International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

So good morning, everyone. Welcome to the third day of our Communacopia conference. I hope everyone has found the last 2 days as productive. My name is Nick Pomponi, and we're thrilled to have with us John Granger, who's the SVP of IBM Consulting. And let's just jump right into it.

John, for the folks that may not have spent time with you in the past, maybe you can spend a couple of minutes just on your background and a little bit about IBM Consulting.

Yes. So look, I mean let's start with IBM Consulting. We're a big consulting player, 150,000 professionals across the world. Revenue is approaching $20 billion. And within the IBM family, we're about 1/3 of IBM's revenue but nearly 2/3 of IBM's people. So we're an important part of IBM, but more importantly, an important part of the marketplace. We serve major clients across the world, all industries and proud to have done so. Our heritage, just to talk a little bit about me, I mean, we grew out of IBM's acquisition of PwC Consulting in 2002. That's where I started. I was a partner in PwC, along with -- and along with quite a few other ex-PwC Consulting people who still form the backbone, if you will, of our IBM Consulting capability even 20 years later. So I've worked across the world, as you would imagine. I've worked -- I ran our consulting business in the U.K. Then, in Northern Europe. I was lucky enough to spend some time in Madrid. They asked me to do the applications business within IBM Consulting. So I went to live in Bangalore for 2 years, which was a good gig. And then I've lived in the States, and now I'm back in the U.K. But as you know, IBM Consulting has enjoyed a good run recently. And so we're excited about what's in front of us.

That's great. Well, I want to first start around IBM's strategy. So IBM is focused on hybrid cloud and AI, emphasizing sustainable growth. So can you talk a little bit more about your view of IBM's strategy and the changes that have been made under Arvind over the last couple of years? And then talk a little bit -- tie that to how consulting fits in with that strategy.

Okay. So look, I mean, I think Arvind's strategy is very clear for IBM. It's to deliver transformation using the preeminent technologies of our time, hybrid cloud and AI. And what Arvind has done with our company is therefore to simplify it. I mean, we all know that infrastructure management didn't -- and infrastructure services didn't fit into that strategy. So he spun off Kyndryl. And so now we have a company that's simplified and focused on the delivery of that transformation using those technologies. So we, in IBM Consulting, we're tasked with delivering that transformation. Our colleagues in IBM technology are focused on the products, hardware and software that are going to enable those technologies. And so along with simplifying our company and bringing that focus, I mean, I think the other thing that Arvind has done, and if I was to characterize how IBM is different today than it was, say, 2 or 3 years ago, is we are a much more open company. I mean Arvind is very clear that if our technologies and services are to be widely adopted and to be pervasive, then we need to embrace the ecosystem. So we're a company that's very open. And so a simplified company around that strategy of delivering transformation using hybrid cloud and AI and a more open company, leveraging the ecosystem. And that's our strategy in a nutshell. And in terms then of where we fit into that, then I think -- I mean, obviously, we're tasked with the main mission of delivering the transformation. That's our role within IBM Consulting. But I also feel very strongly that we draw a lot of our differentiation in IBM Consulting from being a part of IBM. When we're up against the Accenture and so on, and we are looking for some of the most complicated and biggest pieces of work for end-to-end process transformation on a global scale, being part of IBM, having IBM's financial heft, having the technical depth that IBM has behind us, that's a really important part of our differentiation. So we draw a lot from being part of IBM. But also, we -- you asked how we support Arvind's strategy. I mean we have big businesses around IBM's technology, in particular, our Red Hat practice. Although we don't know the size of our various competitors, our Red Hat colleagues tell us that our practice is twice as big as our nearest competitor. It's the biggest in the world. We've had $6 billion worth of signings for Red Hat. And we have 18 practices supporting IBM technology. So we draw a lot from being able to bring IBM technology to market. But equally, we lead the charge within IBM in helping Arvind for IBM to be open. So from a consulting point of view, we've got very strong partnerships with AWS, with Azure, with Salesforce, with Adobe and an awful lot of our work is driven through those partners.

Yes. No, that makes a lot of sense. And so consulting within the technology space has seen a lot of demand over the last few years in the market. How do you view the growth that IBM Consulting has been able to deliver as a result of the demand changes versus the changes that you've made or the changes that have come to the business over the last 2 years from Arvind's strategy?

So look, I mean, from a consulting point of view, we've been very focused, I guess, on two value pools. The one is cloud, which we see growing 10% over the next 3 or 4 years as a value pool. And similarly, intelligent workflows, we see that growing 8% over a similar period. And then a real focus on where those two overlap in spaces like application modernization, the improvement of mission-critical processes using supply chains, using S/4HANA or what have you. So we've seen a lot of opportunity there. And obviously, the pandemic and its aftermath has been really important, I think, in two ways. I mean, obviously, there's been all this pent-up demand that people talk about. But what people don't think about as much is that clients have hollowed out a lot of their transformation capabilities. So they're looking for execution vehicles and execution partners like ourselves to help them get this stuff done. And as I think we're all familiar, I mean, the key areas that we're looking at are -- or clients are looking at is customer transformation after the pandemic. I mean they're now in these virtual relationships, how do they keep them going, supply chain and then, of course, the talent issue. So in that context, then I mean, Nick, I mean, there's been a lot of stuff going on and the whole industry has benefited. But when I think about us, look, I mean, we've had now 5 quarters of consecutive growth, 4 quarters of consecutive double-digit growth. Our constant currency growth in the second quarter was 18%, which is strong compared to the rest of the pack. So we do think there are some things that we're also doing right in this environment that's helping us along. And I guess, I'd point to two things. One is, I think we've got a very clear strategy in IBM Consulting. So we organize ourselves around two growth platforms. So the first is journey to cloud. So application modernization, migration and then management on cloud. So that aligns to that value pool. And then because journeys are less exciting than what you do when you get there, the other growth platform is business transformation services. That's where our BPO is, our data and AI capability, really where our intelligent workflows are. And across both of those, as I said earlier, really leveraging our strategic partnerships with other technology providers. So on the one hand, we've got a good strategy. And on the other hand and the last point really for me, we have been really, really relentlessly focused on how we make this growth happen. And you can imagine being in IBM, that there's a blizzard of stuff coming at you all the time. So one of the things that we did is to say, okay, we're in a consulting business. We're going to bring a sort of consulting mindset, a programmatic execution to the things that are really important about growth. And I would characterize it then as focusing more and more on less and less. So we sort of like five things that we would really double down on. The one, of course, is talent, and we've grown our business in the last 18 months. We've grown nearly 50,000 in the IBM family. That's double-digit growth in terms of the number of people, but it's just not the quantum. It's also skills. Really doubling down on skills and certifications with these partners, which I believe is a leading indicator of revenue growth. Acquisitions. We've made 12 in the last 18 months or so, and that's built up our skills. We stay very focused on that. Brand. After the spin-off of Kyndryl, we reintroduced ourselves to the market, and we've had a year now of pushing ourselves as IBM Consulting, and being very clear that we do strategy, experience, technology operations. We were previously global business services. It's been ambiguous as to what that is. There's no -- I mean there's no debate about IBM Consulting. It does what it says on the tin. And then we've had some very strong differentiation about the way we work and in particular, around something we call Garage where we work with our clients to co-create, to co-execute, to cooperate in order to really work with them in order to bring things forward that we find very differentiating. So I do think that the clarity of our IBM Consulting strategy and the sort of relentless focus on a few things that we've determined are going to make our -- are really going to ensure our growth. That's why we believe we've been able to take advantage of the broad currents that are clearly there.

Yes. Well, let's talk a little bit about that first strategy. You mentioned the journey to the cloud. So with an increased number of workloads that are moving to the cloud, what are some of the main challenges that you're seeing your clients go through from your perspective and how IBM Consulting is supporting them through that journey?

Yes. Look, I mean this comes to the essence of why Arvind's picked out for us to focus on hybrid cloud. Because if you think about the enterprise clients that IBM serves, the one thing that holds it all together, if you like, is they're all running mission-critical operations. So in financial services, in health care, in government and what have you, I mean, this is at the center of it. And so for these clients, in particular, it's not going to be possible for them to make a quick hop to the public cloud. And as we all know, 70% of workloads haven't gone to the cloud yet. And the problems are obviously data security, the cost of some of the applications and how would you move them to the cloud, the complexity of doing that. So clearly, for these clients, a hybrid cloud answer is the way to go, something that allows them to have their applications, their micro-services across multiple environments, traditional on-prem, private clouds, multiple public clouds. And we've demonstrated the work that we've done with McKinsey that for our clients, 2.5x more value in that answer than the public cloud alone. So then you say, okay, so what are you going to do about it? And that's really where Arvind's strategy comes in because you then need a hybrid cloud platform, a platform that spans these separate -- all these different environments, a single integrated fabric that allows you to have a single security pane. And most importantly, allows you to build your applications once to deploy them anywhere, to skill your operations teams and there's loads of pressure on talent at the moment, so you don't want lots of different churches building up around a different cloud, so you can skill them in one platform. So you can skill people once, deploy them anywhere. And then most importantly, you can innovate anywhere with anyone's technology because on the Red Hat stat, as you're aware, we are Red Hat OpenShift on AWS. As your Red Hat OpenShift, so you can actually access all of these clouds. And so that platform, I think, is the critical thing that is enabling our clients to take advantage of hybrid cloud. And then, so from a product point of view, IBM can bring that platform to bear. Where we support from a consulting perspective is we've got all the skills to help clients take advantage of that because most of -- 97% have already got more than one cloud. More clouds are coming in. The risk here is that what's happening is your piling clouds on clouds in an unstructured way. So we do a lot of consulting work around getting that architecture right, getting the operations set up appropriately for security and indeed, the financial management, which is becoming quite interesting now as people discover that they're over-provisioned in different clouds and how do you actually ensure that your economic cloud management is really working.

Yes. No, that makes a lot of sense. Let's spend now a couple of minutes on that second pillar of the intelligent workflows, really around data and AI specifically. So talk to us a little bit about how you're helping your clients unlock the value of their data, how you're helping them leverage AI and really using that as a competitive advantage.

Yes. Look, so -- I mean, AI is huge. I mean we all know about the explosions of data growth. All of our clients agree that AI is going to bring huge advantage. But it's still -- many of them have not yet really taken advantage of that. And to the value pool that we've been talking about, intelligent workflows is really about how you take clients' basic processes and apply that AI to it and then see the productivity and performance advantages that come from it. I mean we have a very big capability within IBM Consulting in the AI space. We've got nearly 25,000 professionals dedicated solely to AI. About 1/5 of those are certified in clouds. We're recognized as a leader by Forrester and IDC in this space. And I think really when we talk to clients, we think about AI in sort of three buckets. There's how you can use AI to interact, so with digital virtual assistance. What's in virtual assistant? You can ensure that you have interactions in contact centers and so on and so forth that we do with -- particularly with financial institutions, where you're looking at the resolution levels of -- in the 90s and NPS scores, Net Promoter Scores, that are above 80, and 80 is world class. So there's that interaction pillar that I think is really important. There's using AI to think. So we talk about interacting and then to think. So how do you use AI at scale, for example, in a financial services institution to look at loans, loan books and how do you use AI to help your employees decide how long they should have that loan conversation, how they should look at that loan promise, whether you should go with it. And again, I mean, we see significant productivity and opportunity in that. One of our clients, we generated $200 million worth of improvement in their loan book through using that AI at scale to actually think and assess their loan book. And then there's what we call sort of see, which is the document extraction. So work with the Veterans Administration, for example, where you have to go through millions of insurance documents and pull the data from them. We can see about 93% accuracy there, and that really frees up, from a productivity point of view, lots and lots of people. So see, think, interact, those are the sorts of pillars that we talk to our clients about and it makes a huge difference in cycle times, in productivity. And obviously, as we see all this pressure at the moment around skills and labor forces, I mean, this is just going to become more and more important.

Yes. In your example, financial services and the Veterans Administration, it reminds me that IBM Consulting is really known for its deep vertical industry expertise. So what is the role that industry plays in how you develop your practices to meet the client demand?

So look, I mean, we see industries as a really important part of our differentiation. We see our differentiation in sort of three buckets. I mean, the one is being differentiated as being part of IBM, and I've talked a little bit about that. One is being differentiated about the way we work, and I talked a little bit about that in terms of Garage. But the third differentiation is really about the depth of our understanding of our clients. And obviously, we have a huge application management business, which means we have a big incumbency. But you're not relevant to clients unless you really understand the issues that they have in their industry. So we organize our whole business around the industry. So on a global basis and within each of the markets that we operate, we operate by sectors and by industry, and that's how we run our business. Everybody has to have a skill. So I'm a supply chain consultant in financial services. So you have to have that tagging, if you will, so that you understand industry. And then, of course, we have a central group that are responsible for our thought leadership, the development of our solutions and interacting with some of the particular ISVs, Thought Machine, for example, who are very focused on a certain industry. So we're very, very conscious that we need to maintain our orientation in that regard. And then the other big dimension for us is just industry solutions. So when you're working with partners -- and that's something that we've been alluding to. But when you're working with partners, they really want you to build out what is the particular industry solution that you are going to work with your partners on. We've been very good about -- with SAP over the years in building out solutions in retail and CPG and so on and so forth. And now working with the cloud service providers, where we're looking at those different use cases that -- where we can offer an almost unique solution, industry based with a cloud service partner, and then drive some sort of premium pricing around that. So industry is absolutely at the heart of our differentiation, how we organize and how we think about our business.

Yes. You mentioned partnership. Let's talk a little bit more about that. Can you spend a few minutes talking about the strategic partners and how those partnerships are part of your key growth strategy and how you just perceive the value of those strategic partnerships?

So look, I mean, I think the value is straightforward. I mean our philosophy is we have to meet our clients where they are. So -- I mean, the first thing is you can't be relevant to clients unless you've got that capability with partners who are making those choices about the transformation and the technology they want to use in that transformation. I think the second point for the business is -- and in running the business, I think the broader set of market-leading strategic partnerships that you have, the more your business is diversified and is robust against upturns and downturns in the sense that you're hooked to what's really hot within the marketplace. So I think it's a very important business strategy as well. And I guess there are a number of things that we have done in order to really build that up. And with Arvind's blessing and -- to ensure that we take our place within the ecosystem. The one is we've really strengthened our alliance organization. I mean this is a small point, but you have to treat each of your strategic partners almost as you would treat clients with a white glove treatment. You have to become friends with them. You have to develop trust and so on. So we put a lot of effort into that building of personal relationships. Secondly, we've done a lot around skills. So I think for most of our strategic partners, we're in the top 3 in terms of the number of skills that we've built up. So Microsoft, for example, last year, we did 23,000, I think, certifications. They told us that was a record. No other SI had done that number in a year. We've got 38,000 for SAP. We've got 15,000 for AWS. We're in the top 3 for them. We've got 7,500 for Salesforce and so on. Why this is important? Why being in the top 3 is so important is -- I mean, number one, you have to have the skills to do this stuff. But also, it's a leading indicator, as I said earlier, for revenue because if you know that you've got more skills and capabilities than your competition, then I think that, that should reinforce your confidence that you're going to grow that business. And then the third and the last thing is just around the acquisitions. So Arvind's been very strong on ensuring that we have the capability to make acquisitions. And so our acquisitions have been sort of focused on two things. The one on this sort of cloud and business transformation, these two pillars, but also how do we build up skills within that, that help us with these strategic partnerships. So you look at Neudesic and that's the big -- one of the biggest or the biggest, I should say, Microsoft shop still standing in North America, so that's very important to us. We bought Nordcloud in Europe that had competencies and capabilities for AWS, GCP and Azure. We bought a small player in Australia. We bought Taos in North America, which, again, competencies across those cloud players. For Salesforce, we bought Waeg in Europe and 7Summits in North America. So we've also used that acquisition strategy to reinforce because it kickstarts in there. I mean, what happens is you bring in these people who've got these certifications, they've got a lot of good relationships with these strategic partners, and then you can use that momentum to really move it forward. So those three things are really what we've been doing. And then you come back to -- I mean, the next step for us is really industry solutions that we talked about, which is how we really build those up.

Yes. So you talked a lot about just sort of the partnerships building on other platforms or other technologies. Maybe spend a moment talking about where you're seeing the demand to help clients deploy IBM's technology.

Well, so look, I mean that's widespread, yes? And -- but I think the areas of focus for us are particularly, as I said earlier, around the Red Hat technology, so over $6 billion worth of signings since we made that acquisition for us in IBM Consulting. And that's a really good part of the business, and that helps us to reinforce IBM's strategic goals. There are other areas like mainframe modernization, for example, where the mainframe is enjoying a really good run at the moment, and clients are seeing the opportunity to put mainframe at the center of their cloud strategy and they look at how IBM Consulting can help them to modernize the mainframe and to actually ensure that it remains central to what they do. New areas that are coming in, like sustainability. So IBM bought a product called Envizi recently, which is a really good environmental dashboard, and that's helping us with our sustainability business. So we have about 18 practices across the piece where we support IBM. And we're their #1 system integrator channel partner. But a really, really important point here, I think, is that we've -- Arvind's always been clear, this is part of the open piece that -- I mean, we in IBM Consulting have always had the philosophy of client first, but with a point of view. And what that means is you have to meet your clients where they are. I mean, we're -- and so if a client has already made a technology decision, then you roll with it. And it's more important, and I alluded to this earlier, to build up that intimacy and that trust with the client than it is to try and force them to make a technology choice that they don't want to make. And obviously, if you build that trust, then later on, you can come back and ask them to look again at IBM technology, if it's the right thing for them to do. So client first, but with a point of view. So if they haven't made a choice, then obviously, we'd put IBM technology in front of them. But the key for us as consultants is if we're going to be trusted, we've got to be independent. So we can't push something that clients don't want. And so that's -- so we are client first, in that sense. And it works the other way around in the sense that our technology colleagues, of course, often work with different SI partners. Because if a client has chosen a different SI partner, our technology colleagues can't say, well, actually, no, no, no. You need to work with IBM Consulting. If they've got a great relationship with an Accenture or Deloitte or a Capgemini, then you have to respect that. And that's part of the open thing that Arvind's really been pushing.

Yes. Yes. No, that makes sense. I now want to shift gears a little bit and let's pull out and spend a moment talking about the macro environment. I mean do you expect the recessionary fears and the volatility in the market to have an impact on the demand profile you're currently seeing in consulting?

Well, if I knew the answer to that, I'd be a genius. I mean, I think -- look, I mean, the first thing to say is, clearly, we're as vulnerable as anybody else is to what may happen on a geographic basis. And clearly, it's possible that economic conditions in Western Europe, for example, may turn out to be more challenging than elsewhere. But so far, we've not seen any significant slackening of demand. And I think when you look at the challenges that clients are facing, and we talked about the customer transformation challenges, the supply chain challenges, particularly the talent challenges where wage inflation and so on is really making clients think about where they get skilled and how that fits into their cost model, I do think that we may see that technology and IT spending are seen in this next economic cycle as being completely central to how clients solve the problems that are at the top of their list rather than discretionary. And so consequently, I think we may see that tech and IT spending runs in front of GDP. And it really is seen as essential and not as discretionary. And therefore, demand may hold up. Now that may mean that the growth moderates. I mean we've been growing at 18% constant currency and our medium-term model is high single digit. And so I mean, we may see it fall back into that space. But I think there's a possibility that we may see a slightly different way that the economic cycle plays out.

Right. So you sort of mentioned sustainability around the demand may moderate a little bit. You also mentioned the talent challenges. So maybe we spend a moment just on how that impacts IBM Consulting. How have some of the labor dynamics, including wage inflation that you talked about, impacted IBM Consulting specifically and your abilities to continue to hire?

Yes. Look, I mean, we've seen the same challenges that everybody else has. And so we have put a lot of effort into hiring. I mean, I talked about how much we've grown the IBM family -- or the IBM Consulting family. And I mean, we've -- we're up to nearly -- we're beyond 150,000 now. I mean, that's been a very significant addition of people, and it's come at some cost. And that's -- and those investments are why we've admitted that we've probably had an impact of 1.5 points on our margins in order to be able to do that. And so we are working really hard on that. We're really -- we're working really hard on, as everybody is, in making sure that our retention is appropriate and that we're really thinking through our pyramids and our structures. On top of that, I guess there's just two things that may differentiate how we think about our labor challenges. The one is we're really big on what the softer attractions are about working for IBM and for IBM Consulting. I mean I think IBM has always been distinguished as an organization that has a mission and a purpose, and our values are very important to us. So dedication to every client's success, innovation for ourselves and for the world, trust and personal responsibility in all relationships. I mean all at IBM is, I think -- see those things as being very important. So we work very hard in consulting to talk about what it's like to be part of IBM, what our mission is, what our purpose is and how that culture supports us. And we've worked on that further with some things that we call IBM Consulting Way Habits that are also then saying, how do we want to work within IBM Consulting, which includes our -- embracing diverse perspectives, learning with endless curiosity, delivering with impact, building client trust and so on and so forth. So really thinking about not just the hard financials, but also how are we going to engage people to create that stickiness. And then the other thing is coming back -- I mean the other differentiation, I think, is coming back to the -- what we're talking about at AI. We do take our own medicine in this regard, and we're actually using quite a lot of AI to try and think about how we can improve our retention. So for example, on my learning play, which is how we do all of our training, sort of operates on a -- like a Netflix basis. So you do some training and courses, and then it recommends to you all the other training that you should do that's relevant to that and so on and so forth. And we use the AI to identify how we should distribute our pay most effectively and so on and so forth. So I think that focus on values and that use of AI are some things that we're trying to use, in addition to all the tools that everybody else is, the traditional tools to try and make sure that we're really on top of that skills challenge.

Yes. And maybe spend a moment tying that together when you think about sort of the automation that you're bringing to your clients. Talk about then how you're trying to bring some of that automation, that same journey that you're helping focus on, internally to help make IBM Consulting more efficient?

Yes. So look, I mean, I think the main thing we focus on now in -- or the main things in automation is firstly, that intelligent automation that we talked about earlier about how do you apply AI to business processes, so I won't rehearse that, but also then starting now to get into really hybrid workforces. So how do you actually take and build out a strong portfolio of digital workers. So not just looking at process activity, but how can you actually think about getting a set of software solutions that focuses on a job role skill set so that you actually can have a digital worker who is really fulfilling an entire role. And that's where we're starting to move with all of this now in terms of a hybrid workforce that combines the humans with the digital workers. And we've developed over 1,500 of these now. And a lot of them came through with the extreme automation that we have been applying within IBM across finance, HR, supply chain, and we're taking those to our clients. So we're excited about that and about how you can really start to bring that into play, particularly because as I alluded to earlier, clients at the moment are really focused on how do I manage this talent piece when I've got skill shortages and wage inflation and therefore, digital workers and how that plays in is very important. But I think it's part also of how -- of what it is to be part of IBM that we do sort of approach that with a very distinct ethical point of view. I mean, we want to make sure wherever possible that our technology is going to augment human beings rather than just replace them. I think secondly, we want to make sure that our AI is really trustworthy. So we're acutely conscious about bias and about how you preserve your commitment to diversity in the way that the AI operates. And then thirdly, we've always taken the stance that the data that comes through AI belongs to the client. It doesn't belong to us. So we don't actually package it up, anonymize it and then play it out and monetize it for somebody else's advantage. If we pick up through our automation vast amounts of that data, then that belongs to the client, that it was good enough to let us access it. It's not something that's now sort of transferred to us. So I think we try and do all this automation on an ethical basis. And again, that goes back then to how we're trying to hang on to our people is to be really clear about how we operate and the values with which we move our business forward.

Yes. That makes a lot of sense. I do want to spend the last several minutes -- you've done a lot over the last 2 years in terms of aligning IBM Consulting with the strategy that Arvind has put in place. As you kind of sit back and reflect on all those actions and the progress that you've made, what are the things that you are most excited about? What are the things that you're most looking forward to over the next 3 to 5 years?

So -- I mean I am really, really excited about the progress we've made. I mean I hope some of that's come through. I mean the clarity that Arvind has brought to our strategy, the way he's organized and aligned our company around that, and then I'm truly excited about the progress that we've made. I've talked about our results, but of course, IBM's results have been pretty good with and without Kyndryl, in terms of the growth that we've been able to post. And we've got success around -- we talked about that hybrid cloud platform. Over 4,000 of our clients have now adopted it. So that's really getting traction within the marketplace. So I'm excited about the fact that we're well lined up, that we're getting results. And I guess, Nick, what I'm really excited about is it's really great to see clients, analysts, the marketplace, looking at IBM anew. I mean, there's really a sense that we're on the move. And I've been doing recently a number of sessions with government clients, and you've done these. You get a session set up with government clients, and they tell you the A team's coming and you get the D team because they're all too busy doing something else. Well, the last 3 or 4 government sessions that I've had, they promised the A team and we've got the A team. And to me, that's a small indication of the fact that clients are really recognizing that what IBM is bringing to them in terms of value, in terms of the transformation, in terms of the technology that we're focusing on, is truly relevant. And so I think that's really exciting and augurs well for the future.

Yes. That's great. Well, fantastic, and congratulations and good luck with everything that you all are continuing to do. I want to make sure that I keep everyone in the room on time and on schedule. So -- and I see we're out of time. So I think we'll call it there. So John, thank you so much for spending the last 30, 40 minutes with us and taking us through everything.

Thanks very much.

Appreciate it.

I enjoyed it.

Thank you.

Thank you.