Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (BR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thanks, Hunter.

So pivoting off of what Michael just said is -- are the 2- to 4-day off-sites, are they done forever? What do you think -- what are your thoughts about that, management-wise?

I think you definitely see a lot less of them. Ourselves, we're considering making more of the folks remote permanently, makes -- at least 50% of our jobs, we're considering potentially making permanently remote. And as he mentioned about those daily stand-ups, it's much shorter but are more frequent and you really stick together -- are always on the same page by that form of communication. And you realize 50-minute meetings is all you need to get your points accomplished and everyone -- to keep everyone up to date. So I think it's going to be quite a unique difference as we get back from this.

Hey, Gerard, did I say -- did I hear 15 or 5-0?

5-0.

5-0. Okay. Here's another question. This is for the whole panel, everyone can turn their microphones on and just jump in if you want. Do you notice in working now with -- through digital platforms, whether it's Teams, Webex, Zoom or whatever, that the communication is a lot more factual-driven and direct and right to the point. Gerard?

Oh, absolutely. Yes. Well, what happens is, I think it puts a focus on whatever you're delivering because every Zoom meeting, we always put -- we share the information up. And so it's important, whatever you put out there versus I think a lot of times, you're less likely in -- when you're in face-to-face meetings, people don't have agendas, people show up late. I think that's the other thing. The productivity of the meetings have gone way up because everybody is on time, we finish the meetings quicker and everyone has information prepared. And any of those sidebars that needed to happen to conclude something actually happen prior to the meeting. So I think it's a major difference.

It is.

We all need to do to win in this environment. Anyone want to jump in? Michael?

Yes, sure. Look, I completely agree with Gerard. I think the meetings are more pointed and to the point. There's less sort of small talk, which you need to complement with something else. I know in our business, what we're trying to push with the team is to make sure we're not taking a full hour of a meeting. If we need a full hour, then we're cutting it at 50 minutes because everyone's working from home. And in the office, we'd work -- walk from one conference room to the other conference room or go to grab a coffee. Now we're kind of stuck in our chair at home. So we've got to be mindful of our clients and how much of their time we're taking. So I'm seeing a lot of that in my team.

Excellent. Pat, the same thing?

Well, actually, what we're seeing -- yes, all those, but we're also seeing automation taking on even more importance, like meeting minutes, agendas, shared collaborative tools, processes for -- because we've gone to virtual events instead of live events, processes for tracking event requests that we never really had to do before. So tools have become a huge game changer for us as well. We much more form...

Thanks, Pat. What are some of the game-changing technologies that'd help you differentiate and win?

Well, we're using Zoom quite a bit, but we have really leveraged the daylights out of Teams, and Smartsheet is one that we use and we've got some own -- of our own internally built artificial intelligence tools that we're using for scheduling and caseload management. But just from the inter-office collaboration, we have embraced Teams wholeheartedly, and that's been a real valuable thing for us.

Excellent, Pat. Thanks for sharing. Sandeep, other ideas on game-changing technologies?

Absolutely, right. I mean -- before the COVID thing, our focus and emphasis clearly was on data, data analytics, especially being in an insurance and reinsurance company that deals with humongous amount of data. And more so when we're -- and being a reinsurer where we actually insure some of the insurance companies out over there, too, we have to deal with humongous amount of IoT data that's made available to us. So how do we kind of use these information available to us in a game-changing way is one of the areas where we were focusing on. Besides what Pat just mentioned about automation and data analytics, I mean, we are leveraging Watson for doing AI, machine learning for all the submission intake, claims, adjudication and all. But since the COVID thing, one of the other things where we are really ramping up and we've ramped up very quickly, but more so now, is just a year or so back, we have transitioned our entire data center off our on-prem data center to kind of in a private cloud, but now the emphasis is more towards public cloud. So that, I believe, is going to really get accelerated a lot more than what we were planning and doing. And the second is a connected workforce because I -- what we see right now is the world we operate in, and more so even within my company, we're going to make a completely 180-degree shift from having most of the workforce working in the office to probably having a very small footprint of the workforce in the office and leaning towards work from anywhere, which is going to also help us in our talent acquisition or talent-sourcing strategy, also create some other challenges, which we're trying to take into account. It's easy for us right now, since everybody's at home, to use Teams and collaboration tools and work with each other because everybody's in the same boat. But when you're -- when half your team is in the office and more than half of the team is outside the office, how do you collaborate? So there's going to be an increased emphasis around audio/video conferencing tools, Yammer. How do you embed all of these tools in your day-to-day life as well as day-to-day product? Because it's still glitchy. I mean it has worked very well. But I think the whole notion around digital workplace and connected workforce is where we're going to be focusing a lot more along with cloud.

Thanks, Sandeep. Great points. Hey, back to you, Dutt. Dutt, you're working with the Board right now. How are you working with them to convince them to spend more on innovation and technology?

Well, explaining to them real-time use cases or business use cases is something that we are doing, right? Let me give you an example, Hunter, right? If you take wealth management, we know that there is almost a $30 trillion of wealth going to change hands from baby boomers to the digital natives. So the way the baby boomers look at wealth management is very different from the way that the digital natives look at it, right? The baby boomers are used to sitting across an adviser, a wealth adviser, and look at that 6-inch of stack, which talks to them about their portfolio, their investments and et cetera, whereas a digital native would like to have that information in a Twitter like, quick tips, quick bites. Now how does the new-age digital, I mean, wealth adviser look like? A new-age wealth adviser will be a hybrid-augmented intelligence, the way I call it, right? When we say augmented or hybrid intelligence, you have human intelligence and artificial intelligence coming to this, which means I can be location-independent. I can be anywhere as a wealth adviser and provide the parameters that my potential client or customer gave me, feed it to a bot, which will do the analysis and give it to me. I'm on a collaborative environment with my client, talking to that person, chatting with a video or audio and then have the ability to, in real time, commit a transaction on the networks of trust, which is a blockchain. And then underneath, we have the data that does the analysis and gives us the scenarios to come up with a best consumer-centric or an investor-centric advice, explaining this to my Board, explaining these kind of examples to the Board makes them realize that unless you change, you transform and you evolve and start creating those componentized approach, as an organization, you perish or you will have a Kodak moment. Those are the kind of approaches that we are taking to talk to our Board, convince them and actually gain more budgets for our digital investments.

Is it working, Dutt?

It is working, yes.

Excellent. Great job. Thanks for sharing that. Hey, Gerard, are you still with us?

Yes.

When you think about your journey you've been on, you've been having probably a lot of C-suite discussions, boardroom discussions around gaining funding for new projects and initiatives. How does that story go?

Well, we've obviously changed the whole investment process to focus in on 3 road maps and one -- in customer journey, logistics and then shared services. And we put a, like I said earlier, I believe I alluded to it, put a business sponsor in charge of each one of those and pair them with an IT sponsor and we prioritize the top, whatever it may be, initiatives within each of them. We allot the funding according to the goals for that year in each of those categories and then we just go in an agile fashion, constantly going off the road map. So that has really improved our agility to get things done. And we're getting more to everybody's now talking about not getting this big project done 7 months from now. We're talking about sprint 4 or 5, 17, MVP 1, 1.2. And everybody has now gotten into it. And because there's less people and people are more collaborative, it's really, really accelerated the whole process. It's been fantastic. And I'm amazed that we can get more done with 2 of the right people than 15 people in total prior that maybe some were right, some weren't right, but just so much administrative overhead is gone. We make decisions now. We don't go through processes and wait for people to approve things. We make decisions then move.

Fascinating stuff. I'm looking forward, Gerard, to tracking your story and following you and interviewing you as this whole unfolds.

We've got a lot of good stuff coming.

Awesome.

Age of transformation. So thank you.

Very cool. Thanks for coming to the program, Gerard.

You're welcome.

Hey, Michael, a final word from you regarding leadership style over the years. You've had great recognition by both HMG and I know CIO magazine recognized you as a top Hall of Famer.

Yes, yes, definitely. It's great that we've been recognized, that the team's been recognized for the work that they've done in the digital transformation over the last sort of 3 years in our water business. It's great. I think it's important because with this pandemic, we've seen the executive team really have an aha moment in terms of those investments and having conversations around, well, if we didn't invest in that cloud-based telephony sort of IVR solution for the call center, there's no way we could have sent 9 call centers home and work from home and not drop a heartbeat. So it's been really good from that point of view, and it's great that the team get recognized for the initiatives they've delivered. And look, I'm a big believer. Your technology organization is an extension of your business, and it's got to enable your business strategy and that's what I'm trying to do with my team, just deliver the initiatives the business want us to do, help them with strategy, help them make the right decisions and then operate a platform from that point of view.

Excellent. Good stuff. Hey, comment for each of you as we close up, a comment of hope and inspiration, given this difficult time. We're only in month 4. I was speaking with Gerri Martin-Flickinger, the global CTO of Starbucks, back in February. She said, "Hunter, this isn't going to be a sprint. This is a marathon." Michael, you first, a comment of hope and inspiration.

Look, I think, like I mentioned before, we're going to take advantage of this crisis and what it means from a technology point of view. I think there's a number of businesses that have had to cut costs and SUEZ is one of those. But we're also doubling down on innovation and where we see the future going, whether it's around automation, whether continued investment in digital or the customer journey. So I think for a number of the CIOs, there's a lot more focus now on what the business wants us to deliver. Whereas a year ago, we had so many things that we were doing that we're starting to struggle and see the cracks a little bit. So I think it's a great time to be a CIO, to sit on the Board table, have a seat at the table, talk business strategy, talk how technology can enable that strategy and how we can grow the business through some of these technologies or developments that we do.

Excellent. Thanks, Michael. Pat, a quick comment on hope?

Yes. So I've got a message for CIOs, and I think Michael hit the nail on the head here. For most CIOs, operating your data center now is going to be the least of your priorities. Of course, it's got to run, but what CEOs really need from their CIO is adaptable, strategic guidance. And as Michael said, that seat at the table is going to be really critical. CIOs can be the most influential person in terms of IT purchasing decisions right now. So this is your time to shine. Look at your spending pools, make sure that the revenue on the front-end lines up with your investments and costs on the back end. So go after it now, CIOs. This is your time to really make a difference in the business.

Pat, well said. Thank you so much for coming on the program. Hey, Dutt, any final comment?

Absolutely. I feel that this is the starting of the digital age. And the transformation is here and organizations that don't transform today will probably have tough time going into tomorrow.

Thanks, Dutt. Sandeep?

Yes. Just echoing everybody else's comment. All I can say is whether you had a great experience during this COVID thing or you didn't have as an organization, as technologists and as CIOs, we all have some significant tailwind behind us. If you have had a great experience as part of this, you have so much credibility within the organization, that is going to really -- it's for us to really leverage that opportunity and lift it forward. And to Pat's point is, we are all in the driver's seat now, knowingly or unknowingly, willingly or unwillingly, and it's for you to really make the most out of it. For folks who have not had a great experience, we still have a significant tailwind because every organization now realizes the importance of technology. And the world is going to be very different post-2020 in terms of where the focus is more around distributed workforce, how you're going to manage that and technology is going to be the key driver behind that.

Sandeep, thanks so much for coming on the program. Great points. Gerard, final word? Gerard? Yes.

I'm sorry about that. Yes, I think to second what few of the members mentioned is, you really need to take advantage of this COVID. We can't -- and when we come back from it, we can't let things go back to the way they were. We really have to take all the positives that came out of it from the collaboration perspective, the focus, the prioritization and really keep that going to really give our companies an edge and efficiency that they've never seen before.

Hey, Gerard, thanks for coming on the program. Sandeep, Dutt, Pat, Michael, rock-star job. Awesome. Thanks, guys. Stay in touch. I'd love to have you all back again here soon. We're going to go...