Hackett Group (HCKT) Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript

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Date

Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 5 p.m. ET

Call participants

• Chairman & Chief Executive Officer — Ted A. Fernandez
• Chief Financial Officer — Robert Ramirez

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Takeaways

• Total revenue before reimbursements -- $67.8 million, representing an 11% decline compared to the prior year period.
• Global S&BT segment revenue -- $36.4 million, a 15% decrease year over year, primarily due to elongated client decision-making cycles.
• Oracle Solutions segment revenue -- $15.4 million, declining 24% year over year, attributed to the conclusion of a large client engagement; segment stabilized sequentially.
• SAP Solutions segment revenue -- $16 million, an increase of 21% year over year, driven by elevated implementation services linked to prior software sales.
• Recurring revenue -- Approximately 24% of total revenues before reimbursements comprised multi-year and subscription-based contracts.
• Adjusted gross margin -- 42.3%, slightly below last year’s 43.4%, with productivity benefits partly offset by lower utilization due to headcount adjustments.
• Consultant headcount -- 1,247 at quarter end, down from 1,301 sequentially and 1,332 year over year, reflecting staff reductions aligned with AI-driven productivity gains.
• Adjusted SG&A -- $16.1 million (23.7% of revenues before reimbursements), declining from $18.4 million (24.1%) year over year due to lower variable compensation.
• Adjusted EBITDA -- $13.8 million, or 20.3% of revenues before reimbursements; previous year was $15.7 million, or 20.7%.
• Adjusted EPS -- $0.34, which management stated was at the "low end of our earnings guidance range." Prior year adjusted EPS was $0.41.
• GAAP net income -- $4.3 million, corresponding to $0.17 diluted EPS; prior year GAAP net income was $3.1 million ($0.11 diluted EPS).
• Cash balances -- $6.1 million, down from $18.2 million sequentially, with fiscal Q1 2026 operating cash flow use of $5.1 million mainly due to accounts receivable growth and accrued expense reduction from bonus payments. (Fiscal period ended March 28, 2026.)
• DSO (days sales outstanding) -- 67 days, up from 55 days at year-end, resulting from milestone-based billing on large technology projects.
• Share repurchases -- 333,000 shares bought at an average price of $13.94, totaling approximately $4.6 million; remaining buyback authorization stated as $22 million.
• Dividend -- Second quarter dividend of $0.12 per share declared for shareholders of record on June 22, 2026, payable July 6, 2026.
• AI platform transition -- Management emphasized a shift to "AI platform-enabled sales and delivery," with broad deployment of proprietary platforms (AI XPLR, XT, AIX, ZBrain) to drive efficiency, pricing model changes, and new value for clients and the company.
• Q1 U.S. S&BT project margins -- Improved by approximately 500 basis points due to leverage of XT and XPLR platforms, though overall benefit offset by lower utilization during staffing adjustment.
• New wins -- Two significant OneStream deals secured in previously under-penetrated markets, attributed to the differentiation from the OneStream AIX platform.
• IBM partnership -- Global go-to-market collaboration initiated, with early client prioritization and initial joint pursuits but limited expected Q2 impact; long-term upside cited.
• Celonis campaign -- Launched process mining marketing effort targeting Celonis users, generating high response rates to AI XPLR offerings.
• Severance charge guidance -- Anticipated Q2 AI transition charge of approximately $500,000, mainly from severance costs associated with productivity-based workforce reduction.
• Q2 revenue guidance -- Expected to be $68.5 million to $70 million before reimbursements; Global S&BT and Oracle segments sequentially up, SAP down sequentially but up year over year.
• Q2 adjusted diluted EPS guidance -- Forecasted at $0.33 to $0.35, assuming a 26.6% GAAP effective tax rate.
• Q2 adjusted gross margin guidance -- Projected range of 44%-45% of revenues before reimbursements.
• Q2 adjusted EBITDA guidance -- Expected at 20%-21% of revenues before reimbursements.
• Q2 operating cash flow -- Management expects operating cash flow to increase sequentially, with a significant projected reduction in accounts receivable of $8 million to $9 million.
• Q3 outlook -- Management anticipates an inflection where adjusted EPS should surpass prior year results with flat year-over-year revenues.

Summary

Management presented clear evidence of strategic progress, highlighting the completion of an internal migration to a proprietary AI-enabled delivery model that aims to reshape operating economics, client value, and solution differentiation. The company's segment performance diverged: S&BT and Oracle Solutions faced continued year-over-year revenue declines, while SAP Solutions posted substantial growth due to robust implementation demand. Key client and partnership wins, especially in OneStream and via new collaborations with IBM (NYSE: IBM), indicate early validation of The Hackett Group (NASDAQ:HCKT)'s differentiated AI platforms, though management cautioned the impact will scale throughout 2026 rather than appear immediately. Free cash flow and headcount dynamics reflected the disruption and upskilling required by the new platform-centric model, with non-recurring severance expenses and a guidance-confirmed inflection point in margins and earnings anticipated by Q3.

• Executives stressed, "Q3 as an inflection point where adjusted EPS should exceed last year's adjusted EPS, and that's assuming flat revenues year-on-year," marking a strategic milestone in the turnaround plan.
• Management called out elongated client decision cycles and "AI ROI uncertainty" as key causes of deferred demand and revenue volatility within S&BT and Oracle, with stabilization in Oracle now expected post-Q2.
• Productivity improvements manifesting in S&BT project margins directly resulted from the company's rapid deployment of AI XPLR and XT platforms, with operational disruptions from concurrent workforce resizing identified as a near-term margin offset.
• The launch of a global collaboration with IBM (NYSE: IBM), alongside targeted marketing toward process mining users such as Celonis clients, was described as a "significant market opportunities" for expanding addressable pipeline.
• Non-GAAP severance and transition charges are set to persist but decrease through 2026 as efficiency gains are realized and legacy delivery models are fully phased out.
• Senior leadership shared that "channel partners can expand our pipeline -- product pipeline by increasing client access," and disclosed new dialogue from large hyperscalers seeking demonstrations of The Hackett Group (NASDAQ:HCKT)'s AI XPLR capabilities.
• The Hackett Group (NASDAQ:HCKT)'s competitive edge was repeatedly linked to AI XPLR and a proprietary "solution language model," enabling granular process analysis and workflow intelligence for high-ROI transformation engagements.

Industry glossary

• S&BT: Strategy & Business Transformation; The Hackett Group (NASDAQ:HCKT)'s segment encompassing AI consulting, benchmarking, and transformation advisory services.
• AI XPLR: The Hackett Group (NASDAQ:HCKT)'s proprietary AI platform for process intelligence, workflow mapping, and automation opportunity identification within enterprise environments.
• XT: Internal platform introduced for business transformation and software implementation services to enhance delivery speed and margin profile.
• AIX: The Hackett Group (NASDAQ:HCKT)'s AI delivery platform for Oracle and OneStream solutions, focused on automating and orchestrating complex enterprise workflows.
• ZBrain: Agentic orchestration platform acquired via LeewayHertz, designed for advanced enterprise AI implementation.
• WorkStep level: The most granular breakdown of enterprise process flows, enabling detailed AI-driven workflow analysis.
• VAR: Value-Added Reseller; revenue tied to bundled software sales, often including multi-year contracts and milestone billing terms.
• Agentic AI: Next-generation AI systems that act as autonomous process agents within enterprise settings, requiring orchestration across numerous workflows.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Ted Fernandez: Thank you, Rob, and welcome, everyone, to our first quarter earnings call. As usual, I'll begin with a brief overview, comments on the quarter and the progress we are making in our strategic transition. I will then turn it back over to Rob to comment on detailed operating results, cash flow as well as outlook. After Rob's remarks, I will return with market and strategy commentary, and then we will open the call for Q&A. As I mentioned last quarter, while we do not control short-term market sentiment for software and services or near-term demand velocity, we do control the intrinsic value that we create.

Our focus remains on building a structurally stronger, more differentiated Hackett Group, positioned to lead as enterprise AI shifts from experimentation to measurable value realization. Over the past 2 years, we have made disciplined systematic investments to build a cohesive and highly differentiated AI foundation. We have now an integrated suite of proprietary AI platforms, including AI XPLR, which include our Hackett Process Intelligence IP, which informs our proprietary solution language model. We also acquired LeewayHertz, adding AI's engineering depth and agentic orchestration platform named ZBrain. Most recently, we introduced our latest delivery platforms, XT and AIX, which support the delivery of our business transformation and software implementation services.

All of these bring critical capabilities to strategic solutions we deliver to clients. With this foundation in place at the beginning of the year, we made our most significant move to date, which was migrating aggressively to an AI platform-enabled sales and delivery model. This shift affects pricing, resourcing and delivery economics. More importantly, it allows our business and software experts to accelerate and enhance client value, adds non-labor-based scale and expands actionable insight into the services we deliver. No one should underestimate the magnitude of this transition. We're not only deploying these capabilities for clients, and we are also using the same technology internally to execute engagements and deliver our services more effectively.

While disruptive in the near term, we believe it positions Hackett to lead a fundamental consulting industry transition and create an entirely new category from labor-based services to what industry analysts increasingly describe as service as a product. Our message to the market is straightforward. Enterprises should not simply deploy AI tools. They must fundamentally rethink how work gets done and how it redefines their industries. We are applying the same principle internally to create our own structural competitive advantage. This afternoon, we reported revenues before reimbursements of $68.7 million and adjusted earnings per share of $0.34, which was at the low end of our quarterly guidance.

Our results continue to reflect 2 realities: near-term demand pressure driven by macroeconomic uncertainty and elongated client decision cycles, primarily due to AI ROI uncertainty. With that said, we believe that the increasing enterprise demand is unquestionable. We also believe our unique IP and platform capabilities are also unquestionable. This has driven our accelerated internal transition to AI platform-enabled delivery, providing our organization with a compelling value creation opportunity. Early indications from our platform-enabled strategy are very promising. We have seen productivity improvements and expanding scope on engagements leveraging our platforms. Q1 project margins in our U.S. Strategy & Business Transformation Group increased by approximately 500 basis points through the leverage of our XT and XPLR platforms.

However, in Q1, this benefit was offset by lower utilization as we used the quarter to adjust headcount to reflect the realized productivity improvements. With the anticipated SBT growth in revenue in Q2, we expect the gross margin improvement will materialize in Q2 and continue to improve throughout the remainder of the year. In our Oracle segment, we have already seen projected margin increases from the deployment of the Oracle AIX platform in our second quarter margins. We have also experienced strong client and partner response in competitive pursuits. We recently won 2 large OneStream engagements in industry and markets where we had limited exposure.

Brand and delivery capability were important, but it was clear, the wins were driven by the differentiated impact of the OneStream AIX platform. As platform adoption scales across our client base throughout the year, we expect sequential improvements in both revenue and margins consistent with the guidance Rob will discuss. Overall, we see Q3 as an inflection point where adjusted EPS should exceed last year's adjusted EPS, and that's assuming flat revenues year-on-year. From a business perspective, we believe this transition can drive revenue growth with higher margins and expand our addressable market by enabling us to help clients and strategic partners architect and implement their emerging enterprise AI transformation plans.

While this pivot is disruptive given the magnitude of the change required, it creates clear focus on the highest value growth opportunities. Our strategy is to develop highly differentiated AI-enabled capabilities that leverage our globally trusted brand, expertise and IP. The objective is not only to accelerate delivery, but to materially enhance the value and the scope of our solutions we deliver. A key challenge and a major market opportunity is ensuring that clients and strategic partners fully understand the importance of capturing, analyzing and validating their specific business process context. There is limited AI value realization without detailed understanding of the clients' real end-to-end process executions, and this must be done at a very detailed level.

That is a foundation element of our solution language model as well as AI XPLR. Our message to the market and to the clients is clear. Simply deploying AI tools will not work. You must reimagine how work gets done based on the specific and strategic requirements of your business and industry and then decide what technology will best support your efforts. Our AI leadership is being defined by our distinct capability to help clients identify, evaluate, design and deploy high-impact AI solutions using AI XPLR as well as our other platforms. We believe our platform-enabled delivery will create meaningful growth opportunities with attractive margins while helping clients capture this transformative opportunity.

We also believe channel partners can expand our pipeline -- product pipeline by increasing client access. During the quarter, we executed and launched a global go-to-market collaboration with IBM to jointly serve existing and new client pursuits. We have initiated an extensive client prioritization process to identify the most meaningful client opportunities. Additionally, we recently collaborated on a new client pursuit, which defines the framework for similar new pursuits. Although we expect limited impact from this partnership in Q2, we believe the prospects to work together provide significant market opportunities as our joint efforts scale. We also continue to believe we can bring significant value to organizations that use process mining software, including Celonis.

Our ability to ingest process execution data into AI XPLR improves and accelerates ideation and solution design, helping clients move faster on transformation initiatives. Our recent campaign to process mining users has resulted in a very strong response to our marketing offer to avail themselves to AI XPLR. On the balance sheet, we expect to continue generating strong cash flow from operations, supporting our dividend and share repurchase program. With that, let me ask Rob to provide details on our operating results, cash flow and outlook. I will return with additional strategy and market commentary following Rob's remarks. Rob?

Robert Ramirez: Thank you, Ted. As I typically do, I'll cover the following topics during this portion of our call. I'll cover an overview of our first quarter results for 2026, along with an overview of related key operating statistics. I'll have an overview of our cash flow activities during the quarter, and I'll then conclude with a discussion on our financial outlook for the second quarter of 2026. For the purposes of this call, I will comment separately regarding the revenues of our Global S&BT segment, our Oracle Solutions segment, our SAP Solutions segment and the total company.

Our Global S&BT segment includes the results of our North America and International Gen AI Consulting and implementation and licensing revenues, benchmarking and business transformation offerings, executive advisory programs and our OneStream and eProcurement implementation offerings. Our Oracle Solutions and our SAP Solutions segments include the results of our Oracle and SAP offerings, respectively. Please note that we will be referencing both total revenues and revenues before reimbursements in our discussions. Reimbursable expenses are primarily project travel-related expenses passed through to our clients that have no associated impact on our profitability. During our call today, we will also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide useful information to investors.

Specifically, all references to adjusted financial measures will exclude reimbursable expenses, non-cash stock compensation expense, all acquisition-related cash and non-cash compensation reversals and expenses, amortization of intangible assets and other non-recurring items, including an AI transition charge. We have included reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures in our press release filed earlier today and will post any additional information based on the discussions from this call on the Investor Relations page of our company's website. For the first quarter of 2026, our total revenues before reimbursements were $67.8 million, down 11% from the first quarter of 2025.

The first quarter reimbursable expense ratio on revenues before reimbursements was 1.4% as compared to 1.2% in the prior quarter and 2.1% when compared to the same period in the prior year. Total revenues before reimbursements from our Global S&BT segment were $36.4 million for the first quarter of 2026, a decrease of 15% when compared to the same period in the prior year. As Ted mentioned, elongated client decision-making persisted throughout the quarter. During the quarter, we continue to see an increasing number of clients utilizing our AI delivery platforms, which is expected to increase throughout the balance of the year.

More importantly, sequentially, we expect revenues to be up from Q1 to Q2, along with an improvement in gross margins due to the impact of an increasing number of new projects benefiting from our transition to AI platform-enabled delivery as well as headcount actions we took in the previous quarter to reflect the realized productivity improvements. Total revenues before reimbursements from our Oracle Solutions segment were $15.4 million for the first quarter of 2026, a decrease of 24% when compared to the same period in the prior year. Sequentially, the segment has stabilized from the completion of a large client engagement, which will hurt year-on-year comparables until Q3 of this year.

More importantly, we expect both revenue and gross margin improvements to sequentially improve in Q2. We also expect these improvements to continue to increase throughout the balance of the year. Total revenue before reimbursements from our SAP Solutions segment were $16 million for the first quarter of 2026, an increase of 21% when compared to the same period in the prior year. This increase was primarily driven by implementation services that correspond to the increasing volume of software sales we experienced throughout 2025. Most of the software sales were coupled with significant implementation fees, and therefore, we expect demand for our SAP services to be strong throughout the balance of the year.

Approximately 24% of our total company revenues before reimbursements consist of recurring multi-year and subscription-based revenues, which include our executive advisory, AMS and Gen AI license contracts. We are seeing the natural migration of IPaaS requests to transition to the Hackett Intelligence IP capabilities, which are now embedded in our AI delivery platform-related revenues and our new executive advisory AI programs. Total company adjusted cost of sales totaled $39.2 million or 57.7% of revenues before reimbursements in the first quarter of 2026 as compared to $43.1 million or 56.6% of revenues before reimbursements in the prior year.

Total company consultant headcount was 1,247 at the end of the first quarter of 2026 as compared to 1,301 in the previous quarter and 1,332 at the end of the first quarter of 2025. The year-over-year decrease in headcount was primarily due to actions taken to reduce staff to be commensurate with productivity improvements we have realized from our AI delivery platforms. Total company adjusted gross margin on revenues before reimbursements was 42.3% in the first quarter of 2026 as compared to 43.4% in the prior year.

Q2 margin improvements are expected to increase and be noticeable in both our Global S&BT and Oracle segments in Q2, given our transition to AI-enabled delivery, which was launched at the beginning of the year. Adjusted SG&A was $16.1 million, or 23.7% of revenues before reimbursements in the first quarter of 2026. This is compared to $18.4 million, or 24.1% of revenues before reimbursements in the prior year. The year-over-year decrease is primarily due to reduced variable compensation expense, commensurate with the quarter's performance. Adjusted EBITDA was $13.8 million, or 20.3% of revenues before reimbursements in the first quarter as compared to $15.7 million, or 20.7% of revenues before reimbursements in the prior year.

GAAP net income for the first quarter of 2026 totaled $4.3 million, or diluted earnings per share of $0.17 as compared to $3.1 million, or $0.11 in the first quarter of the previous year. Adjusted net income and diluted earnings per share for the first quarter of 2026 totaled $8.7 million or $0.34, which is at the low end of our earnings guidance range and compares to prior year adjusted diluted net income per share of $0.41. The company's cash balances were $6.1 million at the end of the first quarter as compared to $18.2 million at the end of the previous quarter.

Net cash utilized in operating activities in the quarter was $5.1 million, primarily driven by net income adjusted for non-cash activity, which is more than offset by increases in accounts receivable and decreases in accrued expenses, primarily due to the payment of 2025 performance bonuses. Given the increase in VAR-related revenue over the last 2 years that carry multi-year terms, we revised our DSO calculation to exclude those revenues and receivables. Our DSO was 67 days as compared to 55 days at year-end. The increase in DSO is primarily driven by milestone delivery terms on several large technology engagements.

We currently expect a significant reduction in accounts receivable by the end of the second quarter of approximately $8 million to $9 million. VAR-related receivables of $4 million that were expected to be collected by the end of the first quarter were delayed by SAP and were collected in early Q2. During the quarter, we repurchased 333,000 shares of the company's stock for an average of $13.94 per share at a total cost of approximately $4.6 million, including purchases from employees to satisfy income tax withholding triggered by the vesting of restricted shares. Our remaining stock repurchase authorization at the end of the first quarter was 22 million.

At its most recent meeting subsequent to quarter end, the company's Board of Directors declared the second quarter dividend of $0.12 per share for its shareholders of record on June 22, 2026, to be paid on July 6, 2026. I'm going to now have a discussion on our guidance for the second quarter. The company estimates total revenue before reimbursements for the second quarter of 2026 to be in the range of $68.5 million to $70 million. We expect both Global S&BT and Oracle Solutions segments to be sequentially up from Q1 and down from prior year. The year-on-year unfavorable comparables extend into Q2 for Oracle and Q3 for S&BT.

We expect SAP Solutions segment revenue before reimbursements to continue to be up on a year-over-year basis, but sequentially down due to lower VAR sales revenues in the second quarter. As a result of the continued transition of our business to AI platforms-related delivery, the company expects to incur an AI transition charge in the second quarter of approximately $500,000. These charges will primarily relate to severance costs due to headcount reductions from the increasing leverage of our Gen AI delivery platforms. These charges are expected to decrease, but may continue throughout 2026. These charges will be excluded from our non-GAAP financial results.

We estimate adjusted diluted net income per common share in the second quarter of 2026 to be in the range of $0.33 to $0.35, which assumes a GAAP effective tax rate on adjusted earnings of 26.6% as compared to GAAP effective tax rate of 27.2% in the second quarter of the prior year. We expect the adjusted gross margin as a percentage of revenues before reimbursements to be approximately 44% to 45%. We expect adjusted SG&A and interest expense for the second quarter to be approximately $19.5 million. Overall, we see Q3 as an inflection point where adjusted EPS should exceed last year's adjusted EPS on flat revenues.

We expect second quarter adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of revenues before reimbursements to be in the range of approximately 20% to 21% Lastly, we expect cash flow from operations to be up on a sequential basis. At this point, I would like to turn it back over to Ted to review our market outlook and strategic priorities for the coming months.

Ted Fernandez: Thank you, Rob. As we look forward, let me share our view of the near and long-term demand environment and the growth opportunity it creates for Hackett. Let me start with the AI reality check and why has value lagged. Enterprise AI adoption is widespread, but value realization remains the key question. Despite rapid model improvements and significant investment, many organizations are struggling to realize their targeted ROI from AI initiatives. The limiting factor is not foundational LLM capability. It is critical detailed workflow intelligence and expertise that defines important critical AI opportunities, undocumented exceptions, fragmented systems and governance gaps.

Most organizations began their AI adoption strategies with tactical low ROI initiatives, copilots, point agents, automation overlays without first understanding how work is actually executed and properly evaluated. This environment creates a clear market inflection. The winners will be firms that combine deep process expertise, which allows them to accurately design high-impact ROI solutions with production-grade AI orchestration. Hackett's core strengths align directly with this shift. With the right exposure, we believe Hackett can capture a growing number of clients accelerated by partnership strategies as enterprises reset AI strategies from tools and tactical automation to truly reimagine ROI-based AI transformation. So again, what's changed? Models are no longer the bottleneck. Cost accuracy and reliability have improved to production-ready levels.

Enterprise workflows are the bottleneck. Many processes are not accurately analyzed or even considered and therefore, evaluated as executed. Not only do clients are not getting the right detailed information, they're assuming that standard operating procedures actually define the work -- how the work is actually being done, which in many instances does not. AI overlays can fail silently. Copilots, point agents and AI-native applications can increase rework and risk with limited ROI. Then there's the issue of agent sprawl, also resulting in disconnected agents that introduce security, compliance and maintenance exposure. This means organizations must shift from AI strategy and tools to validate company-specific process requirements that drive accurate design, orchestration and ongoing monitoring and sound run operations.

Hackett's strategic edge is rooted in long-standing strengths that are now essential for AI to work. First, our benchmark-based process intelligence and KPI orientation focused on cycle time, throughput, error rates and return on investment, not theory. Second, our credibility in understanding what actually happens versus what is assumed to happen when compared, as I mentioned, by standard operating procedures. Third, AI XPLR's ability to validate true as-is workflows, automation footprints and data dependencies before AI design and deployment. It is not technology first. It is process first, domain-specific and orchestration driven. Without validated company-specific enterprise process context, AI value realization will remain limited. We are entering the agentic era, which will dramatically expand enterprise automation footprints across organizations.

As deterministic automation evolves into intelligent -- cognitive and intelligent systems, enterprises must manage increasing complexity related to security, compliance, monitoring and governance. This creates substantial opportunities, but only for the firms that understand both enterprise processes and agent behavior at production scale. Hackett's role is to help organizations architect and execute their agentic enterprise transformation plans and actively support their AI centers of excellence. Partnerships will play an important role in expanding our reach and accelerate adoption. On talent, competition for experienced delivery and market-facing executives with strong technology agility continues. Overall, turnover remained at acceptable levels during the quarter, and we expect that trend to continue.

Finally, we believe we have the client base and offerings to grow organically. We will continue to evaluate acquisitions and alliances that strategically lever our IP, platforms and transformation expertise and add scope, scale and acceleration to our business plans. As always, I'll close by congratulating our associates on their contributions and thanking them for their tireless efforts. Please remain highly focused on our clients and our people. Those conclude my comments. Operator, please open the call for Q&A.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] The first question in the queue is from George Sutton with Craig-Hallum.

George Sutton: Ted, you talked about the short-term disruption and the pivot that you are making and the challenges in sort of client decision-making. I wondered if you could address sort of how much longer do we see this disruption? And then how do we see the benefits from the massive long-term opportunity, particularly with the IBM relationship? When do we start to see the impacts from that?

Ted Fernandez: Well, first, I know since we're all disappointed with the Q1 results, George, you'll wonder when I say that we actually saw some of those benefits start to accrue in the first quarter. But as we mentioned in our comments, since we were also taking people out as we deploy these platforms and realize the productivity improvements that come from it, there's a natural inefficiency in that, and I'll call it, in rightsizing both skill and scale to this new platform-enabled capability. So, our best way to demonstrate how that progresses is; one, that we believe margin improvements will increase quarter-on-quarter.

And if you look at what Rob guided based on what we consider a small revenue increase, which we expect, as Rob said, across most of our segments, that we will start realizing the productivity benefits from the change in that platform. That's also why the AI transition charge dramatically increases from Q1 to Q2.

We also mentioned the fact that if you then looked out -- if you went out and looked out another quarter and looked at the potential increase, small -- I'll just say, small potential increase in revenue, if you were to look at Q3 and how it compares with Q3 of the prior year, that our ability then to demonstrate EPS increases year-on-year will actually also start to emerge because to some extent, the transition started with changes that we implemented last summer. But that was just to start looking at talent skill mismatches, demand, if you want it, matching some demand with our resource plan. So, that was kind of the initial spot.

But really, the bold move was, as I said on our comments, which is by literally launching all the platforms and putting all of our new engagements, leveraging these platforms is pretty significant. However, both the success being realized in productivity improvements and the impact that we've had by some of the examples we cited in how differentiated and how powerful these platforms are impacting both the time that we deliver engagements, the way we deliver engagements and the value that we extend to the client has been significant enough to bring us some pretty significant wins. But did that also then distract us from, let's call it, less high-potential areas?

To some extent, we're having to give away some of the things we used to do because we believe we will not continue to do them and really put all our chips in to where the business is going and where the platforms and the clients need our help the most. And I define that broadly as ROI-based AI transformation. And that requires the capability of all of our platforms. So, we're not only talking about leveraging AI XPLR, which is so critical in Gen AI process design and the definition of AI opportunities in the sophisticated way we design agentic workflows. But the way we execute our business transformation engagements using XT.

And then I got to tell you, we've been just beautifully surprised by our -- the competitive response on the proposals where we've had a chance to introduce AIX. That obviously has happened in a meaningful way in our OneStream group, but we're also seeing that happening in on the Oracle side as well. So, a long way of saying we believe it's happening. It has started to happen. Yes, we don't eliminate all those. We created inefficiencies by affecting it. But we're dealing with the inefficiencies at the same time. And if we are correct, we'll see that improvement quarter-on-quarter.

And as you then get toward the end of the year, as the percentage of engagements that are being supported by our platforms starts to really take hold, that's when you get to see then the long-term impact on the revenue growth that we would expect to see.

George Sutton: So, you answered my question very much on an AI internal process basis. I'm looking more at the go-to-market changes that you might see with these new partners who have a meaningfully larger footprint than you do in terms of bringing additional deals your way and when that might start to occur.

Ted Fernandez: Well, we expect that to start to occur during the second quarter, but actually start being noticeable as we get into the third quarter since the number of opportunities and the scale of the opportunities are very substantial. But I also -- I want to mention something else, which is this acknowledgment that ROI and return on AI investments requires a deep process knowledge is becoming pretty well founded and spoken.

And in fact, we've had 2 inbound calls from some of the large hyperscalers just asking for us to demonstrate our capability and why we believe it's so distinct and how we believe it both accelerates AI adoption, but more importantly, leads to accurate deployment of solutions, which provide the targeted investments, which everyone expects to realize.

George Sutton: Just one other question for me. Rob had mentioned Q3 inflection point. I think he's referring to the Oracle year-over-year getting easier. But I'm wondering what beyond that would you view as the inflection that comes in Q3?

Ted Fernandez: Well, the Oracle one is not a small one. So it's -- and we're seeing not only does it give us -- right, you now start to see a stabilized Oracle with the platform benefits of AIX. But yes, as you know, we were trying to -- we had very tough comps all the way through Q3. And Q3 is -- if you recall, last year was a $72 million quarter. But let's call it, the comps -- if the comps extended any other areas. And by the way, this is removing value-added software sales, which you know can be lumpy and volatile. So, I'm really talking about all else.

We have some small comp then issues as we go into Q4. But what we're really saying is with some revenue growth from Q2 to Q3, our model starts to demonstrate the power, not all the way through to the bottom line. As you know, we manage this both for EPS growth, and we look at EBITDA and free cash flow very closely.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] The next question is from Jeff Martin with ROTH Capital Partners.

Ted Fernandez: Jeff?

Jeff Martin: Yes. Sorry about that. Ted, I wanted to drill down on your comments about kind of the customer approach to deploying agentic AI. It sounds like that's both a headwind and a tailwind for what you're attempting to accomplish here. Could you maybe speak to both ends of that spectrum with respect to kind of customer readiness to adopt agentic AI versus your opportunity to help them be ready and actually deploy it?

Ted Fernandez: Well, first -- let me first start by saying what I already covered that the demand for AI impact is very, very significant and continues to increase. So, you're correct. There's a positive and a negative. Clients are clearly -- clients don't like the kind of returns that they've gotten from some of their, I'll call it, technology-first initiatives. But that's because we believe they were not as strategic and did not have the necessary business context that really drive high ROI returns. So, you've got some very strong technology companies, all of them, which we hear about every single day. So, there's continuance marketing and demonstration of technology value.

So, we think that also is creating demand -- is driving demand. But again, I think that there is now increasing acknowledgment that in order to get the kind of return that people are looking for across sophisticated areas of their business, the need for detailed understanding of the workflow requirements in that solutioning and in that process is becoming increasingly critical. If that is correct, and that is what we're hearing, we believe the demand for our kind of capabilities and platforms will only increase.

Jeff Martin: And then I know that IBM is a relatively new strategic partner. Just curious what you can share anecdotally about some of the introductions that have been made and the progress you're making with those potential clients?

Ted Fernandez: Well, I mean, high level, the process started by trying to evaluate a list of over 500 existing clients and has now moved to discussions into new client opportunities. So, we're doing a lot of training, education. And yes, we're also being pulled in and asked to demonstrate the difference in our capability versus what others have brought to bear or what they bring to bear in order to further differentiate the capabilities of our firm as well as AI XPLR. We believe that those proof points continue to be very powerful.

Operator: And the next question in the queue is from Vincent Colicchio with Barrington Research.

Vincent Colicchio: Yes. Ted, given the importance of understanding context and the gap that you have with your XPLR capability versus the competition, it would appear that you've got a very substantial opportunity ahead of you. I guess my question is, is the gap narrowing? What does the competitive set look like?

Ted Fernandez: You mean competitive gap?

Vincent Colicchio: Yes.

Ted Fernandez: Look, there's innovation. We're seeing new approaches, playbooks, all of these things from many competitors. I'll go back. We think that the distinct difference in AI XPLR are foundational ones. Our ability to analyze processes at a WorkStep level, our ability to bring in automation context -- existing automation context so that clients don't spend money automating things that they already have the ability to from their existing AI investments, how that extends into data sources and how that drives to a detailed design of the agentic workflow and how -- I'm going to call it detailed and accurately we're able to do that, we still believe is a very powerful competitive advantage.

And we're going to work as hard as we can to show that capability to all, I'll call it, partners that could really help us expand our client reach. So, we believe that, that is probably -- the most important emphasis is not only to continue to innovate, but also to make sure that everyone understands the unique capabilities we have. As you know, as we were building it out, we were always concerned about competition and IP infringement and the like, but we realized we've got no time to wait.

So, we've got to go ahead and let as many people see and touch our platforms and see how that drives the kind of revenue and margin opportunity we think is available to our organization.

Vincent Colicchio: Is there anything new to report on the ServiceNow or Celonis relationships?

Ted Fernandez: The Celonis -- well, the Celonis relationship really has turned out to be a process mining marketing campaign, which we did launch in the quarter. And we're getting probably a higher response rate from our offer to those process mining users who avail themselves to AI XPLR. So, we'd like to see some of that come in, in Q2, but we think that creates a very substantial opportunity. With ServiceNow, we just got a little stuck in signing an agreement. It actually took a little longer with IBM as well and it related to the IP infringement rights that we're asking for in order to launch these initiatives and share our platform as openly as we would like.

Operator: At this time, I show no further questions. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Fernandez.

Ted Fernandez: Thank you, operator. Let me again thank everyone for participating in our first quarter earnings call. We look forward to updating everyone when we report the second quarter. Thanks again.

Operator: This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at this time.

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