Good morning, dear BTS investors. This is Jessica Skon. I'm calling in actually from the evening in San Francisco, but wishing you all a very good morning. Sorry to not be there in person. I'm sure I'll be there in person in February, and this is BTS Group Q3 2023 report. So, you know, at the highest level summary, our third quarter felt a lot like the second quarter, I would say. We continued to see the customer cautiousness, the conservatism we've been talking about all year now affecting, you know, all of our markets. And despite that, we were—we kept our revenues flat, and we're not happy with this -1%, but it means that while some of our customers delayed deals, we were still able to win others and so forth.
If you look at the different markets, North America remained flat in the third quarter. We saw a decline in Europe of -4% in terms of revenue. They also started to have their second quarter of experiencing this cautiousness and more client project delays and so forth, and one large project, in particular, was moved out. In terms of other markets, they were able to grow 3%, and we can talk about that in a bit more in terms of which markets are stronger than others at the moment. In terms of profitability, I mean, obviously, we don't like to see our margin going down from 10.7%- 8.4%.
And despite that, the kind of headline is that the cost and efficiency measures that we've been talking about all year, right, that frankly started in the fourth quarter of the year before and again in the first quarter, are going according to plan. And, always since according to plan, the plan was that the vast majority would take effect in the fourth quarter. So because of that, our outlook is going to remain the same in terms of our results are expected to be in line with 2022. So if we go into the markets, we'll start with our biggest market, North America. You know, we again, continuing to see the client conservatism in the third quarter.
We had started a year ago in terms of diversifying outside of our dependency on tech and software, and I'm really happy, to be honest with you, with the growth we've been able to get in Energy, Biotech, Pharma, Financial Services, and CPG, because despite the slowdown in the software and tech spend, the country was able to remain flat. We also had the revenue contribution from the Boda acquisition, which is also very helpful right now. And then if I give you kind of an update on the market, I don't want this to be misunderstood as trying to be stronger than I'm saying it, but in terms of a market evolution, in some of the sectors, some of our clients seem to be picking up hiring a little bit.
The reason I'm saying that is because demand for our selection, our assessment selection services, has grown in the third quarter, which means companies are hiring again and spending on getting the right people in the right jobs, in particular in Financial Services and Biopharma. Then the other thing that started to happen in the third quarter is that we started to feel movement in the sales pipeline in a handful of our software and tech clients. So some of those companies that were still, I wouldn't say frozen, but moving quite slowly, given the multiple rounds of layoffs over the last year, we're starting to feel that things are picking up. So it's too early to celebrate, but those are the things that the NAM market has experienced in the third quarter.
In terms of Europe and the other markets, which you can see here, the second column or the third column is the currency-adjusted growth. We already talked about the flat, the -4, the 3, and the -10. If we talk about Europe, they had kind of the biggest hit to their margin from 8.3%- 2.8% in the third quarter. That's due to the slowdown in the revenue, and also the clients were demanding more of our services that we typically do with our external coaches and leadership experts and so forth. BTS other markets had the growth of 3% and a margin of 11.6%. Specifically in other markets, we're seeing strong demand in the Middle East and Southeast Asia in particular.
The team in Italy had a great quarter. The team in Spain as well did well, and that's offsetting some of the, more conservative, the softer markets. I would say one interesting thing from a market perspective and industry perspective is, the Middle East team won a really nice sized deal in infrastructure, and actually, so did Europe and North America. So infrastructure is proving to us as a, a pretty attractive industry right now in terms of the deals that we're winning. And then, you know, in terms of APG, I'd say it's the same story that we've been talking about all year, right? Given the more conservative market, they tend to have more price-sensitive buyers and so forth, and their deal sizes are smaller, and it's just, slower moving for them.
So, as we've been talking about all year, right, and I still feel it now and this week, and we'll feel it until the end of the year, we never wanna have a year like this, where we feel like we didn't get significantly better, right, in terms of setting ourselves up for the next level of growth and profitability and profitable growth. And so just a quick reflection on what we've been able to do this year. One, operational efficiency. I mean, I think we moved really fast. We can always have done more, but in terms of Q3 and Q4, other markets making a very conservative plan for the year, North America, by early February, having the SEK 60 million efficiency plan, which has been fully executed.
Europe now has been taking measures which we expect to benefit in the fourth quarter. So and all of those things are smart things for the business. It's, it's not stuff that's gonna hurt us and our ability to grow long term. The second one is, we wanna feel like in a year like this, that we're raising the bar on our own competitiveness, that we are winning deals and our win rates are going up, that the deal sizes are increasing, and we feel that way. I think our industry focus has been extraordinarily important for the year. It's one of the reasons why we're flat and not shrinking, I guess, and our ability to diversify outside of tech and software. Our win rates are strong. In North America, we've won 41 new customers this year. In other markets, 91. In Europe, we've won 18.
It's also a great time where we can innovate and continue to innovate. So there's kind of two major buckets of innovation for us this year. The first one has to do with partnering with our clients at scale, and in particular, helping them rethink how they deliver training to everybody in the organization, so leadership for all levels, sales training for 30,000 salespeople. There's a lot of companies right now who are rethinking and wanting to do things differently, and we are finding ourselves competing and taking share from the consulting firms, which sets us up really nicely for large, kind of, longer term partnerships.
And then the second category I talked about in the second quarter is, given generative AI and kind of the adoption and the experimentation that's happening in the world right now, we are seeing our services on AI training, as well as the change services associated with that, growing in demand. And then the last category is we wanna feel like our talent's stronger after a year like this, and we do. I think we were better at performance management at all levels of the organization. We've spent a lot of time training our people in terms of upskilling on proposal quality, on consulting skills, and so forth. We've improved our global knowledge management system, organized around our client problems, so our people can find the absolute best thinking from around the world and have that at their fingertips.
And so these are, these are some of the things that we feel—I personally feel really good about, and, I think we've executed on quite well, and should set us up for a nice, next, you know, 2-3 years. And all of that's in service of this, right? It's the expectation that you've grown to expect from BTS, and you know and love us for, is long-term revenue and operating profit performance. This is still our—you know, our ambition, right? So we've had 13% average growth since 2001 or between 2001 and 2022, and 16% average EBIT growth. So I'll leave you with this.
As I said at the beginning, despite the fact that the third quarter is worse, actually, than the second quarter or than the first half, you might be thinking, how is this possible? It's because, really, the second bullet, which we've been saying all along, is the efficiency measures that we put in place, a year ago and in the first quarter, have been, I think, well executed and are well underway, and the fourth quarter was always a quarter when we expected to realize the majority of that. I think we're still seeing the conservative attitude among our customers in general, but the diversification of industries and our deal win rates and actually deal sizes is making me feel like our competitiveness continues to improve. And of course, we will continue to remain cautious, right?
I mean, every week, we are doing everything we can to end with a strong year and just as importantly, set up a strong first quarter. So, with that, dear investors, I am available for any questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Karl Norén from SEB. Please go ahead.
Hello, and good morning, or maybe I should say good evening, Jessica.
Hello, Karl.
A couple questions from my side. Maybe if we start, starting on the guidance side. I mean, the guidance seems like you expect a rather strong Q4. So I'm just wondering a bit, can you say something about how this quarter has started and what makes you so confident in that Q4 will be so strong? Because, yeah, Q4 would be the best quarter ever if I calculated right, back on your guidance here. Just some elaboration-
Yeah
... on that would be very helpful.
Yeah, it is primarily because of the cost efficiency measures, and we're confident that those are playing out, right, as planned, and so that's the dominant one. If you talk about the top line, I think we will see you know, slightly better top-line performance in a couple of the markets and weaker in another. But the main story on the fourth quarter is still the efficiencies that are you know, mainly behind this.
Yeah, and just when I do some calculations on organic growth, it should be maybe -4%-5% if you take away the Boda acquisition. I was wondering, do you see that organic growth should be positive in the fourth quarter in your guidance, or how do you view the top-line growth in the fourth quarter?
Yeah. I mean, I wanna be a little cautious 'cause we typically don't give, right, next quarter details like that. Yeah, you know, it's going to be, like I said, we're seeing that NAM and other markets will do a bit better, right? And Europe's in a tougher spot. So, yeah, and then Boda will continue to help, but it's not. Q4 isn't going to be this big growth revenue story yet. It's we're seeing improvements, right, in some areas, which is nice to see and experience, and some of the pipelines are moving a little bit more freely than before. But the outlook is based, that means significantly because of the cost efficiencies.
Okay. Yeah, and on the cost side, have you done anything? I mean, when I just looked at it, it sounds, seems like your number of employees is down by some 35, both in Q2 and in Q3.
Yeah.
Is there anything else there that you have done to reduce the cost or, is it mainly?
It's, it's-
-reduction in number of employees?
It's the reduction in number of employees. It's also, being really disciplined in, on whatever external people we need, right?
Yeah.
So, and we, we kind of reestablish those guidelines, especially in other markets in North America, right away at the beginning of the year, and ramped up a lot of our full-time people to do work that typically the externals would do. So it's keeping that discipline throughout the org. And then we, you know, we also just-- we've clamped down on, you know, non-client funded travel and, you know, things like that. But it's mainly, yeah-
Yeah
... performance management, people leaving, and then the contractor expense are the main ones.
Okay. Yes, and then if you just look on the market development, what is your feeling there? Are your development in line with the market, or are you taking shares, or what, what's your impression?
Yeah, I... We've been winning. In terms of the competitive deals, our our win rates have stayed percentage-wise the same or slightly up in North America and other markets for the year, right? And in both of those markets, deal sizes are getting bigger. So those are two really good signs. Europe, last quarter and a little bit at the beginning of the end of the first quarter, it felt more sensitive. I think I'd mentioned we had a handful of companies telling us that some of our competitors were doing work for free, and they were surprised at how the low, the sort of low pricing they were able to get. But Europe's win rates in the third quarter have gone up, and so, and in terms of competitive RFP win rates, not just, you know, winning the next proposals with their clients.
That's a good sign as well.
Yes. And then for next year, when you do, like, some planning for that, what is the current kind of scenarios you are seeing? Or do you expect the market to continue to be like, like here we saw in Q3, Q4, or do you expect it to improve or get worse, or?
Oh, I wish, I wish I knew with more clarity. I, you know, the San Francisco market was our first one that froze up and became nervous, right? And we're now, this is the sixth quarter after that happened, the fourth quarter, right? Ending the third quarter was our fifth quarter of software and tech going through this cycle. And, the second half of the third quarter, for us at least, with some of our software clients, felt, you know, like the fears and the slowness and all of that were something from earlier in the year. So there's some movement that started, which feels nice, but it's not at a pace that makes everybody just feel relieved and it's fully back to normal yet, right?
So it's too early to celebrate, but it does feel good that the deal flow is up and the movement of the deals has improved. But that's just one sector, and that's just one industry, right? But since it started here for us, right, and then it's kinda moved around the world at a different pace, I pay attention to that because it... we'll see how that evolves. Since we're talking about North America-
Yeah
... our success in Pharma Bio has been great, absolutely great. We're winning really big deals there, and it's helped us this year, and it will be really important to us in the first half next year. So we'll continue to focus there, and those clients seem to be moving a bit more freely, right, and so forth, in terms of demand for our services. And then I mentioned the infrastructure one, which was, you know, for whatever reason, we had a few months in a row where we were winning really big deals, all in infrastructure. One in North America, one in Europe, and one in Dubai.
Yeah.
Significantly above average deal sizes. Yeah.
Yeah. Then just a final question from my side. On the cash flow, it's been negative now, I think, for cash flow from operations for the year until now. So I'm just wondering if you're seeing any signs of improving, improved working capital. I think Q4 is usually quite a strong quarter on the cash flow side. Do you expect that to be in Q4 this year as well?
Yes, I mean, if I just want to comment from it on the accounts receivable, we did see an increase in revenues in, like, the last five weeks of the third quarter. So those will, those will play into the fourth, and then we'll probably get those down again in the first quarter. But can you just restate your question, just the last part of it?
Yeah, yeah.
Sure.
I mean, usually, I think Q4 is a quite strong cash flow quarter for BTS.
Exactly.
And now you have had a quite weak cash flow in the first-
Yes
3 months, or 3, first 3 quarters. I was wondering, do you expect-
Yeah
... to catch up some of that in Q4 this year as well?
Yeah, we do. I mean, it's, it'll be a bigger quarter, so that will be helpful. And in the third quarter, we had some interest rate hikes, and we also paid off some of the Boda acquisition stuff, and so we won't have that in the fourth quarter. So it should get, it should get better. Yes.
Yeah, sounds good. That's all for me. Have a good day.
Cool.
The next question comes from Rikard Engberg from Erik Penser Bank. Please go ahead.
Good evening, Jessica.
Hi.
A couple of questions, if I may.
Yeah.
My first question is, you state that one of the main reasons that you believe that you can restate the guidance is that you believe in a margin expansion during Q4. But going forward after Q4, do you believe that you will have the capacity to deliver if growth returns to the markets?
We do. We do. Our read on our total capacity utilization by the end of the third quarter, and I will update that after we get close to the end of the fourth quarter now, is we have somewhere between 10% and 13% capacity right now in terms of being able to grow, which sets us up quite nicely, right? So we would start 1st of January with 5% less headcount, right, compared to the first half of last year, but let's say a conservative 10% capacity to do more work across the system. We expect to raise prices a bit, especially in North America, and most of the world will continue to do that.
I think we're actually set up in a pretty nice place right now to have a strong next year, assuming we can get the growth back to, you know, double digits.
Okay, good. Great. My next question comes to the different markets. You say that the North American market and the tech market has started to move a bit, and we see that Europe is maybe in the place where the North America and the tech market was a couple of quarters ago.
Yeah.
But looking at other markets and especially the Middle East or Asia, do you see that they will enter a phase similar to Europe, the coming quarters? And also, have you been affected by the recent turmoil in the Middle East?
Yeah. Yeah. So, I'll start with Asia, and then we can end with the Middle East. There are countries that have been affected similar to, let's say, San Francisco and then Europe in the last couple of quarters, and that's primarily Korea and, Japan a little bit, but Korea in particular, because so many of the bigger companies there are tech and tech-related companies. So they also did some layoffs, and they had some kind of corporate slowdowns and all of that. Obviously, China has been a difficult market for some time. However, the Southeast Asia team, right, which is Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, and Bangkok, are doing great. They're having a great year.
Their first quarter was a bit tough because they were dependent on a couple of big tech clients who paused, but they've absolutely made up for it and will have great growth this year. So we don't have signs from that team yet that feel even remotely close to some of the other markets. So I would anticipate that Southeast Asia would continue to do quite well. Or I'll share with you when we start to see signs otherwise. But they need to do well enough to make up for the, you know, a bit of the cautious side right now in the other markets or in the other countries in Asia-Pacific. Middle East feels really strong for us. We are winning. I haven't heard of a time that we've lost one of the competitive big RFPs there.
They are not price sensitive. They seem to love our services, and so far we are not affected from the war in Gaza and Israel, but I expect we will be.
Okay, great. That was all the questions from me.
The next question comes from Daniel Thorsson from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good evening, Jessica. I have a question on Spain here. You mentioned in the report that you had a one-off cost in the quarter, closing an office in Spain.
Yeah.
How many people did it relate to? Should we expect more, and what was the approximate cost here in the quarter?
I need to get back to you on the approximate cost. I don't remember what the in-quarter rate is, so if you don't mind, I'm happy to shoot you a note on that. But it was related to the Netmind acquisition. They had two locations. Most of the people are in our Madrid area, and so we were able to find a smaller space for that team.
Okay. Have they moved into the BTS offices elsewhere in Spain, or... And should we see some risks to the Netmind intangible assets in the balance sheet here, then, if it was related to an acquisition?
No, I don't think so. I mean, it's just more of a classic, are people using the office, and can we get a smaller space that will have higher utilization and save some money? So.
Okay, I see. I see. That's clear. And then secondly, on salary inflation going into next year, you are a services company. We see that services PMIs are holding up very well still. Is there a tough labor market, so you need to compensate for the recent inflation also next year, you think, on your global-
No.
Salary increase? Or will it be much lower next year?
It'll be lower.
Yeah.
I mean, I think there are some hot markets, right? And we actually need to have either more BTSers move to those markets or start to hire again there and then, you know, maybe reduce headcount elsewhere. And so we don't, we wouldn't do a foolish thing of, you know... We'll do it market by market, but overall, average salary raises will be less.
I see. I see. And then finally, on the licenses here, is it tougher or could it partly be easier to sell larger licenses deals, that you could roll out for large customers in this market?
Yeah, I-
Or how should we view that development really near term?
You know what's been really interesting this year, and I probably mentioned this before, but it continues to be the case, that we are being invited to bigger and bigger and more complex client problems and opportunities. And with that, what makes things complex and harder is that clients are trying to figure out how to best serve a lot of people, right? 5,000, 10,000, 50,000, 100,000, 150,000 people on a regular basis, and that goes to kind of the re-architecting of function work that we've been doing. In every single one of those conversations, the license, the kinda subscription, being able to use BTS in terms of the micro SIMs when they need them and the content when they need them, is a part of those conversations.
So I am finding that I think it's going to be easier for us to do it. And at the same time, I think we're realizing that to be an effective partner at scale, there's a lot of consulting and advisory services that go along with that to make sure that it's fulfilling its promise, right? So rather than seeing that as just kind of a standalone product that's generating license, it's more of a bigger partnering model that we're now starting to do with clients, that we're getting additional consulting advisory, we're closer to the client because of it, and we're making sure that the adoption and the usage of that stuff at scale is world-class.
Yeah. I see. That makes sense. And then a final one as well. On the Q4 guidance here, what's the risk on that one? I mean, we're only four or five weeks left of the quarter, and we're more than six weeks into the quarter. What could happen to screw it up, basically?
Yeah, I mean, look, because it's been a tough year, it's. You kinda, I leave myself and the team leaves ourselves open for any bad news can still happen, right? I mean-
Yeah
... you could potentially have a client say, "I know we were gonna do this project with you, and now we're gonna cancel the last four weeks." But every week that goes by, even if that happens, then the amount of revenue affected becomes pretty small, right?
Yeah, exactly. That was my point. And so-
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, if I look for that one-
And then new deals are coming in as well, right?
Yeah.
So-
Yeah
... yeah. I mean, -
Yeah, okay. But you haven't-
Every week we celebrate a little bit more.
Yeah, I see. But you haven't really based the full year guidance on assumptions that the market will recover in the end of the quarter or anything like that?
No.
That, you know, needs to happen-
No, no, no, no
... to meet it. It's rather something that could happen to miss it.
No.
Yeah.
Correct. Correct. I wouldn't-
Yeah
... I wouldn't, I don't like taking on that much risk or hype, right?
I see.
So we have line of sight, just like we did when we updated the outlook in the last quarter, right? And of course, things change, but no, right now, we have line of sight to it, and it's just if something pretty strange happens. But we're still fighting, you know, and more new stuff is coming in, and so.
Yeah. Sounds good. Thank you very much.
Mm-hmm.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad. There are no more questions at this time, so I hand the conference back to the speaker for any closing comments.
Wonderful. Well, I know it's early for all of you, so thank you for the time, and have a wonderful day. Talk to you soon.