Right. Morning, everyone. Welcome. I'm George Tong. I'm very pleased to be joined by Craig Safian, CFO of Gartner. Craig, thank you for being with us.
My pleasure, George. Great to see you. Good to be here.
Likewise. So let's start at a high level. Gartner is in a very unique position to assess IT spending trends, given its leadership in IT research. Can you give us an overview of what you're seeing with enterprise IT spending, both from the perspective of just broadly at the industry level, and then what you're specifically seeing with your customers?
Yeah, sure. So, you know, Gartner research, our latest forecast for 2023 is for global IT spending, order of magnitude, $4.7 trillion, up about 4% from last year. And obviously, within that overall global number, there are differing trends. So I think enterprise software is projected to be up double- digits, IT services up high single- digits year-over-year, and some of the other segments within, the overall global IT spending, you know, of varying growth and declines. But overall, $4.7 trillion, a 4% increase year-over-year. You know, as we look at our business, you know, we are not directly tied to overall IT spending. Our mission is making sure that we are helping our clients accomplish their most important mission-critical priorities.
What we've been seeing in our business is our enterprise function leaders business. So that's IT leaders within GTS and all the other leaders within GBS, those businesses are up, the contract value is up nicely, double-digit growth rates. You know, and we're seeing, you know, some areas of more strength and some of a little bit less strength. But overall, you know, as long as we are helping our clients accomplish their mission-critical priorities, we are renewing those clients, and as long as we can articulate how we can help prospects accomplish their most important mission-critical priorities, we're able to convert those prospects as well.
So $4.7 trillion, it's a big number, obviously, up 4%, and again, you know, we help our clients optimize their overall IT spend, and also we help them along a host of their other really important priorities as well.
Right. Let's unpack that a little bit. As you think about that area, those buckets of spending, where are you seeing the greatest strength, and where are you seeing the greatest weakness?
Yeah, so, I mean, again, in our overall business, as I mentioned, the enterprise functional leader portion of our Research business is performing really well and very strong. And again, it's because we're helping our clients with their most important mission-critical priorities. So as I mentioned, or as we mentioned on our last earnings update, IT end users up double- digits, GBS is up, you know, 15% year-over-year, with HR and supply chain those practices being our fastest growing within the GBS portfolio. The pressure we're seeing is really on the segments of our business where we serve tech vendors.
You know, as we've talked about, as that whole industry is realigning its cost base and figuring things out, that has put a lot of pressure on our both research contract value and non-subscription revenue business, where we are exclusively serving the tech vendors. Once that realigns, we have a very high degree of confidence that we'll be able to get that segment of our business back growing at our medium-term objectives of 12%-16%. We're just working through a pretty significant recalibration within that industry. But again, we're still focused on making sure we're providing great value to our tech vendor clients. We're still driving a huge amount of contract value and revenue from those clients. It's just they're in the throes of all that realignment and recalibration.
But once they get through that, we're confident they'll get back to strong growth.
Yep. Generative AI is certainly a big topic these days. How do you see generative AI impacting Gartner's revenue prospects as demand for related research goes up in response?
Yeah. No, it's. You know, I've been with, as you know, George, with Gartner for almost 21 years now, and, you know, we watch wave after wave of technology come through, and anytime a new technology wave comes through, I'd argue it's really good for us.
Because our clients need to understand what's happening. They need to understand what to do, how to deploy, what are the best tools, what are the best governance models, how do I get best pricing on things? All of those things where we offer a significant level of help and support, and insight. So, you know, I'd argue any of the tech waves that have happened over the last 20 years and any that happen over the next 20 years are going to be a good thing for us. With the GenAI wave, which, you know, feels a little bit bigger and perhaps crested a lot faster than some other waves, I think there's two interesting things there.
One is, it's actually a technology, but it is, people care about it across the entire C-suite.
So it's not just germane to our GTS practice. CFOs care about it, CHROs care about it, heads of sales, CMOs, you name it. They all also want, they also want to know what are the best ways to leverage Gen AI? Is it a threat? Can I drive productivity out of it? All those things. The one thing I'd say, though, the way we've structured our business is, within research, we serve roles. And we serve roles as opposed to serving, technology waves, because technology waves come and go, and sometimes the wave crests and there's nothing there, and sometimes it, you know, is a real thing. Roles are eternal. And so we want to make sure that we are serving roles. And so as a client or subscriber to Gartner, you get access to all of our AI-related research.
So there's not a first derivative benefit, if you will, of selling an incremental, you know, license or access to certain insights or anything like that. If you are a Chief Information Officer and suddenly Gen AI becomes one of your mission-critical priorities, we want to make sure that you have access to that, because, again, we're intent on making sure that we serve your ,mission-critical priorities. I think, you know, the way to think about it is, Gen AI, again, any major tech wave is a second or third derivative benefit for us in a couple of different ways.
So first way is, we know that engagement on important stuff drives retention, and GenAI is important stuff, and we're seeing, you know, more and more searches and more and more readership and more and more webinar attendance, and that's a good thing for us, right? So the more engagement we have is always going to be a good thing on the retention side. On the new business side, we can start conversations or get our foot in the door, leveraging all the great insights we have about GenAI. And again, you know, we've seen significant attendance and uptake on the assets we're creating, the insights we're creating, et cetera.
So, you know, there's not a direct in-quarter, you know, benefit kind of thing, but we definitely see second- and third-derivative benefits from the GenAI wave, just like any other tech wave we might see.
Right. And then looking within the company, how is Gartner deploying generative AI internally? What are the use cases, and what are the potential implications for revenue and margin performance?
Yeah, so, you know, we have been leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning and language models for a very long time to essentially drive productivity in the way that we run our business. And we are very intent on continuing to find new ways to drive productivity within the business. And Gen AI and AI in general and large language models definitely have a lot of potential use cases across the business. So we are piloting a number of different things, but I'll give you, you know, a couple of hypotheticals. Salesperson calling on a new client, we have a team in India that pulls together a prep pack for them. You know, that's something that could be potentially automated, right?
And again, I think, you know, as we look at these things, we're not seeing opportunities to cut significant costs. I think it's more in line with just running our business more efficiently as we continue to grow and scale. And so what it might mean is we need to add fewer people in the future-
... not that we're going to be able to reduce, you know, 100 people here-
Right
... or 200 people here. It's more about how we scale for growth. And so we're looking across a number of different use cases. You know, I mentioned one, there are several others that we're looking at. You know, it's funny, within finance, and, and I spent a lot of time with our finance experts, talking about AI and Gen AI. You know, large language models are great, but they don't do math.
Finance people really like math. But there are AI tools that we can leverage
hat can, you know, drive efficiency and how quickly we close in variance analysis and things like that. So we're all internally very excited about the prospects of all the different ways we can leverage AI and Gen AI, so that we can scale more efficiently and productively moving forward.
Right. Now, Gartner has long-term targets of 12%-16% growth for GTS and GBS. What are the factors that should sustain that level of growth, and does generative AI impact that growth longer term?
Yeah, I think, I mean, there's a number of factors that give us a lot of confidence about the- that 12%-16% growth rate. I think it starts with what I mentioned earlier, where our mission is to make sure that we are supporting our clients in accomplishment of their mission-critical priorities. And it starts there, and that, that's really the biggest thing we need to make sure that we are doing. And if we are consistently doing that, we're very confident that we can drive the growth rate. The second thing I'd say is the addressable market is enormous and largely untapped. And so, you know, we estimate there's about a $200 billion market opportunity- addressable market opportunity for Gartner research, and we've got $4.5 billion of it.
And so we're gonna keep deploying salespeople and driving growth within existing accounts, and doing all the things we've done over the last, you know, 15 years to get to where we are, to be able to support 12%-16% growth. And then, you know, the last thing I'd say is, we are engineered to drive growth, and, you know, we are making sure that we are being more efficient, and more profitable around the ways we drive growth. But, you know, we have every confidence that we can drive 12%-16% growth in our research, which then translates into double-digit top-line growth
modest margin expansion, which I'm sure we'll talk about a little bit later, and amazing free cash flow generating into the future. So sort of those are the ingredients that drive, that long-term growth trajectory.
Right. Let's dive into some of the, the revenue trends you've been seeing recently. So in 2Q, GTS grew 9% year-over-year. A lot of that growth was led by enterprise functional leaders, which you talked about, a strength there. Can you talk about why spending there has been more resilient? Have we seen any changes in behaviors, customer uptake, budget cycles, et cetera? What's the latest view on enterprise functional leaders?
Yeah, I think, I mean, you know, again, because we're helping our clients with important stuff and we're helping them be successful on important stuff, that again is the crux of everything we do, and that's what drives the retention rates and allows us to bring in, you know, enough new business to drive the kind of growth rates we're talking about. You know, I do think that the selling environment overall for the last, you know, few quarters has been more challenging than the selling environment from 4, 6, or 8 quarters ago. But we are, you know, to the point you made, we are working through it and still driving really strong double-digit growth. I do think that, you know, there's been this specter of a recession sort of as an overhang in every conversation we have.
You know, every conversation I have, you know, with bankers, with clients, you know, there is always this concern about what's lurking around the next quarter, I think or next corner, I should say. I think with, the economy at least seemingly stabilizing and the macro environment stabilizing, you know, we believe that that is a great indication that we'll be able to get back to normal or quote, unquote, "more normal and be able to drive the great growth rates we talked about.
Right. And we touched on this a little bit earlier, but tech vendor spending is where you saw the most pressure recently, and that manifested itself on the non-transaction side or on the transaction side, but also a little bit on the CV side. Can you unpack what you're seeing with respect to how tech vendor spending is impacting both the recurring and non-recurring revenues of research?
Yeah, absolutely. So on the recurring side or the contract value side, you know, we are coming off of incredibly tough compares with our Tech Vendor business. So 12 months ago, that business was growing mid-teens. Now it's growing low single- digits. It's still growing, though, I should note. But you know, it's a big enough hunk of our contract value base that going from mid-teens to low single- digits is going to drag down the overall. And as you mentioned, GTS was around 9%, overall, and that's a combination of the Tech Vendor business and the Enterprise End User business.
You know, I think obviously selling into clients who are either in the process of or have just laid off, you know, hundreds or thousands of people, is going to be a tougher sell than when they're hiring tons of people or are stable. Again, that kind of goes back to the whole realignment, cost realignment, you know, I talked about earlier with our tech vendor clients. Again, CV is still growing, we're still delivering great value. They still need us, but clearly selling into or renewing into an environment where, you know, they are scrutinizing every dollar and actually trying to reduce OpEx, makes it a challenging environment. But again, once they recalibrate, we really feel confident that we'll be able to get back to growth, and so that's the recurring revenue side of the business.
On the non-subscription part of the business, the bulk of what we report, you know, for that revenue line, is business that we sell to tech vendors, and we're essentially selling leads.
It's predominantly our small business set of businesses that help really small businesses pick the right software. And, you know, tech marketing budgets, as they've gone through this recalibration and realignment, have been under significant pressure, and that's where the monies for those businesses generally come from. Again, we're still driving a ton of revenue there. It's just off of, you know, really tough compares and in a really challenging environment. And again, same, you know, same future growth prospects apply, where, again, once things recalibrate, we're very confident that we'll be able to get those that line of business or those lines of businesses back to the 12%-16% growth rate that we expect for overall research as well.
Right. Now, based on the latest trends that you've seen, have you seen a bottom form with respect to CV performance or transaction performance? Is one stabilizing faster than the other, as you exit 2Q?
You know, I think, on the non-subscription piece, and we talked about this on our earnings update, the major driver there is pricing pressure. And so, if there are fewer companies bidding on lead, that's going to impact pricing.
The good news there is we've seen stabilization of pricing, and so, and that's what we've essentially modeled into our our guidance for the balance of the of the year there. And so that, you know, we feel pretty good about. You know, in terms of, you know, calling the bottom, you know, I've been doing this for long enough to know that you can't call the bottom until you're past the bottom.
But again, I think we're still working through it, but over the medium- term, you know, same objective, we can grow that part of the business, 12 to you know, our recurring revenue part of the tech vendor business, 12%-16%, you know, for a long time into the future.
Great. Now, let's talk a little bit about GBS. The growth there was stronger than GTS in 2Q, up mid-teens. Can you talk about some of the dynamics you're seeing there, especially as it relates to macro resilience? Would you say, given where we are in the cycle, that part of the business has been and should continue to be more resilient than GTS?
I'd say probably equally resilient. I wouldn't say any more or any less resilient. Again, the GBS value proposition is the same as on the GTS side, and so it's just serving CHROs and their teams, and CFOs and their teams, and heads of sales and their teams, and so on. But it's the same selling motion, it's the same engagement motion, yeah, it's the same retention motion that we have. And again, it's all about making sure that we are helping those leaders accomplish their most important mission-critical priorities. So I wouldn't say more or less resilient than the enterprise leader business on the GTS side. I'd say equally resilient.
I guess as you think about the growth for GBS, what would you say are the external growth drivers and some of the company-specific internal growth drivers you see over the near to medium- term?
You know, so if you think about the overall opportunity, and we hit on this a little bit earlier, so, you know, we've estimated Gartner research, GTS and GBS, has about a $200 billion market opportunity.
The GBS portion of that market opportunity is $145 billion.
And we've only got $1 billion of that, and so we are. You know, I would argue we are really early days on the GTS side, and then we're really, really, really early days on the GBS side. And so we are really just getting this business going. You know, we acquired the bulk of these practices, you know, through the CEB acquisition we made in 2017. People didn't believe that they could grow. We've proven that they could grow, and really, you know, grow in an accelerated way. And, you know, so we are really just getting going there. And, you know, our view is, there's no reason why each of the functions within GBS can't be a billion-dollar practice in its own right, right?
So right now, we've got several practices that add up to $1 billion, but there's no reason why HR can't be a billion-dollar practice, and finance can't be a billion-dollar practice, and Supply Chain can't be a billion-dollar practice.
We've got a lot of catching up to do on GBS compared to GTS, but, you know, we're equally as excited about the growth prospects and the resiliency of both GTS and GBS.
Right. Let's talk a little bit about new business trends. So, GTS new business fell a little bit in Q2, down, I think, 2%. GBS, up low single digits, about 4%, low to mid single- digits. What's your outlook for new business for GTS and GBS, and what are the implications for contract value performance for research in the second half of the year?
Yeah. So, you know, on the GTS side, you do have to disaggregate what's going on, and so. And we called this out on our earnings call as well. So the Enterprise End User business within GTS, new business was up high single digits year-over-year. And then the GBS numbers, you know, were up modestly on a year-over-year basis. And again, I would argue both of them against pretty tough compares, Q2 of 2022, when you know, both of those businesses were really booming. I think, you know, as we think about the algorithm for contract value growth into the future, it is always a combination of retention rates and new business.
And it's also a combination of what is the complement of our sales force look like in terms of, you know, where they are tenure-wise, where they are productivity-wise, etcetera. And so those are going to be the big drivers for the future. I think, you know, as we've talked about, we hired a lot of people in 2022. They are coming up the tenure curve. That may or may not drive a benefit in 2023, but it definitely will drive a benefit for us as we roll into 2024 and beyond, as, you know, a larger percentage of our sales force is coming up the tenure curve. And we just know as they gain tenure, they sell more stuff, right?
They renew better, and they sell more, and that's what we're focused on driving into the future.
Got it. On the topic of sales force headcount, as you know, that's the a key growth driver of the research business, how's the hiring environment for sales, and what's your expectation for sales force headcount growth exiting this year and heading into next year?
Yes. So the environment has been and remains great. So, Gartner has a wonderful advantage in that, you know, we have an extraordinarily great, well-known brand, if you will, for sellers around the globe. And so even when the markets were the labor markets were incredibly hot, we were still able to attract great people, and we did not have an issue hiring. We fell behind because we didn't have the recruitment capacity to keep up, which we've obviously rebuilt. And so today, what I'd say is, you know, we're even better at bringing in people because there's less pressure from externalities in the labor market. And our turnover, because of the massive recalibration that we talked about earlier w ithin, you know, tech vendor and tech vendor sales in particular, there's less pressure on the outflow from us, from a turnover perspective.
Right.
So we're in a great place from a hiring perspective. We've got an amazing world-class talent acquisition team within Gartner. We've got plenty of capacity so that when we want to turn the dials and go faster, we can go faster. We learned a lesson from 2021 to not let recruitment capacity ever, you know, wane down because we're gonna need it. And so we've got it, and it's ready to go. You know, in terms of headcount growth expectation, we are still operating under the algorithm of we're gonna grow sales force headcount, you know, call it four or five points slower than the contract value growth, so that we don't erode our sales expense as a percent of revenue.
And so we're running, you know, a variety of different scenarios, and we can tune the dial for where we want to land the plane by the end of the year. And then more importantly, how do we get out of the gate quickly in 2024 with our hiring plans that align with our CV growth expectations for next year as well?
Right. Let's talk briefly about conferences. That's the part of the business that surprises the upside the most. It caused you to raise the guide for the full- year. Strong attendance with exhibitors, with attendees. How many in-person events are you planning for this year? How does that compare to pre-COVID? And do you expect Gartner to get back to pre-COVID in-person events ever?
Yeah, so, you know, just kind of context. In 2019, we had low 70s in terms of number of destination conferences and about $475 million in revenue. Obviously, when the pandemic happened, that went to 0 and 0. Which we quickly pivoted to virtual and actually managed to drive, you know, a decent amount of revenue in 2020 and 2021 before we got back to in-person destination conferences. This year, we're running 47 in-person destination conferences, and I think, you know, over the long- term, our goal or our strategy is to have an in-person destination conference for every major role we serve in every major region or geography in which we operate. And that means we're going to have a lot more than 47 conferences-
Mm-hmm
... over the medium term. We can only launch so many new ones each year. And so it will take time for us to, you know, rescale that business, so to speak, and actually get, you know, towards that strategy of having an in-person destination conference for every major role we serve, in every major region in which we operate. And so we'll keep \adding conferences judiciously and efficiently. And again, you know, the beauty of our conferences business is it's a great business, but it supports our research business.
And it's a, you know, wonderful vehicle to help drive retention and drive new business, and drive our brand and drive awareness, et cetera, and also make a lot of money at the same time.
Right.
So, great business, and to your point, performing exceptionally well, and continues to exceed our expectations.
Great. On the consulting side, that historically has been probably the most sensitive part of Gartner's business. What are you seeing with trends with consulting, and what's the sensitivity? Is it different this cycle compared to prior cycles?
I think for us, it's a little different. I think there's two things. For us, it's a little different. So, you know, our consulting team has done a really fantastic job, strategically, making sure that we're driving, stickier engagements, more repeat engagements, bigger relationships with clients, and also, narrowing what we do to really focus on the things that are most critical to our clients. And so by virtue of doing that, we're kind of always in the game, you know, with our clients. I think, you know, this cycle has been interesting, in that, we haven't seen, necessarily a major pullback in tech projects and tech spending. So clients are still doing things, and they still need help, and Gartner Consulting is in a really wonderful position to help them with those things.
Again, the more we're focused on big time strategic things with our, you know, our chief information officer clients, you know, the more we're going to be in the game to drive that more predictable revenue. On top of that, you know, our contract optimization business, which is a sub-segment within consulting, you know, again, people are still purchasing software and cloud services, and things of that nature, and our contract optimization team is still helping our clients save millions and millions and millions of dollars.
And those purchases are still happening. And so, you know, it's been a weird, you know, economic environment. That's a technical term
A weird economic environment, but, you know, our conferences and consulting business is, which typically have been the canary in the coal mine. I f you will, in terms of, you know, volatility, have performed really, really, really well through this environment.
Great. Let's shift our attention to margins. On the last earnings call, you noted that expenses this year have normalized from a sales force hiring and from a T&E perspective, suggesting that this year's EBITDA margins of about 23% should be theoretically the low watermark for EBITDA margins. To what extent will 23% be the low watermark for margins, and what are the puts and takes, too?
Yeah. So, just to clarify, what we said was the operating expense levels are normalized-
If you will. And so if you were looking to, you know, roll out your models for the balance of the year, Q2 is a good full OpEx model. From a margin perspective, you know, we continue to maintain that the fundamental margins of our business are in the low twenties, and that we can modestly expand our margins from that level on each and every year moving forward. And so, you know, as we work our way through the balance of this year, we are dealing with a somewhat modestly decelerating contract value line, which is going to put a little bit of pressure on the revenue line, because the revenue lags the contract value decline a little bit.
And that puts pressure on the overall margins. And again, you know, for 2024 and beyond, or 2024 in particular, the endpoint for contract value this year is the biggest factor that drives research revenue Gartner revenue, and Gartner margins, for the following year.
Right.
And so again, as we think about the sort of normalized number, all we were talking about on the Q2 call was the operating expense number. So revenue minus EBITDA. The operating expense number is a good number to extrapolate off of-
Right.
for the balance of the year.
In recent quarters, Gartner has surprised to the upside with EBITDA margins and have raised the guide for the full- year. To what extent could the factors that cause the company to beat persist? How persistent are those tailwinds?
Yeah. Look, I think the, you know, last year, 2021 and 2022 in particular, we had a constant recurring theme of revenues above our expectations and expenses below. And part of it was the environment, and we just weren't sure what was happening, and we were consistently beating to the upside on revenue, and we were falling behind on hiring, and that was causing the bulk of the, you know, beat on, on expenses. And a beat on revenue, and a beat on expenses means a very big beat on EBITDA. You know, as we've progressed through this year, I think we've gotten much tighter in terms of the revenue and the revenue upside. And also, as we talked about on the expense side, we're no longer playing catch up.
We're actually caught up. There's still normal course hiring that we're doing, you know, support our growth into the future, but we're mostly caught up. So I think the recurring revenue part of our business is pretty darn predictable. One of the reasons why we love it. You know, Conferences has continued to outperform our expectations. We continue to raise our expectations, and so, you know, I wouldn't expect it to continue to exceed our expectations by as much as it has. But, you know, look, I mean, I think we're running the business and managing the business in a way so that we are set up to deliver double-digit top line growth and modest margin expansion going forward.
We're going to continue to manage the business that way, and we'll continue to kick off huge amounts of free cash flow a s a result of that as well. And so, you know, we're just making sure that we're not managing quarter- to- quarter. We are managing this for the long term. It is a really long marathon that we're running, and we wanna make sure that we, you know, just continue to get great splits through the whole marathon and, you know, keep driving growth.
Right. You mentioned normalized EBITDA margins are currently in the low 20s. What would you need to see for that to improve to the low-to-mid 20s or the mid-20s?
You know, I think that we are set up to be able to continue to modestly expand margins moving forward. And everyone's definition of modest, you know, is a little different. But you know, over time, if we consistently drive double-digit top line growth and modestly expand margins from where we are, if you run that out, even, you know, with my definition of modest-
Which is very modest, you know, you eventually do get to the 20S.
Mm-hmm.
Again, I think, you know, as we learn of better ways to scale and better ways to optimize, there are certainly other opportunities for more, you know, step function, margin improvement. But, you know, we're committed to make sure that we drive double- digit top line growth and modest margin expansion going forward.
Right. From a cash flow perspective, Gartner's on track to generate just under $1 billion of free cash flow this year. That translates into about 125% conversion from net income. How sustainable is that conversion? Should it go higher, and what are your capital allocation priorities for free cash flow?
Sure. So, you know, I think, normal course, we can generate free cash flow of about 140%-160% of net income.
And I'd say towards the lower end if CV growth is, you know, decelerating, towards the upper end of that range if CV growth is accelerating. This year is a little bit wonky because we don't normalize anything in our free cash flow number. So, our net income has a large gain from divestiture. Our free cash flow does not. We have to pay taxes on that large gain.
That's in free cash flow. And so that, that's why we're only in the, you know, 125%-130% range-
This year. But going forward, 140%-160% is what we should be able to deliver. We have delivered that historically. It's sort of built into our business model, and we're very focused on making sure that that happens. In terms of capital allocation priorities, you know, again, to your point, we'll generate order of magnitude, about $1 billion of free cash flow per year and growing over time. We wanna buy back shares and do strategic value enhancing tuck-in M&A. Our growth objectives are organic growth objectives.
So we don't need to do M&A to support our growth objectives, but we will do it, where we see really good deals, where we think we can drive really strong shareholder value. But absent that, the bias will be towards buybacks. And again, if you look at 2021, 2022, and halfway through 2023, we've deployed about $3 billion worth of cash on buybacks over that 2.5-year period.
That's great. We're just about out of time. Please join me in thanking Craig. Well, looks like we have a question here. Maybe. Quick question here.
Sure.
Just wait for the mic.
Just one clarifying one. The tech vendor portion of business is about 10% of your revenue?
What we've talked about on the contract value side is it's about 25% of total contract value.
Okay. And then the second question is, in your experience in past, you know, periods in tech, where we see these waves of, you know, sea changes, whether it be cloud computing, phones, you know, pick your thing, and now it's GenAI, where, where do you, what's kind of the cycle of the timing of when you start to see more business come your way, when people are trying to parse through how to deploy these architectures? You know, is it... Maybe it's not in the beginning. I mean, this is a bit of a weird period, post-COVID, but maybe it's not in the beginning. Maybe it is years two and year three. Maybe it... Just curious your thoughts on that.
Yeah. So we have a research asset called the Hype Cycle, which is a branded, you know, Gartner research asset, which sort of tracks. It applies to just about every technology wave you can imagine. And so there's a peak and then a trough, and then a plateau of productivity. I think the plateau of productivity is where people are really deploying the new technology and driving value out of it. We're not there yet, but I think once it becomes sort of normal course as a part of a business, like CRM has, or cloud computing has, or moving to the cloud has, that's when you really see the benefits of consistent support that we can help our clients with.
Thank you.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks.