ServiceNow, Inc. (NOW) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thanks very much for joining us for day 2 of the Wells Fargo TMT Summit. I'm Michael Turrin, Software Analyst here at Wells. We're very pleased to have ServiceNow's CFO, Gina Mastantuono with us. Phonetically work that out. Looking forward to the conversation. There's a lot of good things to talk about. And so that's it.

I'm looking forward to it. Thank you for having me.

Settle in. But I think there have been a lot of lessons learned in software over the past year. If I look back, ServiceNow middle of last year was on the earlier side in terms of companies to call out the macro crosswinds and some of the things that you talked about. And since then, the business has executed exceptionally well from our perspective. There's been a resilience factor that not all companies have found. And so I'm just wondering, lessons learned from the stress test of the past year that maybe you thought were there for ServiceNow, but now you've developed a deeper appreciation for, as a starting point.

Yes. It's a great question actually. So I think, first and foremost, ServiceNow has been and has always been a really customer-centric company. And so we're very connected to our customers and always have been. It's why we have been able to, I believe, so successfully broaden outside of IT across HR, customer creator is really because our customers took us there. And it's that relationship and that connectivity to customers that I think is a big part of our success. I also think that connectivity enabled us to see pretty early on some of the stressors, right? And the fact that we kept getting signs that deals are going to take a little bit longer, "Oh, this needs CFO approval now when before it hadn't," right? And so I think that connectivity and that customer relationship enabled us to really kind of see that a little bit earlier. I also think it helped us react really well because we were able to be super proactive in, okay, if the deals are getting elongated, what does that mean? Who needs to be in the approval process? And what can we do to help you, owner in really driving that conversation about business value, right, and value and quick time to value. And so I think that's part of I think, a really great learning in that our sales teams got really even closer to the customers and understanding, okay, what is important today, what's the value driver? What do you need to show value to be able to get that deal across the line and really making sure that we were able to articulate and help the business owner to articulate that value prop because what we're seeing, quite frankly, is you get approval really fast if you're driving cost savings, if you're driving productivity, if you're really able to articulate the value, and so value selling and understanding that has been a key part of kind of our sales organization for a long time and I think has served us well.

That's why I was smiling. Those words have close association with ServiceNow already. I'm curious as CFO, does that bring you into more of the decision-making process? Because there's -- we hear all the time now, CFOs are more cost focused. They're involved in the decision-making. There are more checks that are in place today than was the case a few years ago. So does that bring you into more of those conversations?

Well, I think in general, I'm closer to customers in my role as CFO, ServiceNow, than I've ever been before. What's unique, and I think what's been super interesting over the last 1.5 years, the sales teams are coming to me and saying, "Can you -- like how do I articulate value to a CFO?" A lot of times, they're nervous to be in front of the CFO, right? Or they're nervous to put a presentation together for the business owner to be in front of the CFO. So they come to me and say, what should we be focused on? And what should we be talking about? And so I can't tell you not that many things goodness, but there have been a couple of conversations with all my guys, this business value document that's showing hundreds of million -- like come on, let's be because the CFO is going to see right through that. What is really articulated, what is known today versus what is potential for the future? You can talk about the big number. But right -- like talk more realistically about what they're going to see in the short term, and then you'll get the CFO's attention pretty quickly.

Yes. So given that positioning and where we're in the calendar year and this ServiceNow seasonal profile in general. Can you just help characterize customer conversations currently? How is the macro still, the same level of consideration? Do you have plays in place that are more established this year than you had in years past? Just maybe start with what's coming up in conversations and how you'd characterize the macro discussion? And then we can talk about the ServiceNow piece afterwards.

Perfect. I think from a macro perspective, what I'm hearing in the ecosystem is not all roses for 2024. Now everyone wants to hear that. I know I wish I could tell you that, but that's not what I'm hearing. I'm hearing a little bit more cautious optimism about the world and the economy at large. And what IT spending will look like, which is fantastic. I do think though that the uncertainty remains. And what I'm hearing is that people are just a little bit more comfortable a year and a bit into the uncertainty than they were when it first happened, right? So 2021, everything was gangbusters, right? And so I think everyone got caught a little bit off guard and didn't know what -- how long the uncertainty would be here. I think people are a little bit more comfortable in the uncertainty and realizing that life is going on and business is going on and if they want to be successful at the -- when we come out of this, that they've got to continue to invest. And so they did the work on prioritization of spend, which took a little bit of time, and they are more comfortable now executing. All of that being said, deal cycles are still longer. I think the scrutiny on costs is here. I don't think that's going away anytime soon, even if the economy does get better, because I think everyone is demanding a little bit more discipline on the cost side and focus on profitability. And so I think that level of scrutiny remains regardless. But I do feel a little bit more cautiously optimistic that folks are going to need to continue to invest in IT. I think the -- but going back to the other part of your conversations, the conversations about Gen AI, about what productivity benefits are really going to be driven by Gen AI, I think, is real. And those, especially at the C-suite level where I'm talking to folks, those are the conversations that I'm having every single day, which I think is pretty exciting.

Okay. Before we get into -- I want to just kind of transition in a few different directions. But before we get into sort of Q4 and plays that you might have in place, having lived through this for 18 months now. Most investors were paying close attention to Q3. But if you could talk through the highlights? I think public sector strength was one thing that we were focused on and have been hearing good things about that came through pretty strongly. And then early traction with Vancouver also was quite encouraging. So maybe you can just provide some of the highlights of Q3 from your perspective. And we'll build from there.

Yes. Listen, we were super pleased with the results and the continued strong execution across the board, top line and bottom line, right? And so 24.5% revenue growth at our scale is pretty remarkable in this environment. So we were really pleased about that. Obviously, beating top line and bottom line guidance by a fair bit. CRPO 24% growth at this scale, margins at 30%. So really across the board, strong execution. A few points to note. You mentioned federal. Obviously, Q3 is a big federal quarter, but we've been calling out federal every quarter really since last Q3 as strength. And what we're seeing is public sector and federal government in general, really looking to modernize and to lean into IT investments, and they've been standardizing on the NOW platform for years. And what we're also seeing is once the U.S. Army gets really successful, then all of a sudden the U.S. Air Force starts to knock on their door, right? And so they talk to each other, clearly. And so I think the resonance and the value proposition that ServiceNow has been able to provide the federal government in the particular agencies has been really strong. And so we talked about 75% growth. I get the question, "Oh, it's going to be able to -- is it done? No, it's not done. There's so much automation that the federal government needs to continue to do. So there is no lack of continued opportunity in the federal space, but then think more broadly about public sector. Federal was the first kind of vertical we've really leaned heavily into. But state and local, we're in many states, but there's still many more we're not. If you look at public sector outside the U.S. What we've done is replicable really across the globe. And so that's a key investment area for us as you think about public sector in general going forward. So really excited about that. But there were other really cool things that happened in the quarter. So creative workflows crossed $1 billion in ACV, which was amazing. Customers right on its heels. There's a real big competition there, as you can imagine, internally. But we continue to see great results with respect to Pro adoption, which was our initial AI SKUs. We continue to see HRSD, which is our HR product doing extremely well at 100% growth in the quarter. So really great strength broad-based in the business. That's not to say that there's not some pockets that could be doing better. But really consistent execution across the board has been really remarkable. I'm super proud of the entire team.

As you should be.

I'm.

So given that, puts and takes to consider for Q4, you've executed exceptionally well for a number of quarters now. There's been this kind of bias and customer behavior towards waiting in a lot of circumstances, and I wonder how that manifests this year. But just help us think through the puts and takes that could push you in either direction with Q4? And how you're managing towards those if there are plays that you have in place this year based on us having seen this for at least 6 quarters of this kind of similar cross-wind dynamic?

Yes. I mean what I'd say is I feel really good about our guide, right? I feel as strong about the guide today as I did when I gave it. If I think about the plays, the Vancouver release and the new Gen AI SKUs, getting a ton of excitement from our customers. And so we're leaning in pretty heavily there as you would imagine. But across the board, I feel really good about the traction that we're seeing within IT, within customer, within employee and creator. And so no specific change in place. But what I can say is continuing to stay really close to that customer, understanding strategically what's important to them, what their priorities are, so we can have those conversations, making sure that we're laser focused on ROI, laser focused on value creation and time to value, super important in this market. And so we'll just continue to run those same plays.

Okay. I want to spend some time on Vancouver. You've touched on it a couple of times already. Just there were -- was it 4 deals in the course of a day or a couple of days at the end of the quarter. So that's encouraging. Our conversations with CIOs around awareness of AI enablement from ServiceNow there are encouraging. Anything you can add on early customer feedback, use cases that you think Vancouver is able to open up or just where the sort of key opportunities lie from the release?

Yes. So super excited that we literally launched on September 29, Vancouver and had 4 significant deals in the quarter on that last day. Now obviously, we were working those deals throughout the quarter. But really excited. The customer interest and the customer understanding of the Gen AI capabilities is pretty remarkable, given that they're only just released. And so if you think about what we're doing, we're being really targeted in virtual assistant and how can we assist folks in getting the right information at the right time, how are we able to really help case summarization for the IT service folks or customer service folks. And we're continuing to iterate, so even though Vancouver was just launched September 29, we've already updated with more capabilities to help augment virtual assist to really drive text to flow and text to code. And so we're excited about the applications. We're excited about the productivity that our customers are going to be able to drive. And we've actually launched the SKUs internally over the last 1.5 quarters, and the productivity gains that we're seeing, we're really excited by as well. And so I think I get the question often, well, is the uptake to the Pro Plus SKU is going to be the same as your original Pro SKUs. And I say it's super early to make that call. But if you think about the understanding about what the Gen AI capabilities are and AI, in general, in November of 2023 versus November of 2018, which is when we first launched in September of 2018, our Pro SKUs, it's night and day, right? And the excitement over it is night and day. And the C-suite focus and the C-suite strategies around how AI is going to help my business be bigger, better, faster, is pretty unique. And so I'm really excited about potential upside while it's super early days.

Yes. Appreciating there are scenarios to consider with the Excel modeling and where it shows up. You mentioned some of the productivity gains you've seen internally. We fielded a lot of questions. You field a lot of questions just around the pricing, strategy, concerns around seats and how you accommodate for productivity gains within your pricing strategy. So maybe you can help share where that....

I'm really surprised you're asking me that question. I can't believe it.

I know. I know. I assume you have a fine-tuned answer.

A fine-tuned answer. For sure. So a couple of things. So first of all, interestingly enough, when we -- when people upgrade to our Pro SKU, we actually see a 10% increase in seats because they understand and see the value and they want more people to be using it. And so historically, even like throughout we're 4.5 years in, 40% penetration with the Pro SKUs, we continue to see actually seat increases. So that's just first and foremost. Now even if you don't assume seat increases, the productivity benefits that we've been seeing and how we thought about the pricing. So I go back to, I'm a data person, right? So what did we -- we've launched Pro SKUs. We launched AI capabilities back in 2018. What did we do and what did we see? A couple of things. So we saw productivity gains expected by the task that we expected, the people using the products to be doing. And so we said, very similarly, okay, what's the value expectation? We're going to take a piece of it. We're going to give the bulk of that value to customers. And when I say a piece, 10%, 90% goes to cut -- goes to customers. We did that math back on the Pro SKU, and that was a 50% list price uplift. 4.5 years in, we have consistently throughout that 4-year period, seen an average price uplift of 25% after enterprise volume discounts, which we're all familiar with. We did the exact same thing when thinking about pricing for the Pro Plus SKUs. And so Pro 50% and then 25% price uplift, generative AI, Pro Plus SKUs. Are you surprised that we might see a little bit more value? I'm not.

Not all.

Customers are not, right? So the conversations we have with customers, okay. So the list price is going to be 60%. We don't know what the actual price uplift will be. I don't expect volume discounts to be more with Gen AI. I'm not planning on less, but I can see a path when maybe it's less. And it's the same thing. 90% of the value is going to the customer. We're keeping 10% because of all the R&D investment that needed to go into producing it and to continue to evolve it. The customer conversations have been pretty straightforward when you kind of show them that math and talk them through it. And so that's how we've been seeing it. And we've been super transparent in how we've been thinking about it with customers. And so far, the excitement is palpable. The interest is pretty significant and we're excited. We're also really excited that we were able to actually get a SKU out and launched in September when people just started talking about Gen AI, not too early -- not too much earlier. And that's really because we've been investing in AI for years and years.

Yes. That's a great answer. I mean, I think -- so I want to just spend some time on the expansion profile because I think some of your metrics have been spoiled something that we've seen 125% expansion so many times that we take it for granted. I think another thing that's often lost is you said you still see seat growth in certain situations. And a lot of this is tied to the extensibility of the platform, right? And so you're unlocking new personotypes often. And just I think investors tend to focus in on ITSM too tightly when some of these questions are framed. And so maybe you can just characterize the expansion opportunity. And one of the things that I'm thinking about is, I thought one of the most interesting slides that you presented at the Investor Day was the marquee customer slide, right? And that was simplistically in the top 200-ish customers are spending $3 billion in ACV currently, but there's a near 7x uplift potential. So I would love to hear you talk more about the expansion opportunity that you see from customers and particularly of those marquee customers. And what that could drive for ServiceNow?

Listen, I think that it's unique. And part of the success has been the incredible innovation that's come out of this company for years. And the product portfolio continues to grow. And so I'll talk in a minute about expansion outside of IT because it's a huge opportunity. But there's still a lot of opportunity even within IT, right? We talk about Pro SKU, we talk about Pro Plus SKU. Then you talk about the newer pieces of our IT portfolio, risk, security, hardware asset management, software assets like that continues to grow. So we've been able to continue to expand the total addressable market even within IT before you even talk about expansion opportunities outside of IT. And I got this question earlier in one of my investor meetings and they were like, how have you been successful because it's different buying centers, right? And so the thing about expanding outside of IT into HR or customer service, even in creator, right now, even if it's the Chief People Officer who's buying our HR product, they're not implementing by themselves, they're implementing with the IT work. And the IT work, maybe years ago, the people organization was trying to do it on their own and buying it on their own without input from IT. But gone are those days, there's too much security risk and complexity in the IT stack that the CIO in that organization is involved in all of these conversations. And in fact, oftentimes, is the one who's introducing us to the Chief People Officer or the buying persona outside of IT. And so that opportunity remains pretty remarkable because our penetration even within our customer base in those HR customer and creative workflows is very small, even though we're doing so well. And so the opportunity is really large. And then you think about the ERP workflows in some newer areas that we've been investing in opens up that aperture for a total addressable market even further. And so lots of opportunity even if you just look at our Marquee 250, which obviously is not all that we do.

Yes. Just sort of coupled with this conversation, there's also been an admirable focus on organic revenue growth from the company. So not lost in us as you're at this scale and you're delivering the growth organically. So can you just talk about, as CFO, if that changes the hurdle rate of M&A consideration, given this extensibility and the attributes of organic growth that you appreciate that investors should appreciate. What's about that?

I mean, of course, it changes the hurdle rates, right? When you're able to be so successful, driving organic growth and organic innovation at, by the way, best-in-class margins, it makes the hurdle rates for any M&A pretty high. We've been really successful in our strategy of buying tuck-in talent and capabilities and really building them into our platform. Look at our acquisition of Element AI, which was, I think, the first that I greenlit when I joined as CFO. Without that talent, we would not be anywhere near where we're today in the whole conversation we just had about Vancouver and our AI capabilities. And so that has been the strategy. I think it has served us extremely well. And certainly, it means the hurdle rate on other type of M&A is higher. But listen, I know there are some bankers in the room here, it's not like I'm not getting called all the time on looking at deals. What we have always been focused on, first and foremost, is customer value. That's 1 plus 1 equal 2. Well, that doesn't make sense. It's 1 plus 1 equal 3, well, that could be interesting. And how do we do it in a way that we're not layering on all the complexity from an acquisition onto the backs of our customers. That has always been kind of first and foremost, how we think about it as well as these high hurdle rates. And it needs to make sense from a customer value perspective as well as a shareholder value perspective.

It's a great answer. I think investors are well aligned there. In terms of customer growth, 7,700 customers is a substantial number, but at your revenue scale, it's not as substantial as some other software companies might be. You've have the advantage of focusing on enterprise, and we've talked about the marquee customers, there's still a huge opportunity there. But we're seeing companies like Workday start to move down market towards what they call medium enterprise and find good plays and competitive opportunities there. So how does ServiceNow weigh the trade-offs with continuing to go at the sort of extending the larger customer economic profile versus contemplating pressing your advantages further down market?

Well, we've always had a decent sized commercial business, right? So when we talk about our opportunity set, and I think we've talked about 50,000 customers with $100 million in revenue and 1,000 or more employees, excluding China because we're not in China as kind of the -- as the field, right? And so that's where our platform really differentiates and where we really add value. And our commercial business, which is on the smaller side of that, so think $100 million, 1,000 employees, has been growing extremely well for us and doing very well. And we will continue to focus there. I get the question you're going to go down further. That is not where we're focused right now because there's so much opportunity. We talked about 7,800 to 50,000. I don't need to go down market further than that. And to be quite honest, our platform is made for the more complex workflows that some of these small SMBs don't need to pay the higher price point for.

Yes. Okay. Switching gears to margin, another kind of spoil some attribute of the model. I get -- I'm sure you've gotten this question, how much margin expansion can there be when it's already this efficient? And this is kind of an unfair like what have you done for me lately type of question. I think one of the underappreciated comments from the Analyst Day was around your ability to maintain free cash flow margins in sort of a similar range even into fiscal '25 with becoming a cash taxpayer. So can you just walk through the mechanics of what's enabling still free cash flow margin expansion even as some of the sort of inputs are changing there?

Well, I think it's the inherent leverage that you see in the model. So 85% of our business, new business comes from existing customers, right? So from a sales and marketing, that gives you the ability to leverage. Now we've offset some of that leverage over the past several years as we've been augmenting our sales force as we go outside of IT and have more specialized sales force. And as we invest in public sector outside the U.S., for example, or new markets such as Japan and India, which aren't new to us, but we're investing at a higher rate because the opportunity and our penetration is still low and the opportunity is high. But there's inherent leverage that comes from sales and marketing. There's inherent leverage that comes from R&D because we have this incredible platform. So all of the investment in AI or RPA or process mining, all goes throughout the platform in its entirety, right? And so there's inherent leverage there. And by the way, we've also done a fair -- fairly good job about hiring in some best cost locations and not all in really high cost locations as well. So that inherent leverage has -- we invest some of it back. Don't get me wrong, but we've been able to accrete margins, both operating and free cash flow as a result of that, even when we start to become a cash taxpayer next year.

Flipping through your Investor Day slides in preparation for this. I think an area that doesn't get as much attention or focus as maybe it should is the ESG characteristics. And part of why I say that is because I'm flipping through your slides and then Thanksgiving week is happening. And everyone's talking up in arms about governance, about a certain company and the Board structure and how could we not have seen this? So I want to zoom out and when you get to a certain scale, right, like these things become important, ESG, cultural considerations, those things kind of keep you moving in a steady direction. So I'm going to give you the opportunity to just expound on that for investors who maybe aren't asking as many questions there.

Yes. I think first and foremost -- so, ESG, governance has been core to who ServiceNow is since our inception. And our product set is actually really geared towards governance in a big way within IT and now outside of IT. And so we're a software company. So security and risk is a big part of who we're and has been. And so we have an incredible Board, very diverse, very inclusive, that really thinks about ESG in a very strategic way, but it's about the why and it's about value, right? It's about the value creation. So we have customers who ESG is a big part of what they're doing. And so when they come to us with questions on their ESG for RFPs, like we got to be able to say, we do this. We do that because it's the right thing to do for business, not just the right thing to do for society. And so I as a CFO really make sure that we -- when we talk about it, we're connecting the dots, right? I want to do what's right from a social perspective. I want to -- but I want to do what's right also from a business perspective, right? And so the lens with which we drive ESG, and by the way, ESG from a strategy perspective roles under my purview as CFO, which isn't always the case. It has been really leaning towards the value creation, right? And what's the value that we can create. So we build a product around it that we can sell value creation. We talk to customers all the time who they have ESG goals that they have to hit. And working with us helps them hit that, right? And so I like to think about ESG in a holistic way and not just piecemeal because I think that's the right way to do it. And I just think it's good for business, which is why it needs to be important at the C-suite. And then the C-suite does care about it in our customers as to most investors.

It's a good answer. There is just time for a couple more, but the time flies. We don't even have the sunny skies to look at. But everything we've talked about has been relatively optimistic, and the company has executed exceptionally well. But when you're having conversations, like what are the things that executives worry about or the Board-level conversations, like what are the things that you're aiming to stay one step ahead of? Like what are the things that you worry could go wrong that you should just introduce into what's been a very upbeat conversation?

Yes. Yes. Listen, as a CFO, I'm trying to look not out at next quarter, as you all would like me to only. But I'm looking at 2, 3, 5 years down the road. And what is those growth shoots that we need to be investing in today, right? I need to be a CFO that's okay with investing for the future and not all about the bottom line. And those are the conversations that we're having with customers. They want to make sure that they are thinking ahead so that they are very well equipped for what's coming down the pike in 3 and 5 and 10 years. And so one of the things that I'm super focused on is -- and most people are is talent, right? A little bit different today than maybe 1.5 years ago. But I get the question all the time, is Gen AI going to drive these huge head count reductions? And what does that mean? And I reply, 1.5 years ago, you were worried about the talent shortages, right, that we were all going to be experiencing. Well, maybe now the talent shortages gets cut in half because Gen AI does mean that you need less people in the future. It doesn't mean that you have to cut them all today, right? And so talent strategy is something I talk and everyone is like to see it. I'm -- I spend much time with my Chief People Officer as I do with my Chief Revenue Officer because I got to think about what talent do we need to make sure that we're able to hit these growth plans that I have in place, right? So that relationship is more important than ever. So talent is something I always seem to focus on. And obviously, the uncertainty that we find ourselves, right, geopolitical economic stuff. How do we just stay a little bit ahead to maybe foresee so that you can plan and be really nimble. I'm super proud of the fact that we didn't have to do any layoffs in this environment because we stopped hiring, not stopped. We reduced our pace of hiring pretty early on, which allowed us to not have to do these layoffs. And so how can we continue to stay a little bit ahead and moderate and be able to pivot really fast so that you're not in a situation like that. So that's kind of -- it's not doom and gloom, but you're always thinking about not the worst, but you're thinking about what could happen, scenario planning so that you can really pivot very, very quickly. And I think as CFO, it's just really important to be able to do that.

Yes. It's a really good comprehensive view into your thought process. The last question that I have is just around kind of things that we should be looking at as swing factors over the next 3 years? Like things, trends that could go favorably for ServiceNow. We've talked about AI a lot. So maybe a large part of the conversation is focused on there. But we're having this conversation in a few years and ServiceNow is reaching other milestones, like what are the kind of the critical points of focus now that can enable that?

Yes. I won't talk Gen AI again because I think we have, but obviously, Gen AI, I think our investment in our ERP workflows is super interesting. And the ability to innovate around that core ERP, we've done it successfully with HR. We've done it successfully with customer. We're really excited about our procurement and AP tools and how we can do the same thing and really elevate the employee experience and the system of action without creating a whole lot of risk on that core ERP, I think is super interesting, and we're getting a lot of interest from customers across the board as well as our partners. So that's pretty interesting. And then continued innovation in our space, like HR and employee experience, there's more that we can continue to do the same thing with customer and creator. And the Gen AI capabilities in creator and the ability to text to code and text to flow. I was talking about this earlier, I don't because I'm afraid. But I could actually code these applications. It's really is that simple. And so that's pretty exciting.

You've got a lot to be excited about, one of the best CFO roles in all software.

That's what I expect for sure.

Thanks very much for spending time, Gina. I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much. Great to be here. Thank you.