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The 52nd J.P. Morgan Annual Global Technology, Media & Communications Conference

May 22, 2024

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

All right. Good morning, everyone. We're here for the ADP session, Automatic Data Processing. My name is Tien-Tsin Huang. I follow the payments and IT services sector, and of course, super excited to have Maria Black, President, CEO of ADP, with us. We'll do a fireside chat. I've gathered a lot of questions, and we'll hopefully get through this in the next 30-35 minutes. But Maria, thank you for investing the time to be with us.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

Thank you. Thank you! My goodness, I guess I need to speak into this. Thank you. I'm happy to be back here one year later.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yeah, no, it's always a pleasure, and I know there's a lot of things to talk about, but just to, you know, start out, I know you've been CEO now for what? 15 months or so? I'm trying to think timing-wise.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

15 months, 3 days, 2 hours. Just kidding.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yeah.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

Yes.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yeah.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

Right, right around 15 months.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yeah. And so maybe let's start with that 'cause you did a great job of sort of giving us your initial view last year when we had you. Have your priorities changed in any way, Maria? And then, have you seen any surprises in terms of what we talked about last year, in terms of your goals?

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

Sure. So I was here last year. I spoke quite a bit about our priorities, and I think broadly speaking, ADP priorities, as you would expect from a company as with the rich history we've had, we're celebrating our 75th anniversary this year. Our priorities are largely consistent, as you'd expect from a durable company such as ours, and so our strategy as such is pretty consistent. And I really think about it in three parts in terms of my focus, the first of which is executing on our ability to continue to win market share in this space in HCM. And we're doing that, really focused on our three strategic priorities, the first of which is having the best-in-class HCM technology. The second is our unmatched service and expertise.

The third is really benefiting our clients with our global scale. And so we remain laser-focused on these three strategic priorities, with the intent, of course, to continue to drive market share and wins in HCM. So that would be kind of the first focus point. The second one is really about our shareholders. It's about ensuring that we continue to deliver the results and the commitments we've made to our shareholders. And certainly, that's a priority for all of us. And then I think, you know, most importantly for me, as I think about my journey as CEO, I am the seventh CEO. I think part of my job is to ensure that I leave this place better than when I arrived, and so I'm-

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Mm-hmm.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

I'm focused on that as well. I'd like to think I have a few years to get that done. But certainly, some of the investments we're making, how we're thinking about the continued modernization of the business, is really about making sure that I leave it for the eighth CEO and for the next 75 years and beyond, if you will. So I think more tactically speaking, some of the focal points that we've been squarely focused on since last year, it is about our business model. It's about the focus that we have on new business bookings. It's the focus that we have on retaining our clients. We made a lot of investments into product, driving tremendous results in retention, driving tremendous results in satisfaction.

So, we're very focused on that. And then I think the other is, Generative AI. I'm sure we'll get to that today.

Mm-hmm.

But that, from a tactical perspective, is a big focus as well for us. You asked at the end about surprises. I think, probably the biggest surprise that I have, maybe even from a personal perspective, is really thinking about the strength that remains in the macro environment. So I think a year ago-

Mm-hmm

... we all felt a little bit more, perhaps alarmed, or tempered in terms of the expectations, and I'm sure we'll talk about the macro today. But really, from our standpoint, we continue to see strength in the economy. We continue to see strength in HCM and in the labor market, and we're certainly excited to be in a position to take advantage of that strength.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Okay, great. Let's just get out of the way and talk about the macro. You've got a great view on that: small, medium, large-size employers. You've got some international exposure as well. What do you see in terms of how healthy the employer and the employee world is?

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

It is healthy. The employee-employer world is healthy. We still see tremendous growth. So we do see pace per control growth. We see GDP growth. We see the strength in employment numbers. Ours and others continue to speak to the strength that exists in the macro environment, and it's yielding an environment. We'll get to demand in a minute, but it's yielding an environment that's very favorable for HCM as we sit squarely in the ability for companies to navigate this, this strength, and we'll get back to that. But as it relates to, you know, some of the things that we're watching, we're watching all of those. We're watching where, ultimately, GDP will land. We're watching unemployment.

If you think about, we're kind of at this, we've been hovering at almost record unemployment low levels, and even the forecast, you know, coming up to 4%. So where will GDP land? Where will unemployment land? You know, the big magical question that everybody asks any forum you go to around the macro, is: What's gonna happen with inflation?

Mm-hmm.

And ultimately, what that will yield, right? So I think we're very optimistic still in, in all the strength that we see, but certainly, just like everyone else, we're kind of watching the macro factors to really understand the, the overall impact. I think the one other call-out would be, we're starting to see, you know, a little bit of signs of, new business formations have slowed the last couple of months.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yep

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

... albeit on a year-on-year perspective, or year to date, they're still at heightened levels. So there are these little signs, and again, we pay close attention to these things. But I think all things being equal, what's most important for us and our HCM market is really the overall demand equation for us, and there are still secular tailwinds in our space as it relates to companies having to navigate being an employer in today's environment. Certainly not getting any easier. The complexity continues to increase, and, you know, in the foreseeable future, looks like it's only going to get more difficult. And so I think we have secular tailwind. We have the demand environment from a labor economy.

Companies are still trying to ensure that they retain their associates, they stay engaged, and all of those things, and from our standpoint, that's a great spot for us to be in as the leader in HCM to take advantage of that market.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Sure, and I've been surprised, right? The new sales metrics have been really strong for ADP.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

Yeah.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

You just talked about the demand environment. I think through all these years, I've followed ADP over 20-plus years. I always ask the question: Where are we in this pendulum of outsourcing versus do it yourself? So how would you describe where we are today on that from a demand perspective?

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

Yeah, similar to you, I've been in this industry for 28 years. And so I've watched this closely as companies really started that journey of truly outsourcing, and certainly we're further on that curve than we ever have been. And I think on the heels of things such as the pandemic, I think the need to outsource became apparent as companies had a hard time navigating how to actually even process payroll or things beyond payroll during the pandemic. And certainly from a skills perspective, payroll practitioners, HR practitioners, they're further and fewer between than they used to be. And so I think in general, the secular tailwinds, if you will, or the outsourcing tailwinds, have only increased the value proposition of outsourcing, and so I think we find ourselves in that.

But if I, you know, if I were to unpack kind of the overall distribution and demand for our offerings, it really comes down to, you know, in my mind, a few things. One is having that best-in-class technology that gives you the ante to play. I think that is an imperative to competing in today's environment, to get clients to see that value of how easy it is through tools and technology to outsource. I think you add to that the service offerings, so kind of that second priority that we have, this best-in-class unmatched expertise that we offer to our clients, because payroll is complicated. And so that's also lending itself. And then I think you marry both of those things, having the best-in-class technology and unmatched service and expertise with our distribution strength, and that's really the thing.

You know, that's how I started into ADP, and certainly something I've watched over years. But if I think about our one of our very biggest competitive advantages over all these decades, it's the strength of our distribution. If you marry that strength in ADP's seller model to best-in-class product and best-in-class service, you have a really winning formula.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yeah, and I know you're gonna underline and emphasize that from a leadership perspective, but, you know, thinking about what you just said, I always get questions around competition and this-

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

Sure

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

... balance of trade, and just from an outsider's perspective, we've seen some of the more modern SaaS, if you wanna call 'em, the Pays, have struggled a little bit. So I'm curious, has there been a shift in terms of who you're competing against, who you're winning against, losing against? What's the latest there?

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

Yeah, fair. So you said the more modern SaaS. I would say, how about the more modern incumbents?

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Well, I always come back and say ADP started SaaS, right?

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

That's right. We did.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

With the whole ADP model, and so that was the SaaS.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

It was, yeah.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

So-

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

The original-

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Forgive me for using that phrase, but-

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

The original cloud. No, but all, all kidding aside, it's an important, it's important nuance, right? So if I think about where we've spent the last decade, we've, we've been modernizing. I think we have an incredibly modern offering, whether it's the stack, it's the cloud, it's the UI, the UX. And so I think what, what you're starting to see, again, married to taking as much friction out of the system as possible for our clients to do payroll. Payroll's a friction, friction world. It's very complicated, so the easier we make it-

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Mm-hmm

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

... married to this best-in-class technology, we do have record NPS. We have record MPS across most of our businesses, but most specifically, since you mentioned the SaaS others, we have best-in-class NPS in our mid-market. We have record retention in our mid-market. And so we have a winning product with winning service and record retention, which means, you know, our net donor position, if you look at it from that standpoint-

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yep

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

... in terms of how many companies we're entering into that are ADP clients into the switching, is less than it used to be, and I believe that's a result of the work that we've done-

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Mm

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

... to modernize our platforms. But it doesn't just end there, because all of that also yields a more favorable ability from a distribution-

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Sure

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

... because our sellers have tremendous pride in the products that we offer. They have the ability to get client referrals, which is a big piece to the seller ecosystem as well. It's easier on the channel ecosystem around them, so think banks and CPAs. So the more modern it is, and the less friction, and these record satisfaction scores also lend themselves to very favorable seller position. So we're winning more, and we're saving more in its most simplistic form, and from a balance of trade, which we look at all the time, we're broadly more favorable than we used to be.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

So let's talk about the modernization side then, Maria. I know we talked about it last year.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

Yes.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Where, where are you in that journey? You talked about mid-market. I know there's still... You've done a lot, it's a heavy lift, but I think there's still more to do. So can you go through that?

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

... The modernization journey, I don't think it will ever end.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yeah.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

I think we will always be modernizing. I think that is the strength that you get with ADP being 75 years old. We've modernized for decades. If you think about the advent of whether it was the computers or servers or mainframes, you know, now onto things like Generative AI. And so we have all these transformation cycles and modernization cycles in our decades of experience, and I would say it will never end. But specifically, because you asked about the mid-market and product, what I would say is, we have modernized the stack. We have modernized the UI, UX.

It will not, it will not end there, and I think a lot of the work that we're doing now with things like generative AI, as we're putting it into our innovation cycles, into our products, to make it easier for those practitioners, be it our clients or even our own service agents, to engage in our products, will only lend itself to more modernization. There's always work to do, and there's always ways to study where those points of friction are and solve for them, and we believe that that's our brand promise. So the way I think about it, you know, having a perfect payroll, in my mind, that's what clients actually pay us for. Our goal isn't to charge for it separately.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Right.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

We've been modernizing to get payrolls as accurate and on time as possible over 75 years, and we will continue to do that as things get more complex in HCM.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Okay. No, that's great, 'cause look, I mean, we've seen it. It feels like with retention staying as high as it has-

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

That's right

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

... that it's a by-product of some of the modernization work, including on the platform side, which is great to hear. So staying with Gen AI, you know, we've been asking all the executives and your peers around this, this technology, how much of it can be used to amplify growth versus improve productivity or lower cost? How do you see it on the spectrum?

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

Sure. You asked me this question, I think actually, last time, you and I spoke, and I think, and my answer was, "We're, we're working on all of that.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Right.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

And then I'll get back to kinda where we think we might see impact sooner than other places. But the way we think about Generative AI is really in three buckets. The first is inside our product motion. So I just mentioned that a bit, but that's really about putting Generative AI into our products for our practitioners, for our payroll practitioners, clients, HR practitioners. And we also think about it in terms of actually leveraging Generative AI in our innovation cycle, in the ability to increase the velocity of our product innovation journey.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Right.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

So certainly inside our products, it's a big piece for us. The second piece is really about digital transformation. It's about modernization, as we just spoke about. It's about getting our service agents as productive as possible, leveraging these new ways and new tools to do that. That's a journey we, again, we've been on for decades. Generative AI affords an ability for us to do that at a faster clip than perhaps before, in our ability to analyze all the data we have in terms of why clients may be calling and how do we solve for that, as well as just really giving the tools to our associates to be more productive. And we've seen early signs of that.

I think I've spoken about before, you know, we have tools, again, across our down market and our mid-market in terms of call summarization. I think a lot of companies are probably speaking to this.

Mm-hmm.

It probably doesn't sound that exciting that we're shaving one minute off every single call that we have coming into those businesses. But when you have literally tens of millions of contacts coming in every year-

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yeah

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

... you know, one minute becomes impactful. Now, again, these are early signs, and we're talking about faster than other digital transformation, but certainly, these aren't broad, holistic, role-type changes. But do we see that someday generative AI can blend knowledge across domain expertise? Perhaps, right? And so, you know, what am I referring to there? I think about someone that's a payroll practitioner is distinct from a benefits practitioner-

Mm-hmm

... that's distinct from a tax practitioner. Does this someday afford the ability to have less friction and less, perhaps, calls transferred around, or perhaps more knowledge to be able to help an agent become broader than their own domain? And I think all those things... By the way, those aren't new things. Those are things we've looked at for years. But Generative AI will enable that knowledge potentially differently, and that sharing across disciplines and domains. So that's kinda the service side, and then the last side is the seller-

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yep

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

... go-to motion. You know, I love this one. I get really passionate about it because, a lot of the, the work that we're doing with generative AI in sales is work that I used to do when I was a, a seller or in sales leadership, which is really about things like pre-call planning. It's about, trying to understand, the propensity to buy, motion, so what's the right product at the right time for the right prospect, and getting smarter about that. That's huge for us, especially as 50% of our bookings comes from-

Mm-hmm

... that share of wallet and that upselling beyond beyond payroll. So being that much more laser-focused on what it is that we're talking to our prospects about is huge. And then there's the coaching and the ability... You know, it used to be done in person, where you had a sales leader sitting next to a producer and a seller, telling them, you know, what to say and how to do things. And if generative AI can serve some of that role, that's a huge uplift to sales productivity and the ability to get to those-... average sales productivities that, you know, perhaps you used to see in the second year and third year, could you see them at year and a half and two years? And those are meaningful-

Mm-hmm.

Changes for us. So back to this, where will we see it first? I think we're seeing very small signs of a minute here, and less calls, and, you know, less need for certain role types. But in terms of the big stuff, I think it is still a ways out, but there, it's all the prudent investments that we need to make, not that dissimilar than the investments we've made for decades.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yeah

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

... into, various pieces of modernization.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Okay. Now, at scale, it should be very impactful. Like you said, small rates of change on a big base should be very impactful. So let's, let's maybe spend a second on, on data.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

Okay.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

ADP has so much data.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

We do.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Um-

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

It's our middle name.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

75 years and worth of it, right? So has your thinking around monetizing that data, building products around data, changed that at all?

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

It has. So data, it is our middle name.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yep

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

... and certainly from an ADP perspective, it's always been a big piece of our overall business and our overall value proposition. When I think about data, I think about it really in two buckets. I think about the data that's inside of our house and what we can do with that data to bring value to the very clients that we serve. And a great example of that is the work we've done with ADP DataCloud and the ability to do benchmarking and reporting in real time. So this is taking our clients' data and serving it up to them in a useful way. I do believe generative AI will be a game changer on that. If you think about, data is not a new concept within HCM.

I think for the last decade, every practitioner in HR has been trying to figure out, how do you make the data actually meaningful, and impactful, and useful, and predictive, and ability to actually drive, impact and behavior? And I think, our data that we have for our clients and how we're serving up that data to them today brings that value, and there's more that we can do there. I think the second way that I think about data is we have this data inside of our house representing, 41 million wage earners across 1 million clients, twenty-five million in the U.S. that obviously, you know, we, we leverage, to do the ADP National Employment Report on the ADP Research Institute side.

But how do we take that data, from a business perspective and marry it to others' data to solve useful things and call it the world of work? A great example of that is the work that we've done in employment verification-

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Right

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

... which was a process that was littered with friction. It was a process that was littered with paperwork and lots of noise and complexity. And with the partnerships that we have in our employment verification business, we marry our data with someone else's data and a process, and it's a win for all. The most important part is it's a win for the end user, which in this example, would be a client's employee, as they're trying to navigate whatever their need is, their use cases for employment verification. And obviously, we win, and our partner wins, and that's what I really like about when I think about data going forward. And we have lots of other use cases.

I think I've shared some of them in the past and many on the docket in terms of how do we take the data we have and make it usable, whether it's to consumers, to businesses, to drive meaningful friction and impact into the world of work.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Okay. Good. No, thanks for going through that. I mean, it's important, right? Like I said, it's the middle name. I always like that when you reference it. I think it's underappreciated, probably by us as well. So let's get back to the base business. There's something I wanted to ask. I don't think we talked about it last year, but it's becoming more important, I think, for investors, the international-

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

Yes

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

... side-

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

Yes

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

... and international HCM. I know the bookings have been strong there for ADP, but we want to spend more time on it. What is your right to win in international payroll, international HCM? What's your sweet spot? What could you do more of?

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

Sure. I have a lot of passion around our international business. In my journey to becoming CEO, I had the privilege of actually running ADP in the U.K.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yep.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

It opened my eyes, and I'm international by birth, actually. I was born in Sweden-

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Right

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

... and so it wasn't new to me that different countries operate in different ways. But I have to tell you, seeing it through the HCM lens when I ran ADP in the U.K., really opened my aperture just to the complexity of international payroll, and it is complex. You know, a lot of the things that we take for granted, I think in the U.S., you know, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, are all federal-based, but each country has things that are federal-based in said country. And that complexity, by the way, the U.K. is light compared to the complexities of a France or a Germany, in terms of what it means to actually do business in international. And our right to play is that we're five decades in. We've been building our international business for decades.

It's not, you know, it's not an easy build, partly because of the complexity. In each one of these countries, you have to figure out things such as: What are the federal laws, so to speak? Moreover, where should the data be housed? Who is the tax agency? How do you get to them? In some places, it's very modern and electronic. In other places, it's incredibly not modern and archaic. We do payroll across 140 countries. And to break that down a bit for you, in terms of the overall kinda makeup of our international business, it's about half. About half of our international business is what we call our best-of-breed business.

Mm.

And that's kind of the in-country offerings that we have, where we have ADP on the ground, kind of in our best-of-breed offerings, obviously, all of the big countries, things of that nature. And then there's the other side of the business, the other half of our international business, which is our MNC multinational corporation business, which is really the offering that we have called GlobalView-

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

GlobalView

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

... and the Celergo offering, which does extend that reach into those 140 clients. I think over time, we've built an incredible business, both on the best-of-breed side, as well as on the ecosystem of partners that we have to serve all of these clients across our international space. But there's tremendous complexity there, and there's tremendous growth. I have to tell you, lots of... You mentioned the others earlier, lots of companies-

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yeah

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

... talking about heading to international, and you asked about right of play. And again, I go back to kind of what I started with, which is our right of play is, we've been doing this for decades, and it's highly, highly complex, and I think we're far ahead. We've also made some very significant strategic decisions, whether it's around partnerships or it's around some of the roll-ups that we've done for various countries over time as they become kind of tuck-ins into our overall offering. Most recently, actually, we did the tuck-in in Sweden.

We're also extending our reach every year, somewhere around 3-5 countries that we're entering into, and we're doing that as a direct result of the demand of our highly complicated, broad global clients, that have their challenges to solve for. Whether they're moving supply chains or they're moving, for talent purposes, we're there to, to support them, and we do that across 140 countries today.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yeah. Thanks for going through it. That's why a lot of players talking about building out the international capability. I know there's a lot of aggregators there. It sounds very complex, and then you look at ADP, and you realize how big it is already.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

That's right.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

at scale. So just a quick follow-up on that. It sounds like it'll be a combo of organic and inorganic growth for you on the international side?

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

It has been-

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yeah

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

A combination of organic and inorganic. What I would suggest, though, is the inorganic that we've done, the tuck-ins of these various partners and countries, you know, they're small in the overall picture of ADP, but they're strategically imperative, and so, we will continue on that journey.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Okay, very clear. Good. Let's do PEO. I know that's always of interest for investors. We've been calling it uneven across the peer group. I know you're the biggest player, no question. We've been wondering, with growth coming a little bit below a lot of the industry targets, is it a cyclical issue? Is it a structural issue? Is it as simple as it's a little bit of an unwind coming off of the pandemic boom? How would you describe it? What have you learned from it?

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

I've learned a lot.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yeah.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

That's coming from someone who's been a close student of this business for many years. I believe it's cyclical.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Okay

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

... not structural. When I think about the cyclical, I don't know, maybe it's a, like the cicada season, it comes every-

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Mm-hmm

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

... seven years or so. This is a different cycle.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Okay.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

I've seen many cycles within the PEO over the decades that I've studied it. You always have the insurance markets, unemployment cycles. They all have an impact on the PEO. This one felt a little bit different. I would say last year was more of an insurance cycle. Currently, specifically the PEO, all of us are being impacted by the tempering of hiring and the cohorts that it is that we serve. That's certainly what's happening to us in this fiscal year. What I would offer, though, is it is cyclical as it relates to kind of the strangeness that is being still at some level felt through each of us and as we all absorb it. But I would say two things.

One is to remind you and everybody, as I always like to do, that all PEOs are certainly not created equal, but all PEOs, we all operate slightly differently, both in our models, our target markets, our target client size, industry, how we actually structure our offerings, in terms of health benefits and workers' compensation. And so, as it relates to ours, the outcome of, call it the cicada season-

Mm-hmm

... is that we remain laser-focused on the demand environment and driving new business bookings. And so the first, first thing you have to answer back to as a structural or cyclical, which is kind of the second piece I wanted to talk about, which is that, you know, the value proposition of the PEO is stronger than it's ever been. And what you'd have to believe to believe that, which is that, you know, the target market for us, which is relatively low workers' compensation risk, or call it white to light blue-collar type of clients, kind of in that mid-ish market space, will continue to thrive in the world of business, and my belief is that they will.

And you have to believe that it isn't getting any easier to do business if you're a, call it, a 45-employee company in that mid-market. Is it getting easier or harder to be an employer? And the answer is, it's getting harder. In addition to that, the answer to: do you need to offer... if you're a 45-employee company, just again, to use that example, do you need to offer health benefits in order to attract talent? I think my answer would be yes. And so I think about all of that, which is the secret to the value proposition of the PEO, and it's stronger than it's ever been. And so for us, it's really about, waiting through this cicada season-

Mm-hmm

... and controlling the things that we can control, which is the ability for us to execute on new business bookings. And we're well-positioned there. One of the, again, things that sets us aside as a PEO is we're one of the very few PEOs that has the access to our ADP base.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Right.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

As you know, 50% of our PEO clients roughly come from the existing ADP base.

Mm-hmm.

Again, if we're able to leverage technology to ensure we're getting the right client talking to us about the PEO at the right time, our goal would be to continue to convert as many as we possibly can because we believe the value proposition is more sound than it's ever been.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yeah. No, I'm glad you said that the way you did, 'cause I've always thought, you know, the PEO, it sounds so compelling. The value proposition is easy, whether it's on the insurance side or just handing over the keys and letting TotalSource do everything. Do you think that there's a need for the industry to drive more education and awareness? 'Cause it is complex, and there's a trust factor there as well. Is that part of maybe how we can get or you can get PEO to get into another gear on growth? Is it as simple as that, or am I being too simplistic?

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

If I were to reflect, so we entered the PEO, ADP did, in 1997. If I were to reflect on the education that we've done, us, industry, the other PEOs, since 1997, I think we're very far along as it relates to where we were. But to answer your question, we can always do more education, and a lot of what we have, again, in the distribution strength of our, our sellers, if you just look at how many sellers across the broad ADP distribution model are out there every day, having that, that conversation with existing ADP clients on: What is TotalSource? What is a PEO? That work is still being done and needs to continue to be done.

So there's always room for further education, but we've come a long way as it relates to the overall knowledge on what is a PEO from where we were, but undoubtedly, there's always more to do.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Okay, fair. We're almost out of time. I had at least three more questions, but I'll let you choose two, because I want to ask about Wisely for an update, 'cause I think I always ask you about Wisely and the app, and the potential around banking some of the employee base. But I did wanna also give you a chance to just talk about what products and solutions you're most excited about. So if we have time to do both, that's great, but I'll let you choose.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

I am excited about Wisely.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Okay, good. Overlap.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

So I'll give a two-minute highlight excitement about Wisely, which is, when I think about.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Yeah, maybe for those that are less aware. Sorry.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

Oh, yeah. So Wisely is our offering, that we have, from a financial wellness as well as a pay card, and call it a, a different way to, to effectuate the actual pay statement, if you will. We're very excited about Wisely, the offer that it brings. It brings wellness into the world, which I'm excited about. I think that's a place that ADP should sit. Moreover, when I think about the penetration today of these products, they're far from where we could bring them. So I mentioned earlier, we have 25 million wage earners, on behalf of our clients in the U.S. We've talked about 1.5 million on Wisely.

So we have a lot, a lot of room there, and I think about how pay will happen over the next decade back to leaving this organization for the eighth CEO one day. I would imagine that some of these things will look different. So I love that we have this offering. It kind of fits into thinking about what that next generation and how pay gets effectuated, and so that's very exciting. But I think in general, I'm very excited. Since I have 40 seconds left, I'm very excited about all of our innovations and whether it's Wisely or some of our next-generation offerings, our next-generation payroll, the work that we're doing there in our mid-market, back to getting stronger, more modern, and seeing impact in terms of win rates.

Very excited as we more broadly deploy next-generation payroll. Similarly, our next-generation HCM offering, we've spoken quite a bit about the last few calls, is gaining momentum, the value proposition. Now, again, you know, when these impact ADP from kind of the overall financials perspective, will take some time, but certainly these are all products that I'm incredibly excited about for ADP's future.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Terrific. We should stop there. Maria, thank you for being here.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

Thank you.

Tien-Tsin Huang
Analyst

Thank you for the time and the update.

Maria Black
President and CEO, ADP

Appreciate it. Thank you.

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