Earnings Call Transcript - CNXC Q3 2023

Operator, Operator

Thank you for standing by and welcome to Concentrix Fiscal Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. I would now like to hand the call over to Vice President, Investor Relations, David Stein. Please go ahead.

David Stein, Vice President, Investor Relations

Thank you, Latif, and good evening. Welcome to the Concentrix Corporation Third Quarter Fiscal 2023 Earnings Call. As a result of the combination earlier this week, we now operate as one Concentrix Webhelp. This call is the property of Concentrix Webhelp and may not be recorded or rebroadcast without written permission. This call contains forward-looking statements that address our expected future performance and that, by their nature, address matters that are uncertain. These uncertainties may cause our actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in our forward-looking statements. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events or developments. Please refer to today's earnings release in our most recent filings with the SEC for additional information regarding uncertainties that could affect our future financial results. This includes the risk factors provided in our annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings. Also during the call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, including free cash flow, non-GAAP operating income, adjusted EBITDA, non-GAAP EPS and adjusted constant currency revenue growth. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures is available in the news release and on the company Investor Relations website under Financials. With me on the call are Chris Caldwell, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Andre Valentine, our Chief Financial Officer. Chris will provide a summary of our operating performance and growth strategy, and Andre will cover our financial results and business outlook. Then we'll open the call for your questions. Now I'll turn the call over to Chris.

Chris Caldwell, President and CEO

Thank you, David. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our third quarter earnings call. We are excited to discuss our performance in the third quarter and announce the successful completion of our transformative merger with Webhelp. We are pleased to report revenue and profit growth with strong cash flow during the third quarter. We saw stable demand for our high-value and technology-driven services, achieved solid new business signings, and our focus on business mix contributed to margin expansion. As we enter the fourth quarter, we have a robust pipeline of opportunities that we believe will drive our growth into 2024. Our reported revenue for the third quarter was $1.63 billion, with organic constant currency revenue growth of 1.7%. Our non-GAAP operating income for the third quarter rose to $231 million, and adjusted EBITDA increased to $269 million, both up over 4% compared to last year. We achieved improvements of 10 basis points in both non-GAAP operating income and adjusted EBITDA margins from the previous year. Our non-GAAP EPS was $2.71 per share, down from $2.95 per share last year, primarily due to the impact of expected higher interest rates. Given our ongoing organic growth, robust free cash flow generation, and the beneficial Webhelp merger, we are pleased to raise the quarterly dividend by 10%, resulting in a new quarterly dividend of $1.21 per share on an annual basis. We continue to see growth across all our strategic verticals, which has compensated for persistent volume decreases from a few large clients, as mentioned last quarter. In terms of our Catalyst segment, we experienced sequential quarterly revenue growth with our digital customer experience solutions. Our digital IT service capabilities, supported by thousands of staff who can design, deploy, and integrate technology solutions on a large scale, significantly set us apart from traditional customer experience competitors. From a sales standpoint, we maintained our focus on an integrated approach that combines our Catalyst and customer experience operations for design, build, and run services. This quarter, we observed consistent demand from various regions and sectors as clients seek innovative ways to serve their customers while managing costs. While clients are signing smaller, slower-ramping deals, we are optimistic about the complex work arising from these new agreements. We also have a strong pipeline of opportunities as the combined Concentrix Webhelp organization, which we couldn't have pursued before the merger. Operationally, we are providing exceptional customer service, achieving record client satisfaction scores this quarter. Our goal remains to be the best partner for our clients and to capture more opportunities within each account. The technology-infused services we offer make our client relationships stronger. Notably, we made significant strides this quarter in deploying generative AI solutions both internally and with select clients. From an internal productivity standpoint, our AI and Alexa-based recruiting platform has already supported 8.6 million career site visits and processed 3.3 million applications this year, enabling our team to scale more cost-effectively. Our AI-based workforce management solution enhances scheduling and peak management for over 115,000 staff members, improving utilization and user experience. Our widely-adopted AI smart assist product enhances productivity for over 190 team members, simplifying their access to necessary tools and performance-related information. Furthermore, our AI quality automation platform analyzes 100% of customer interactions deployed across tens of thousands of seats and has reviewed 129 million interactions to date, resulting in 20% to 30% improvements in audit efficiency. Our proprietary learning bot simulates real-world customer scenarios for over 60,000 team members in training, improving speed to proficiency and effectiveness during the ramp-up period by 5% to 10%. Additionally, our cognitive AI bots are anticipated to handle over 900 million customer interactions by the end of this year, providing substantial value for our clients and higher-margin services for us. We are committed to investing in more generative AI solutions to further boost productivity and enhance customer interactions. We are on track to implement our AI tools across nearly 80% of our legacy operations business by year-end and will soon begin broad deployment with new clients from our merger with Webhelp. In terms of AI for our clients, we are collaborating with some of the world’s largest companies to create generative AI solutions throughout the services value chain. In a key project this quarter, we collaborated with a major technology client, leveraging generative AI to achieve 35% efficiency gains and deliver software releases 30% faster than conventional methods. Additionally, we provided a proof-of-concept for generative AI-driven knowledge management, developing 3D modeling and augmented reality solutions for a global retail client, which were previously not cost-effective. Catalyst also launched our new generative AI-infused offering AnyPaaS, which we have been developing for nearly two years. In our first implementation, we transitioned the entire tech staff of a healthcare client in under eight hours, enabling fully automated generative AI experiences for patients and advisors. Previously, this would have taken weeks to months. This has led to significant savings for our clients and created new revenue opportunities for us. Currently, we are exclusively working with another key client to train and test a generative AI tool before it becomes customer-facing, combining automation and human expertise to build hundreds of thousands of varied subject matter conversations for AI training, with plans to expand to 1 million conversations in the next six months. With these examples, among others, it is clear that we see opportunities for revenue growth and efficiency through AI, which we view as advantageous for our industry. Now, regarding the Webhelp merger, this marks a historic milestone in our business evolution. As a unified organization, Concentrix Webhelp possesses unique strategic advantages that we believe will enhance our differentiation and solidify our position as a transformative force in the industry. This merger brings additional expertise in areas like customer knowledge and anti-money laundering for financial clients, scalable IT services in EMEA, and deeper domain expertise in our core verticals, along with a robust global presence in over 70 countries that allows us to offer customized solutions worldwide. We have also acquired more than 1,000 new clients that we believe will invest in services historically offered by Concentrix. Our commitment to fostering a supportive and inclusive workforce is strengthened by our successful cultural integration, renowned globally for excellence and commitment to environmental, social, and governance practices. We have a clear roadmap to positive financial returns from the Webhelp merger, expecting enhanced revenue growth, profitability, and non-GAAP EPS increases in the first year, along with double-digit EPS accretion projected for the second year, reinforcing the financial strength of our combined entity. Our integration process is on track, with anticipated cost synergies of $120 million by the third year, including $75 million in the first year post-close, with significant progress already made. Since the announcement, we've spent more time with the Webhelp team, affirming our confidence in this being the right investment. We expect overall integration to be completed within 12 months, and I welcome all of our new team members to Concentrix Webhelp, as well as our two new Board members, Olivier Duha, Webhelp Co-Founder and CEO, now Vice Chair of our Board, and Nicolas Gheysens, a GBL Partner and Director. Lastly, I want to thank our dedicated staff for their commitment, our clients for their trust, our supportive Board of Directors, and our investors for their continued backing. We are excited for the year ahead, and now I’ll turn the call over to Andre.

Andre Valentine, CFO

Well, thank you, Chris, and hello, everyone. We're excited to have closed our combination with Webhelp earlier this week. Adding Webhelp's talented global staff strengthens our value proposition and solidifies our position as a leading global CX solutions company. Before I provide additional details on the completion of the transaction, I'll first review our third quarter results then I'll conclude with guidance for the fourth quarter, including anticipated contributions from Webhelp. In the third quarter, revenue increased and non-GAAP profit improved, reflecting continued strong execution. Both our organic constant currency revenue growth rate and our non-GAAP operating income came in within our guidance ranges, with non-GAAP operating income exceeding the midpoint of our guidance. Additionally, our strong cash flow generation reinforces our confidence in achieving our full year expectation of generating over $500 million in free cash flow, not including contributions from Webhelp. The 3.4% increase in reported revenue in the quarter included a 1.7 point positive year-over-year impact from the acquisition of ServiceSource in July 2022. There was no meaningful impact from currency fluctuations on reported revenue growth in the quarter. On an organic constant currency revenue basis, revenue grew 1.7%, reflecting a continuation of themes from the prior quarter. Strong growth in health care, banking, financial services and insurance, e-commerce and travel, offset by continued volume softness with a few large clients in the communications and consumer electronics industries. Revenue increased in each of our four strategic verticals in the quarter, with growth from health care clients leading the way, up approximately 17% on both an as reported and organic constant currency basis. Revenue from retail, travel and e-commerce clients posted 8% growth as reported and 7% on a constant currency organic basis, including double-digit growth with travel clients. Revenue from banking, financial services and insurance clients grew by 5% on a reported basis and 6% on an organic constant currency basis. Revenue from technology and consumer electronics clients grew 6% as reported and about 1% on an organic constant currency basis. Revenue from communications clients decreased by 8% as reported and 9% on an organic constant currency basis. Revenue from clients in our other vertical decreased 9% as reported and about 8% on an organic constant currency basis in the third quarter. Turning to profitability. Non-GAAP operating income was $231 million in the third quarter compared with $222 million last year. Our non-GAAP operating margin was 14.1%, up 10 basis points from 14% in the third quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA was $269 million compared with $258 million in the third quarter of last year. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 16.5%, up 10 basis points from 16.4% in the third quarter last year. Third quarter interest expense was $49 million, up $29 million from the prior year quarter. Included in the increase was approximately $14 million of interest costs related to the Webhelp combination. This included a charge of approximately $11 million in fees associated with our bridge financing for the Webhelp transaction. It also includes approximately $3 million in interest expense on our senior notes that were issued on August 2nd, net of interest earnings on the invested proceeds. The remainder of the increase in interest expense was due to higher interest rates as expected. Other expense of approximately $6 million in the third quarter included a $2 million mark-to-market adjustment related to the purchase price currency hedge for the Webhelp transaction. The remainder of this line item in the P&L relates to foreign currency losses. The non-GAAP tax rate for the quarter was 26.3%. Non-GAAP net income in the third quarter was $141 million compared with $154 million last year. The decrease primarily reflects higher interest expense and the change in other income expense, which more than offset the increase in non-GAAP operating income. Earnings per share were $2.71 on a non-GAAP basis compared to $2.95 in the third quarter of last year. GAAP operating results for the third quarter included $40 million of amortization of intangibles, $18 million of expenses related to acquisition-related and integration expenses and $11 million of share-based compensation expense. Turning to cash flow. Our third quarter cash flow from operations totaled $211 million and capital expenditures were $44 million. This resulted in record third quarter quarterly free cash flow of $167 million. We continue to expect free cash flow for the full year to exceed $500 million, excluding the cash flow contribution of Webhelp in the fourth quarter and transaction and integration costs. During the quarter, we paid a quarterly dividend of $0.275 per share. As Chris mentioned, our Board has raised our quarterly dividend to $0.3025 per share to be paid during the fourth quarter. This increase to our quarterly dividend reflects our financial strength, our confidence in the future and our commitment to disciplined capital deployment. Share repurchases resumed in the quarter after our proxy statement filing related to the Webhelp transaction. We repurchased 320,000 shares of our stock for approximately $27 million in the third quarter. Repurchased in the third quarter were made at an average price of approximately $84 per share. At the end of the quarter, we had $312 million remaining on our share repurchase authorization. Moving to the balance sheet. At the end of the third quarter, cash and cash equivalents were $2.11 billion and total debt outstanding was $3.97 billion. Net debt was $1.86 billion at the end of the third quarter, a decrease of $117 million from the end of the second quarter and a decrease of $218 million since the beginning of the year. At the end of the third quarter, the elevated cash level reflects funds on hand to complete the Webhelp transaction. The debt balance at the end of the quarter includes $2.15 billion of senior unsecured notes issued to partially fund the Webhelp transaction and $1.85 billion outstanding on our term loan. Our $1.04 billion revolving credit facility was undrawn at the end of the quarter, and there were no borrowings outstanding on our $500 million accounts receivable securitization facility. At the end of the third quarter, net leverage was 1.7 times on a trailing four quarters pro forma basis. On Monday, we executed on the closing of the Webhelp combination. To complete the combination, we paid approximately $525 million to Webhelp shareholders, paid off Webhelp debt of approximately $1.9 billion, issued 14.9 million shares to Webhelp shareholders and incurred a EUR700 million two-year note payable to Webhelp shareholders bearing interest at 2%. After the closing, we had cash and cash equivalents totaling approximately $440 million and gross debt of approximately $5.3 billion. Net debt upon closing was $4.85 billion, which represents net leverage of approximately 3.2 times on a pro forma adjusted EBITDA basis. The primary components of our gross debt on the balance sheet post-closing were $2.15 billion in senior notes, $2.14 billion in term loan borrowings, approximately $750 million in notes payable to Webhelp shareholders and $215 million in borrowings outstanding under our accounts receivable securitization. Our revolving credit facility remained undrawn. The issuance of shares to Webhelp shareholders increased our outstanding share count to approximately 66.6 million shares. Regarding the $2.15 billion of senior notes, on the day the combination closed, we entered into cross-currency swap arrangements for a total notional amount of $500 million of the notes. The arrangements effectively convert $250 million each of the 2026 and 2028 notes into synthetic euro-based debt at lower prevailing interest rates. In addition to aligning the currency of a portion of our interest payments to the organization's euro-denominated cash flows, the swaps also reduced the weighted average interest rate of the $2.15 billion notes from approximately 6.70% to approximately 6.36%. As we said when we announced the Webhelp transaction, the combination of our strong free cash flow generation and adjusted EBITDA growth gives us a clear path to reducing leverage, and we're committed to reducing our net leverage to about two times adjusted EBITDA within two years after the transaction closed. Regarding our capital allocation priorities, our focus is on organic growth, the successful integration of Webhelp, realizing the planned synergies and repaying debt. We are committed to investment-grade principles. We will prioritize paying down debt and reducing our net leverage while continuing our dividend and disciplined share repurchases to offset the dilution of equity grants. Now I'll turn my attention to the business outlook for the fourth quarter, including anticipated contributions from Webhelp. The Webhelp contribution in the fourth quarter guidance includes forecasted financial performance for a period of slightly more than two months. For the fourth quarter, we now expect reported revenue to be in a range of $2.19 billion to $2.215 billion based on current exchange rates. Our fourth quarter expectations reflect approximately 2% to 3% of pro forma constant currency growth for the combined organization if the combination had occurred at the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2022. Excluding the effect of the Webhelp combination, our expected constant currency growth in the fourth quarter would be consistent with the prior guidance for the full year. Our profitability expectations for the fourth quarter include non-GAAP operating income in a range of $330 million to $340 million. At the midpoint of our guidance, this equates to a non-GAAP operating income margin of approximately 15.2%, an increase of 10 basis points over the prior year. Excluding the effect of the Webhelp combination, our expected non-GAAP operating income in the fourth quarter will be consistent with the prior guidance for the full year 2023. We expect net interest expense in the fourth quarter to be approximately $72 million with an effective tax rate of 26% and a weighted average diluted share count of approximately 62 million shares. Note that the average diluted share count for the fourth quarter is less than the 66.6 million outstanding shares post-close as a result of the mid-quarter timing of the close. Accordingly, we expect non-GAAP EPS for the fourth quarter to be in a range of $3.03 per share to $3.15 per share. This expectation for non-GAAP EPS assumes no impact from other income and expense due to the unpredictability of future foreign currency movements. We continue to expect the business to generate robust cash flows with free cash flow for the combined organization to be in the range of $200 million to $225 million excluding any transaction and integration costs in the fourth quarter. Our business outlook does not include transaction and integration costs associated with the Webhelp combination or any future acquisitions. Also not included in the guidance are impacts from future foreign currency fluctuations. We continue to expect the Webhelp operations to generate approximately $3 billion of revenue and approximately $500 million of adjusted EBITDA for the full year 2023, with the combined organization yielding nearly $9.6 billion in revenue and nearly $1.6 billion in combined EBITDA on a pro forma basis for the full fiscal year 2023. We expect earnings per share accretion of mid to high single digits in the first full year after close and double-digit appreciation in the second year. We also expect to realize $75 million in synergies in the first year after closing, growing to $120 million in synergies in year three. We plan to provide guidance for 2024 on our fourth quarter results call. In closing, the Webhelp combination has joined two leading CX providers into a global platform for growth and value creation, bringing clients from growing markets, further diversifying our marquee client list and significantly increasing our presence in Europe, Latin America and Africa. Our range and global reach of high-value services and additional capabilities have been expanded enhancing support for clients that both companies couldn't adequately serve independently. We have a strong track record of success integrating prior combinations, which will make the combination and integration more seamless. And we believe this highly complementary union creates a unique customer engagement offering that will keep our business resilient through business cycles. We're excited about the combination with Webhelp. We look forward to the growth and value it will create in the future. At this point, please open the line for questions.

Operator, Operator

Our first question comes from Ruplu Bhattacharya of Bank of America.

Ruplu Bhattacharya, Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Andre, could you please clarify the contribution from Webhelp for the fourth quarter in terms of revenues, operating margin, and EBITDA? You provided a lot of details, but I didn't quite catch everything. Can you specify the revenue and operating income contributions? Also, how is the core business performing in the fourth quarter?

Andre Valentine, CFO

Of course, Ruplu. Let’s start with revenue. The legacy Concentrix operations before the Webhelp acquisition are performing in line with our previous guidance, which anticipated growth of 2% to 3% for the full year. Therefore, the contribution from the Concentrix operations aligns with that guidance. As for Webhelp, it is positively impacting our overall growth rate as we had expected, and we will see its effect in the fourth quarter. Regarding margins, if we reflect on when we announced the transaction, the margin profiles of the two businesses were very similar, both in terms of EBITDA and non-GAAP operating income. You can apply the midpoint of our guidance, which indicates a non-GAAP operating income margin of 15.2%, to both operations. Depreciation for Webhelp is somewhat higher as a percentage of revenue, so you might observe an adjusted EBITDA margin that is 10 to 20 basis points higher from Webhelp. However, both sides are complementary regarding margins in Q4. Additionally, I anticipate notable margin improvement as we begin realizing synergies moving into 2024.

Ruplu Bhattacharya, Analyst

And again, just to clarify, I mean, based on what you just said, would that imply like about $500 million on the revenue contribution from Webhelp in fiscal 4Q? And then can you talk about the below-the-line items like below operating income? Can you remind us what the interest expense is going to be in the fourth quarter as well as are there any other expenses? I think you said there was also integration costs. What is the estimate for that for the fourth quarter?

Andre Valentine, CFO

Integration costs for a quarter can be challenging to estimate precisely. Overall, these costs will align with the synergy number, totaling $120 million in integration expenses, with approximately $80 million in the first year and $40 million in the second year. For the first two months, you can anticipate that $80 million portion will be reflected accordingly. Regarding your question about revenue contribution, I believe your estimate of $500 million is on the low side; the contribution from Webhelp is actually higher than that.

Ruplu Bhattacharya, Analyst

Okay. For my last question, I’ll direct this to Chris. You've mentioned working on some generative AI projects. Considering your current experience, clients are eager to understand the impact of generative AI. In the past, you suggested that 10% to 15% of volumes could be affected. How has your perspective changed, if at all, as you engage in more of these projects? Do you think the impact differs by end market use case? How should we approach this? Is there any way to quantify this at this stage? Thank you.

Chris Caldwell, President and CEO

Hi, Ruplu. I want to touch on a couple of points. When we mention that 10% to 15% of transactions can be automated, that's a consistent figure we're seeing each year, independent of generative AI, RPA, or other emerging technologies. While generative AI may provide a slight increase in that percentage, the impact isn't significantly greater than what we currently observe. We are also generating new revenue streams through the adoption of these technologies, including design, implementation, and ongoing management, alongside the content associated with them. As we mentioned earlier, we are entering new areas with our own platforms, which is resulting in fresh revenue flows. Our focus is on counterbalancing any revenue challenges while also capturing a larger share of our clients' business. Currently, we're able to implement generative AI more quickly than some of our clients can adopt it, which is enhancing our operating cost structure and scalability. We are beginning to see these improvements reach scale, and we anticipate further benefits as we expand this across the entire enterprise, particularly with the new Webhelp partnership, which should help mitigate any revenue pressures resulting from automation.

Ruplu Bhattacharya, Analyst

Thanks for all the details. Appreciate it.

Chris Caldwell, President and CEO

No problem. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Oliver Davies of Redburn Atlantic.

Oliver Davies, Analyst

Yes. I guess a couple of questions. Just firstly, in terms of you kind of held the revenue growth guidance for the Concentrix legacy business. So can you just talk about what you're seeing in terms of underlying volumes? And new client decision, I guess, it looks like health care kind of accelerated in the quarter as most of the other sectors were look pretty similar to the last quarter. And I guess following on from that you know a client is still looking to offshore where possible or has anything changed on that front?

Chris Caldwell, President and CEO

Hi, Oliver. To address your first question, we are observing that consumers are continuing to budget for new electronic devices and subscription services, which are somewhat discretionary. As a result, we're seeing decreased volumes with some of our larger clients. However, this decline is becoming more stable compared to the fluctuations we experienced at the beginning of the year. We are also witnessing growth in strategic sectors, mainly due to new contracts and services we are implementing in areas like health care, banking, financial services, and even travel, where we are performing well. Despite my earlier remarks about consumers reducing spending in certain areas, we remain optimistic about the travel sector's robustness moving forward. Regarding offshoring and near-shoring, clients continue to prioritize managing their cost structures, so most new transactions and expansions with existing clients are taking place in the most cost-effective locations, either near-shore or offshore. There are very few new initiatives starting onshore due to the higher cost, as that simply isn't feasible for clients' budgets right now.

Oliver Davies, Analyst

Okay. Great. Thanks. And then maybe one for Andre just on the free cash flow, just it looks to be driven by working capital. So could you just comment on the reasons for that in terms of free cash flow?

Chris Caldwell, President and CEO

Andre, you're not coming through.

Andre Valentine, CFO

Sorry about that. We muted ourselves for a second. So Oli, you're right. The improvement in free cash flow is largely coming from working capital improvements. And that's really just a focus on the blocking and tackling of getting bills out on time and collected on time, which drove roughly a two-day improvement from the prior quarter in our days sales outstanding. So it's really just an increased focus on that. It's always been a focus, but just really good execution by the team in getting the bills out and getting them collected. And we think it's sustainable as we move forward. Feel very, very confident about the free cash flow guide for the fourth quarter and feel really good about hitting the guide that we set out at the very beginning of the year to generate without Webhelp $0.5 billion or more of free cash flow this year. We're definitely on track to do that if you look at how we've done through three quarters.

Oliver Davies, Analyst

Great. Thanks very much for answering the question.

Andre Valentine, CFO

Thanks.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Please stand by for our next question which comes from the line of Divya Goyal of Scotiabank.

Divya Goyal, Analyst

Good afternoon, everyone. So Andre, you briefly addressed part of my question, which was on the guide that you provided. So Chris addressed that there is some continued, how should I say, slowdown in the macro that's been noted across the business. What level of confidence can we see in terms of the overall guidance that you provided for Q4? And how should we expect the business to perform going forward, considering, obviously, what's going on with the AI transformation alongside the macro impact?

Chris Caldwell, President and CEO

Actually, Divya, let me address that as it relates to some of the AI discussions we’ve been having. There are a few different points to consider. Regarding our guidance for Q4, we previously mentioned that we have removed the typical seasonality in the business that we usually see in Q4, based on last year's observations. While talking with our clients and assessing their volumes, we’ve noted a continuation of this flat seasonality. Additionally, we are observing a steady business rate from clients who are experiencing lower volumes due to consumer demand, and this trend has persisted as we anticipated over the past several weeks and into the last quarter. We expect this to carry into Q4 as well. Moreover, from a generative AI standpoint, we’re currently seeing it as a supplemental revenue source for our business. We are providing consulting, implementations, and proof-of-concepts, and we are earning revenue from building and managing models as they transition into production. This does not significantly affect our fourth quarter results beyond the revenue we had already anticipated and that is now entering the implementation and billing stages.

Divya Goyal, Analyst

That's helpful. Just following on this thought process here, I wanted to understand, have you been seeing any pricing pressure or conversely any margin benefits, given the automation that you are trying to bring across the customers?

Chris Caldwell, President and CEO

Yes, we are experiencing pricing pressure in our highly transactional business, which represents about 10% of our overall business and has been declining from 13% in February. Our aim is to keep driving that percentage down. This part of the business is easy to scale and is quite commodity-based, attracting others seeking revenue. However, we prefer to concentrate on higher-value services and achieve success through quality rather than solely relying on pricing. In the higher-value services sector, the pricing environment is much more stable. Clients prioritize security, compliance, consistency, and the outcomes we deliver. Our investment in technology and automation to enhance internal efficiencies is key to maintaining margin stability with these clients, and we anticipate this trend will persist as we implement our strategy.

Divya Goyal, Analyst

That's very helpful. Thanks, Chris.

Chris Caldwell, President and CEO

No problem.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. As there appear to be no further questions in queue, this does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.