Earnings Labs

Workiva Inc. (WK)

Q4 2017 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 22, 2018

$53.54

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Jessie, and I’ll be your conference operator today. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the Workiva, Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2017 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you. Adam Rogers, Director of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Adam Rogers

Analyst

Thank you and good afternoon everyone. Welcome to Workiva fourth quarter and full year 2017 earnings conference call. This afternoon we'll begin with comments from Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Matt Rizai; followed by Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Stuart Miller, and then we'll turn the call over to questions. Also on the line today are Marty Vanderploeg, President and Chief Operating Officer and Jill Klindt, Senior Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer. A replay of this call will be available until March 1. Information to access the replay is listed in today's press release which is available on our website under the Investor Relations section. As a reminder, today's conference call is also being broadcast live via webcast. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that during today's call we will be making forward-looking statements regarding future events and financial performance, including guidance for our first quarter and full fiscal year 2018. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Workiva cautions that these statements are not guarantees of future performance. All forward-looking statements made today reflect our current expectations only, and we undertake no obligation to update any statement to reflect the events that occur after this call. Please refer to the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements. Also during the course of today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of non-GAAP to GAAP measures and certain additional information are also included in today's earnings press release. And with that, we'll begin by turning the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Matt Rizai.

Matt Rizai

Analyst · Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is open

Thank you Adam and thanks to everyone for joining us today to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2017 results. We posted strong results in 2017. We are pleased to have surpassed the milestone of $200 million in annual revenue in 2017 and ended the year with more than 3000 customers. We continue to add new Wdesk users across public and private companies, state and local governments and universities and we continue to diversify our revenues sources. In 2014 non-SEC use cases represent only 25% of our subscription bookings. Non-SEC use cases are now 54% of our subscription bookings. This is a strong indicator of the success of our revenue diversification efforts and we expect this trend to continue. We continued to invest in improving our Wdesk platform and building our ecosystem to meet growing customer demand for broader based enterprise wide solutions, where we see great potential for widespread adoptions and long term growth. The power of Wdesk and the world-class service our teams provide drive our high revenue retention rate, which is among the best in the B2B SaaS sector. In 2017 we continue to augment our direct sales channel with partners. Our advisory and service partners, which include business process outsources and managed service firms, system integrators and global consultancy offer a wide range of domain and functional expertise that broadens the capabilities that Wdesk, brings scale and support to customers and prospects. In addition, our technology partners which include large and mid-sized independent software vendors enable more data and process integrations to help customers connect critical transactional systems directly to Wdesk, which becomes a central repository of trusted data with powerful linking, auditability and control features. Now I’d like to share a few examples of customer use cases that illustrate the breadth and depth of…

Stuart Miller

Analyst · Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is open

Thanks. As Matt indicated, we are pleased with our results for the fourth quarter and full year 2017, which is where I’ll begin my remarks and then I’ll comment on our first quarter and full year 2018 financial outlook and thereafter will take your questions. We generated total revenue in the fourth quarter of $54.5 million, an increase of 17.5% from Q4 2016. Breaking out revenue by reporting line item, subscription and support revenue was $45.5 million, up 18.8% from Q4 2016. 50% of the S&S revenue increase in Q4 came from new customers added in the last 12 months. The remaining half of the increase came from deeper penetration of our existing customer base. Professional services revenue was $9 million in Q4, an increase of 11.3% from the same quarter in 2016. We expect the growth rate of subscription revenue to continue to outpace the growth of services revenue in 2018. Turning to our supplemental metrics, we finished Q4 with 3,063 customers, a net increase of 291 customers from Q4, 2016, and a net increase of 72 from Q3, 2017. Our customers are passionate and loyal supporters of our solutions as demonstrated by our subscription support revenue retention rate of 96% for the month of December 2017 compared with 96.5% in September 2017 and 95.4% in December of 2016. Customers being acquired or ceasing to file SEC reports, accounted for a majority of revenue attrition, consistent with our experience to date. With add-ons our subscription and support revenue retention rate was 107.6% for the month of December 2017, compared with 108.6% in September 2017 and 107.4% in December 2016. Today we are introducing a new metric to help investors track our progress in selling larger subscriptions. Each quarter we plan to share the number of our customers with annual…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question is from Tom Roderick with Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is open.

Matt VanVliet

Analyst · Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is open

Yes, good afternoon. This is Matt VanVliet on for Tom. Thanks for taking my question.

Matt Rizai

Analyst · Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is open

Hi Tom.

Matt VanVliet

Analyst · Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is open

Hi. So I guess obviously the increased disclosure around deal size is very much welcomed and you know the growth that you’ve shown there, pretty steady and pretty impressive. But I guess my question trying to dig in a little bit more. You know you’ve added a lot of sales headcount to go after these enterprise account, but how much of the growth that we’re seeing on these deal sizes is from sort of net new customers dropping into each of these buckets versus the hunter-farmer set up that you’ve had for a few years now, really cultivating those deals larger and larger across both use case deployments and being able to cross sell additional use cases.

Matt Rizai

Analyst · Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is open

So I mean if I can deconstruct your question a little bit. I think recall that we moved to a management structure from a hunter-farmer model and I don’t think we missed a beat there. We’ve always pursued the land and expand strategy. I’d say that most of the growth that you’re seeing and the larger contracts come from deeper penetration of existing customers as opposed to new logos they are viewing at those levels. So you know once customers get in and use Wdesk, they see the productivity benefit and it makes the follow-on sale a bit easier.

Matt VanVliet

Analyst · Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is open

And then, I guess looking at your bookings performance in the second half of the year and the pipeline build, you know how much more improvement do you think you need to get to sort of where your targets are in the second half for those enterprise deals relative to you know just the extended sales cycles that those larger deals is needing to play out.

Matt Rizai

Analyst · Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is open

Can you just repeat the question, I’m sorry.

Matt VanVliet

Analyst · Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is open

Yeah, where do you guys feel like you’re at in the progress of sort of improving and building out the enterprise level sales team? Where you are now versus maybe where you think you need to be to hit the targets that you’re talking about of accelerating bookings in the second half leading to revenue growth they are making?

Matt Rizai

Analyst · Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is open

Okay, I understand now. Sorry, I missed the word sales. So we really, we think we’ve built, you know really the pieces are all in the places and we’re in the market executing on the enterprise strategy. We invested pretty heavily or happen to be investing pretty heavily in the go-to market strategy and you know as I indicated in my comments, we’re at the full run rate of those investments.

Stuart Miller

Analyst · Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is open

And we are confident with our current pipeline that I think there is really not anymore improvements to be made so to speak. It’s just that a matter of the sales cycle to take a hold of itself and the execution of that and since the deals become larger, so the sales cycle gets a little longer, but the pipeline in any case to use, that we are pretty encouraged with the current activities for the second half of this year.

Matt VanVliet

Analyst · Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is open

And then if I can slip one more in. You mentioned over 600 customers now on stocks and internal controls, you know what – where are we getting to in the point of total revenue mix of the SOX product now with all contribution?

Matt Rizai

Analyst · Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is open

So we have not broken that out historically and don’t really have any intention of doing so. You know one of the challenges there is that while the – a particular sales team may sell the application and it may get designated as SEC or SOX, the utilization of that seed after the fact is it doesn’t necessarily track the way it was sold originally there using for a lot of other things. So it might even be confusing to try to pull that information and communicated. We couldn’t be clearer in the way we do that.

Matt VanVliet

Analyst · Stifel Nicolaus. Your line is open

Okay great, thanks for taking my question.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Brian Peterson with Raymond James. Your line is open.

Brian Peterson

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

Good evening gentlemen, thanks for taking the question. So I wanted to hit on the revenue per customer dynamic a bit and I appreciate the disclosure on the bigger deals, but it looks like the subscription revenue per customer is up about 6%, 7% based on my math and you guys have the retention with up sales kind of in the 7% to 8% range. Given that we’ve seen a lot of this up sell activity to kind of these six figure deals, is there any offset in your customer mix to maybe suggest why that isn’t up in the double digits. I’m just trying to understand the moving parts there Stuart.

Stuart Miller

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

Well, remember about half of the increase in S&S is new logos and so they are not affecting with that on piece. So I mean that’s the math of it, so only half of that is coming into the second part of that equation.

Brian Peterson

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

Okay, just a question, as it relates to quotas, I know you guys said you feel that the sales team and the investments are kind of in place for success. Given these enterprise deals, like should we also expect an increase in quotas for the sales team and how should we think about efficiencies of that team into ’18 and then into ’19. Thanks guys.

Stuart Miller

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

So, as we mentioned you know we’re anticipating the enterprise strategy to be impacting bookings in the second half of the year and then showing up in revenue in 2019. So that would indicate our expectation of you know – to your question, we’re not going to discuss individual quotas, but we definitely have got teams going after larger relationships. Remember that we’re already in 70% of the fortune 500 and have got some really strong relationships there.

Brian Peterson

Analyst · Raymond James. Your line is open

Got it. Thanks Stuart.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Eric Lemus with SunTrust Robinson. Your line is open.

Eric Lemus

Analyst · SunTrust Robinson. Your line is open

Hey guys, thanks for taking the question. You know as far as I can gather from what you’re saying as far as accelerating, your investment in sales and marketing for the enterprise wide product and platform, so it safe to say that it was really unexpected that you think that your product would be ready for the market for the enterprise class pollution.

Matt Rizai

Analyst · SunTrust Robinson. Your line is open

Yes, absolutely.

Stuart Miller

Analyst · SunTrust Robinson. Your line is open

Yep.

Eric Lemus

Analyst · SunTrust Robinson. Your line is open

And so are these sales people actively selling this in the market or is it still coming on a beta type program.

Matt Rizai

Analyst · SunTrust Robinson. Your line is open

No, there is a sales department in the market right now actively engaging with customers and the necessary people to you know make sure that pipeline is strong and executable.

Eric Lemus

Analyst · SunTrust Robinson. Your line is open

Okay, great. And then just one last question on open data initiative. Are you guys still seeing any sort of tail winds in that particular aspect?

Matt Rizai

Analyst · SunTrust Robinson. Your line is open

Are you talking about the mandate from the government?

Eric Lemus

Analyst · SunTrust Robinson. Your line is open

Yes, exactly.

Matt Rizai

Analyst · SunTrust Robinson. Your line is open

You know that’s another thing that has a long tail on it and we’re starting to see some activity, but it hasn’t impacted the revenues in a material way yet.

Eric Lemus

Analyst · SunTrust Robinson. Your line is open

Okay, great. Thanks guys.

Matt Rizai

Analyst · SunTrust Robinson. Your line is open

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Michael Nemeroff with Credit Suisse. Your line is open.

Michael Nemeroff

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Your line is open

Two on for Michael, thanks for taking our questions. So just following up on Matt’s question, I believe Stuart I think you mentioned that most of the growth in the ACV by customer disclosure is driven by deeper penetration of existing customers and interestingly I believe that customer ads actually inflect it positively in 2017. So when I try and reconcile your revenue guidance within that customer add in 2017 and assume the same sort of cadence from a penetration perspective for the customers you just added, it doesn’t seem like your stemming a lot of net new customers in 2018. I guess the sort of the question is, is it just simply conservatism or am I missing something.

Stuart Miller

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Your line is open

So you are making some forecast on larger customers in 2018.

Michael Nemeroff

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Your line is open

I’m making some forecast because your net customer ads that just recently added, I’m assuming that’s at a lower ACV that the 150 K or 100 K plus ACV and if you just assume the same sort of line expense call it, it’s really easy I guess to get to your revenue guidance; that’s what I’m trying to get at.

Stuart Miller

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Your line is open

Well, I mean again I don’t think we are providing any guidance of ACVs for 2018. I mean we’ll report it every quarter, but we are not going to provide any guidance on that metrics. So I don’t what else – I don’t know what else to say, but ..

Michael Nemeroff

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Your line is open

Okay. I mean that’s fine and then on the services revenue, the $2 million unfavorable impact in Q1, how should we think about services seasonality under ASC 606 for Q2 to Q4?

Stuart Miller

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Your line is open

Yeah, it’s a fair question. So we do a fair amount of work in the fourth quarter in anticipation on delivery in Q1 and that’s why the $2 million that normally would have recognized in Q1 is not going to get recognized this time and if we continue with the same cadence, we would expect to pick up most of that or all of that in the fourth quarter later this year. So that is really – Q1 is obviously the busiest time for us, because a high percentage of our SEC customers are filing their 10-K in Q1, but there is this work that goes in Q4 in anticipation of that.

Michael Nemeroff

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Your line is open

Got it, that’s very helpful. Thanks for taking our questions.

Matt Rizai

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Your line is open

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Rob Oliver with Baird. Your line is open.

Rob Oliver

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open

Hi guys, thanks for talking my question. So on the 600 plus number count on the SOX customers that’s you know by our quick math 25% growth year-over-year, so great job. There, we were just wondering if you guys could maybe without obviously giving numbers provide a little bit of color on some of the other areas other than SOX where you are starting to have conversation and see some traction. So certainly among our coverage universe, as well as conversations we are having with companies, we are hearing a lot more interest peculating around compliance, vendor compliance, risks and controls and it seems to feed nicely into your sales. Just curious qualitatively beyond SOX and SEC of what you might be seeing. Thank you.

Matt Rizai

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open

Well, in the market palace we are seeing a lot of interest in expansion around financial reporting, that last mile financial reporting and how that fits into all the financial transformations that are talking place in the industry now, and it’s really a key piece, a way of unique functionality and so we are seeing a lot of interest in that realm. The SOX interest continues, you know SOX is a market that’s on the expense side, so it’s never given the focus that some of the other strategic stuff is, but its tracking nicely and we see activity in using our platform for a lot of the different use cases we’ve discussed before. But in the new areas we continue to see interest in providing things that really customers haven’t had in the past in terms of the features we have on the platform.

Stuart Miller

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open

And we are also seeing quite a bit of interest from the partners that we are developing relationship with through their customers and as you know these days to sell our cloud based product businesses are really looking for best-in-class of certain types of capabilities and this ecosystem of partnership, partnering with you know whether it’s the technology partner or integrators is really helping both of us, our partners as well as customers. I think that’s the new way of deploring the capabilities, the technology in to businesses, so we are pretty encouraged by that as well.

Rob Oliver

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open

Great. Thanks Matt, thanks guys.

Matt Rizai

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your final question comes from Stan Zlotsky with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Stan Zlotsky

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is open

Thank you so much for talking my question. Good afternoon gentlemen. So thank you for talking my questions. So very impressive growth on the large customer account and maybe if you can just qualitatively help us kind of get a sense for how big is this greater than 100 K ACV base as a percentage of your overall company ACV, subscription ACV?

Matt Rizai

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is open

Yeah, we certainly, we just sort of disclosed what we are going to on that and not going to roll it out. I mean we obviously have lots of customers that are quite a bit larger than that.

Stan Zlotsky

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is open

Okay, got it. So as far as us looking at these numbers and your investment plans, when – and given the large customer dynamics, right, when could we start to see revenue retention really start to take-up? Is it a matter of waiting until 2019 when the up-sell motion really starts to kick in in the back half of the year, of 2018?

Stuart Miller

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is open

Yeah, so when you say, I think you mean revenue retention with add-ons right?

Stan Zlotsky

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is open

Yes correct. I mean maybe returns to like the 110 plus range.

Stuart Miller

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is open

Yes, you know we don’t give guidance on any of those kind of measures, but you know recall what I said that we think that we will see the impact in the second half of ’18 on bookings and then in 2019 on revenue and that’s – again, this is something that’s been in the work for quite a while, working with customers and really have been driven by customer demand. This is not a build it and they will come thing.

Stan Zlotsky

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is open

Got it, understood. And then last one from me and I know you guys, you don’t like to talk about it very much, but billings and – I have to ask the question. If you look at the total billings, current billings, you know I mean if you exclude the long term differed aspect just with the current billings, current billings slowed to 2% growth year-on-year and Q4. Anything that we need to keep in mind that happened in Q4 this year that would drive just the outcome there? Thank you.

Stuart Miller

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is open

Thanks Stan. No, not really. I mean again the apples to apples comparison or sort of using billings to predict bookings is going to get a lot easier once we get substantially all of our customers on the same maturity of contract, which should be around Q1 of 2019 as I indicated as we make those conversions, we finish those off.

Stan Zlotsky

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is open

Got it, alright. Thank you.

Stuart Miller

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is open

Thank you.

Matt Rizai

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is open

In closing I want to thank you for joining us today. Operator you may now end the call.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.