Okay, I think we are live and are gonna get started. My name is Jason Gursky, the aerospace and defense analyst here at Citi. I have the pleasure today of hosting SAIC. With me, Prabhu Natarajan.
I did it.
Yes. Joe DeNardi. I don't think either really need much of an introduction, but Prabhu has been at the company now for about three years I think it is. 2020? two years.
Yeah
Okay. For two years. Prior to that, he was at Northrop and spent some time, including the CFO of the IS business, I think, right? PricewaterhouseCoopers back in the day. All of you probably know Joe, given his background as a former sell-side analyst himself. Welcome to the stage. I appreciate both of you being here today. You guys are kind of in between reporting periods, I guess, the best way to describe it. Joe, I don't know, do you have any prepared remarks that you guys need to make?
I don't.
No. Forward-looking statements, all that kind of good stuff.
As long as you stick to longer.
Yes. Stick to the script. I get it. Yeah, that's the idea here. The spirit of this is not to rehash recent quarters or, you know, talk about real near-term things, and instead focus a little bit more on the bigger picture, strategic things. I'm gonna put my glasses on here, and let's start with the big picture. You know, we're all aware of the strategic doctrine of the United States, which seemingly would set us up for a long period of robust defense spending. I think we can all argue about, you know, what that growth rate looks like, and I'm guessing that's a lot of the questions that you guys get these days.
you know, maybe we can step back a little bit and talk about, maybe some of the less formal conversations that the company is having with your customers. you know, what's worrying them, today, what's on their minds, and how is that informing how SAIC is thinking about the business?
Sure. Great. First of all, thank you for having us, and hopefully you all can hear me.
Mm-hmm.
Perfect. Nice to see you again, Jason. Good to see everybody here. You know, very big picture. As Jason said, we're in the middle of our reporting period, and we have a quirky year-end January calendar, so we report first week of April. Very big picture. I think there are probably a handful of things animating from a customer perspective. I'd say big picture, the industrial base is smaller than it used to be 20, 30 years ago. For the first time, many of them are actually seeing real inflation in the operating environment. It's not flat to 1% anymore. There are real constraints in the labor market. Making sure that they are continuing to execute on the mission that they have in front of them is probably the most animating concern they have.
You know, there's the budget issues, and we'll probably talk about it at some point, but those are probably very big picture, the things that concern them. The technology today is very different from the technology we had 5, 10, 20 years ago, and I suspect it's going to look very different 20 years from now. I think part of the challenge for companies like SAIC, and we're doing our darndest here, is how do we become a premier technology integrator of choice that can be very agnostic to the kind of technology that the customer needs, but truly bring capability and capacity to them in a way that truly integrates the offerings.
If you think about an environment where labor is challenged, supply chain is challenged, there is inflation, being able to be a premier technology agnostic integrator becomes a key differentiator for a company like SAIC, and that's frankly what we're truly committed to be.
Okay, great. maybe sticking with this same kind of on the customer's minds and sticking a little bit with this, with this idea of, the industrial base.
Mm-hmm.
In that, I'm not you know, necessarily referring to your suppliers, but the industrial base kind of at large. You mentioned that it's gotten smaller, which I guess comes with both some pros and cons.
Yeah.
If you were to step back and think about the overall capacity and capability today of the industrial base, do we have the right industrial base?
So-
If not, what needs to change?
Yeah. Let me pull the thread on it a little bit. I think, you know, I said fewer people in A&D today than maybe the mid-eighties. Fewer companies in A&D today than the mid-eighties.
Mm-hmm.
It does put pressure inside the industrial base. If you think about it, you know, I'm a student of history. You go back, you know, 100 years and you look at, you know, the First World War, Second World War, you had commercial base ready to step in when there was a need inside the industrial base on the defense side. You could argue whether that legitimately exists today or not. On top of that, if you think about the labor challenges inside of the market today, it tends to create more constraints. This is not a unique U.S. problem. This is actually a global problem.
There's actually a fantastic RAND report study that came out last year that talked about industrial base labor constraints in China and them having struggles to fill the STEM talent that they're losing inside of their businesses. To me, I think this actually is a little bit of a global phenomenon. I think as we think about it in a constrained environment, whether that's labor-based constraint or constrained in terms of availability of materials, you have to think about how do I get more for the investments we're making today? That's where being agnostic to technology, focused on being a cloud provider. If you think about AI, if you think about edge computing, all the things that will make a difference in the next 20-25 years, that is where we are squarely focused our strategy on.
To say, let us make outsized investments in these key markets, which we truly will be very differentiated over the next 15, 20, 30 years. That's where the investments are going. To me, I think that's how we're addressing it, and that is candidly how we are trying to address the constraints that exist on the customer side.
Right. You clearly read the questions ahead of time because every time you mention something, it parlays right into the next one. It's the long-term strategic priorities of the company. You know, we're sitting here three years from now, 2026, and we're trying to figure out what the second half of the decade is all about and where the company is gonna be positioned in 2030. I do see some investors out here that have that kind of time frame. What are we talking about in 2026? We're sitting here three years from now. What are you guys focused on, you know, over the next three years from a strategic perspective for the company that we're gonna be talking about?
At the biggest picture level, one of the things we've tried to do, and we're getting credit for doing, is making sure we isolate the bets we wanna make as an organization. There's almost nothing that we view as a bet in the 26-28 time frame that we are not already investing in today. We are investing in the cloud areas, edge computing, AI. It's a tuck-in strategy in terms of looking at venture entities that actually can operate inside of the framework we're setting up on the R&D side to say, we cannot out-invest a lot of bigger companies, therefore, how do we get smarter about the investments we're making, and can we get the right venture entities interested in a company like SAIC so we bring capability forward.
You're seeing a lot of investment go inside cloud, and most people talk about cloud as cloud migration. We actually talk about migration, but we're also talking about active app development while you're inside the cloud in a multi-secure environment, secret, top secret, SAP/SAR, SCI, and all of that stuff. We are doing that kind of work inside the cloud, bringing in automation into the operate part of the cloud. Most people are talking migration today. To me, that's what the future looks like in the next 3 to 5 years. Think of a solution like Koverse, which is a very small company that we acquired about two years ago. What it does is algorithmically, it will sift through individual classification levels for people accessing a government system to be able to say, based on access levels, here's the level of access they need to have.
Think multiple systems getting compressed into a single system and algorithmically being able to figure out based on the participant's access levels, you give them access to the right kinds of data. Think about how much compression in hardware and footprint there is on the customer side in a budget-constrained environment. That's the solution they're gonna want because what we are actively doing is operating more efficiently inside of an infrastructure. Almost nothing that we are not investing in that is going to be relevant for the company in that 2026, 2027 time frame. The reality is, I think if we're starting to invest for those markets, for those time frames, we're probably a little late. I think we're actively thinking about, here are the, you know, the GTAs, the Growth and Technology Accelerants area that we have core competence and core capability in.
How do we out-invest the competition inside of the constraints of a business that is trying to expand margin and deliver top-line growth for our shareholders, which we've been able to do for a couple of years now. The expectation is, how do you truly balance all of the competing requirements here such that you can actually continue to do that?
Right. Joe, maybe we can bring you into the conversation a little bit because if memory serves me correctly, you're helping out with the, some of the venture investments at the company. Maybe you can describe a little bit about, you know, how the company approaches venture investing, where you guys are making some of your bets. I don't know if you've, you know, if the company has gotten one, you know, into late stages and either, you know, gobbled up and brought it in-house or had an exit. If you could just kinda walk us, you know, what is your approach to venture investing? Where are you guys investing? And maybe just walk us through a deal cycle.
Yeah. I think there are probably a couple of pockets of our business that kinda lend themselves to the venture strategy. Cloud is one, and I think part of that is you have kind of an abundance of capabilities related to cloud in the commercial market. Many of these companies, particularly now, given what's happening, you know, in that market, are very interested in, you know, working with the U.S. government, but really have no idea or no interest or the resources to do that.
When we can go to them and offer them a pipeline of programs where we think we can sell their solution, as part of our kind of broader solution, that's very interesting to them. I think once you get to that step, there are a ton of challenges in terms of, like, doing that efficiently and quickly. I think that's really the problem that we're trying to solve for now is there are a ton of companies that we can kind of bring into the funnel that makes sense from us from a capability standpoint. How do we identify the right ones and then kind of, you know, work them through the plumbing of SAIC to make sure that there's value in it for them and for us.
you know, I think we've kind of focused that on the cloud side of the business, cloud security, cloud operation, automation. We look at it primarily from a strategic standpoint. you know, to the extent that the investment is successful strategically, it'd probably work out financially, you know, it's really about kind of shifting Pwin on existing pursuits and opening up new pipeline for us.
We've talked a little bit about the industrial base, and it being pretty constrained. We've talked about your strategic priorities and making sure that you're staying out ahead of things, your approach on the VC side of things. Maybe we can, you know, try to cap off the conversation here on the industrial base. It sounds like, you know, this country may have some issues. You know, if, God forbid, we were to ever get involved in a near peer conflict, it sounds like we're gonna be pretty constrained. Are you seeing any discrete actions at DoD or inside the halls of Congress that are gonna help address this issue? Like, what, what should people here in the room be kind of monitoring here over the next 12, 18 months on this particular issue?
The hardest thing from a customer perspective is budget stability. We've lived in a CR 13 out of 14 years now, and while we all get comfortable saying we know how to operate in a CR, it becomes very hard to plan for a $700 million, billion dollar investment budget when you're living on a year-on-year out basis. The second source of disconnect is we would want the government to think about budget planning on a truly longer term basis, and you expect corporates, companies to plan for a shorter cycle. It feels like it's actually the reverse. We see more companies thinking about the business on a three to five to 10 years basis and the government effectively going one budget cycle to another.
To me, I think there's real recognition that there is disruption in the system today, and there are people trying to address it on both sides of the aisle to ensure that there is some sense of agreement on the priorities that impact the government. There's an acute level of conversation around near peer conflicts and threats to the operating environment. I think in that arena, being agnostic to a particular platform, being more data-centric, network-centric, I think actually works to the benefit of a company like SAIC that is committed to not being in hardware, that is committed to keeping a capital-light model, where it is all about the data, where it is all about the capability you bring at scale in a technology agnostic way.
To me, I think companies like SAIC that aim to do that over the next 3 to 5 to 10 years probably end up having a little bit of an advantage. You would really think the conversation on O&M budgets and procurement budgets and RDT&E budgets, you would think that service companies end up doing a little bit better on balance just given the threat environment, the constraints on funding and having to get more done with less. To me, that's why I think we're cautiously optimistic about the longer term set up because it is going to be a constrained environment. I think we have the right areas of focus, and we're investing to make sure that we are bringing in improvements to the business model. I think this is one where we truly have to be a little bit careful.
It is easy to get ahead of the business model that the customer is willing to experiment with, but it's important to not leave them behind as well or be left behind. It's truly important to have the conversation to say, "I'm a mission partner that can help you figure out this business model challenge." That means in 2026 or 2028, if this business has about the same number of people, better margins, higher growth, that's an environment that actually works for the customer and works for us. To me, I think that's what we're truly driving to.
Let me ask you, it's interesting that you talk about the longer term planning model, because ironically, you know, back when the Republicans controlled the legislature, during the Obama administration, we had a series of 2-year deals.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
For DoD. I'm just kinda curious, was that a better operating environment for the company? Did that allow you all to run the company more efficiently than going from CR to CR and the annual budgets? You know, it seems like there's this potential here. One of the potential outcomes I would think here is another 2-year budget deal. We may not like the top-line numbers. It might be a little lower than what they would've otherwise been, but at least it's a 2-year deal. Maybe you can talk about the pros and cons of a 2-year deal versus, you know, going from 1 year to the next.
Maybe you get a little bit more top line, going year-over-year. You get a little bit more certainty out of the two years, does that allow you to do from an operational perspective, some tweaking that actually benefits shareholders and your other constituents?
Yeah. I would say on balance, having whether that's a two-year deal or a three-year deal, on balance, having that length in the planning cycle truly allows you to bring a differentiated experience to your customer.
Mm-hmm.
I think it truly endures to the advantage of being able to plan on a multi-year basis to say, "Here's what my CapEx planning looks like, here's what my data center planning looks like, here's what my headcount needs to be in an inflationary environment." You start to make choices and bets inside of the operating environment that is then tied into a macro view of what budgets are likely to be over the next two to three years. I certainly think, you know, anytime you have budget stability for two years or longer, it does allow you to plan for things a little more efficiently on the inside, because there's almost nothing worse than reacting to a top line that is lower than what your expectations were.
Especially, you know, I think, you know, maybe the primes are a little bit different, where you actually look at specific programs of record, and you are able to tag it. If you're funded primarily out of O&M $, it's very hard to follow the money all the way through the individual line item. There's a fair amount of plumbing that needs to happen to ensure that that money comes down to the program level. You know, I think most investors struggle with, you know, the slowness of outlays last year, for example.
Yeah
It's just connecting the dots between that first level of decision and then all the way down to the outlays and then the appropriations and just getting contracts funded. I do think having length there is going to be, I think, significantly beneficial. You know, you would hope that this is not something we have to debate every year, and you could get the predictability of longer term budgets in place. To me, I think on balance, it's probably what you wanna see.
Yeah. You just mentioned the disconnect between outlays, I mean, appropriations and outlays. You know, I just spent the last five years inside of a, of a corporate myself and understand, yeah, the frustration that goes on with, you know, lack of a better word, kind of the slowness of the procurement process. You know, how has this played out over the last 12, 18 months? Are we starting to see some improvement in the pace of, you know, RFPs converting into actual awards or things getting the time that it takes to get all that done better?
Yeah. I'm gonna invite Joe as well here on this question. You know, big picture, it feels a little bit less constrained on the awards front than it did maybe six months ago.
Okay.
you know, and you know, we see anecdotal evidence of this sort of getting better. I'm a fan of data. Two anecdotes don't make a data point, so it's just hard to get comfortable that it's visibly better, although it feels better.
Mm-hmm.
I think the other constraint is, you know, if folks are worried about a CR to start GFY 2024.
Mm-hmm.
You've got, you know, let's call it eight or nine months left before the expiration of the current fiscal year, and people start to wonder, what does funding look like starting October one?
Yeah.
It's O&M money. It's one-year money or two-year money.
Yeah.
People start to think about what does it take in a constrained budget environment starting October 1, and how do I preserve my chips? Part of the conversation we're having internally is how do we get our teams actively engaging with customers in a constrained budget environment? Because we are assuming base case CR to start and probably a lengthy CR in GFY24 base case. Our base case is not BCA 2.0 for the record. A lengthy CR, what does it actually do to budget? We have businesses that are somewhat uniquely positioned in the sense that in a constrained CR environment, some parts of our business actually do a little bit better. Let me sort of pull the thread on it.
For example, we have a large Army business, well over $1 billion, primarily Huntsville-based, where that Army customer has customers of their own. In a constrained budget environment, the customers of our customers actually come to them for additional statement of work and additional work to be done. If you have adequate ceiling in those contracts, it allows you to start to plan some ideas for things they could be doing in a constrained budget environment. On balance, there are parts of the portfolio that actually do a little bit better in a CR situation, but the reality is, I think, you know, they're starting to think about it, and therefore, I think we're starting to plan with them to say, "What does it look like?
Yeah. You know what? I think we all listened to Leidos last week talking about, you know, their base case and their, and their assumptions for this upcoming year, with regard to a CR, and even mentioned that they're preparing for a government shutdown. I can imagine you're all kind of running those kinds of traps. We'll learn more about it when you report out soon, I guess. The question I had was, this is probably fact-based, you know, historical-looking, so feel comfortable going off script a tiny bit here.
Yeah.
In a shutdown, obviously getting access to facilities, government facilities becomes pretty important for a company like yourselves. Have you talked historically about what percentage of your revenue gets generated from, you know, through access to government facilities? If you didn't have access, like what is?
We have not talked about on-site versus off-site.
Yeah.
I think it's fair to say a number of our folks that work on government sites are considered critical.
Yeah.
To me, that designation, the nomenclature is important because they continue to go and work at these sites even in the event of a shutdown. Where there was a visible impact to the financials was when we had the last shutdown, 2018, early 2019. There was an impact to cash collection at the end of our fiscal year, which was at the end of January, and the shutdown effectively happened at the end of December to mid-January. There was about a $50 million impact to cash collection, not a material impact to revenues. Candidly, we ended up collecting that cash early the following fiscal year. You know, it's one I hate to say it this way. We are, you know, we're used to operating in an uncertain environment.
We have, you know, I cannot tell you how many backup plans.
Yeah.
for people that are unable to go to government site. We have, you know, places where we have tents set up with laptops for people to be able to access networks. I hate to say we're actually pretty good at it, but it's not an environment you wanna be operating in on a consistent basis.
One of your core competencies is dealing, yeah.
It's not it.
Yeah, I recall I was the treasurer in my last job, we actually stationed somebody across the street...
Yeah.
-from the office where they could actually go physically get a check if it actually happened. One of my favorite topics, and I think it is for you all as well, is JADC2.
Yeah.
You've talked a little bit about computing and cloud and, you know, designating certain access to, you know, different parts of the network. This is, you know, obviously a very important strategic initiative for the military. Maybe just for the edification of those in the room, you could briefly describe from SAIC's perspective, what JADC2 is, and then, talk a little bit about your involvement in it today, and the investments that you're making that you think are gonna drive more revenue streams for the company.
Very big picture. You know, I characterize SAIC as a, you know, technology integrator, agnostic to systems. At the core, JADC2 is about being agnostic to systems. It is an approach to data that is data-centric as opposed to platform-centric. To me, I think JADC2 is at the heart of it all, very much in line with where the core investments and the capabilities of the companies are being developed. To me, that's sort of very big picture. Inside of JADC2, we've had a number of very notable wins recently, and I'll just talk about the ones that we've publicly talked about. AOC Falconer, which was with A Prime. It was a takeaway for SAIC. It was a $320 million contract. We took it away early this fiscal year for us, FY23 still.
That was a very material contract for the company in the JADC2 area. ABMS digital engineering and integration, absolutely core to the JADC2 strategy. SAIC was one of two services companies, and there were probably tens of services companies and product companies that bid for the work. We were one of two service companies to actually win the job. We have Cloud Based C2, which is a takeaway from another service company, recent win, that allows us to start to set the architecture for what cloud looks like. When you combine the approach we have inside of JADC2 market with a solution like Koverse, which is sort of our AI solution, it becomes a very powerful way. Think advanced targeting or detection of bad actors.
In a cloud-based environment where you're digital engineering an approach to data, what you start to see is threat detection gets faster, and you're able to fuse data in that come from multiple OEM platforms in a way that you don't actually care which platform it comes from. It is about the data. That's what we're doing very actively inside of the JADC2 arena, broadly defined, but I specifically call out AOC, ABMS DI, as well as Cloud Based C2. There are a few other things going on in the restricted area where we are running some very interesting programs for restricted customers that allow us to continue to pull the thread on work we can do, which is a series of very powerful solutions and offerings that allow us to be and continue to be a very much a data-centric company.
No, and I think, Jason, when you came down to meet with us, you met with Vinnie, and that's where his business is, where a lot of this work falls. It's a, you know, really important strategic campaign for him and for SAIC. We've had a lot of success recently there. I guess one of the big questions around this environment, right, is that it's joint all domain, right? It's the jointness part of it that is maybe gonna be the hardest part to solve for next. We've got, you know, the Army's doing one thing, Navy's doing the other, another, and the Air Force is doing their own thing, all with an eye towards, you know, increasing the ability for them to communicate, share data, targeting other-otherwise.
Does there have to be one clear winner from a system perspective, one approach to it that needs to kinda win out? Or are these things kinda gonna grow up in silos and just kind of intertwine themselves over time? How does this all shake out from a leadership of this initiative?
Yeah. I think that's a great question. I'd say in some respects, we're probably in the early stages of that ballgame.
Still early.
I still think we will continue to see shaping efforts from folks that are wedded to platforms trying to shape the JADC2 outcomes that are more platform-centric. Then there we will see some companies that are shaping it to be more data-centric. We actually have a contract called CENTCOM, where we actually run the allies networks. Part of the JADC2 campaign, broadly speaking, is about getting the data through the ally networks so that it's interoperable. The data that some of our customers can see would not be data that our allies can see or vice versa. A Koverse-like solution actually starts to filter out the data that is now available for various participants inside of the network.
To me, there's a way to combine the CENTCOM contracts with the JADC2 approach and data that you can actually start to sift out the kinds of data that's available for people to access. In reality, I think it'll probably, you know, some time out from sort of seeing this ultimately resolved.
Mm-hmm.
It's the jointness that's the complicating part.
Yeah.
You'll see the yin and the yang and the push and the pull for probably a few more years. It won't change our approach to it, which is be data-centric, be agnostic to platform, and keep going at it, because again, think macro and all the budget tensions we talked about. In a constrained budget environment, being that way is actually on balance better because and candidly, you're starting to see some primes talk about it, being platform agnostic. To me, I think this is the wave in a constrained environment, especially, and I think we're ahead of the competition.
Yeah. You correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, gosh, I would think that one of the big lessons that we're gonna walk away from in this conflict in Ukraine is how important JADC2 really is to be able to, you know, seamlessly share information, particularly friend or foe and targets and figuring out what assets can neutralize targets more quickly is the name of the game here.
Some valuable lessons being learned right now.
Yeah. That brings up another question. We're learning some lessons and we're seeing what's going on the ground and the types of systems that are being used there today. How do you think that informs the fiscal 24 budget that's about to be introduced? You know, maybe bring that full circle back to SAIC. You've got, you know, a mix of business today with, you know, the branches of the military, maybe NGA, NRO and other parts of the government. Are we gonna see in this fiscal 24 budget some toggling of the spending? Is Army gonna bid finally, right? Given what we're seeing in Ukraine and is that at all just kinda changing the way that you guys are thinking about the business?
Like, will we see a potential mix shift in your customer set over time and how does that come about? Are you developing some new products and services to kind of enable that?
Yeah. It probably harkens back to one of the earlier discussions we were having. If it is a prolonged CR or a one-year budget deal, it's unlikely to result in a material change in the way resources get allocated.
Yeah.
I think that lack of stability in the top line prevents the customer from, or even the executive branch, from making these tangibly visible, measurable choices around where the investment dollars have to go. I suspect it feels more like how it's been done. You know, frankly, it's down to the lessons from Ukraine and what the plus-ups look there. I think we're probably back to what feels like a more familiar budget scenario playing out here.
Mm-hmm.
I would maybe just add, I think there are probably a lot of lessons that should be learned, and it's a question of how quickly they get implemented into the budget. But one, you know, we've had some really good success in Counter-UAS. Obviously, that's a specific capability that's kind of been at the forefront of the conflict. We were one of four companies selected, you know, in a fly off about a year ago with our solution. I think we're, you know, cautiously optimistic that this could actually be an inflection point where spending for that capability, which is obviously very needed, actually occurs and starts to ramp up.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. Shifting gears really quickly. You talked earlier about a capital light business model. Asset light maybe is the word you used. We do seem to see, you know, on the prime side of things, you know, vertical integration kinda comes and goes from a fad perspective. We're starting to see some services companies that are becoming maybe a little bit more asset intensive, right? Gonna still supply services, but they've got to buy assets to be able to provide that service. I mean, are there any hard and fast rules at SAIC? Like, how do you guys think about asset intensity and what is a service, and what kinds of assets that you need to...
This very much comes back, I think, to what the vision for this company is. We are very, very committed to staying asset light. You will not see us do product deals for the sake of adding product to the portfolio or improving margins. We are committed to investing in the areas that we've picked. We like our free cash flow story. We are committed to improving our free cash flow on a consistent basis. You will see this company be more solutions-focused than product-focused. Because product by definition implies a level of silo inside the product architecture you're building out.
You're likely to see us continue to talk about being more solutions-focused. Hopefully less labor focused over the long term and remaining capital light because that, I believe, is the balance, you know, we're looking for and our shareholders are looking for, and we're committing to ensuring that excess capital is returned with a bias towards buybacks, which has sort of been our capital deployment story, which is sort of the other side of the capital CapEx question. You know, to me, I think you're gonna see us stay with that, with that plan over the next few years.
Okay, great. Maybe we'll end it. Maybe we'll sneak 1 more in, depending on how quickly you answer this question. We are, as a group here at Citi, the analysts are sitting up on having these conversations, are committed to asking 1 question across all companies. I'm gonna ask that question of you now, and you can, like, tell them, tell me I'm crazy or, geez, I've already answered it, but I made a commitment to my colleagues to ask the question. Let's see here. The question is, yeah, what are the top 2 or 3 innovations and structural changes affecting the company over the next 5 years? Are there any emerging industry trends that are perhaps being overlooked in the current discourse? Maybe focus on that last 1.
That would be the most interesting part, 'cause I think we touched on some of the other things, but.
Yeah. I invite Joe in as well here. To me, I don't think there's a trend that we are overlooking. I think we are underappreciating the value that service companies can bring in a constrained budget environment.
Yeah.
If you combine that with inherently getting a better return on your net asset, I think that's an underappreciated part of that conversation, I think.
Yeah. I mean, I think, if history is any indication, we'll probably be talking about a lot of the same things that we're talking about now three years from now. I think one interesting question is whether kinda the acceleration of technology will change that dynamic, whether there's some technology that emerges that becomes a must-have for our customers and changes the way that, they buy stuff from us.
Mm-hmm.
really accelerates the shift more towards solutions and away from services, which makes a lot of sense. It's just, you know, there's a lot of inertia in the system. I think that could be one interesting kind of question, whether there's some inflection.
That's why I think the venture side of this is just as important because we don't have to build all of this ourselves.
Mm.
To the extent that we can bring real disruption to the operating rhythm inside the DoD, inside the customer base, by bringing differentiated capability via venture partners that are aligning R&D efforts to be more in line with where we think the budget priorities will be, where the customer priorities will be, I think that gives you a leg up in that conversation. To me, that's sort of how we think, you know, if we can do ventures at scale, and I'm talking two to four deals a year on an active basis to say, and these are not material investments, these are small investments, but every one of them will have a multiplier effect inside of the pipeline.
Mm-hmm.
If we can get that math to work, I think that becomes very, very disruptive, more so than anything anybody else is doing right now.
Yeah. Great. That's perfect. I think we just clicked over to zero. I appreciate both of you joining us today. I wish you well. I hope you get a chance to enjoy the nice weather. Thank everybody in the room for sticking with us.
Yeah. Thank you.