four years, we have a clear vision, and I'm going to go, I would say, all the phases. We're going to simplify, orchestrate, trim, and AI-enable. The AI, in fact, in the vision is not touched because I'm going to touch it in this section. First, simplify. Remember what was Atos last year, tech foundation with the different business line, Eviden. Tech foundation is dead today. It doesn't exist anymore. Now we have two brands in the group. At the top, you have Atos Group, which is really the brand for the group level, roughly finance, legal, HR, at, I would say, worldwide level, I'd say several hundreds of people. Then Atos is the brand of service, and Eviden becomes the brand of products, hardware, and software.
You have the consulting, of course, where we can consult, I would say, the different worlds. Now, if I go a little bit deeper in Atos and Eviden, in Atos, you see the six business lines that I have talked about: cloud and modern infrastructure, cybersecurity, data and AI, digital applications, smart platforms, and digital workplace. For Eviden, we have four business units. We call that business unit because they have their PNLs. It is advanced computing. It is mission-critical system, cybersecurity products, so the software part or the hardware part. Vision AI, it is also a company where we use, we are working, I would say, with airports and putting AI on cameras to detect, for example, if there is something happening in the crowd or in the different areas of an airport or a train station.
Atos, six, and if you look at the EUR 9.6 billion of sales of 2024, Atos is roughly EUR 8.5 billion. Eviden is EUR 1.1 billion. Okay? Atos is the service part, big part, of course, the big chunk of the company. Eviden is the hardware and software part. It means I'm going to, of course, now put the teams together, the cloud from Eviden and the hardware, I would say, when you look at here, the hybrid, we say hybrid cloud and infra. Of course, the cloud of Eviden is now one business line, which is, of course, Cloud and Modern Infrastructure. We're going to have, we're going to stop having people fighting against each other in clients because it was the case. The people from Eviden saying, "We are the future," the people of Tech Foundation say, "No, we are not dead yet," etc.
This way we simplify, I would say, the proposal that we give to the clients. In terms of simplifications, the number of countries, we have four big countries: US, Germany, France, and U.K. France, now you have only one head of France. When I say one, also it does not manage any longer, I would say, Spain, for example, or Morocco. I want, I would say, the managers to focus, I would say, on their zone and to make sure, I would say, they are pushing very hard. Germany, Austria, a little bit of Eastern Europe also because the nearshoring of Germany is in Poland, a lot of it, let's say. You have, of course, United Kingdom and North America. Belarus, Netherlands, and Nordics. In Nordics, it is mainly, I would say, Sweden and Denmark. Then international market, which is all the rest. Okay?
As I say, international market is Latin America, Africa, Spain and Switzerland, some Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Asia. We are going to exit from several countries. I had a question this morning from the press, "What does that mean, several?" I cannot say, unfortunately, because we are still negotiating with different, I would say, people in the company. The idea for us, of course, is to reduce the number, the span of the countries. We do not need to be in 78 countries for this, I would say, for this company to be stronger. There will be closure or sale in the future, in the course of 2025 and, of course, of 2026. Simplification again. Also, it was a matrix organization before between BLs, the business lines, and NGOs.
We have decided, I would say, that now the PNL and the cash is managed by the GOs. The BLs focus more, I would say, on portfolio, R&D, marketing, of course, recruiting, making sure also we have the right skills at the right level, I would say, in the different countries. It changed a little bit, I would say, the way Atos was structured. Lean governance, I don't like headquarters. When I say I don't like the bigger they are, usually the more intrusive they are with the, I would say, the different GOs and BLs. I like to be lean at the top and to have, I would say, more strategic headquarters. Of course, to push the decision at the GO and business line level or at Eviden level. Portfolio, when I arrived, I think we had like 170 offers.
We are back to 40. Out of the 40, we're going to push more 20 offers in the different business line. Just, I would say, to simplify also the, I would say, the discussion we can have, I would say, with customers. Then focus partnership also. We have decided not to be the partner with everybody. We're going to decide also which partners we're going to push more in the future. Again, as I said, play with them to, I would say, earn for new clients or push our market share in the different clients. That's the S, the simplification. Orchestrate. Orchestration is more organization and, of course, the operating model of the company. As I said, there is a new team. That's what I call the leadership team, the top 20.
You have the management team, the top 200. In fact, they will be tonight there. I will pass also the key message of this, I would say, strategy tomorrow morning. You can see in blue with Atos, you have the six head of countries, the six business lines, and Frederic, the global delivery center. We have one head of the different, I would say, offshoring in the world from the US, from Mexico, in fact, some, of course, in Africa, in Eastern Europe, and in Asia. On the right, you have Eviden with Pierre and Emmanuel in charge of Advanced Computing. On the top, you are the people from Atos Group. Of course, CFO, HR, Gross with Clay that is coming to make a presentation. Frederic on IT, Alexa on partnership, and Cécile on general secretary.
Just for information, these 28 I knew, in fact, in this team coming from outside or have been promoted, so they were not part of this team three months ago. We are, I would say, changing a little bit, I would say, the team to make sure we have the right people delivering, I would say, on the strategy that we have decided to focus. I'm not going to spend too much time, I would say, then I would say on the operating model. We are finishing it. It will be completely live, I would say, by June this year. We're going to focus on two different topics now. The first one is growth, clients, and the second one is HR. Let's, I would say, start with growth, and I will give the floor to Clay, the Chief Growth Officer. Thanks. Thanks, Philippe.
Good to see some familiar faces I noticed in the crowd. I'm the Chief Growth Officer. I've been with Atos for nine years. The first seven of them, or almost eight, I ran GOs, so major GOs, the U.K., Northern Europe, APAC, and Central Europe. I'm also the exec sponsor on quite a few of our customers. I've got a pretty good sense of what it takes for us to satisfy those customers. There are three things that we need to do to grow. We have to retain our existing customer base, and we have to expand inside those customers. We have to win new large revenue streams, and then we have to get ourselves ready to go and fulfill and deliver on the high potential offerings out there like data and AI, plus the modern offerings in cloud and cyber. Okay?
Today, I'm going to talk about four things. I'm going to talk about our portfolio combined with our customer base. Then I'm going to highlight what the recipe for success looks like on top line and commercials. Then we'll go into how we're going to go and do that, and we'll hear a little bit more from one of our customers, similar to the Eurocontrol model. Starting off, we've got a good solid base, right, in terms of customers and offerings around the digital workplace, around infrastructure, and around applications. We have a good thing to build on. It's a little bit different. It's tailored by geography. We do really strong in financial services and infrastructure in APAC, for instance, and with the state departments and with health and applications in North America. Europe is a little bit different.
Europe and the U.K., we're particularly strong in what I call critical national infrastructure. Leveraging the local presence we have with the nearshore, with the offshore, things like energy and utilities, public sector and defense, transport, you get the general picture. The key thing in satisfying our customers as we go forward is to build on those services and wrap in the new high potential services, scalable services that are out there. Make our infrastructure services more palatable, more successful by integrating AI in them to make them stronger. The same thing from an application. We need to wrap in cyber and have our advanced cyber solutions part of those application services. We have also got to get our customers ready to run data and AI apps, to run LLM apps and operations as part of this.
That's the promise in the next step. Okay, just a bit about our customers. Our customers almost aren't customers. They're almost partners when you look at the numbers. We've got several hundred partners that we happen to combine to provide services to transform the experience for their customers. As evidenced up there, we've seen a growth in the retention rate, something back to where we were before over the last six months that's highlighting that partnership. However, in delivering that partnership, there's so much more we can do. We've talked about six business lines just in Atos, excluding the Eviden side for a second. Yet, in our biggest customers, we only do 1.6 of those business lines into each of those customers as we sit here today.
That's the real opportunity for Atos, but it's also the opportunity for those partnerships, customers that we have going forward, to bring more to bear to them. Okay, I'm going to touch a bit on the what, and then I'll go into the how. Okay? The recipe for success is really clear. We've got to retain and grow. We have to retain our customers similar to the rates that we did before 2024, which is about 92%. Then we have to expand the services that we have in with them. Right? To be a better partner with our customers, we have to go and sell more into them to help them with their transformations. We have to bring Data and AI, and we have to go apply it to the infrastructure services similar to what we heard from Eurocontrol earlier.
We have to bring the cyber, and we got to bring it into the apps and have it be apps native in order to make not only those core services more valuable, but also to help them with their own transformation for their customers. Second thing, we have to win between 5-8 new large revenue streams. This does not have to all be new logo, but sizable new revenue streams every year. We have already done three of them this year. Right? We know we can do it, and we did 11 just in our infrastructure and digital workplace business in 2023. We know it is possible, but we have to do 5-8 every year. That is the second platform, bringing some new revenue streams on from delighting that new set of customers or new revenue streams inside the same customer.
We have to live up to the potential and support of our customers of the new hypo services, right? We have to bring in data and AI operations. We have to bring in LLM operations. We have to make that and integrate that into their ways of working in order for them to be successful for their customers. You'll hear some of that actually in one of the customer testimonies later. Okay, that's the what. Now let's talk about the how. Some of this even I forget because I'm just too close to it, quite frankly. The very first thing is we have a common integrated model across the globe that we've established.
Across all of the business lines, across all of the geographies, so that we can bring a real coherent set of services and offerings to our customers, and we bring them in an integrated fashion versus the two streams that we had previously. If we look how that applies to our existing customer base, it applies to our existing customer base quite simply because today we only, or for the last couple of years, we've only sold digital cyber, right, and apps into digital cyber and app customers. We only sold infrastructure and digital workplace into infrastructure and digital app customers. I mean, and now, as we brought this organization together in that reunification, you've doubled your customer base that you've got to offer your offerings to. Right away, there's a big upside that comes from that.
It is all pivoted and oriented towards the client partners under this model. There is a single individual that owns the relationship for an account supported by an executive sponsor that is responsible for bringing all the services together and sharing them with the customer, our existing customer base. In turn, really as a byproduct of that, we get growth. Right? By helping our customers transform, by bringing the full weight for the customers, you just get that growth that I talked about, that 10% on the 10%, and it is about EUR 3 billion of cross-sell upsell we do today. We are saying by 2028, we are going to do another 10% beyond that. We have to go deliver those five to eight deals. One part of it is actually relatively straightforward.
For the last few years, we have not pursued large deals, by and large, in the digital, cyber, or cloud spaces. Corporate decision a few years back that that was not a priority. We are changing that because there are plenty of large deals, particularly in the application space, that we should be going after. That is, we are immediately expanding the scope to go help deliver those five. The second thing is we are then applying the methodologies that we have used previously for origination. The biggest challenge in the large deals is that we have to originate more deals. Working with our advisors, working with our internal business developers, working with our industry heads, our geo heads to be able to go and identify those opportunities. Our win rate with them historically has been one of the strongest parts of Atos.
We know if we get the right pipeline, we've got a very good chance of winning it from a large deal perspective. It's just a question of securing that pipeline. The third thing, we have to support the acceleration of and the commerciality and deployment of the high potential offering. Data and AI, data and AI apps, right, but also the cloud business and cyber businesses. What are we doing about that? The first thing is we have a dedicated team under Alexa's leadership that's focused on how do we best do this with the hyperscalers and some of the other partners, SAP, Dell, so forth and so on. The other thing is we're making a new investment in sales specialists. These are individuals that are just focused on selling these next generational services.
We also make sure that each of them have one or two qualifications and orientation towards an industry because it does not really make sense just to have generalist sales specialists to be cognizant and be proficient in a data part of the business or SAP. You have got to be aligned to a particular industry. Data and AI apps in manufacturing, data and AI apps in finance. That is one of the big bets that we are making to see how we can go and accelerate that. There are three things we are doing that are more orthogonal across all those streams. The first thing is cleaning up the accountability model. We did a survey and we looked at, okay, if we look at the roughly 1,000 people that have some way or shape or form that are tied to our go-to-market, what are the responsibilities?
We found many of them had a slice of up to 30 pieces that they were accountable for, making it very difficult for them to be accountable for anything, truthfully. We have simplified that, aligned our people against those streams we just looked at. We have a population that is around the retained cross-sell. We have a population that is around the large deals, and we have a population that is around the new hypo services. We have aligned a new incentive scheme against that because it is different in how you want to compensate and incentivize a large deal maker that takes 18 months than it is for someone in a sales specialist doing a hypo that is typically 90-120 days to convert. We are bringing AI into everything.
I mean, we're probably a two out of ten from where we'll be in two or three years, but we brought it into the solutioning. It helps us actually design the solutions upfront, right? We have a library. The AI helps us apply the library against the particular offering and the situation. The most straightforward one, which actually seems like it should have been obvious, is we use it now to review the quality of our bids because often in these bids, they're relatively large bids. There are hundreds of pages, and all it takes is one place where you've screwed something up by accident, and guess what? Your bid has been knocked back. We're doing the same thing on pricing.
We're integrating some of the external pricing we get from Everest and other benchmarks that we can apply in there so that we can use that to help discriminate more in our pricing, but also to make sure that it's competitive. Finally, many of you that have known Atos for a while have known we've had a few bad contracts. We've established a common governance that's focused with a common set of T's and C's that's approved by the financial leadership and Philippe to make sure that we don't create that next set, right? Including things that have been a real problem like indexation. We had a number of contracts where we had to give them productivity gains of 4% every year, but we didn't have an inflation clause. Right? Not a great combination. We've done something globally to go do that.
Now we're going to pause just for a second, and I'm going to let you hear from a number one of our customers that talks a bit about our partnership.
Hello. My name is Jane Possell, EVP and Chief Information Officer for CNA Insurance. Atos has been providing CNA with end-to-end infrastructure, digital workplace, service desk, and major incident management services since 2018. The insurance industry is built on trust. Clients expect fast, seamless service when buying policies, submitting claims, or seeking support. Downtime or data loss can quickly erode trust and damage a company's reputation. One of my job priorities is to ensure the CNA infrastructure is not an impediment to our business operations, that it's always available, flexible, secure, and resilient. Atos is instrumental in helping CNA meet this objective.
Specifically, I wanted to share how Atos assisted in securing stability by redefining service excellence and partnership at CNA during a time of transformation. Our legacy infrastructure contained many legacy environments. We were seeking a partner who could help us stabilize and modernize our infrastructure to meet our business goals. Through transparency and trust, Atos has significantly stabilized our environment. Atos's commitment to service excellence has never wavered. They continue to enhance and optimize their support services to meet the evolving needs of CNA and our other MSPs. One thing that sets Atos apart is their unique approach to manage service provider orchestration. Unlike traditional models, Atos does not simply work alongside other MSPs. They actively coordinate and collaborate with them. They treat our other vendors and MSPs as partners, working toward the common goal of delivering the best possible solution for CNA.
Atos's ability to coordinate with multiple vendors has gone a long way towards transforming service delivery at CNA. By streamlining interactions and promoting better collaboration, Atos has helped us improve CNA's operational efficiencies and have alleviated a lot of the pressure, which can sometimes result from managing an unstable environment. Less stress, better coordination, and more time to focus on strategic priorities. That is the Atos difference. Atos is more than a technology provider. They are a trusted partner, dedicated to delivering uninterrupted service and promoting collaboration that drives success. The CNA Atos commitment to transparency, excellence, and partnership remains stronger than ever.
Just a big thanks to Jane and to the CNA team. What I heard there, actually similar to what I heard in the Eurocontrol presentation earlier, was partnership, redefine innovation, leading to results. Right?
I think that she could not have said more about that being the Atos way. Giving another example of that and how that translates commercially for just a second. We have something we call the Premier Program, which focuses on 30 accounts a year, roughly, where we put a little bit of extra investment into making sure that we get the result from them and allow them to reach their potential. We have done very well in seeing those clients grow in the business with us. It is much easier to grow an existing client than it is to find a new one. This is an example of the Premier Program where we provided legacy services for about eight years, so traditional infrastructure services.
We came in, we showed them, redefining again how we could transform their business into being a cloud infrastructure business over time. It just so happened they then decided that they were going to replace their core platform, the proprietary platform that had been around for 15 or 20 years, and develop a new one. We were able to secure the testing of the application there. We were able to secure the cyber business and make it safe, and also the data business, right? We are now in the midst of building their data instance with data synthetics so that they can have the perpetual benefit of having AI ops to reinforce their platform. Along the way, we have grown 33% a year. This is a good example.
I think we've heard about our ambition, what we have, how we're going to go do it. I guess I close with we have some good early insights of success. We've done better in our Q4 book to bill versus we did in the prior Q4, so year on year, which is really the only way you can benchmark Atos because there is quite a bit of seasonality in our numbers, and also continued that in Q1, right? We won 17 strategic deals since October last year. We won one in the first nine months last year. You get a sense things are very different. Our order entry was up in all of our major business lines versus the prior year in Q1. It wasn't one deal or one opportunity. It was a pretty systemic improvement. We did achieve the retention rate of 92%.
That's so core to our plan. Now if we look forward, we've seen a 12% increase versus the same time last year in pipeline in our existing accounts, right? Which is probably the most important benchmark for us. It's the highest conversion rate. I'm relatively optimistic, as I said before, about our future, our next 18, 36 months. There's no doubt we have a few headwinds, but we've actually got some tailwinds too. Thank you very much. I'm handing over to Paul to tell you about how the people part is going to make this commercial piece happen.
Great. Thank you, Clay. Hi. My name's Paul Peterson. I'm the Chief HR Officer here at Atos, and I have been with us for 27 years, from small company to large company through our challenges of the last couple of years.
I have to tell you, I'm super excited for what comes next. I want to tell you just a few minutes about the people of Atos because they are incredible. They are here each and every day. They vote with their feet, and they vote to stay at Atos. The attrition rate is the same as the market. It's about 14%. This is incredible given the journey that we've been through. They work and skill themselves each and every day. Over the last three years, we've achieved 250,000 digital certifications in the group. We have active, strong virtual cyber campus, GenAI campus, cloud campus, project management campus, campus, campus, campus. They are fully booked, producing billable employees every single day where they come out with skills that our customers are asking for immediately going on projects.
We continue to work to refresh our leadership, as Philippe has spoken about, to strengthen our salesforce, as Clay has spoken about. I have to tell you something I'm super pleased about. Our key people, it's about 3,000 individuals here at Atos. They're the ones that deliver the P&L, seek new growth. They're our top talents. They hold the digital certifications, these sexy, important topics that our clients want us to bring to them. They vote with their feet also, and they're staying in the group. We have a 92% retention rate amongst this most critical group within the company. I asked about 50 customers a couple of weeks ago to talk to us about what they like and love about our employees. Their responses were amazing. Almost all of them came back in a matter of days.
We had responses from the Americas, across Europe, Asia, Africa, Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, etc. I want to highlight three of them. The first one here from Thomas Simon. He's the CEO of Paragon in Germany and in Central Europe, where they've outsourced to us all of their IT. He talks about unwavering commitment, technical exceptional professionalism, expertise, collaboration. This is amazing, Thomas. Thank you. With Tariq Al-Ashram, he's not only the CEO of Gulf Data Hub, he's the founder. He was super fast coming back. As we helped him and his company expand into new markets, he talked also about technical strength, combined collaboration. Here at the bottom, I love this, combined strength of the Atos team and his team to drive into new markets to meet their expectations. Paul Govin. Paul's not a CEO. He's not a founder.
He runs the payroll services for one of our big customers, NHS Scotland. He talks about this massive transformation we ran in his team, about how the whole team came together, about dedication, teamwork, lessons learned. When I look at these comments, what you've seen in the videos already, there's a key component. It's about technical skill, and it's about collaboration. This makes us not a normal consultant partner. It makes us not a normal service provider. This means our employees are embedded with our customers so that they can run their business. I love this, and this is amazing. Thank you, Atos colleagues, the comments here, I love to see. Now, we're ready to go. I've talked to you about our employees today. I've talked to you about how our employees love our customers and our customers love them.
We really have a clear people management strategy to be able to deliver the commitments that we're making to you today. We are reshaping our workforce. You've heard a little bit this morning or this afternoon, and you'll hear a little bit more later today. When we're done with a right-sized workforce, we'll primarily be in our 10 largest countries to be able to really service our customers here. Our employees are reskilling at pace. They're going so fast. We have more demand almost than we can keep up with. By this time next year, every employee in Atos will be AI fluent. Today, we have about 35,000 employees who have completed their AI certification. The rest of us will be finished by this time next year.
When I add an AI-trained workforce with autonomous processes and agentic tooling, this is what our customers will be asking from us to be able to help them on their own AI journeys. We continue to maximize employee engagement. We reenergize some old programs. We add new ones so that every employee of the group, from Philippe as CEO to the newest employee who's starting somewhere in the world today, that they'll understand what they need to do to help us on our commitments we're making to you today so that they stay loyal as they've been in the past, that they follow leadership and the commitments that we take and off we go. That's it. That's the sauce of our people management strategy is we resize, we reskill, and we reengage. This helps us do what we're telling you to do today.
Thank you very much. Philippe, back to you. Thank you
. Thank you, Paul. Now we can switch to the T-trim, trim the cost base. We have too many costs, unfortunately, in this nice company. From some comments I had also from this morning, the idea for us is that we do not need growth to double-digit margin in the future. The idea we have is that we are trimming the cost to make sure we will be at a normal, I would say, profitability before growing. In terms of cost, there are two sets of costs we are going to touch. The first one is what we call the delivery, so the direct workforce. The second one, of course, is the G&A optimization. If I go on the first one, the delivery optimization, we are looking at a bidability target rate of 85%.
You will ask me what is the bidability today. It was 76 at the beginning of the year, and it's roughly at 77 now, end of April. Every three points of bidability gives roughly one point of EBIT, of margin. That's why we want to gain three points of profitability in the future. The second delivery optimization is the offshoring. We are at 60 plus. We want to go at 64. Two points of offshoring, for your information, is one point of EBIT also. The more offshoring we do, of course, the more profitability we can give. It's not an easy one, this one, because we have nearshoring and offshoring, but we will try to push as much as possible, I would say, the offshoring part. Of course, industry execution model, for example, for the global delivery center, we're going to also rationalize and simplify.
We have too many of them, more than 10. We'll probably finish by 5 or 6. Last but not least, what we call the black accounts. I have changed, in fact, I would say the terminology, black accounts. It's accounts with margin, project margin below 5%, because I consider also that between 0 and 5%, it damages, of course, the profitability of the group. Of course, we are now reviewing them one by one. I think that by the end of the year, there will be probably two left at a certain size. The idea, of course, is to have no more new ones, I would say, in t
he growth we're going to push. Remember that I want profitable growth, not growth, profitable growth. Like M&A, I want integrated M&A. I don't want M&A. If we don't integrate, we don't buy.
We're going to see after that exactly what kind of M&A we're going to do. That's roughly the delivery, what we call the direct cost. Then on G&A, we're going to also reduce the cost. We are around 7% of sales, so we're going to gain two percentage points in the next four years, so going from 7% to 5%. We're going to reduce the headcount roughly by 1,000 in the different countries. The spend, non-personnel cost, will be reduced roughly by 10%. It will, in fact, be also in the margin and also in the G&A. We touch both. It's roughly EUR 100 million, of course, we are looking at this one.
As I say, we're going also to use AI, and I will touch this, of course, in the AI part, to, I would say, automatize part of our back office to, I would say, have less cost in the future. That's the trim, I would say, part, direct cost, roughly, of course, trying to push the bidability rate. This is something that I follow every two weeks now with the team. The team, in fact, the leaders' team that is here is meeting every Monday. Probably it's too much in the future, but probably every two weeks, I would say, after this, when we enter, I would say, the transformation phase. We are looking at the key ratios that, of course, are very important, the cost, of course, the growth, of course.
It is very important, of course, that this should be followed at my level and at their level to ensure we are, I would say, on the right path. Now, the last is the AI enable. The idea for that is to say that the company and, of course, for our clients, we need to put AI everywhere where we can. We have three sets of projects in AI. The first one, of course, is to have a business line dedicated for the clients to give, I would say, services of AI. The second one is to push AI in all business lines. It should be in digital workplace, it should be in mainframe, in cyber, in cloud, etc. The third one is to push AI in the back office, in our own back office, in legal, in finance, in HR, in our own IT.
We definitely think that there are, of course, applications. The things that we are going, of course, internally, after that, show to the clients what impact we can have, I would say, on their own, I would say, G&A. Just to say that we're going to push AI everywhere in the company, everybody in this company should be AI-driven, I would say, in the future. I definitely think that AI will take, will accelerate, in fact, with the agentic world. It will come probably a little bit too soon, but I definitely think that there will be a lot of things happening, I would say, in the future in this one. That is why we're going to invest, I would say, in AI, both internally and externally for clients.
For this, I will give the floor to Narendra, the new EVP of Data and AI for Atos.
So I'm Narendra Naidu. I'm going to head the new Data and AI business line. I have been with the group for almost 18 plus years, playing various leadership roles. AI is going to be an absolute game changer for us in two broad areas, as Philippe mentioned. First, in the services that we offer to our customers, and second, how we use AI to transform our own delivery. We are very excited about the tremendous opportunity that AI brings to us, and hence we are creating a dedicated business line focusing only on offering Data and AI services to our customers. Right now, we are consolidating all the Data and AI competencies across the group into this new business line.
We also believe that AI is going to play a role in all of our existing services. We are going to enhance and augment all our existing services, whether it be cyber services, digital services, cloud, and infrastructure services with AI so that we can deliver greater value for our customers. AI is also going to fundamentally transform the way we do delivery across everything, development, testing, IT approaches, etc. We are going to use the power of generative AI and agentic AI to supercharge the productivity of our developers and accelerate digital transformation for our customers. As Philippe mentioned, there is also an opportunity to use AI for our own internal operations across HR, workforce management, finance, and optimize the cost and also improve the employee experience. A quick snapshot of the services that we are going to offer in the new business line.
We are going to offer services across the complete data and AI value chain, starting right from strategy and advisory services, where we help our customers align their AI strategy with their business objectives. Business objectives could be around reducing cost, creating, generating new streams of revenue, or employing, enhancing the customer experience, etc. That is the first thing we are going to focus on. In the last few years, we have realized that a lot of customers struggle in their AI strategy because they do not have a solid data foundation. In fact, we are absolutely sure that unless customers invest in building a solid data foundation, they cannot succeed in their AI strategy. That is what we are going to focus on in our data services. We have deep expertise in building highly scalable and industrialized data platforms for customers.
Once the data platform is ready, on top of it, we are going to help them deliver AI services. In the past few years, a lot of customers are stuck in a continuous loop of proof of concepts for AI. Okay? They are struggling to industrialize and scale their AI solutions. We have an offer, something which we call as AI Factory. Just like a physical factory produces physical goods, our AI Factory will enable customers to roll out AI solutions faster to market through automation of data pipelines, automation of machine learning training, as well as automation of machine learning deployments, etc. Finally, we are also going to invest in building pre-packaged industry-specific solutions across financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, etc.
We are very bullish on the potential of agentic AI, and we are investing in the R&D efforts to create something called as autonomous AI developers or autonomous AI testers and autonomous AI support engineers, which can boost the productivity of our services that we deliver to customers. As we speak, today we have around 2,000 people in this new business line, but our ambition is to grow 5x to around 10,000 people in the next three years. As Paul mentioned, today we have around 50% of our workforce who are certified on our foundational course on AI, and we are confident that at the end of next year, 100% of our resources will be certified on our internal AI course. I would like to share four examples of real-life examples of how we are already leveraging the power of AI to deliver value to our customers.
Starting with SATER, which is a manufacturer of aircraft parts. They wanted a highly scalable industrialized platform to roll out their 50-plus AI use cases that we are working on. As I mentioned, we used our AI Factory approach and automated their pipelines, as well as their machine learning pipelines, and deployed their solutions on them, which helped them to achieve almost 30% faster to market. We are deploying solutions around customer virtual assistance, automation of quotations, etc. For Talgo, which is a train manufacturer, we built them a streaming AI platform that can ingest huge volume of data, almost like 30,000 events per second per train. On top of these events, we have AI models which can do predictive maintenance and thus improve the reliability of trains.
For Estée Lauder, which is a cosmetics giant, we actually built a GenAI engine for them, which can ingest data across all of their customer interactions on emails, social media channels, chat responses, and do a sentiment analysis on top of them. This is running across 40-plus countries and 20-plus brands. This enables them to understand customer sentiment and take proactive measures to improve customer experience. The fourth case study is for Rabobank, which is a bank in Europe. For them, we have implemented our responsible AI framework, which helps them adhere to the European Union AI Act. It's not just about regulation. Our responsible AI framework also helps the customer address challenges around AI security, bias in AI, hallucinations, etc.
To summarize, if you see, we already have a rich variety of experience across multiple facets of AI, talking right from responsible AI to generative AI to streaming AI and factory AI. Now we need to scale it out across all our customers. As you mentioned, we are also using AI to transform our own delivery. For a large insurance firm in the Americas, we actually use the power of AI to automate almost 44,000 transactions using generative AI and agentic AI. Similarly, for a large consulting player, we could eliminate 42,000 tickets by driving greater levels of self-service through our GenAI conversational engine. In the interest of time, I'd like to show you a short video which demonstrates the tools and accelerators that we have built around generative AI and agentic AI. Agentic AI is enabling us to drive something which we call as automation of automation.
What do I mean by that? Traditionally, we were focused on moving away from manual efforts to automation. Now we are actually able to use agentic AI to automate the creation of automation scripts. That is what we mean by automation of automation. Let me quickly play you the video.
Atos leads in AI innovation, creating solutions that help our customers grow. When everything is software, using AI to make development processes more efficient and autonomous is a huge lever for business success. Atos has created a GenAI toolkit for development, testing, and IT operations. Our development agent supports engineers at all stages of the development process. Delivery teams gain up to 30% in productivity. The testing tool helps customers to improve quality at source. Digital assurance agents assist from requirements analysis to automated validation. Teams experience up to two times throughput improvement in quality assurance activities.
For IT operations, our AI tool assists with information discovery, search, and analysis. It enables agents to extract relevant knowledge from a variety of knowledge stores. Customers see up to 40% faster issue resolution. Now we shift the paradigm and integrate multiple AI agents to complete tasks autonomously. Agentic AI enables the automation of automation. AI agents developed using our platform can plan, decide, learn, act, and collaborate on their own. With agentic AI, we are creating autonomous AI developers that can implement user stories by using a system of agents. For example, we have created an agentic solution that translates business rules written in natural language to Python code by orchestrating multiple agents such as file agent, coder agent, testing agent, or terminal agent. Atos is investing to build solutions for autonomous AI testers and AI support engineers. Agentic AI can also drive universal automation.
One practical example is a warranty management process we have created with agentic AI and integrated with Salesforce.com. Insurance agents face the challenge to handle large volumes of warranty claims their customers send through email. In the previous manual process, insurance professionals needed to go through multiple steps, including claim validation, creating Salesforce entries, etc. Now insurance workers can request our agentic AI model to perform this process autonomously. When a customer sends an email, the system automatically checks the claim against the specific warranty terms. If the claim is valid, the agentic AI system creates a new claim in Salesforce, attaching information and images from the email sent by the customer. As a final step, the AI system is sending an approval email with the new claim number to the customer. Facilitating human-machine collaboration, the whole automation script can be written in natural language, even for complex cases.
Let's summarize our Atos vision of GenAI and agentic AI. GenAI transforms delivery of services for development, testing, and IT operations. Agentic AI shifts the paradigm towards fully autonomous agents for development, testing, and support. Applied to business processes, agentic AI is accelerating digital transformation across industries. Transform your business with AI-driven efficiency.
To summarize, generative AI and agentic AI are big game changers for us. It's going to boost the productivity of our resources as well as help our customers accelerate their digital transformation through autonomous operations. Thank you.
Thank you. That's the end of the new Atos, the Simplify, Orchestrate, Trim Atos. Excuse me, AI everywhere. As you can imagine, that's the letters of Atos on the reverse. That finishes, I would say, oh, we're going to play this.
Of course, you know that when I implement a strategy, we need after that a transformation plan. That is very important because we need to ensure, of course, that we deliver, I would say, what we have decided to set. I like to give names in my plans. This one is called Genesis. That is the plan we are going to have for the next two to three years. It will take some time. There are 22 different streams, as you can see. Seven, let's say, big categories on growth, HR, country reviews, portfolio review, which is the business line, the gross margin, the cost review, and the cash. On the growth, we have Clay, CAM organization, and the key account focus. That is already, I would say, going on.
Industries also, which one we want to select versus the other one or where we want to more, let's say, invest. Bid excellence. I would say, we have an internal process to make sure also that when we bid, we follow, I would say, a normal path and we avoid, I would say, contracts that are bleeding, I would say, in the future and M&A in the future. In HR, of course, it's culture. The culture of cash is important. Cash is king. I say to the team, I see the cash every day at 6:00 P.M. I have exactly, I would say, the level of cash we have in the company. Of course, all the incentives we're going to give to the different teams in the growth team, in the delivery teams, country, BS, etc. Country review, as I say, reinforce or exit.
We're going to exit part, some of them. In the portfolio review, you have the business line offer. That's why now we have six with Atos, four with, I would say, Eviden. Contract review with the low profitability. We looked at all the black contracts and the red contracts. It's a margin between 5-15%. I'm looking also at them to make sure, I would say, we have the right level of profitability. Then what we call practice turnaround. We have some business lines where definitely we want to go deeper, I would say, in terms of turnaround, like digital workplace. We do also in HPC. Gross margin, now it's the bidability rate. That's the trim. The pre-sales cost also because this is part of the bidability. We want to make sure, I would say, we have the right cost there.
Project margin announcements, that's the move to offshore, of course, and the pricing. I definitely think that the MTO, the move to offshore, will be also probably at par with the MTA, the move to agentic. Because definitely we think that there will be a lot of things we're going to be more efficient in terms of delivery, I would say, with the AI in the future. Delivery excellence, it's all the programs to make sure, I would say, we deliver on standard. It is done by Frederic. This will be done in the course of this year and next year. As I say, the R&D, making sure, I would say, we have the right investment in the different BLs. Cost review, the G&A, excluding real estate. The real estate review, of course, like Besançon, far too expensive and far too big. The IST spans.
With Frédéric Boulan, excuse me, the CIO of the group, I look at, I would say, the systems of operation. For the bid, for example, we have one system. We can probably replace it next year, we see. Then for the delivery, of course. After that, on cash with Jacques-François de Prest, the DSO and the DPO. Jacques-François will tell you the idea is that we want to have recurring actions on the cash. If we decrease the DSO, it is because we have processes that are put in place to have a sustainable DSO. I do not want to have a peak, like I would say, the past. DPO, it is the same thing. We force, I would say, our staff to pay the suppliers every month and especially at the end of the quarter because we do not play with that.
We can renegotiate, of course, the terms of the contract with our suppliers to make sure we have, I would say, a higher DPO in the future. Again, a sustainable, I would say, DPO. Securitization, it is a subject we can touch in the course of 2026. CapEx review, of course, for the different BLs. Tax management to make sure we pay, I would say, the right level of tax in the different countries. We have, of course, some tax losses, I would say, in the balance sheet. This is the Genesis program. Anu, who is here also, is the VP in charge of Genesis. This is all the streams that we are looking on a weekly basis, the different, of course. In some weeks, we move, I would say, in different parts, of course, of this table.
But it's very important to understand that the transformation, of course, should be followed at CEO level, at, of course, leaders' team level to make sure, I would say, we deliver the plan and the strategic plan. Now we can switch probably to the part also you are looking at, which is the financial part. How we translate, I would say, this strategy, all these initiatives in terms of cyber, growth, HR, AI into real numbers. What are the goals, of course, we're going to set ourselves for the next four years. I give the floor to Jacques-François.
Thank you very much, Philippe. Hi, everybody. That's great to see you today in person here in Besançon. Indeed, I'm going to share two things mainly. One is the guidance for fiscal year 2025.
Two is what all of that, what all of this transformation and strategic plan, what does it mean in terms of financial trajectory for us until 2028. Before I get into this 2025 guidance, maybe one word about last year. We had our highs and lows. That was a tough year, I must recognize. Thanks to the efforts of the teams, thanks to the support of our shareholders and debt holders, thanks to the trust from our clients, we now have a secured and stable capital structure. That is very important. We start the year with this stable and secure capital structure. These events last year, of course, had some impact on the decisions we have to take and indeed on the performance for 2025, particularly on revenue and margin. Let's start with the revenue for fiscal year 2025.
You recognize to the left the EUR 9.6 billion for the revenue of last year. What we are guiding you to today is about a decline of EUR 1.1 billion, bringing us to EUR 8.5 billion at the end of the year. This comes from three main elements. The first one is the perimeter change, so that is the disposal of Worldgrid, which has been completed last year, at the end of last year. We have the voluntary decision from Atos to exit some non-strategic contracts or non-profitable contracts. That is the black accounts Philippe was referring to, but we also have some activities where we have decided to go. That is roughly EUR 300 million.
The remainder EUR 600 million comes from the loss of business, be it the contract rundowns or terminations from last year due to our default situation and also from the soft market, which we have talked about and which has been also reported by some competitors. That is the 8.5 for this year. In terms of phasing throughout the year, just to give a bit more color, you have seen our Q1 top-line growth, which was a strong decline. You should not expect anything better in Q2. It will be slightly better in Q3.
Due to the mechanical impact of the comparables from last year, where the situation started to really have an impact on the top line in Q4, we expect to have a run rate, an exit rate for Q4 in terms of top line, which will be in positive territory, paving the way for the future evolutions in 2026 and beyond. Maybe one word as well, which is that in terms not only of revenue, but also I will talk about seasonality later. This is true that our seasonality is expected to be heavily loaded in H2 compared to H1. Moving now to the guidance for the margin. Again, starting from the left, very standard, we start with the 2% reported organic growth, sorry, operating margin in 2024.
Thanks or due to all these reasons we have, which have been explained already in the various presentations, you have a relatively minor impact of this Worldgrid disposal. That's the number one. You have the positive impact on the operating margin of the voluntary exits we have decided on the non-strategic contracts and on the loss-making contracts. That's approximately one percentage point. You have this delivery optimization. That's not the end of the road, but that's the beginning of the road because we have some actions from Genesis and all the programs which are starting to pay off and to have some impact already in our accounts in 2025. Similarly for G&A, that's also some impact which will be perceived and reported already this year. One word, maybe to finish on this guidance, is about the cash.
In terms of cash, we confirm our planned consumption for the year. For 2025, it does not change versus what we said before, which means consumption of approximately EUR 350 million in 2025, which, as you will recall, and you will guess as well, is mainly related to our restructuring program. Right. Now that I have talked about the guidance for 2025 in terms of revenue and operating margin, there is this additional message I would like to convey for you to be clear on what is our pro forma baseline. These changes might happen partially this year or might not happen partially this year, but that is the baseline to consider and to have in mind in terms of what is the start of our growth story. Okay?
Because out of the EUR 8.5 billion, we have this disposal, which is currently being under negotiation of the Advanced Computing Division, which represents EUR 800 million. And we have this exit of countries mentioned by Philippe for EUR 300 million. Really the baseline you need to have in mind for the future and for the trajectory I will explain in a minute is really EUR 7.5 billion. Whilst this revenue goes from EUR 8.5 billion to EUR 7.5 billion, we expect the margin to still be the same at 4%, right? The pluses and the minuses are offsetting each other. Conclusion, effective starting point for us, this is EUR 7.5 billion revenue with 4% operating margin. Now, let's look at the future. Let's go beyond financial trajectory. What's the ambition? What's the outlook? Two main paths to this chart. The first on the left-hand side, that's the organic growth.
We expect to grow the top line by 5%-7% CAGR through the different drivers mentioned by Clay already. Reaching the full potential on our customer base, driving additional growth with the next generation services and the industry offerings, and also hunting for new clients. That is an additional EUR 1 billion-EUR 1.5 billion revenue, leading us to EUR 8.5 billion-EUR 9 billion organic growth and organic revenue. On top of that, we want to do some targeted, disciplined, integrated M&A to acquire another EUR 500 million-EUR 1 billion revenue on top and beyond, which will be funded from our own money just to make sure it is clear for everybody, bringing us to a top line of EUR 9 billion-EUR 10 billion in 2028.
In terms of operating margin, I think the different elements and drivers have already been very clearly articulated, but let's see what it means in terms of numbers and let's put all of them together. Obviously, the bidability improvement mentioned by Philippe is very clear, right? You know, when we have people sitting on the bench, we do not make money with them. The more they are deployed at customers, of course, then we can do not only revenue, but most importantly, profitability and cash from that. You have the incremental delivery optimization, right? Which comes from this move to offshore, the pricing, the automation, and other drivers. You have the reduction of G&A mentioned before, profitable growth, and we do not forget to keep some money to invest for innovation and R&D.
With a renewed and more efficient operating model, with strong disciplines in sales and delivery, incremental growth will come with a structurally better profitability. Conclusion, we expect our operating margin to be in the 10% in 2028, which is closer to the industry standards. Cash. Philippe said cash is king, and we think cash, we dream cash all the time. Key messages here. The first one, bottom right, is that from 2026, our ambition, our plan, which I am very confident we will deliver, is to be cash positive, generation of cash from 2026. Obviously, the first driver is the improvement of the operating margin, which I have just described before. On top of that, I believe there is a lot to do on the working capital. Philippe has explained that, but I want to be extremely clear.
We have been very transparent about that already last year. We are not engaging in non-recurring, non-sustainable, one-off working capital optimization actions. I stress that very much, but there is a lot to do in recurring, sustainable working capital actions such as DSO improvement, DPO improvement, etc. Some of you, I'm sure, maybe all of you have read our URD for 2024. You have noted maybe the DPO amounted to 19 days, one nine. That was the impact of what happened last year. That just gives an idea of the potential to go towards something more in the industry standards even before we are talking about best in class. CapEx remains under control around 2%. The restructuring program is approximately EUR 700 million over three years. Actually, we plan to do that, to finalize that by the end, sorry, by the middle of 2027.
The cash, nothing very much to report on cash other than it's growing in line with the business, and we have some cash, sorry, tax losses carried forward, plenty, plenty to utilize. The cost of debt, if I look at the cash side of that, is roughly EUR 170 million per annum. That's only one portion, as you know. On top of that, we have the non-cash part, which is the payment in kind, which is another EUR 100 million, which makes the cost of our debt very heavy and which makes, if need be, that be really on the top of the priorities in terms of refinancing and replacing this debt as soon as we can with a cheaper debt. We are conscious that there is a lot to do and to deliver and to demonstrate before we can really launch this refinancing, but it remains of utmost importance.
Capital allocation, in line with what I just said about the refinancing. Number one, number one priority is this net debt reduction. Okay? We target a leverage ratio below 1.5 times the net debt on OMDL. That is what we have in our documentation of credit from the restructuring last year. This below 1.5 times in fiscal year 2028. We target a double B credit rating profile in 2027 on the trajectory to become investment grade. Number two is M&A. That is part of, that is the inorganic part of our plan. If we want to acquire some revenue and be consistent and coherent with the rest of the plan, this is true that nothing in 2025, but from 2026, we will look at opportunities on the markets, obviously in line with our priorities shared with you today.
Dividends and share buyback programs are not expected at this stage before 2028. My last page is a reminder of our cash, of our debt, of our maturities. You see we have EUR 2 billion of liquidity at the end of March. We have a gross debt of EUR 2.5 billion. We have no maturity before the end of 2029. In a way, this is really what I would like you to remember from this financial slide, financial trajectory is A, with the financial restructuring from last year, we have gained cash, time, and flexibility to implement the plan. Today, the plan has been presented to you. You see that is a growth plan. That is a focus plan. We have stable balance sheets, and we have an ambition to grow the top line up to EUR 9-10 billion revenue with a 10% operating margin.
That's the end of my section, but that's the financial section. It's very important at us as well, the non-financial performance, the non-financial elements. I will hand over to Alexandra for the next session. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Is this working? Thank you. Great. Welcome. Good afternoon. My name is Alexandra Knoepel, and I'm in charge for CSR, Group Sustainability. I do this since 2020. You might think, why should you listen to sustainability in this context of a capital market day? There are actually two good reasons, and I would like to share them with you. The first reason is obviously about reporting. You need to trust you, our clients, our partner need to trust our non-financial reporting.
They need to know that we know our ESG-related risks and that we know how to handle them and that we know how to comply to new regulations. In Atos, we do, we just published our first CSRD report. We did our first CSRD conform materiality assessment. We identified our ESG-related risk and opportunities. We do have a clue and we do know, we do have a plan how to handle them. The second reason is even more important, and this is CSR is business. CSR sustainability became a business imperative. CSR in these dimensions of ESG, environment, social, and governance accounts up to 20% of our score in average RFPs. CSR is actually a competitive advantage if the reporting is done in the accurate way because this is a foundation for this 20% assets in our RFPs.
We strongly believe in Atos that digital supports sustainable targets. We specifically pursue digital sustainability targets. We want to continue our digital decarbonization. We try to become more attractive for women in a digital career. We are very ambitious to provide accessible digital solutions using assistive technologies. To gain this trust, obtain this trust, we need to walk the talk. We need to walk the talk. We need to ideally lead by example. The most frequent, most common question we get from our clients, from our partners is, "Dear Atos, how can you support us in our environmental targets, specifically in our decarbonization target?" This combination of digital technologies and our proven expertise in CSR, especially in the field of decarbonization, makes us a quite strong, attractive partner in this discussion.
We know how to address decarbonization targets. Atos is quite proud because we have a very ambitious net zero target, fully SPTI aligned, following all standards. Therefore, we know how to deal with scope three. This is important because our clients then know that we speak their language. We know what needs to be done because we are expecting this from our supply chain. They know that we are assessing our supply chain. They know exactly that we know what they are expecting from us. This is a kind of circle, an asset circle, which is a benefit for our business. That means if we are talking to clients, they can expect a specific minimum of standards, transparency, application of scientific methodologies, and it increases their trust. That means we will continue our net zero ambition.
I'm proud to say that Atos has a very ambitious net zero target that actually started in 2019. In 2019, we made the promise to reduce our carbon footprint by 50% until end of 2025, full scope, one, two, and three. I can say we are on track. Due to the latest reporting, there is 8% remaining compared to 2024. We will work very hard to achieve our 2025 reduction target, which is then quite impressive with 50% reduction full scope. Based on this, excuse me, on this performance and the knowledge we gained and this experience, Atos will set itself the next target, the next decarbonization target, which is another 36% until 2035, end of 2035, which is quite compelling because it's based on the 50% reduction that will be hopefully achieved by end of 2025.
Again, of course, full scope, one, two, and three. Yes, I would say indeed CSR makes a difference. CSR is a business contributor. We have all these discussions with our clients. It's quite common that I'm invited to join client discussions and to share some experience. For example, what we do to assess our supply chain, what we do to get the data we need, how do we deal with data. We think about potentially the usage of AI in the future to even improve our sustainability reporting. I would like to share one example of how sustainability contributes to our client relationship. Tim, if you could please play the video.
Hello, I'm Chris Howes, Chief Digital and Information Officer at DEFRA. That's the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the U.K. government department responsible for protecting our environment and supporting the country's food and farming sectors.
At DEFRA, the challenges we're facing are complex and urgent. Climate change, biodiversity loss, sustainable agriculture, flood prevention, and clean waterways. Responding effectively requires more than policy. It demands modern, data-driven technology and trusted partnerships, which is where Atos comes in. Our relationship with Atos has evolved significantly over the years. What began as a single application development contract has grown into a comprehensive and strategic digital partnership. From on-premise and cloud hosting to digital applications, cybersecurity, and ServiceNow consultancy. They also play a key role in one of our major reform programs. This partnership goes beyond delivery. It's grounded in our shared values. Together, we've worked on diversity and inclusion, skills development, and social value initiatives, areas that matter deeply to both our organizations. Sustainability is central to DEFRA's mission, and Atos brings real commitment to that goal, not just in what they say, but in what they do.
Their teams integrate environmental action into core services and collaborate with specialist partners to drive measurable impact. As well as my CDIO role in my department, I'm senior responsible owner for sustainable IT across government through the U.K. Government Digital Sustainability Alliance. From the outset, Atos have played a leadership role, not just working with government, but across the whole technology industry. Atos have been proactive in exploring how emerging technologies can deliver real value for DEFRA. As an example, they've undertaken a series of AI explorations, including in areas such as modernizing legacy applications, improving access to information for our staff and the citizens we serve. These are exactly the kinds of innovations that help us become a more efficient, agile, and responsive organization. A great example is our groundbreaking new end user services contract.
It's transforming how we support 34,000 users using analytics and automation to become a proactive, inclusive, and user-centered service. For example, we'll refresh devices based on their performance rather than on fixed schedules. The Atos solution will make it the most environmentally friendly and sustainable U.K. government digital workplace solution available today, with circular economy principles embedded throughout. As we look ahead, partnerships like this are vital. With Atos, we're building the digital foundations to deliver resilient, sustainable services that protect the environment and support communities across the U.K. With our shared values around responsible, modern technology, innovation, and sustainability, Atos and DEFRA will continue to learn from each other and build our partnership.
Thank you. I would like to spend a few last words on our ratings.
First of all, I'm quite proud that we are still and again among the group of the best IT service providers worldwide in this context of CSR. This is outstandingly important because, of course, it's a further proof, a further proof of our ambition and next to our non-financial reporting and evidence for our ambition. These rating results, they're not given for the highest or best CSR target. These rating results actually result from a very solid data management and data provision. Companies get good rating results because they are as transparent as possible. They follow the latest reporting obligations. They use standards. They use scientific methodologies. They publish all their proof and evidence. They do this ESG, not just E. It's a proof that we have the same level of accuracy, not just in the E, but in social and governance as well.
Otherwise, Atos would not get these results. And we received these results now for five years in a row, which is quite sustainable. So yes, I am convinced that CSR provides a business contribution. And I am happy that Philippe and the management team support this. Thank you. Back to Philippe.
We are at the end almost. I will take some Q&A after that. Just to wrap up, I would say we have our path to success. First, I think it is very important to understand that this is not a one-man show. It has been a team effort. Probably between 50 and 100 people were involved in the strategy. There were a lot of debates. The leaders' team has met many times, in fact, between December and now.
I want just to reassure that it is, I would say, a team vision and a team, I would say, also commitment to the numbers. We have, I think, a clear vision. We know exactly where we want to play. It is very important. The transformation plan, of course, is in place with Genesis. You know exactly the phase we are going to have now in the coming months. It will stop probably in the course of 2027. As I say, we have achievable financial targets. Now, just to recap, I would say the milestones we have in our plan, 2025, we are going to have roughly EUR 8.5 billion, roughly around 4% of EBIT operating margin. As Jacques-François said, the cash will be roughly a minus EUR 350 million. Remember that my goal is to accelerate the restructuring.
The cash, I would say, it's not a big problem for this year because the sooner the restructuring, the better the profitability in the coming years. If we can accelerate even more, we estimate we'll be at 60%-70% of the restructuring by 2025 and the remaining, of course, by 2026. A little bit at the end, I would say, beginning of 2027. I would say the timing for us is not an issue. What is important is to make the execution, which is very important. Next year, we will be positive in terms of growth and also positive in terms of cash, of course. It's very important. When I say cash flow positive, before debt repayment and M&A, of course. M&A, no M&A in 2025, it's forbidden.
Probably no M&A in H1 2026 also because I want the team to focus and stay, I would say, very focused on the Genesis plan. We can restart, I would say, the M&A in H2. In 2028, that's the goal I would say we have, roughly the EUR 10 billion at 10%. So EUR 1 billion of OM is the internal target for the team. That's exactly what we want to hunt for. We'll see if we can, I would say, touch, I would say, this top, I would say, ambition in terms of sales and, of course, in terms of, I would say, margin. The idea, of course, is to deleverage, of course, the balance sheet. We will do that, of course, by providing cash.
I know that I will have some questions, but the M&A, they will know no capital increase for the next four years. I don't need equity. We don't need also new debt. We need to be on our own with our own cash, I would say, to fund, of course, the M&A. If we don't have enough cash, we will do less M&A. That's it. We'll be very, I would say, wise on this one. I just want to show you a last slide that we have done with Bain. This is the roughly you see on this chart on the horizontal, this is roughly the revenue growth and this is the EBIT margin. In fact, you can see that on the right, there's the regional players.
You have the Indian players on what we call the Twitch, mostly, I would say, fast growing and I would say a fast and higher digit margin. We want to play in this bandwidth, in fact, in the characteristic EBIT between 20-30%. It means at least 10% growth, 10% EBIT, or less growth and more EBIT, whatever. We definitely think that it is in this area that Atos should be compared to other competitions. As you can see, of course, we start in 2024 with decreasing growth and 2% margin. We will accelerate, unfortunately, the organic growth because we are going to decrease by roughly 10%. We double, I would say, the margin. The goal that we have in the plan is not to be, I would say, in this bandwidth by 2028.
It is quite, I would say, challenging for us, for sure. But definitely, this is the area where we want to play. I think that's it for me. I will take the iPad just because there are questions, of course, online. I will take also the questions, of course, in, I would say, the room. I can take some questions directly or I can take the questions in the room. We're going to give you a micro, because in fact, since we are registered, everybody can hear you.
Hi. Thank you for this Capital Markets Day. One question on your revenue growth. You show market growing 8% and then you're growing 5%-7%. Just wondering, where do you get the growth from?
Is it like taking, because right now everyone has their customers, they're taking some customers from other players or your existing customers, you're offering them more services. You have growth. I'm just wondering what are the drivers because your competitors are quite highly rated, like Capgemini and Accenture. They are good companies. I'm just wondering if you are thinking of taking market share from them, how do you plan to do that if that's the case?
Yeah. I think the answer is both, but I remember the number that Clay has put in one of his slides. On average, in our key customers, we provide 1.6 business lines out of the six. I definitely think that the market share of Atos in these top clients is too little.
If we look at the growth for the next three years, so between 2026 and 2028, when we look at the business plan from the different BLs and GOs, most of the growth is coming from existing clients. We have new logos. We call that new logos. Of course, it is important because there is, of course, a rotation of clients every year. I would say I prefer the teams right now to focus on the existing client base because it is very solid. Definitely, we see a lot of potentials. I would say to hunt too much on new companies where we are not a customer for the moment. It will be a balance between the two because we are going to lose clients, for sure. That is the normal way of life for us.
We need to have new clients, but I would say most of the growth, more than 50% of the growth, is coming from exist ing base. Clay, you can correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, you can speak. Yeah.
I can't hear myself. Okay. Actually, it's even higher in terms of our existing base. Again, there's three primary drivers. There's selling the additional services into our existing base. That tends to be the hypo services, the more volumetric services where we do about EUR 3 billion today. We're talking about taking that up again, 10% per year. There's the new revenue streams, but even the new revenue streams primar l y come from our existing customers. On average, we're talking about winning out of those five to eight, you're probably talking about two to three new logos from 2026.
If you look at it, 80%-90% of the growth comes from existing customers, but not necessarily the same services with those existing customers. Hope that's clear.
Okay. I can take one question online and then I can switch from online to in the room. Do you plan to fund investments, debt renegotiation or new debt, free cash flow, capital increase? As I said, no capital increase, no new debt also. We can renegotiate the debt. I know we will be looking at this. It could be an opportunity, but it's too soon for the moment. We need, I would say, to deliver cash flow. It's impossible, I would say, to go to raise, I would say, or replace, I would say, the existing debt if we are not cash flow positive. It's impossible. That's why it's a subject in 2026 or 2027.
We will see, of course, when the pace, I would say, of the cash flow. I would say we are self-autonomous. We do not need external, I would say, cash to do the plan. As I say, if the plan is a little bit less than anticipated, so we produce, I would say, less cash, then we will do less M&A and that is it. We will, I would say, be very cautious in terms, I would say, of cash to make sure that we do not burn, I would say, any cash. Questions in the... Go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon. Nicola David from Odo BHF. I have a few questions. The first one is regarding the restructuring. You mentioned that 60-70% will be done by the end of the year.
Are we talking about restructuring costs which have already been provisioned or basically what is a pocket of restructuring? What has been provisioned, what not?
Yeah, I don't. In fact, I'm looking only at cash. Sorry, the provisions, I don't know. Jacques-François probably knows, but the cash is more important. We say EUR 700 million of cash for the restructuring. 60%-70%, it means we're going to burn between EUR 400 million-EUR 500 million this year. Okay. Provisions, there are some provisions in the balance sheet, you're right. The question, what is the provision? I don't know. I'm just looking at the cash flow statement. I would say the provisions, of course, are not playing on this one. Yeah.
My second question is, in your free cash flow assumption for the period 2025-2028, what is the weight of working cap improvement into these free cash flow assumptions?
In fact, we didn't provide any numbers. That's a good question. I would say, as Jacques-François said, and as I said, we want to reduce the DSO and increase the DPO. That's normal. On a sustainable basis, it's very important because I would say that the weakness of this company was really, I would say, to play with this number, and I don't want to do that. No securitization this year. There is no securitization at the end of Q1. There is none coming also for H1. There is no plan for the moment to do that. In the cash flow statement, of course, I don't take into account if there is a securitization one day that it's a cash available. For me, it's just a different kind of debt, I would say, but it's not, I would say, per se a cash flow.
In terms of DSO, we want to reduce, increase, reduce, excuse me, the DSO probably by 10 days. That's an internal goal that we have and increase the DPO by probably a couple of days. It could have an impact of roughly EUR 300 million of cash in four years. We will try probably to accelerate this between 2025, 2026, let's say, or 2027, but it is an impact. In fact, when you look at the leverage at 1.5 times in 2028, we didn't take into account a lot of, I would say, that part of cash. It could be good news, I would say, in terms of cash flow. I would say we need to work on the DSO.
We need to have also people, I would say, chasing about, I would say, our invoices to make sure we are paid, I would say, on the right term, making sure also on the new contracts that we have also the right terms in terms of payment, maximum 60 days. I prefer, of course, 30 days. In some contracts, sometimes it's even less than that. For the DPO right now, we are looking at all the base of suppliers and we are renegotiating, I would say, the DPO to normalize, I would say, the payments of suppliers.
The last one from my side regarding margins in 2025, two elements. Do you expect EBITDA or OMDA margin to increase by two points like the operating margin or a bit more? Because I think you had some extra CapEx last year that you will need to amortize.
That's a pretty technical one. Also, I'm a bit surprised that your pro forma margin, excluding advanced computing and the country you are closing, is not higher than the reported one because advanced computing does not seem to be so profitable right now. Those countries, I suppose if you are closing them, they are supposed to be less profitable.
Advanced computing is around 4%-5% EBIT, so it does not change. In fact, it is profitable. It is not a high margin, but it is profitable. Since we are not high margin for the moment, I think it has not a big impact. The rest is EUR 300 million out of EUR 9 billion, so it is roughly 3%-4%. It does not change anything. The margin, in fact, of the countries that we divest is lower also, but it is very tiny versus, I would say, the rest. That's why.
Now, in terms of OMDR, yes, we had the Jupiter program last year. We had more CapEx than we have, I would say, in a normal course. Do we have two points in OMDR versus OM? I do not know. I do not know the answer. Jacques-François. Probably less because of course, we put the leases, the CapEx back. In fact, I would say the delta should be, I think the delta, if we do, let's say, the 4% on 8.5 is roughly EUR 350 million. We do roughly EUR 150 million more in terms of OM, which was probably EUR 150 million more on OMDR. I definitely think that the percentage should be less than.
Right. That is clear.
Thank yo u. I do not. This is not correct. Perfect. I take another one online. Clay, one for you again.
Your renewal rate of 92% only reflects the contracts you have actually bid on. What is the proportion of contracts up for renewal? Have you either chosen not to bid on or you were excluded by the client? Sure. Let me take the second part of that quickly. The math's correct. Let's start with that. There's very few, I mean, I've been scratching my head to think of and I'm looking at my colleagues where we've actually been excluded, right? Even in the past, I'm sure there's somewhere, somewhere there's a couple based on what happened last year, but normally you keep the incumbent in, right? If you're running through a procurement. That figure is very, very small.
There is a number that we've chosen not to bid that's reflected in that EUR 300 million that we've walked away from, but it doesn't fundamentally change that ratio, that 92% ratio is a pretty good ratio. The stuff we walked away from, there was about EUR 700 million last year, right? And the year before between the two years. I don't think it really changes the answer. The 92%, good question, but is pretty clean.
Okay. A question regarding myself. How many shares do you have and do you plan to invest more? It's a good question first because I want to reiterate the fact that I have subscribed at EUR 9 million, so 240,000 shares right now in December 2018. Atos has not given me any signing bonus or welcome bonus or whatever.
I see that it's normal that he has both shares because it has been paid by Atos. No, it has been paid only from my cash and it's my own investment. Do I want to invest more? Probably. The problem is that I am very conflicted in many decisions. The open windows are not very open. In fact, that's the difficulty. I will try to find an open window. Cécile, our General Secretary, is watching me very carefully what I'm doing. And she's right. Yes, I want to probably increase my shareholding in the future. Yes.
I will try, I would say, to do it probably in the course of this year. Any other questions in the room? Because I have other questions online. No? Yes? Okay. Go on.
Hi. Thank you. Just a quick question.
Given the macro environment, do you expect any growth in the defense sector? Or is there any pressure from the French government for the French companies to support the defense?
Yes, of course. That's a good question. Yes, we're going to have a growth in the defense sector. It's true in France, but it's true in many countries: Sweden, Germany, Denmark, U.K., Netherlands, Belgium, Spain. Yeah, we definitely think that, as you see, we are 6-7% of our sales in defense. I definitely think we'll be probably much higher in the future. Of course, in our own, I would say, service area, we're not competing, I would say, for some aspects in defense for sure. In our own, I would say, area, yes, I definitely think we do more. There is a question for you again, Clay.
Will Atos continue to be the major channel to market for Eviden products? Or will Eviden be increasingly sold separately?
Okay. The answer is both. Exactly. Even today, a lot of the customers are direct relationship customers and at some level, not exclusive, but heavily Eviden-based customers. Then there are other customers where there is both. We have set up an incentive scheme for the Atos side to promote and sell in the Eviden product scheme so that they are very clear that this is in their best interests. Also from a go-to-market, it makes sense. If you think about the power of high-performance computing in particular, and mission control systems is another one, in conjunction with data, AI, and the power that that brings into applications into customers and financial services, defense, the combination is a really strong one.
I think that will just continue to flourish despite the fact that there's a bit of separation.
Thank you. Stay alive because I have more questions for you. How do you, for example, in order to avoid getting into new low-margin accounts, how are you handling this situation? Is there an internal hurdle rate for new accounts to overcome? In setting that, how conservative are you with future cost expectations for new deals?
Okay. Let's start. We don't have a separate hurdle rate for new customers versus existing customers. We have a target hurdle rate for every customer by offering type because that adjusts the risk in what we expect to come up from a cash return. And that's all managed globally. The metrics are all there with a gated set of sponsors and sign-offs that have to happen.
Any deviations on the terms and conditions get escalated up to ultimately make a decision. There is not a lower. We are not buying anything. We are really clear that we are not out to buy margin. I am sorry, not out to buy share. We are absolutely out to make sure we secure the right business. That has been evident, and you can see the business. If we think about it, I think there is only one, what I would call, black contract of things we have even signed in the last two years of any size. It is already starting to flow through the system, the new regime. I cannot remember the first part of the question. I have a raised. Okay. Sorry. If anybody wants to fire back, we will make sure we tackle it.
Okay. Derek, you have a question.
Thank you for taking my question. I have four questions.
The first one is about the positioning of Atos versus the market. Because it seems that you put a little bit or you minimize the fact that the Atos portfolio today is not completely reflecting how the market is structured. In a sense that you said rightly that the potential addressable market is EUR 1.3 trillion. Your total addressable market. EUR 400 billion. EUR 400 billion. Here you acknowledge the fact that you are not trying to chase all the market. At the same time, if I look to the potential growth rate of the market where you are playing in, most of them are going less than market average. If I take digital workplaces, managed services infrastructure, it is not growing at 8%. It is rather low single digits. You have to take into account the fact that the starting point in terms of positioning is not on par with the market.
I'm curious to understand how you arrived to the conclusion that in just one year, you will be able to grow 5-7%. That's my first question.
Yeah. Okay. First, you're right. In some business lines, they are growing slowly versus other business lines. Your digital workplace, infra versus cloud is, of course, growing faster, as you can imagine. What is important is the mix for me, of course. When I see the growth for next year or the coming years, there are some business lines still growing at 2-3%, and there are business lines growing at double digits. Remember one thing also, as somebody very well-known says, "I want my money back.
I want my revenues back because I've been stolen my revenues, EUR 2 billion for the last two or three years by some competition, which I think should have never been the case if we were not in a financial turmoil. I think we can regain market share also. That's also the bets we're going to have. Although the market, for example, in, let's say, for example, in digital workplace or whatever is slower, it means that Atos is going to grow at market. I definitely think we can regain some, I would say, some of our customers. That's the number one.
That's the number one. The number two is a bit tricky also. Sorry for that. I'm the bad boy.
When we compare the business plan presented in September 2024 and the assumption made on the decline in cost in 2025, there were an assumption about cost declining. When we look to the guidance for this year, the new one, the updated guidance, the cost base or the cost are decreasing much, much faster without apparently any additional restructuring costs. Did I understand correctly? How do you do the math? Or you do the bridge between what the company was saying? You were not there, but in September 2024. Exactly.
That's a good answer. I was not there, but I will try to answer. Your CFO was there.
Today, first, yes, because the restructuring was also in an envelope of roughly EUR 700 million. I completely agree. I don't know. Jacques-François, you want to take this one?
I can answer if you want, but I definitely think the big difference is that we are in the EUR 700 million that we have. We are spending probably less on more people because we are also cautious. We are doing different things. We are, in fact, pushing much higher the bidability rate than probably the plan of September. Probably in September, and as you say, I was not there, the way it has been calculated probably was, let's say, conservative. I don't know. This one, for sure, we know exactly the numbers. Paul, we have negotiated, I would say, in different countries. We are done in Germany, for example. After that, it will be executed in the course of H2. Normally, Germany will be roughly at par at the level we want by the end of this year. We know the cost for Germany.
We have U.K. and U.S. almost done. We are continuing the job in India. We have quite a good view on the average cost, I would say, of redundancy that we have now in the different areas of the group. I would say the EUR 700 million of this plan is really a bottom-up, I would say, cost of restructuring. Okay.
The third one is a classical one for IT services companies. Whatever you call it, red project or black project. I changed the terminology. Everybody is going to be lost. It's great. I was looking rather to the project with between 5% project margin and 15% project margin, the red ones. The black are below 5 and the red one.
I was wondering how much of that is easy to fix and how much of those contracts will be stopped in the end just because you do not find any solution to improve the margin.
That is a good question. Unfortunately, there is no one answer. Each contract is different. I completely agree. For what we are looking for each contract, I am looking at my level only at black and red contracts. After that, you have the orange one. After that, the blue, then the green, and I would say the gold one. The gold is above 35%, so I do not look at them. I like these accounts, of course, but I would say I do not spend too much time on this one. I am very happy when they are there.
Of course, the black, it's very important not to have any more because it decreases, I would say, the profitability of the group. If I want to target double-digit margin, of course, I need to have, I would say, project less or zero projects, I would say, with a negative margin or lower margin. For the red, I would say it's account by account. There are a lot, so several hundreds. It's much more, of course, than the black accounts for different reasons sometimes. Clay said, for example, that we promised for some clients to, I would say, decrease our pricing by 4% or 5%. For example, we were stuck by the increase in software, for example, in some mainstream contracts. We were completely, I would say, screwed, I would say, between increasing costs in our part and decreasing, I would say, top line.
I would say it's case by case. Some of them, for example, the offshoring is too low. Some of them, the pricing was not correct. Of course, this one I cannot change. I just need to wait the end of the contract and then probably not renew this one. It's different, I would say, typologies. Unfortunately, there is no one pattern, unfortunately, in this bucket. We look at all contracts one by one.
If you combine the black, not the black project, I forgot the black project because you will be done. Yeah. The red project, what percentage of the revenue it represents?
I don't remember there, but I would say probably around 10% plus, let's say, or around 10-15. I don't know the exact answer. We will give it to you, I would say.
I don't want to give wrong numbers, but I would say it will be in this area.
Yeah. My final question is about the commitment you are taking on 2025. You were slightly north of EUR 2 billion revenues in Q1. You said flat for Q2. Let's say ballpark, it will be also around EUR 2 billion. To get to the EUR 8.5 billion means, if I'm correct, EUR 4.5 billion in Q4 with a Q4 above Q3. What gives you confidence about the Q4 at this stage of the?
That's a good question. First, I think the first quarter was EUR 2,060 million. If you multiply by 4, it's EUR 8,240 million. We just need EUR 200 million plus. The answer is that we need at least EUR 100 million per quarter more in Q3 and Q4. Okay. I think it was, yeah, no. Vas-y, je pense.
Yeah, maybe to complement, when I was saying do not expect Q2 to be better than Q1, this was in % of revenue growth. This was not the absolute value. This was the % of decline versus last year. Because last year we were in Q1 around -15%. We estimate that in Q2 will be also around -15%.
Okay. Thank you.
Okay, I will take some. Can you clarify if the -EUR 350 million cash flow guidance refers to a post-interest amount? Yes, the answer is the total net cash after paying the EUR 170 million of interest. Of course, a question that I have every time in the sale of advanced computing. No, two questions on the advanced computing. The first one is the sale necessary for the group financial survival. The answer is no.
Because as you can see, in fact, we can deliver, I would say, the plan and we'll be cash flow positive next year. I would say the sale of the computing will bring more cash on the balance sheet, but we don't need that cash. We can use it for other things, for sure. Of course, where we are in terms of this, I would say, negotiation. What are the chances to finalize the sale of advanced computing? It's a negotiation like I don't know. Okay. We are negotiating. We have this 31st of May. We have meetings again next week. We were in the phase, I would say, of due diligence that was intense for two or three months. That is now finished. We are now, I would say, wrapping the due diligence and finalizing the negotiation. It's a negotiation.
Like every negotiation, I don't know the outcome. Unfortunately, I don't have a crystal ball. I would say there is a buyer and we are sellers. That's the good news. At least there is a journey to find an agreement. At the end, it needs to satisfy both parties. I'm protecting, of course, Atos in terms of value for the shareholders, of course, and also for ourselves. The state wants to make sure that he's putting the right price on this asset. We'll see. Yes. Go on. Take the micro because for the people online, they can do. Thank you. Yeah.
Regarding the margin target in 2028 of 10% coming from 4% in 2025, can you give us a bit of a sense of the trajectory if it's going to be more linear or is it back-end loaded?
It's not back-end loaded. I hate this kind of plans because if I say it's 4%, 4.1% next year, 4.2% in two years, and then probably 10%, we'll see. No, normally you can say, I don't know if it's linear because it's not an easy game. But as you can imagine, the more the restructuring, I would say the faster the restructuring, of course, the higher the margin will come up. Remember that we had 4% this year; with the restructuring, we will gain roughly these 2-3 percentage points in the bidability rate, again, 1 percentage point on SG&A.
As I say, I do not need top line for that. If we stay at EUR 8 billion or the EUR 7.5 billion, I would say, after the HPC and the divestments of different countries, we have a way to be at double digit at EUR 7.5 billion. That is the goal we have internally. Of course, the growth will ease, I would say, some cost reduction. For example, for the G&A, my target is to be at EUR 500 million, so roughly 5% of EUR 10 billion. If we finish at, let's say, EUR 9 billion or EUR 8.5 billion, then I need to lower, of course, the level of G&A and be at EUR 450 million. Yeah. It is not backloaded for sure. Yeah.
It's backloaded in 2025, but it's just because the pattern of our business and also on Eviden on the HPC business, there is a lot of value coming, in fact, in Q4. That's part of also of the answer. It's more stabilized, I would say, on the Atos brand. Eviden is more, I would say, volatile, in fact. Okay. What about the sale of MCS? I think we were clear in the press release that there is no more sale for the moment. Not for MCS, not for cyber products. We say it's not the right timing. We keep these two assets. We're going to manage them. We definitely think also that with the defense, I would say, headwinds that we're going to have, there are value in front of us.
Definitely, I think it will bring more value for the company and for the shareholders. I think there's another question in the room. Yes. Yeah. Go on. Excuse me.
Hello. Can you provide a bit more color on the M&A piece? Is this something that you do 2027, 2028 if you're generating cash? Or would you just think about using the EUR 2 billion that you have on balance sheet to do something next year if it's updated?
T hat's a very good question. If I don't produce cash, I won't do M&A. I will be very, we will be careful, in fact. Don't worry. I see some comments this morning saying he's completely crazy to talk about M&A because he has no cash. No, that's not the way I'm going to look at it. First, we need ambitions in a company. You know what?
I can say I can stay at EUR 7.5 billion MIP and in three years, I will be at EUR 7.5 billion. I'm not sure I'm going to create a lot of value, but why not? It's a way. I definitely think, and you see, I would say in my last slide that if we want to play in the Champions League, we need to be at EUR 10 billion plus in terms of company. We need to look for that. We are cautious. We're not going to spend money on the first quarter of 2026. For sure, we need, that's why I say M&A probably H2 2026 probably is a good window. We'll see. We'll see also with the guidance we're going to give early 2026, mid 2026, I would say. Of course, with the profile going in 2027.
Yes, we will be very cautious, I would say. We're not going to spend money that we don't have. First, let's produce some cash. That's the most important, I would say, thing for the market and for the company. Yes.
Yeah. Let me see what kind of question. Probably one for you, Clay, again. How does your new commercial model and organizational structure compare to your peers? And how well proven is it in practice? Yeah.
Let's start with the proven in practice. It's similar to the model we used in the infrastructure and digital workplace business in 2023, where we turned around from having about a 60% book to bill to having three quarters of over 100%. At one level, it's proven.
The specialist piece is a bit unique and an investment we're making that's a tweak on that model because the world doesn't stand still. You can't just keep doing exactly the same thing. How does it compare? Not many places I've seen actually bring the full end-to-end together, right? And have a single account lead in terms of client executive that owns the full account and having the full suite of services come together in a common sales model inside each geography, applying that model with the incentive structure. I've seen bits and pieces of it everywhere, but bringing the whole thing together. I guess the common thing for most is the large deals, to have a separate large deals organization. We've had great success on that, and we're very confident we'll go and deliver it again. We have confidence in it.
A lot of it's been tested internally. There's a couple of pieces we have to adapt to the new offerings. Finally, it's the fact that the end-to-end is fully there with all the incentives, I think inside the geographies is unique. I think that I don't see it in that holistic way anywhere else.
Thank you, Clay. Another question. How do you anticipate working capital in 2025 given the EUR 300 million of advance payments, which was in fact EUR 180 million at the end of Q1? In fact, it's EUR 80 million for your information right now. We don't ask for advance payment. It happens, unfortunately. Of course, if a client wants to pay, I would say it's difficult to say no because they send the money. As you see, we are publicizing or putting, I would say, the right information.
You know exactly, I would say, the advance payment that we have. We have only EUR 80 million right now. It will probably disappear in the course of the year. There will be, I would say, new advance payment by the end of this year. It's possible. We don't count on it. In fact, I'm looking at my working capital and cash without a cash advance, but it will come probably, I don't know, at the end of the year. I have no question on this one, but I'm not going to chase for it. Remember that in the past, we were asking for client payments, but we were asking also for rebates. I don't want that. Okay. I don't want rebates. I don't want any deterioration of the margin of the projects.
If the clients pay in advance, that's great, I would say, but I would say it's not, I would say, a demand from us. Not at all. Have you been impacted by the U.S. administration decision? No. In fact, because we don't work with the federal government. Michael, who is the head of the U.S., in fact, we work mainly with private clients for the moment. We don't export also in the U.S. So I would say for the moment, we have no, I would say, big decisions. In fact, what I explain is that there are on the first, let's say, when we look at what happens right now, there is no big impact for us. The impact is on our customers because they are impacted on the first. For example, the automotive sector in Europe.
For sure, we have big customers in Germany, very well known, that are suffering a lot. If they are suffering, they want to reduce, I would say, their G&A also, their IT expense. It is a second round, I would say, after, I would say, the direct impact on some of our customers. There is no impact on Atos per se. There are some impacts, I would say, on some customers. Philippe?
Yes? Oui. One of Atos's historical problems has been significant habitual restructuring costs that have ran something, I think, around 7% of sales. How do you see in post-2026 restructuring evolving from 2026 to 2028 as a percent of sales in terms of continuous restructuring?
Oh, for me, 2028 should be a blank year. A year without restructuring. That is the goal we have set.
As I said, the EUR 700 million, it's EUR 400 million plus this year, EUR 200 million next year, and the rest probably in 2027. If we can accelerate next year and finish at the end of 2026, it will be probably EUR 300 million next year, which means in 2027 we'll be free from the restructuring costs. The idea for us is to say, after this Genesis plan, on a normal world, of course, if we say the world is, I would say the IT sector is very bad, the top line is decreasing for, I would say, outside reasons, of course, we will take actions. I would say on the plan that we have right now, we will finish completely the restructuring cost.
Just to follow up on that.
We should expect that absent, you know, obviously, whatever, there is a delta between CapEx and D&A, but that operating margin should be a p roxy for levered free cash.
Exactly. The OM is a proxy of OMDA minus CapEx, I completely agree. Then you have your cost of debt and that's it. Yeah. Exactly. Yes, there is a question here. Can we give the micro? The micro is here. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. It's actually a question very similar to that one, or probably approaching from a different angle. Maybe for Jacques-François, you seem to be very confident about 2026 being free cash flow positive. You just explained EUR 400 million restructuring cost this year going down to EUR 200 million. We are going down from minus EUR 350 million to at least flat. There is a delta of EUR 150 million that you need to improve year on year.
The question is, where is that EUR 150 million improvement coming from? I know that you're not giving very specific guidance about 2026, but I mean, are there any assumptions about the growth of the top line, assumptions about the growth of the margin? I want to understand where that high degree of confidence is coming from and what can prevent you guys from getting to that free cash flow positive.
I can answer part of it if you want. First, there will be more operating margin because the restructuring of this year translates to productivity or gains, in fact, in the P&L next year. This year, we say 4% at EUR 8.5 billion, so EUR 340 million. Next year, for sure, it will be more than that. As I say, the EUR 400 million-plus restructuring will be probably EUR 200 million.
It means that the OM minus restructuring will be positive next year. You have growth, and then, of course, you have the cost of debt. Yeah. You want to probably give a different answer or Jacques?
Yes. Yes. Just to complement. Just to complement. No, I think this answer is absolutely correct. You take the page explaining how we go from 4% margin to 10% margin. You take the same drivers. You know, we have the bilibility improvement. You have the delivery optimization actions. You have G&A actions. What we are doing already now with the Genesis, for example, restructuring turnarounds transformation plan, only a portion of that will bear fruit in 2025. Okay?
I'm not saying that it will be 100% full swing in 2026, but a bigger portion will bear fruit in 2026, thereby increasing, improving all the financials, and thereby translating into the bottom cash line, if you like.
Yeah, exactly. It is fair to say that a portion or a big portion of that 150 is coming from an annualization of all the things that you're starting. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you.
Derek, I take one more online. Then Derek, you can take the word. What is your prospect on headcount? You target 1,000 headcount reduction. Should we expect a pickup in Irene? I think it is important to remember that the pro forma goes from EUR 8.5 billion to EUR 7.5 billion without Cartier and without the country exit. In fact, we have 73,000 people.
I said to the press this morning that at the end of the plan, without Cartier, without the exit, and with the restructuring, we'll finish at 60,000 people roughly, probably a little bit less. Of course, there will be growth next year. There will be hiring also. It's the bottom. After that, of course, we're going to restart, I would say, of course, recruiting, but we continue recruiting just because we have also an attrition rate of roughly 14%. For sure, we are rejuvenating also our, I would say, pyramid age. It's very normal. I would say if we say at EUR 7.5 billion with the country exit, the finish of the restructuring and without Cartier, probably around 60,000, but we'll be probably more next year, in fact. Yeah.
Sorry for the follow-up, Derek, from Bernstein.
The first one is on, you know, the fact that you do not talk about asset light strategy. In the past, we know that Atos has a lot of data centers, around 100. What about this data center? What about the relationship with the hyperscaler and the fact that you will, in the future, probably or potentially transfer part of the business you do on private cloud or hosted private cloud to public cloud and how you will, let's say, restructure?
Yeah, that's a good question. In fact, that's a Genesis practice turnaround. In practice turnaround, there are three turnarounds, and that's one of them, the mainframe. The number of sites we are closing, we are regrouping some sites. There is a big also restructuring in that part.
It is included in the EUR 700 million? Yeah, exactly. The second one is more simpler.
It's about the utilization rate. Has Atos ever been at 85% utilization rate? That's my first question. Second question, we know that with IT services company, the way you calculate the utilization rate could be different from one. It's very different from the competitor. Sometimes the system is even not efficient. I.e., you can hide some people here and there in project and it's not counted in. What's your thought on that? Do you think that the current system and the way you measure non-productivity is okay?
I cannot say at 100% is okay. Probably Jacques-François has another view. The answer is that I track head by head and euro by euro. Every month, I know exactly. In fact, we have a project margin, which is the margin on project.
We have a gross margin, which is, I would say, the BAT rate plays in this, I would say, with pre-sales, R&D, bench, etc. The way we calculate it is probably most, let's say, a little bit tougher than the competition. For example, some competition, they say there are 90. There are 90, 91 is close to our 85 because I put everybody, in fact, to make sure we look at the people that are non-bid. For example, illness, etc., are in the billable rate for us. There are some illness we pay in some countries, and there are some countries we do not pay. We look at it by head, and we look at it by euro. It is very important. It is both, in fact.
If they hide, I will still see it, I would say, in EUR because between the project margin as a percentage and the gross margin, I see exactly what happens.
The second question about cost was on subcontracting costs. It has been very volatile, up and down in the past. What's your view on that? What's the target in terms of as a percentage of sales?
T hat's a good question. I don't have a view on this one because for some countries, it makes sense, like Belgium. For some countries, it doesn't make sense at all. We have, I would say, more in, for example, in the U.K., in Belgium, probably less in France. We are looking at the number of people we have right now as subcontractors.
We are reducing roughly around 1,000, I think, since the beginning of the year or the beginning of Genesis. There are also levels where we cannot go below, I would say. There is no philosophy to say I want only, I do not know, 5,000, 7,000. It does not make sense. It is country by country because it depends, I would say, also on the way, I would say, the country they manage, I would say, their workforce. There are countries with higher, I would say, subcontractors than other countries. We are looking, in fact, we are around 7,000, I think, subcontractors. Right now, we looked one by one if we can replace these people by bench, for sure. It is not automatic, unfortunately.
Yes. Yes. A couple of follow-ups from my side as well. Nicholas David from Odo.
Regarding free cash flow, it's very clear about restructuring costs, but there's also a lot, some other cash elements linked to future losses on contract, which has been provisioned over the last years. Are these included in the EUR 700 million bucket or come on top? On top, yeah.
EUR 700 million is really the restructuring. The black account, because that's the one that is bleeding, I would say, there will be very little cash in 2026 because most of them will be closed. There will be two. It will be probably maximum, for me, it will be probably maximum EUR 50 million of cash out next year. It's still a lot of money for us. Probably below that, but I would say it has been much more, as you can imagine, in the past. Yeah.
EUR 50 million next year and this ye ar?
Maximum EUR 50 million.
This year, a little bit above EUR 50 million. Yeah. My second question is, is there a path towards more asset disposal if something, I do not say nothing goes wrong or if you see some opportunities to dispose some asset at a good price in order to get more liquidity and then buy back some debt in order to reduce the cost of debt? Because you did not discuss so much about this topic, about optimization of the cost of debt. Yeah.
You know what? At the board level, I think we are always questioning, let us say, at least once a quarter, the portfolio. There will be probably opportunities, but I would say for the moment, that is not the question. We keep the company as is. We do not need, I would say, to sell an asset to have more liquidity. Now, the cost of debt is 10%.
We know exactly with the 1L and 1.5L, exactly the cost. As I say, we have also penalties to reimburse the debt. You know that. It is much better, I would say, in December 2026. We need to make also versus the cost, I would say, of refinancing and the cost of debt, what is the right timing for that? This is, for me, a subject of H2 2026, really. It makes sense for sure, I would say. If we produce cash next year, we will have more cash than I would say we need probably in the balance sheet. It will be, I would say, an exercise we are going to do, but it is too soon for us to do that. Selling assets to reimburse debt, I am not sure we create a lot of value. That is my view, but probably.
Of course, if we sell the asset at 15 times EBIT, probably yes, but I'm not sure that it will be the case, unfortunately. Maybe MCS could be sold at this price? CS is worth a lot. Yeah, of course. Worth a lot. Yeah. That's a lot of money. Yeah.
Last one from my side regarding tax losses, carry forward. Could you help us understand how we should value that or when could we see some activation and impact on your cash and to help us see if there is value there?
There is value because we have in the balance sheet. Now the question is when the value translates into cash. That's a big question. Yeah.
Yes. Hello? Hello. Yes. No, I think the numbers of the tax losses carried forward are public. So you know we have a multi-billion.
I can only encourage you to be cautious in valuing these items. You have seen the evolution of our tax line in the last years. In fiscal year 2024, we have written off some of the different tax assets. My position is to be always very prudent in valuing that. It does not mean zero. Sorry, I do not give you a perfect answer, but it just means that I want to be prudent and cautious. We need to help to put the right number in the model. I will discuss it after the meeting. Remember that under tax, we have tax on sales, like Sevilla in France. Unfortunately, you are profitable or not, you pay the tax. You have a tax loss, but you still continue to pay tax. It is a nice country. You have, in fact, tax sales in different countries. It is not only in France.
In India, for example, we have one. It does not mean that we can activate, in fact, this tax loss even in some countries where we are, I would say, we have benefits. We have to be very careful on this one. Yeah. I have, I think, a last one. Will Atos ensure the successful execution of the Genesis plan, cost reduction, and operational efficiency measures, particularly in optimizing service delivery and reducing G&A cost to 5%? I do not know what to answer to this one, but I would say it is a question of focus for me. We have a VP in charge, I would say, of Genesis. We have different people working on the different streams. We look at them, I would say, on a weekly basis. We follow them. We track them, I would say.
I would say if you control, if you track, I would say, and you have the management attention, normally it happens. I definitely think that normally it should. There is no reason that we should not achieve, I would say, these goals. Yes. One more. One more here, but more if you want.
Thank you. I wanted to ask, when you look at the operating margin, right, you have that bridge that goes from 4% to 10%. How much of that gain is cost cutting and how much comes from restarting your top line and operating leverage?
In fact, most of it comes from cost cutting, as you have seen. There is profitable organic growth. You have seen that, but I think it is less than 1%.
I definitely think that we can probably do better in this one because, in fact, if I say, for example, my G&A is EUR 500 million, I will keep it at EUR 500 million for EUR 10 billion sales. And even if I grow, I would say, more, the base, I would say, is still the same. It means that the marginal margin, I would say, of the growth probably is more than 10%. I think we have been a little bit conservative in this one. Like a plan, you know, it's always things. There are things that we will do better, things we'll do probably less better. I would say in the plan for the moment, most of it comes from the restructuring, in fact. Okay. Yeah.
Hi, this is Dan Galfard from Burnham Oak. Thank you so much for answering our hundred questions.
Also want to compliment the IT setup. It's very impressive. We are an IT company, so. We talked a little bit about the black contracts and it's good those are going away. The restructuring costs are kind of going to zero over the next couple of years. I wanted to see, are there any other kind of one-off adjustments to EBIT or kind of below-the-line expenses, consulting fees or other reorganizations of the business, things like that that we should be aware of over the next couple of years?
In fact, the consulting fees are part of the EUR 700 million. It's an envelope, of course, for the departures and also the consulting that we have. As I say, consultants, most of them, in fact, probably all of them will be out of the company in July.
We have finished, I would say, the strategic part. We are continuing, I would say, on two topics with some of them. There are also people helping us, I would say, on the Genesis program. Most of it, I would say, it will be out. If we continue, it's not going to be a restructuring cost for me. It's a normal cost that should be in OM. You won't see that, I would say, below the line. The only probably things that we didn't put any amount is the litigations that we have in course. We know, for example, that we have a Trizetto, and we have, I would say, some provisions in the balance sheet for this. There are two or three cases like this, and frankly, we don't know the timing and the amount.
That's the only, I would say, for the rest, I think everything has been taken into account. The only things that we have, I would say, it's difficult for us, I would say, to forecast is really, I would say, the litigation outflow.
Great. Thank yo u.
Okay. No more questions. I don't know if there are questions in. Okay. I think we are done. I would say as a conclusion, I think it's very important that you understand that we are focused. I think it's very important. First, we have a plan. We have an organization. The organization, we have the team. The team is going to, I would say, now deliver the Genesis plan, I would say, and the strategic plan. Probably what is more important is that we have the will for that. We have definitely, we think that we can do it.
We are very happy, I would say, to do it. I'm very happy to have joined, I would say, this fascinating company. I definitely think that this company deserves, I would say, to be successful in the future. I will put all, I would say, my energy and the energy, of course, of the team to make it happen. Atos is back. Thank you. Problem of technology. If you want to stay a little bit more time, we have workshops for the different business lines, for Eviden also and for the six business lines of Atos, where we have some staff showcasing, I would say, some different, I would say, client examples. If you want to understand what we do on smart platforms, more or one on cyber services or whatever, don't hesitate. There are also, of course, some beverage, of course, and tea or coffee.
I would say all the team also is staying there so we can answer also your questions if you have other questions that you want to ask during this. Thank you again for your time. Thank you very much, I would say, to be with us. I think we are very proud of what we have achieved, I would say, and with this plan. Now you can, I would say, trust us that we will make it happen. Yeah. Thanks.