Sylogist Ltd. (TSX:SYZ)
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Earnings Call: Q4 2022

Nov 15, 2022

Operator

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Sylogist Ltd. Earnings Call for Q4 2022 and 12-month ended September 30, 2022. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press Star then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing Star and 0. I would now like to turn the conference over to Bill Wood. Please go ahead, sir.

Bill Wood
President and CEO, Sylogist

Good morning, and welcome to our earnings call for Q4 fiscal 2022. I'm Bill Wood, Sylogist President and CEO, and on the call with me today is Xavier Shorter, our Chief Financial Officer. In a moment, we will walk you through our performance for the quarter that ended September 30, 2022. First, an important housekeeping reminder. As we announced on November 1, we have moved our fiscal year-end from September 30 to December 31. We will complete a 15-month transitional year on December 31, 2022, and release audited financials for the year in March. In this call and other disclosures, 2023 now means both calendar 2023 and fiscal 2023, which refer to the same time period.

I should also note that this call may contain forward-looking statements relating to the future operations and profitability of the company, any of which are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, and actual events or outcomes may differ materially from those we contemplate here. Any such forward-looking statements are made as of today and except as required by law, we have no obligation to revise them. Sylogist is a software as a service or a SaaS company that provides mission-critical solutions to over 2,000 customers worldwide, primarily in three public sector verticals education, not-for-profit, and government. We've come a long way in 2022. Organic growth has gone from negative in Q1 to 6% this quarter as strategic investments in product, talent, and go-to-market initiatives drove expansion.

This organic growth would have been 8% had not been for the strategic purposeful discounts granted to the customer communities on our SunPac and Bellamy legacy products in return for their long-term commitments. We showed record bookings in Q4, winning new contracts worth CAD 12.1 million, including a CAD 1.2 million ARR increase. These record bookings included some material sales that we had expected to close earlier in the year, which would have pushed organic growth into the high single digits for the year overall, with the corresponding subscription revenue recognition and related project services revenue that would have started to show up in early Q3 where they were forecasted. Our revenue backlog is up nearly 20% from this time last year and over 40% from last quarter, and deals in the pipeline continue to track and mature.

With a strong back half of the year in the books and the momentum we have, we are excited about the upcoming year. Most notably, we are focused on three organic growth initiatives. We believe these initiatives have an ROI that is greater than other capital deployment opportunities, and we are quickly moving to invest behind them and realize this value. We are excited to announce that we are rolling out a new brand strategy based on these growth initiatives. SylogistGov, SylogistEd, and SylogistMission. Previous brands and product names, as you know them, will be phased out in most contexts. This will simplify and concentrate the Sylogist identity, increase clarity relating to the markets we serve, and increase the impact of marketing activities. I'd like to take a minute to provide a little more information on these three exciting initiatives.

First, we are rolling out a new 100% SaaS municipal government solution, SylogistGov. The platform is already being implemented at several early adopter customers, and we expect a full-scale launch in the second quarter of 2023. SylogistGov will allow us to compete and win in the large North American municipal government market that's characterized by fragmentation and legacy systems by providing a complete modern SaaS solution and a commitment to the high level of service they deserve. SylogistGov is aimed at mid-sized municipalities where the vast majority of cities and towns are, and provides a convincing, easy upgrade path forward for our existing customers. As I said, the opportunity is substantial and we are very well positioned to capture market share as the COVID-19 pandemic amplified the need for municipalities to transition from their on-premise legacy systems to a modern SaaS solution.

We expect SylogistGov go-to-market investments in 2023 to accelerate organic growth in 2024 and beyond. Second, we are driving the geographic expansion of our SylogistEd platform, the SaaS IP we acquired in 2021 and are now ready to take elsewhere. Building on our dominant market share and remarkable customer happiness in Oklahoma, we are seeing substantial increase in North Carolina and several other states, and we are investing in the go-to-market capacity needed to realize this opportunity. Third, we are increasing growth and delivery capacity investments in SylogistMission, our newly integrated dollar raised to dollar delivered platform for charitable organizations. SylogistMission is a culmination of the seamless integration of our well-regarded ERP, grant and awards management, and outcomes measurement solutions with our MissionCRM fundraising and Sylogist Pay IP stacks.

With its go-to-market strategy gaining traction, we are making further investments to accelerate growth and build delivery capacity for rising demand. Similar to SylogistGov, the new SylogistMission platform also provides our NPO customers with an even more convincing SaaS solution to upgrade to and creates additional wallet share opportunities when they do so. These high ROI organic growth initiatives and the broader market environment have created new capital allocation opportunities. Sylogist prides itself on capital discipline and has prioritized maximizing shareholders' total return. For many years, this discipline included returning CAD millions each quarter to shareholders through a dividend, which had risen to be meaningfully larger than that of our tech sector peers. Over the past 18 months, the context of this strategy has changed significantly.

We have made material investments to drive growth while maintaining a Rule of 40 posture and are consequently now seeing record revenue, bookings, and backlog together with strong profitability with the effective execution of our strategic plan. I've signaled since I joined, demonstrable accelerating growth, an experienced management team executing to plan, the successful integration of three acquisitions over the last 18 months, material growth opportunities now teed up, and a robust M&A pipeline has made it clear to us that shareholders are now best served by deploying capital behind the growth and value creation opportunities I highlighted. Changing the quarterly dividend to CAD 0.01 makes available approximately CAD 11 million per year in free cash flow, which we will use to self-fund these growth initiatives, pay down debt, and build capacity for further strategic M&A.

Sylogist also intends to seek approval for a Normal Course Issuer Bid as part of its capital allocation strategy, which can be used to return capital via share buybacks when advantageous. We are confident that these are the optimal moves for long-term shareholder value creation. I'd like to now turn things over to Xavier to take us through the quarter in more detail. Xavier?

Xavier Shorter
CFO, Sylogist

Thanks, Bill. Revenue for the quarter was CAD 14.2 million, up from CAD 10.8 million in Q4 2021, and CAD 13.7 million last quarter. Both relative to 2021 came mainly from the acquisitions of Pavlik Group and MissionCRM, both at the beginning of fiscal 2022. While growth relative to last quarter is reflective of organic growth and large deals ramping up. Our gross profit margin for the quarter was 62%, compared to 74% in Q4 2021. As anticipated, margins were lower due, mainly due to a larger share of our project services in our revenue mix as major new implementations and upgrades ramped up. Operating expenses were also up, mainly due to the 2022 acquisitions and the already-started investments in our go-to-market capacity. Adjusted EBITDA was CAD 4.1 million in Q4, down from CAD 4.8 million last year due to our growth investments.

Our adjusted EBITDA margin remained strong, 29% for the quarter and 30% for the year-to-date. Sylogist will continue to balance growth and profitability as we drive the new initiatives that Bill outlined. Q4 profit before income tax was CAD 611,000, down from CAD 1.9 million in Q4 last year. This decrease was due mainly to non-cash depreciation charges related to our 2022 acquisitions, as well as increased go-to-market spend. Net income was slightly higher than in Q4 2021 due to a deferred tax recovery in the quarter. Our balance sheet remained strong as we finished Q4 with over CAD 19 million in cash and under CAD 26 million in debt. While our strong adjusted EBITDA and growth prospects can support material leverage, paying down debt will reduce exposure to the rising interest rates and enhance our capacity for strategic acquisitions.

With that, I'll hand off the call to Bill for some final thoughts.

Bill Wood
President and CEO, Sylogist

Thanks, Xavier. I'd like to give you a sense of what the next year is going to look like for Sylogist. Sylogist remains committed to balanced, profitable growth and a Rule of 40 posture. In the coming year, we expect continued upside realization from the organic growth initiatives we've made, and we plan to lean into even more. The same execution of our plan that drove this quarter's record bookings will drive more new logo wins and upselling and cross-selling over the coming quarters as our platform versus siloed product strategy takes hold. We expect revenue from the new SylogistGov, SylogistEd, and SylogistMission growth initiatives to ramp in late 2023 and into 2024. The timing is largely due to customer buying cycles in our markets. We expect the overall year to close with low double-digit organic growth and commensurate Rule of 40 EBITDA.

Lastly, with my two-year anniversary with the company last week, I'd like to emphasize how far Sylogist has come in a relatively short period of time. More specifically, the real transformation that's occurred and why we're so excited about our future. Execution of our strategic plan, which included investing and aligning to achieve a full SaaS posture and go-to-market readiness for our new platform offerings, very high IRR and customer retention, a customer net promoter score that's two times higher than what it was when I started, which I mention because of the importance of strong customer references in our public sector markets, and attracting and aligning great talent to complement the team that was holding the fort. These accomplishments and attributes set the stage for accelerating the value creation opportunities that are now right in front of us.

We will continue to innovate, strive to exceed customer expectations, accelerate profitable growth, and drive shareholder value creation in 2023. I'd like to now open up the call for questions as time allows.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. We'll pause for a moment as callers join the queue. The first question comes from Amr Ezzat of Echelon Wealth Partners. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Good morning, Bill and Xavier. Thanks for taking my questions. It's Michael on behalf of Amr. Can you speak to how conversations are evolving with clients, both existing and potential, in light of a more fragile economic outlook?

Bill Wood
President and CEO, Sylogist

Hey, good morning, Michael. Overall, we're not seeing any increased trepidation relative to, I guess, the collision between the need for them to go through the digital transformation, as I talked about in my prepared remarks, vis-a-vis the idea of the economic pressures, inflationary pressures that are occurring. We're not seeing the overall dialogue being polluted by the financial market realities currently. We feel quite strong about the cadence continuing.

Speaker 7

How should we think of margins going forward in light of inflation and the investment in the business? Should we expect some compression from these levels, or are we close to the trough?

Bill Wood
President and CEO, Sylogist

Overall, we feel that we're generally in the area where we believe margins can continue. We believe that our ability to attract talent and retain talent continues to be within our budget, which is solid. Overall, we believe our investments, while they will continue, we expect that those will be balanced as we go forward in the posture that I described.

Speaker 7

Okay. On your M&A pipeline, should we expect you to be more acquisitive in the next 12 months relative to the last? At the same time, with the NCIB, at what level do you prefer to repurchase shares over alternative uses of capital, while we're on the capital allocation question?

Bill Wood
President and CEO, Sylogist

Yeah, I'll take those in reverse. You know, the board will consider opportunities as I outlined in my remarks, so relative to the NCIB. I think to that end, there's no prescribed number at this time. It really is where shareholder value creation could occur by a buyback. I think, you know, to the extent that we're moving forward with a plan in terms of our overall capital allocation, M&A in and of itself, we're in a very good position as we strengthen our position to look at M&A opportunities. But we will continue to tighten our lens around those.

I think primarily because of focus, we're very excited about what we've teed up, the initiatives that are right in front of us, and we wanna make sure that management and all team members are hyper-focused on execution against those real growth opportunities that we see as substantial from an ROI standpoint. That certainly doesn't preclude M&A as we continue to have even a more robust pipeline of discussions going on with firms. I think to that end, they continue to be scrutinized through the idea of, is it complementary IP that we would seek? Right now we feel our platforms, given the markets that we are targeting in the Sylogist Gov, Ed, and Mission are well-rounded. They're not really missing any pieces.

We feel that the IP piece is less valuable to us from an acquisition standpoint than the idea of customer density and the idea of talent. We still continue to look at M&A as a very interesting accelerator for value creation, but it's gonna be balanced with the idea of the tight lens for the reasons I just shared.

Speaker 7

Okay, great. Thank you. That's all for me. I'll pass the line.

Operator

The next question comes from Jim Byrne of Acumen Capital. Please go ahead.

Jim Byrne
Equity Research Analyst, Acumen Capital Partners

Yeah. Good morning, guys. Just a couple for me. I was wondering if you could just expand on any of the new bookings, whether that's maybe new logos, new sectors, or any, you know, sectors of strength that you could, you know, give us some details on where those bookings are all coming from.

Bill Wood
President and CEO, Sylogist

Good morning, Jim. Not surprisingly, for the reasons I shared, we had booking activity across all divisions. That included both, you know, material or large deals that, as I'd said, had been in the pipeline that slid a little bit, that actually pushed to later in the year. I think that is further giving us confidence that there's really no new pressures that are being placed onto our markets, that are causing deals to disappear. Overall, the bookings that we've seen have a great balance of IP, as well as project services related to those.

I feel good about the new logo pickups that are going on, and I feel very good about the sales pipeline that we see and the continued materialization of those deals.

Jim Byrne
Equity Research Analyst, Acumen Capital Partners

Okay. I know your product innovation development kind of works on, obviously, with customers in mind, and you're not kind of creating kind of blue sky products. But just maybe give us an idea of what you are working on currently. You know, what are you really focusing your energy on the product side or the IP side in terms of opening up, whether it's, as you said previously, new logos or other geographic areas?

Bill Wood
President and CEO, Sylogist

The geographic areas, I wanna be clear. That doesn't mean, you know, necessarily adjacent markets. We really are hyper-focused on those three markets, as I said. I think to that end, the build-out of our products to platform has really been a culmination of our own internal work on our existing products, plus the acquired IP that we have brought on into not just the idea that they all are underneath one tent. But do they actually deliver something different to the market in terms of visibility for the data that's going into them to support decision-making, better engagement, whatever that may be? The most significant product development has been the top to bottom rewrite of our municipal solution, the SylogistGov solution.

I wanna highlight the fact of, at the core is our long-standing, well-regarded, ERP solution. To that end, the municipal government space, we had very good DNA and strong understanding of because of the IP, the legacy IP that we've had in that space. While we certainly didn't just rest on that as our blueprint for the go forward, we've really been leaning in on the idea of the competitive landscape as well as voice of customer roundtables to make sure that we were not building to where we were, but ultimately to where we wanna be, not just for, you know, 2023, but well beyond.

To that end, you know, the idea of all of the modules that go into running a city and town, as well as the customer-facing engagement, the citizen engagement, asset management and licensing and permitting and so on and so forth, that's where the majority of our leaning has been over the last 6 months and will continue here over the next 3-4 months as we then roll out the complete platform in early 2023.

Jim Byrne
Equity Research Analyst, Acumen Capital Partners

Okay. Maybe just one note of clarification. I think in your opening remarks, you did say low double-digit growth for now fiscal and calendar 2023. I just had in my head, maybe I misread it in the MD&A. I thought it said low single-digit, but I maybe just a note of clarification there.

Bill Wood
President and CEO, Sylogist

If it did, Jim, that's then we'll correct that. But yes, it's the posture as we see going forward is low double digit as we enter the year because of those buying cycles that our market has, which is largely mid-year placed.

Jim Byrne
Equity Research Analyst, Acumen Capital Partners

Okay. That's it for now. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Gavin Fairweather of Cormark Securities. Please go ahead.

Gavin Fairweather
Managing Director and Co-Head of Institutional Equity Research, Cormark Securities

Good morning. Appreciate the disclosure around bookings and backlog. I was hoping we could go kind of one step up in the sales pipeline and just discuss some of the trends that you're monitoring in terms of kind of the size of your pipeline, how some of your new sales numbers are kind of developing pipeline, and how that would kind of distribute across kind of top of funnel versus leads which are a bit more developed. Good morning, Gavin. Thanks for the question. For us, the pipeline, I believe now, just mechanically, we have much better pipeline too, because part of our efforts have been to make sure that which traditionally were disparate different marketing systems are now been aggregated into one company-wide system.

Bill Wood
President and CEO, Sylogist

All of the initiatives are tracked with the same KPIs and same data points, relative to first initial inquiry to the idea of, you know, what happened to that deal as it moves through. The deals coming in, as I shared, you know, my history has been trying to get them as deep into the funnel as possible before we're having to pick those up. We're seeing a good amount of lead activity really within our ICP, within our ideal customer profile, which is exactly where we want it to be. We don't want to be chasing or having to respond to those that are outside of what our ICP and where we know we have a great opportunity to win.

The key component is many of our offerings in the past were not as IP-focused in terms of our ARR as they are now. We have completely changed our pricing in terms of the idea of always having a material IP component, which will drive our ARR and subscriptions balanced with then higher billing rates than we're traditionally being charged on our project services side.

The deals that are coming in are through that new lens, as I just shared, and we feel very good about our ability to win on the competitive landscape because of where we sit in terms of our IP stack in a full SaaS posture that some of our competitors do not have, and the idea of the strong customer satisfaction that we can point to because there's just going to be that component where they want to speak to colleagues in the space, and our customers speak on our behalf in the way that they are now is really serving us well.

Gavin Fairweather
Managing Director and Co-Head of Institutional Equity Research, Cormark Securities

That's helpful. Maybe kind of on a related topic, you know, how do you think about the organic growth potential for this business? Obviously, you've done a lot of work on the R&D side, and, you know, you discussed, you know, how your IP stack has evolved. At the same time, you're investing in sales. Those investment levels are, you know, kind of moving up a little bit higher near-term. You know, I think for fiscal 2022, you were targeting single-digit%. You're saying kind of low double-digit% for 2023. But I know you got some sales cycle factors to consider. Do you think you can then push that higher in kind of 2024 and beyond? How do you think about that relative to your investment levels?

Bill Wood
President and CEO, Sylogist

Yeah, thanks for that question because it actually is one that I would want to, you know, speak directly to, which is absolutely yes. We feel the ability for us to drive our organic growth up is certainly there. There's plenty of headroom and our go-to-market to start to be taking hold the way that we see it being, and then just appreciating the buying cycles. We are really delayed in the ability for us to start driving and showing the materiality of the bookings and in ARR to be skewed in the back half of any given year.

The actual flywheel and compounding effect of that going forward as we build in more ARR will drive that organic growth higher as we continue to get passive revenue into our portfolio and continue to drive and look to push ARR above 100% as we have more product portfolio, more IP for customers to be able to take up with our platform versus you know siloed products of old. The cross-selling and upselling, I think, will further drive organic opportunity as the platforms are migrated to and installed at customers.

Gavin Fairweather
Managing Director and Co-Head of Institutional Equity Research, Cormark Securities

Just on the municipal solution, I'm curious for some further thoughts on how you plan to attack this opportunity. Obviously, it's a pretty big market. Maybe just discuss your thoughts around maybe migrating the Bellamy customers and how you're thinking about really going after new logos and what kind of typical deal sizes would look like in the space. Just some further thoughts there would be helpful.

Bill Wood
President and CEO, Sylogist

Sure. The overall market is begging for a mid-market solution, and it's what we've been hyper-focused on strategically to deliver. You have the giants in the space who just love the big cities, and frankly, they can have that slugfest on their own. For us, there really has not been a mid-market solution that is a full SaaS posture, that is modern, and that delivers the kind of comprehensive solution that SylogistGov does and will continue to going forward. The market's huge, you know, tens of thousands overall in North America, and there's many legacy providers that have just rested too long on where they sit with those customers. We've identified specific pockets that we believe there's material customer density that we can displace and ultimately have a very easy onboarding experience.

Typically, that's related to the data, migration that goes with that. You know, it's great to celebrate new functionality, but what about my data, if you will. We're gonna be very focused on where we believe and where we've identified through our research, where we know there's customer communities that are quite disenfranchised with regard to their relationship with their provider. They're not getting any sense that there is a modern path forward, and we're hyper-focused on that.

We will do that through a combination of some direct stand up early, but we see that largely being complemented by a partner channel play, to really get the kind of coverage that we envision it will require in North America, where we'll be using our partner community, and selecting new ones in and recruiting new ones in with the idea of their local presence and relationships being leveraged. Also their delivery to get scale, when we're talking of dozens at the same time, if not more, the ability to have partners deliver the services related to the implementations with our playbook. Scaling to meet the opportunity is going to be through the partner channel.

The deals are anywhere, usually low six figures, a combination of IP in the vicinity of CAD 100,000-CAD 150,000 per year. Then the idea of services on top of that. We will slide down to probably IP subscription that is maybe in the CAD 75,000-CAD 80,000 range, up to CAD 200,000 on an annual basis is really our sweet spot.

Gavin Fairweather
Managing Director and Co-Head of Institutional Equity Research, Cormark Securities

Thanks so much. Very helpful. I'll pass the line.

Operator

The next question comes from Nick Agostino of Laurentian Bank Securities. Please go ahead.

Nick Agostino
Analyst, Laurentian Bank Securities

Yes. Good morning, everybody. Bill, how should we be thinking about just the Rule of 40 posturing, given that you're now looking for a more accelerated organic growth in that low double-digit range, and this quarter we've seen a little bit of a slip on the EBITDA margin side. When we think about Rule of 40, should we be thinking more of a company now that has an even higher organic growth rate, and maybe you're gonna have to spend a little bit more to get to that level, so a little bit of a pullback on the EBITDA margin? Or do you think we should be thinking about a Rule of 40 with a higher positioning versus where you would have been, say, three months ago before you were thinking about higher organic growth?

Bill Wood
President and CEO, Sylogist

Good morning, Nick. Overall, we are continuing to make investments, so that'll continue to put, you know, pressure or a little bit of pressure on our EBITDA as we then drive into the second quarter of the year, as we then start to get more materiality of bookings and the subscription starting to take hold, both in terms of new bookings, but also the bookings that we made here in the Q4 and before. So, you know, our ability now, this is not a situation where we have, you know, material new R&D that must occur. We're not seeing a situation where, as I said, wages and our largest expenses is people.

We feel very good about where we are on that front and our ability to attract and keep very good talent, which is our power source for going forward, undoubtedly. To that end, you know, while there could be some fluctuation relative to the balance between those two, we do see our ability to continue to have strong profitable growth as we go forward and have a commitment to maintaining a balance. As obviously growth accelerates in the back half, that doesn't necessarily mean that because of the partner channel that we intend to drive through, we don't see that has to overly burden us with, you know, a huge headcount changes as we scale to respond to opportunity.

Nick Agostino
Analyst, Laurentian Bank Securities

Yeah. Okay. Appreciate that color. Second question is, you spoke about the growth on the bookings quarter-over-quarter record number, I believe. You talked about some delays, I guess, stuff that you expected in Q3 pushed into Q4. Maybe just a little bit more color as to why the delays and maybe why the free up in Q4.

Bill Wood
President and CEO, Sylogist

You know, after 30 years, I wish I had a crystal ball that allowed me to put deals in the quarter in the public sector. It's just, there's just variables that are out of our control. They in some ways were no indication of a pause of, you know, further diligence that was required. It was really just the approval of those deals getting through, either the government side or the municipal side. Sometimes they just slide. I hope you all will appreciate going forward, quarter for quarter for us is not necessarily good indication of performance. It really is about the aggregate overall. I think to that end, you know, CAD 12.1, as I said, it really was, it's a material deal or two that slid into that quarter, into the fourth quarter.

I don't want that to signal that there was anything unusual that caused those delays. It's just the nature of the business.

Nick Agostino
Analyst, Laurentian Bank Securities

Okay. Fair comment. When we look at the new go-to-market strategy and the rebranding, through that whole exercise, are there assets that have come up that maybe you feel don't fit the business model anymore? If so, are you looking to maybe divest of some assets? Have you started those initiatives?

Bill Wood
President and CEO, Sylogist

Strategically, you know, that has been kind of housekeeping and that we have done since I started. Obviously from a management team standpoint and in close consultation with the board, you know, while we do have assets within our portfolio that may seem asymmetrical, we certainly appreciate that there's cash contribution and EBITDA contribution from those divisions. However, successful companies are really about focus, in my opinion, and execution against our plan. To that end, we certainly look at those assets and look at the market conditions that are, you know, in front of us right now in the tech sector.

We're not going to, in any way, hand those to someone where we don't feel there's good return for what it is that we have put into it and the value we think they represent. While we will consider, and we are open and have contemplated, what those assets and what those transactions could look like, we're certainly not in any position to have to fire sale them from a cash need standpoint or whatever. We really are in a strong position to consider any of those quite thoughtfully.

Nick Agostino
Analyst, Laurentian Bank Securities

Okay. My last question. Now that you've announced the dividend cut freed up some capital, I think in the past, your intent was to add about CAD 20-25 million of acquired M&A annually, and certainly for 2022, you know, it's been very quiet on that front. Do you think that now that you've got more capital, that that's something that a target that you plan to achieve for 2023? Or are you looking at maybe lowering those M&A expectations?

Bill Wood
President and CEO, Sylogist

The idea of where inorganic fits with organic is now through that tight lens of, is it the best use of capital relative to return on investment? We feel very bullish about our organic growth ROIC. We feel very good about where we are in our ability to go out and win new business. That does not dampen our interest for M&A. To the extent that there's still some delay, I feel, out in the space where some of the private sector companies are still, believing, and of the stance that they are maybe more valuable than we see them as being, given some of the buying frenzy that had occurred over the last several years. We can be patient.

As I said in my earlier comments and question, there's nothing missing in our IP offerings right now that we are saying we just gotta go out and get buy versus build is gonna get us somewhere more quickly. To that end, while we certainly will aggressively look at M&A and continue to talk to providers and try to identify as we demonstrated at two out of three that necessarily aren't in a process. We can do that now with a little more patience and ultimately the dollar threshold of those. I don't think it necessarily changes a whole lot, Nick, but if it becomes lower than that, it should not signal any cause for concern, excuse me, on that front.

It simply did. We feel that it was the best use of capital for what we were looking to do and opportunities that we have.

Nick Agostino
Analyst, Laurentian Bank Securities

Okay. I appreciate that color. I'll pass along.

Operator

This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Bill Wood for closing remarks.

Bill Wood
President and CEO, Sylogist

Yeah. I just wanna echo, you know, how confident and how excited we are about the go forward. There was a lot of work to be done at Sylogist, relative to kind of changing and transforming from who we were to who we are now. I certainly feel that the pieces are now in place for us to recognize the value creation that I have, you know, transparently shared and talked with you all about in terms of the opportunities that were available for Sylogist. I see them as even greater than what we had planned and believe them to be. I feel very good about our team and our ability to attract talent.

I feel very good about where we are on our customer outreach and our ability to think about them as our best marketing tool going forward. Now, about go-to-market execution, we had to certainly look at alignment of the company. We had to look at alignment of talent. We had product efforts that we needed to undertake that were significant, that many companies stumble with. To be able to do that with largely threading the needle and balancing between spend and growth, I feel very good about our ability to deliver on what we said we were going to do, and I feel very good about what 2023 holds for us and beyond. Thank you for your continued support and interest in Sylogist. We sincerely appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.

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