Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Sangoma Investor Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Samantha Reburn, Chief Legal Officer. Please go ahead, Ms. Reburn.

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Sangoma’s second quarter fiscal 2024 investor call. We are recording the call and we’ll make it available on our website for anyone who is unable to join us live. I’m here today together with Charles Salameh, Sangoma’s Chief Executive Officer; Jeremy Wubs, Chief Operating and Marketing Officer; and Larry Stock, Chief Financial Officer, to take you through the results of the second quarter of fiscal year 2024, which ended on December 31 2023. We will discuss the press release that was distributed early today together with the company’s financial statements and MD&A, which are both available on SEDAR+, EDGAR and will be available shortly on our website. As a reminder, Sangoma reports under International Financial Reporting Standards, IFRS, and during the call we may refer to terms such as adjusted EBITDA, which is a non-IFRS measure, that is defined in our MD&A. Before we start, I’d like to remind you that statements made during the course of this call that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements regarding the company or management’s intentions, estimates, plans, expectations and strategies for the future. Because such statements deal with future events, they’re subject to various risks and uncertainties and actual results might differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are discussed in the accompanying MD&A, our annual information form and the company’s annual audited financial statements also posted on SEDAR+, EDGAR, and our website. With that, I’ll hand the call over to Charles.

Thank you, Sam, and good afternoon to everyone on the call. Your presence here is greatly valued as we discuss Sangoma's journey and its achievements. When I joined four months ago, I saw the significant potential assets at Sangoma. Given the progress we are making, I am excited now more than ever of our potential and our ability to be a market leader providing communication technologies. The vision that I laid out last quarter is now in motion, with concrete steps towards the realization of this direction. To kick things off, I'd like to highlight our fiscal second quarter performance as detailed in our recent press release. We closed our Q2 with total revenues of $62.3 million, alongside adjusted EBITDA of $10.4 million. This translates to 17% margin. This is a testament to our team's hard work and dedication, particularly over the last 120 days. Now, reflecting on our discussion from November, when I was still quite new here, we announced and embarked on a transformative 100-day plan for Sangoma. This initiative was aimed at a comprehensive reassessment of our operations, was crafted to align our strategic direction, and was intended to maximize the potential of our assets. I am thrilled to report substantial progress in our evolution into a premier, growth-oriented, cloud-based managed communications services provider. Sangoma's expansion through 11 acquisitions certainly brought a rich diversity of offerings. However, realizing the full potential of these assets requires overcoming the challenge of ineffective integration. Addressing this was the cornerstone of the 100-day plan that I'd outlined previously. Now, as we are past the initial 100 days, we have a transformative plan that is now in full execution mode. We are swiftly moving towards becoming a more dynamic and agile, client-centric organization, fully integrated to meet the evolving needs of our…

Thanks, Charles, and thank you all for joining our call today. While I've spoken to some of you since joining in September, I look forward to more collaborative engagements with the investment community in the weeks and months ahead. I'd like to start by saying that I share the excitement that you can hear in Charles' remarks. I've worked with Charles for many years, and I can't recall a time when he was this enthusiastic and energized by what's already been accomplished and what's ahead. So let's jump in and share some details on the changes we've made across the organization, starting from our go-to-market strategy and then working our way into the company. Sangoma has a long, successfully focused on selling component technologies to a broad and diverse clientele, a practice that will remain a crucial underpinning throughout our transformative stage. However, as our company achieves greater effective internal integration, it offers us the ability to bundle these components, allowing us to target more sophisticated clients and clients further along in their digital transformation journey. This ability to expand our offerings has and will prove instrumental in serving clients with more complex and rapidly expanding needs, whether that be network modernization, technology updates, or more broadly, leveraging cloud-based communications capabilities within the organization. Let me share with you a recent client win, to help illustrate how this is already bearing fruit. Recently, a statewide park department in the United States required a comprehensive solution for managing a series of parks. This client was looking for an experienced provider to take accountability for delivering and managing a full-stack technology solution, including ongoing maintenance and support. This is exactly the type of client the bundled capabilities of Sangoma can reach. Smaller vendors providing point solutions or components, they put the burden…

Great. Thanks, Jeremy, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. I'll share with you some details of our fiscal second quarter results in just a moment, but I'd first like to focus my remarks today on the strides we've made as an organization that I'm very proud of, particularly in the face of a challenging backdrop. Despite current top-line revenue trends, our financial discipline has never been stronger, as evidenced by our sequential adjusted EBITDA growth and margin expansion. But what I'm most pleased about is our balance sheet. In my tenure, it's arguably never been in better shape, with a 17% sequential increase in cash flow from operations and record high cash conversion. To help frame this, let's step back for a moment to our fiscal fourth quarter of last year, which ended on June 30, 2023. At that time, we made the prudent decision to accelerate the remaining quarterly issuances of Sangoma shares owing to the star-to-star sellers that were scheduled to continue until fiscal '26. Fast forward to this past quarter, which ended on December 31, our robust and reliable cash generation enabled us to successfully expedite the remaining tax benefit payment to the star-to-star sellers well ahead of schedule. This marked an accelerated end to Sangoma's payment obligations and balance sheet complications relating to this acquisition. These deliberate decisions reflect our dedication to simplifying the company's financial landscape by eliminating the lingering complexities. By settling this financial commitment ahead of schedule, we have strategically unburdened our balance sheet, providing us with a clear path to prioritize and fuel Sangoma's growth initiatives. From an operational standpoint, inventories remain at healthy levels, down marginally versus last quarter, and our robust and reliable cash generation has enabled us to consistently pay down debt. So how did we get…

Thank you, Larry. As you can tell by now, we have quite a bit going on, but I am thrilled to share with all of you the remarkable progress we've made against the transformation plan. These changes, while challenging and complex, are not just remedies. The pivot these changes have set into motion will enable Sangoma to remain the market leader in providing outstanding service to our existing and growing SMB customers while at the same time opening meaningful new opportunities within the adjacent mid-market. Throughout this process, our leadership team has left no stone unturned and as this transformation across people, product, marketing, financials begin to take shape, I am extremely excited by what lies ahead for us. I'd like to close by extending my absolute gratitude to our employees, our customers, our partners, and our investors for your unwavering support and confidence in Sangoma's direction. With that, Operator, please open the call to all questions.

We will now begin the analyst question and answer session. [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Max Ingram with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Hi, good evening. This is Max on for Rob Young at Canaccord. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe just three quick ones for me, starting with first, gross margins were strong this quarter, better than the last couple of quarters. Just digging into the drivers there, is that primarily a result of mix or is there some pricing in there? Any color would be helpful.

So, Max, yes, this is Larry. Most of that is driven by the mix. Services revenue was 81% this quarter and that drives a lot of that. What I can tell you, though, is that what we're seeing for both services and product, they both had fairly consistent overall margin profiles this year and mix really drives that change that we've seen this quarter. Okay, that's helpful. And then secondly, during the transformational period, and it sounds like the priorities for cash, I think you had said, are going to be officially released next quarter. But my question there was, it sounds like M&A right now isn't, or at least last quarter, it didn't seem like it was going to be a priority going forward. So I was wondering if there's anything you can share on how you're thinking about using the cash that's going to go towards debt pay down or anything else you'd like to do with it?

Yes, you know, the transformation, obviously, is a longer process for us. We're kind of right in the middle of it. You know, as CEO of my job, it's clearly a focus on delivering healthy and sustainable profitable growth. Building the cash reserve, strengthening the balance sheet gives us lots of optionality. And we're right now, now that we understand the position of the company and its financial strength and we're attended, we're going to be sharing with you some of our capital allocation strategies as we go into the next quarter call. We just need some time to really look at all the options that are now available to us more than we've ever had before. And we want to make sure we're thoughtful about it and we will be communicating that to you in Q3.

Okay, thanks. That makes a lot of sense. And then quickly, last question is, last quarter you discussed a focus on reinvigorating the brand of the company, not just to partners, but to the end customers. I was wondering if you can add any additional color and what strategies you're employing there and then I'll pass the line. Thanks.

Yes, for us, it's really critical that the end customer has a clear understanding of the value proposition of Sangoma. I think historically, we've left it to our partners to communicate that to the end customer. Obviously, our focus continues to be very much on partners, partners as our route to market. But we're making investments around communicating to our end customers whether that's through events, normal go-to-market activities, how we're going to go make sure our end customers have a good view and create that poll in through the partners. Jeremy, as the marketing officer, also responsible for our go-to-market, that's really critical for us to help drive sustainable growth on a go-forward basis.

And I'll just add to you, we just brought Maria on Board, our new Head of Marketing, who's had tremendous experience in the brand revitalization programs. She's here now and that's the whole idea, to push that brand to our end customers, make our brand relevant to the industry that they're focusing on and really get this pull strategy going. So part of that management restructure that I spoke about, Maria's addition was specifically focused on that particular item.

That's really helpful. Thanks very much.

You're welcome. Thank you. Thanks for your question.

The next question comes from David Kwan with TD Securities. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. I just want to clarify the services revenues that declined this quarter sequentially. And I think you talked about the impact of the transformation as it relates to the go-to-market strategy. Was that just general disruption because of all these changes that you were making or is there something else going on? I know in the past, it was a wholesale SIP trunking business. I don't know if that had come back again or if it was just all the disruption from all the changes you guys are doing right now?

Yes, thanks for the question, David. No, nothing structurally from that point of view at all. It's really the change in the go-to-market as we initiate that and where we are on the transformational journey. The revenue is solid and strong and that's evident throughout how it impacts the balance sheet and throughout the P&L. So nothing other than that at this point.

Okay, that's helpful. And the guidance, it seems to imply I think maybe mid-single-digit type growth in services revenue. Is that kind of make sense from how you guys are looking at it? How should we be looking at it going forward? I know in the past, there was a target of getting to 10% annual growth. Is that still a realistic target maybe a year out from now?

Well, you know, David, we've issued guidance for the remainder of '24, which we've reinstituted here. We're ready to pivot more towards that revenue growth that we see in the business. As we get closer to the end of '24 and get into '25, we'll share some guidance really at that time with respect to how we see that moving. As you know, we do expect a bit of a lag from the time we implement this new go-to-market strategy and when we see the revenue. But make no mistake, our long-term priority is still consistent growth in San Gomez revenue with absolutely that emphasis on services revenue quarter-over-quarter.

That's helpful. The last one, also related to the guidance, I guess, it seems like it implies a continued decline in the product revenue. Is that more a macro geopolitical that you guys have talked about, that kind of an issue? Or are you guys maybe de-emphasizing that part of the business?

Certainly, the global economic conditions, interest rates, shipping interruptions, and other uncertainty, absolutely plays a role from that perspective. And we do see somewhat of a conservative approach by customers in terms of how they look at CapEx. However, I think if you look and you see where we're guiding from what we're seeing today, that's our visibility as it is right now and I would expect that to continue throughout the rest of the fiscal year.

I'm going to add a couple of comments on that. Product revenue, obviously, it runs through not only macroeconomic issues but seasonality as well, customer buying periods and things of that nature. But the main message I would give you, David, is there's no moving away from that as our business. Part of the value proposition of San Gomez, as I've said many, many times, is locked in the value of the bundle. The bundle includes the components and endpoints and products that our customers require for the full-stack solution. We see that as an incredible value differentiation to any other player in the marketplace. The product business is as important as the services business to us. We'll continue to be driven as part of the overall go-to-market transformation. As Jeremy told you, I told all of you, that the historical view of the company was traditionally selling the components mostly on their own, primarily because of some of the processes. All of this transformation that we're doing is to enable us to put these components together. One of those components happens to be product. And our clients are pulling product in as part of the overall services bundle and the full managed offering that we provide. So it's just as important, will continue to be as important, and is a clear differentiator in what sets us apart from your traditional UCAS-type player in the marketplace.

That's helpful. Thank you very much, guys.

Yes, it does. Thank you.

The next question comes from Gavin Fairweather with Cormark Securities. Please go ahead.

Hey, Gavin.

Hi, this is actually Graham on for Gavin. Gavin's just traveling.

Hey, Graham on for Gavin.

I was hoping you could give a bit more color on the timeline of the AI product development. Maybe if you just give some rough guidance, that'd be helpful.

Yes, no problem. A number of those capabilities actually just came into market in January for our contact center solutions. And then the rest you're going to see over February and March. So, you know, I'd say we started in November, started to get the technology in the lab, started to test it with some clients, and now we're releasing in January, February, March. So you're going to see it pretty much across the product lines on our UCAS platform. You're going to see some new capabilities due in March around AI embedded in some of our security offerings. Pretty comprehensive and across the portfolio.

One thing I would add to that as well, just on one of Jeremy's key deliverables, particularly in his first couple of months that he's been here, was a recognition that the second pillar of our brand strategy is innovation. I talked about innovation support, a strong, broad ecosystem of partners and some of the best talents in the industry. That first pillar of innovation needed to be nurtured and triaged, which Jeremy had done now by building a Sangoma Innovation Center of Excellence. That Center of Excellence will continue to produce innovative new products and features on a very regular cadence, as you heard in his opening remarks. So this is not a one-time thing with the first tranche, which Jeremy just talked about in January, a second tranche coming in March. It'll be a consistent theme so that we can consistently meet the very changing needs of the small and medium business market and, again, create the differentiated value that we bring to the market that others don't. So that is going to be something you'll see not just on a time band, but a consistent approach almost every quarter, where we'll be launching new features and functionalities that continue to enhance our brand. So I just wanted to reassure you that this is not something I'm doing one time as a company. That is the brand of the company, and that will continue to be a cadence for us on a going forward basis.

That's helpful. Thanks. And just to sort of get some clarity on that, how is the early demand for those solutions? Are you guys looking to kind of upsell customers on those? Are you going to start trying to maybe lead a bit more of your AI solutions? Any clarity on that would be great.

Yes, I would say it's a combination. So your customers buy the higher-end packages, and it comes with some of the more advanced transcription capabilities or other AI capabilities built in. And as a strategy, some of these, I'd say, similar capabilities are available in very expensive enterprise solutions. So our strategy is to take the very practical things that we know are of interest and high demand in the SMB market and build them into the kind of tiering of our offering. So it's kind of back to what I talked about earlier, which is getting enterprise-like capabilities at affordable prices. And not AI for the sake of AI, but AI for the sake of practical things that really benefit businesses that are in that segment.

That's great. Thanks. And then just moving to the channel, how is the optimization of the channel partners progressing?

It's progressing very well. I mean, one of the things you have to understand as part of the transformational program of Sangoma is that we were made up of 11 companies. And those 11 companies were to some degree bifurcated by the acquisition that they were in. And so our idea now is to bring some of these partners together, bring our enablement of our solutions to those partners, to kind of create the optimized channel that we're looking for. And that allows us to segment our partners better, understand the various needs of our partners based on their customer base and the agents that they serve. All of that is coming along quite nicely. I've had multiple discussions with our top partners at various senior levels. They are excited about the changes we're making in the company. They're excited about what they can do with us and the sort of new Sangoma approach. And we're going to have a very -- and you're going to see more, we'll talk more about this as we embark further into the go-to-market transformation about how we're going to actually segment our partners and how our go-to-market approach will be quite bespoke to the various partner segments to ensure optimization is at its highest level by partner segments. So more to come on this. We're just really getting into the go-to-market component of the transformative plan. And I'll share more with you guys in Q3 and Q4 and how that's evolving. That's a great question.

That's great. Thanks. And then just the last one for me before I pass the line. Kind of the midpoint of the guidance implies EBITDA margin coming up to just over 17%. So I'm looking at that, right? Can you just talk about how you expect the cadence of that to progress over the second half of the year? Is that just pretty much all from the cost efficiencies that you guys have been putting in? Is there some -- yes. If you could just maybe give a bit more color on how that ramps would be great.

Sure. You know, it's really a combination of things. So the revenue mix for sure from the margin perspective. And then the cost savings initiatives that have just begun, as you've seen in the progression from Q1 to Q2 for us on the OpEx line, continue as we get into Q3 and then to Q4. So it will progress as we get through the year, you know, evenly as we put those in place.

Thanks. I'll pass the line.

The next question comes from Mike Lattimore with Northland Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi. This is Vijay Devar for Mike Lattimore. I've got a couple of questions. One on the sales cycle. If you could comment on how the sales cycle is coming along for bundles.

Sorry, the question is how are the sales cycles coming along?

For the bundles.

That's a great question. I'd say increasingly, as we've done a better job of packaging the integrated offers, we've seen that kind of a reduction in the sales cycle for the bundles. I'd say that, kind of that being said, back to what Charles was commenting earlier about the partners and the partner ecosystem. You know, we still have some work to do to figure out, hey, what are the right bundles for which partners to, you know, because the partners themselves are a key part of that cycle. So I'd say, you know, exciting progress to see so far. But we've got more to come as we optimize and figure out the best way to manage and grow through our partner ecosystem.

Yes, I mean, I would tell you that the first 120 days that I've been here, and certainly Jeremy as well, our focus has been on some of the key operational components which we've been speaking about and getting those things really fine-tuned inside the company. Because of that, the outcome of that will be a much more efficient bundle offering because one of the issues that we had during the transformation was actually integrating all the components. Now that the components are integrated, now we can actually produce them at a much faster rate. And the analogy I'll give you is we had a whole lot of ingredients in the kitchen. And what we did today is build the right kitchen to put those ingredients together far more efficiently. And that's certainly where we're at right now. We're in the point now of being able to measure the sales cycles on these bundles. But, you know, we're 120 days in and we're just beginning to see that process. So more data in Q3 and Q4. I have noted that question and we'll kind of let you know how that's going with some real metrics on that as we go into Q3 and Q4. Is that fair?

Sure. Yes, that's quite interesting. And maybe one more if I can. On collections and bad debt, do you see them declining as you make this transformative plan?

Collections and bad debt are declining.

Yes, so we're very pleased with our AR and how quickly we turned AR into cash. That's evident, you know, with the cash position that we have and how quickly we turn it. There's nothing of any concern that I have relative to the AR base. We're not seeing any issues currently with anything economic that's driving anything down. Yes, no, certainly not, nothing like that.

Great. Thank you.

You're welcome.

This concludes the question and answer session and today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.