EGAIN Corp Q4 FY2023 Earnings Call

Good day and welcome to the eGain Fiscal 2023 Fourth Quarter and Full Year Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jim Byers with MKR Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to eGain's fiscal 2023 fourth quarter and full year financial results conference call. On the call today are eGain's Chief Executive Officer, Ashu Roy, and Chief Financial Officer, Eric Smit. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that during this conference call, management will make certain forward-looking statements which convey management's expectations, beliefs, plans, and objectives regarding future financial and operational performance. Forward-looking statements are generally preceded by words such as believe, plan, intend, expect, anticipate, or similar expressions, and forward-looking statements are protected by safe harbor provisions contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to a wide range of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ in material respects. Information on various factors that could affect eGain's results are detailed in the company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. eGain is making these statements as of today, September 14, 2023, and assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any of the forward-looking information in this conference call. In addition to GAAP results, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures such as non-GAAP operating income. The tables included with the earnings press release include a reconciliation of the historical non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. In addition, eGain's earnings press release can be found by clicking the press release link on the Investor Relations page of eGain's website at egain.com. And along with the earnings release, we will post an updated investor presentation to the Investor Relations page of eGain's website. Lastly, a phone replay of this conference call will be available for one week. Now, with that said, I'd like to turn the call over to eGain's CEO, Ashu Roy.

Thank you, Jim, and hello, everyone. We've had a solid year despite a difficult economic environment through the fiscal year. Our total revenue for fiscal 2023 grew 7% year-over-year to $98 million. Our non-GAAP net income was $8.4 million or $0.25 per diluted share. We bought back $5.8 million of our own stock while still generating good cash flow from operations for the year of $4.6 million, growing our cash balance to just above $73 million at the end of the fiscal year. Looking at the fourth quarter, both our top and bottom-line results were ahead of our guidance and street consensus. We saw good renewals from our existing customers during the quarter, including several significant multi-million dollar ARR clients. At the same time, new logo acquisition continued to be challenging in the quarter as decisions continue to be pushed out. Stepping back, as I look at the year, I want to share what I see as market trends and how they impact our plans for fiscal 2024. As you all know, in late 2022, the ChatGPT announcement significantly impacted our new logo acquisition plans in an already challenging macroeconomic environment when businesses were retrenching and scrutinizing their technology investments. Many of our active enterprise opportunities paused to assess how ChatGPT and more broadly generative AI would impact their customer engagement investments going forward. Interestingly, over the last couple of months, we are seeing that businesses seem to have mostly run through their initial assessment exercises. Several of them appear to be prioritizing a knowledge hub, which would serve as a reliable and compliance-ready source of content for generative AI tools to learn from and contribute to. Specifically, we are now seeing enterprises looking for modern knowledge hub platforms where they can plug and play their generative AI IP that they seem to be working on internally. At the same time, we are seeing some businesses with legacy knowledge systems that cannot take advantage of these generative AI capabilities as well. Those businesses appear to be looking to re-platform. These two trends are resulting in an increased volume of RFP and pilot activity for us, which has ramped up nicely in the last two to two and a half months, essentially in this current quarter. What seems apparent to us is that generative AI is elevating the importance of and rejuvenating the demand for knowledge hubs. Businesses are looking to optimize their experience and drive productivity with AI-powered automation, and customer engagement seems to be a popular way to start that. Looking at our clients, we continue to do very well with them. Our client satisfaction levels are at an all-time high, inching up to about 4.8 on a scale of 5 on the Gartner peer reviews website. Our clients are looking to invest more in implementing their knowledge strategies to drive more automation across all customer touchpoints, both agent-assisted as well as self-service. Turning to our business outlook for fiscal 2024, we are optimistic about the demand trend. As I mentioned, it has jumped up in the last two and a half months compared to the first half of calendar 2023. We see re-engagement from several stalled opportunities in our pipeline, and we see new ones coming in. I'm referring to Fortune 500 companies here. We believe that we will see new global momentum improving in fiscal 2024. However, we believe it's prudent to remain cautious from a planning and forecasting perspective because the macroeconomic environment continues to be somewhat uncertain. Over the past couple of quarters, we have made the necessary adjustments to reflect our caution and align our business operations to an environment where we can still continue to invest in product innovation and customer success, as well as pursue these sales opportunities effectively but with the acknowledgment that we are navigating through what seems like the back half of the market slowdown. On the sales and marketing front, we are very excited about our upcoming annual customer conference, eGain Solve 23, which we are holding in London on September 25. Conference registrations are at an all-time high for this event, which includes clients, prospects, and partners. Several clients, actually six of them, will be sharing their customer stories, successes, and journeys with eGain, along with our new innovations. eGain will be announcing and demonstrating some exciting new capabilities at the conference as well. To conclude, based on our recently improved pipeline activity, we believe that the market for knowledge hubs is rebounding. We are now engaged in more RFPs and pilots than we have ever been in the last 12 months. However, we continue to be cautious and mindful of the broader economic uncertainty. With the operational adjustments we have made, we feel that we can continue to invest in product innovation and customer success while pursuing these enterprise opportunities that are re-engaging with us and those new ones that are coming in. Finally, we are incredibly excited about Solve 23 and invite you to join us at this event in London on September 25th, if you can. With that, I'll ask Eric Smit, our Chief Financial Officer, to add more detail around our financial operations.

Thanks, Ashu, and thanks everyone for joining us today. Let me share some financial highlights for the quarter and full year before getting into our outlook and guidance for fiscal 2024. Total revenue for the fourth quarter was $24.6 million, up 5% year-over-year, and up 7% sequentially. Contribution from Cisco OEM was positive this quarter and helped drive revenue above our guidance. SaaS revenue for Q4 was $22.7 million, up 10% year-over-year. For the full year, total revenue was $98 million, up 7% year-over-year, or up 9% in constant currency. SaaS revenue for the full year was $89.6 million, or up 11% year-over-year, or up 13% in constant currency. Legacy revenue in Q4 decreased to just $99,000. When looking at revenue by region, in Q4, North America accounted for 80% of total revenue this quarter, up from 74% in the year-ago quarter. For the full year, North America accounted for 78% of total revenue, up from 73% in the prior year. In Q4, total revenue from North America was $19.6 million, up 13% year-over-year, whereas total revenue from Europe was $5 million, a decrease of 19% year-over-year. Looking at non-GAAP gross profit and gross margins, gross profit for the fourth quarter was $18.2 million, up 3% year-over-year for a gross margin of 74% compared to 75% for the prior year quarter, but up from 69% last quarter. For fiscal 2023, gross profit was $72.2 million, or a gross margin of 74% compared to a gross margin of 77% for the prior year. Now, turning to operations, non-GAAP operating costs for the fourth quarter came in at $14.9 million, down 12% from $16.9 million in the year-ago quarter, reflecting the expense controls we have implemented. Looking at our bottom line for Q4, non-GAAP operating income for the fourth quarter was $3.3 million or an operating margin of 13%, significantly up from 3% in the year-ago quarter and 4% last quarter. Non-GAAP net income for Q4 was $3.6 million or $0.11 per share as compared to non-GAAP net income of $893,000 or $0.03 per diluted share in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 16% compared to 4% in the year-ago quarter. For the full fiscal year, non-GAAP operating income was $7.6 million or an operating margin of 8%, compared to an operating margin of 10% for the prior year. Non-GAAP net income was $8.4 million or $0.26 per share on a basic basis and $0.25 per share on a diluted basis. This compares to non-GAAP net income of $8.9 million or $0.28 per share on a basic and $0.27 per share on a diluted basis in the prior fiscal year. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the fiscal year was 9% compared to 11% in the prior fiscal year. Turning to our balance sheet and cash flows, we continued to generate good cash flows from operations while buying back shares of our stock. For the full fiscal year, cash flow from operations was $4.6 million, or a 5% operating cash flow margin. During FY '23, under our share repurchase program, we purchased approximately 786,000 shares, totaling $5.8 million. Of the $20 million authorized, $14.2 million remains available under the program at the end of the fiscal year. Our balance sheet remains strong. Total cash and cash improvements at the end of the fiscal year was $73.2 million, up from $72.2 million a year ago. Now turning to our customer metric, we saw strong renewals from our existing customer base with over $20 million in ARR renewing during the quarter. As I had mentioned on previous calls, given our increased focus on North American markets, I will share some additional customer metrics on a regional basis. LTM dollar-based SaaS net retention for North American customers was 106%, while EMEA customer's retention continued below 100% due to the churn we had discussed on previous calls, resulting in our total NRR, net retention rate, dropping to 100% compared to 105% a year ago. SaaS ARR for North American customers increased 8% year-over-year, while total SaaS ARR increased 3%. Looking at ARR by product hub, knowledge now makes up 47% of total SaaS ARR, as knowledge deals have accounted for two-thirds of new bookings in the last 12 months. The number of $1 million ARR customers remained relatively constant year-over-year. Looking at RPO, total RPO decreased 3% year-over-year to $97.3 million, but increased 11% sequentially due to the strong renewals closed in the quarter. Our short-term RPO was $66.7 million, up 6% year-over-year, but up 28% sequentially, again due to the strong renewals in the quarter. Now turning to our guidance, for the first quarter of fiscal 2024, we expect total revenue of between $23.5 million to $24 million. For Q1, we expect GAAP net income of $500,000 to $1 million or $0.02 to $0.03 per share, which includes stock-based compensation expense of approximately $1.2 million and depreciation and amortization of approximately $120,000. We expect non-GAAP net income of $1.7 million to $2.2 million or $0.05 to $0.07 per share. For the fiscal 2024 full year ending June 30, 2024, we expect total revenue of between $96 million to $98 million, non-GAAP net income of $11.8 million to $14.3 million, or $0.37 to $0.38 per share, and GAAP net income of $7.6 million to $8.1 million, or $0.24 to $0.25 per share, where we estimate share-based compensation expense of approximately $4.2 million and depreciation and amortization of approximately $500,000. Looking at weighted average shares outstanding, we expect approximately 32.2 million for the first quarter and for the full fiscal year of '24. In summary, we have adjusted our business operations to a level where we can operate profitably in the current environment. Our sales and marketing investments are at the right level, and we are seeing more opportunities develop in the pipeline. Overall, our existing business is doing well, as evidenced by the healthy renewals we booked in the quarter. Innovation is on track with some exciting announcements to come at our Solve 23 customer event in London later this month. We implemented a share repurchase program that we plan to continue in fiscal '24. The opportunity for eGain is significant. We remain well positioned to capitalize on our expanding market opportunity, with our strong balance sheet and cash flow generation. Lastly, on the Investor Relations calendar, eGain will be meeting with investors at the 12th Annual ROTH New York Conference on November 15th and the Annual Craig-Hallum Alpha Select Conference also in New York on November 16th. We hope to see some of you there in person. This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, we will now open the call for questions.

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Our first question comes from Richard Baldry with ROTH MKM. Please go ahead.

Thanks. When you talk about the RFP pipeline starting to accelerate, stop pausing, whatever you want to think about it, are the RFPs that are coming back explicitly talking about AI functionality, either included or capable of the APIs, some demonstration of the ability to interact with the new generative AI engines? Is that sort of one of the signals that's telling you that people are sort of getting through their analysis process? Thanks.

That's exactly right, Richard. What we're seeing is those RFPs in some cases have been reissued. In other cases, they had not issued any RFPs because people were still deciding whether they were going to invest or not. There were lots of conversations, but no structured RFP yet. However, pretty much every single RFP in the last two months that we have been working with has generative AI in one of those three configurations or is asking what all can you do. Do you have built-in generative in your knowledge platform? Do you have it as an option that I can plug in? Is there something else that you do that is different? Those three questions come up.

And with the pace of the RFPs coming back, and you recently streamlined some of your costs in the sales and marketing side, do you feel like you're appropriately staffed to handle it for now? What kind of signals or growth in that RFP volume would you need to see to say, maybe we should go back and start adding headcounts, given it takes some time to get them up and running?

Yeah, this time around, we're staying close to our knitting, which is the large opportunities. That gives us good headroom at this time, I would say for the next couple of quarters, I don't think that we'll need to add more headcount. Maybe in the fiscal fourth quarter, assuming things continue to ramp, that would be the time to look at additional headcount.

Thanks. You've been active in the buyback. Can we discuss your thoughts on how much of your cash flow should be allocated to returning capital now that your profitability has increased? Is this allocation influenced by any potential M&A opportunities? How should we anticipate the deployment of the buyback?

That was a good question. I think that's exactly the way we're evaluating it. Certainly in this environment, exploring inorganic opportunities is an area that we will likely pay closer attention to. Given our strong balance sheet and the challenges that others are having in the marketplace, we want to have funds available and we'll look at this more carefully than we've done in the past. With that said, given our current optimized cost structure, we feel comfortable continuing to execute our plan at the rate we've done and hopefully accelerate it if possible given sort of where the current stock price is.

Last, maybe, when you think about the AI functionality that customers are looking for, how much of that do you think is important to be able to provide in-house as bespoke versus using APIs to plug into the best of breed, whichever the customer wants to work with externally? If you looked at the M&A side of the table, would it be something around the AI world you'd be looking at, or are there other things that would be interesting? Thanks.

Right. I would say, Richard, except for the very high end of the market, most companies will look for all-in-one solutions around generative capability. We intend to fine-tune and optimize the application of generative AI, but we don't see that as our role to invest in the core generative technology. However, how we connect the dots and compose the solutions is absolutely our focus. Many of our larger prospects want their own generative capability, but they want to integrate it tightly with our knowledge platform to get the best of both worlds. That's the level we are playing at. We plan to invest in fine-tuning and contextual optimization to differentiate our offerings, while also having the ability to integrate with clients' existing generative capabilities.

Maybe one last one, if I could. The recurring revenue line sequentially was up quite strongly. Was there any one-time-oriented sort of impact inside of that that we need to be careful about when we're modeling looking forward? Thanks.

I think, as I pointed out and if you recall on the previous call, we do see some variability from quarter to quarter on the Cisco OEM. Last quarter, it came in below the number, resulting in a decline. However, we saw a healthy uptick this quarter. So there's definitely variability that comes from the Cisco OEM business that we need to be mindful of not necessarily repeating again in the coming quarter. That's the one call-out that I would make.

Our next question comes from Jeff Van Rhee with Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead.

Great, yeah, thanks for taking my questions. On that annual guide, talk to me about what else you might be seeing that's giving you the caution. I mean, you commented that the pipeline, in many respects, pilots, etc., are breaking out positively yet the forward guide essentially guides for flat sequentials for a while. Talk beyond what you can see in your pipeline that's causing you not to put any of it really through into the guide because it's obviously well below the street.

Jeff, the timing of closing those deals is where we need more evidence. We have several opportunities where discussions and agreements are progressing well, but the question remains on when we will actually sign. That process still seems influenced by macroeconomic factors, which presents a challenge we are navigating.

That's helpful. And then, the AI deals you mentioned, since the GPT release, many people took a look and then went away, some came back. Of the ones that didn’t come back, what did you learn? I mean, what did they choose to do and how do you react to that to potentially make yourself more attractive to those customers as well?

It's a good question. Honestly, I don't know the exact answer. What we are witnessing is that some companies have decided to apply GPT or broadly generative capabilities on existing content stores they have. There is a belief that this approach might work. We don't believe that it is effective in terms of quality, compliance, and cost-effectiveness, but that’s one of the substitutes being explored, asking whether adding GPT to SharePoint would address the issue.

Helpful. Lastly, maybe you could touch on your outlook for Cisco for the year and give a sense of how you feel about that and why, as well as any other key partnerships showing traction or worth mentioning?

Regarding Cisco, I would say we expect it to be flat to modest upside, but I wouldn't say anything more profound than that. Eric, what's your take?

I think that seems consistent.

We’ve seen that year-over-year. There are other partners. You’re right; we have invested in some larger SIs, but they are also facing challenges at this time. Many of their large projects are experiencing delays in significant engagements and investments that clients have stalled on over the last few quarters. However, we’re starting to see some increased engagement. We may not have deep visibility into their pipeline, but I believe the system integration partners, particularly in financial services, are interesting. We are talking to prospects like banks and insurance companies that have been working with these partners, and those discussions are showing signs of activity.

Got it. Great. Thanks for taking my questions. Appreciate it.

You're welcome.

Thanks, operator, and thanks, everyone, for joining the call today. We look forward to hopefully seeing some of you at the customer event in London and the upcoming investor conferences. We'll provide an update once we conclude our Q1. Thanks very much.

Thank you.

This concludes the conference today. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may all now disconnect. Thank you.