Tieto Oyj ($TIETO)

Good morning, and welcome to Tieto's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Webcast. My name is Tommi Jarvenpaa, the Head of Investor Relations at Tieto. In Q1, we delivered strong profitability and solid performance in software businesses. This morning, we will present our financial results for the quarter and provide an update on the progress of the strategy execution. After the presentation, we will open the line for questions. With me here are our CEO, Endre Rangnes; and CFO, Tomi Hyrylainen. And now I will hand over to Endre. Go ahead.

Thank you, Tommi, and welcome then to Tieto's Q1 2026 presentation. I will say that we have clearly been through an eventful quarter with execution of our 4 strategic priorities and then also coupled with the market development. And as part of this, we clearly see strong momentum from the rapid adoption of AI across the line. And at Tieto, we regard this as a clear opportunity. AI is an integral part of all our businesses and is already helping us create value and to drive efficiency. In Q1, we again see the effects of the cost efficiency program implemented last year. So I will say also despite the challenging market conditions, we have improved the profitability by more than 4 percentage points if we look at Q1 '26 versus Q1 '25. So we continue to move forward towards our 2028 strategic ambitions and goals, which was also communicated in connection with Capital Markets Day. I would also remind you about our strategy. So our ambition is to become a European software and Tech Consulting market leader within selected industries and niches. And then we are executing this through 4 main strategic priorities: number one, customers first; second one, simplified core; thirdly, selective expansion internationally; and then number four, a competitive cost base to position us for the future. Then we have also set out clear ambitions in terms of financial targets, so to be more than 5% growth CAGR '27, '28 and then about 16% margin by end of 2028, and we are tracking towards these targets still. So let's see how we are progressing then on these priorities in practice. So let's start off with number one. And I would say, overall, the execution is continuing across all the 4 main areas. And importantly, we are making tangible progress. And it starts with the market and with the customers. So during Q1, we have been focused on making the organization more customer-oriented and then commercially sharper. And this is visible now in how we are strengthening client governance and sales, and we are already seeing this reflected in increased AI-related demand from customers and the backlog buildup is happening. Also reminding us about the announcement last week, the Microsoft partnership is also quite important for us and will contribute to strengthening our market position going forward. And at the same time, we are simplifying the company to improve focus and scalability. So the divestments we have announced and completed are about freeing up capital and also management attention and capacity. So while the harmonization of the Tech Consulting operating model is a key enabler for scaling our business more efficiently going forward, we continue to expand selectively also in Europe from a kind of growth point of view. These are very targeted moves. We see clear opportunities going forward. Iberia is a good example where our acquisition end of last year, beginning of this year created an entry point, and we are now building on that with 2 new signings in Q1, O2 Madrilena and then FORVIA. And similarly, we see Indtech's moves in the U.K. and Denmark reflects also expansion in areas where we have attractive opportunities. At the same time, we are actively managing our cost base, while we are making good progress on our savings, we have also today announced additional actions in Tech Consulting to adjust to the current market environment and to ensure competitiveness going forward. So overall, this is about disciplined execution across all levers, strengthening the commercial side, simplifying the structure and then investing selectively in the different markets and then adjusting the cost base going forward. And then AI is for sure, reshaping the tech industry. And understandably, there is a question in the market around disruption, who benefits and who are at risk. Our view is that the impact is not uniform. In fact, AI tends to benefit vendors that are deeply embedded into customers' core operations through local presence and that manage business-critical data and operate in regulated environments where security, industry expertise and long-term relationships are essential. So in other words, the parts of the market where customer relationships matters, where data is sensitive and our systems are mission-critical, those are structurally more resilient to disruption. And this is exactly where Tieto is positioned. We have a strong foundation with deep presence in vertical software through high regulatory requirements, a large installed base, long-term customer relationships and our software and services are already embedded in core processes. And again, AI is not something that is new for us. It's already integrated into our products, deliveries and modernization work, and we continue, of course, to invest in this area. Our position is also supported by what we see in the market. According to our Nordic AI survey, which we completed in February, organizations are now clearly moving from experiments to production with around 1/3 of the participants in the survey already using AI actively. And at the same time, the biggest barriers are security, skills and governance areas where customers typically rely on trusted partners. For us, this is not about theory. AI is already embedded across our operations and offerings. We have AI tooling in all our software units with multiple tools in place. We have also a very advanced AI innovation center in Bangalore that is not going to be replicated to other geos. And we are also using AI in areas such as sales, business development and automation of internal processes. This is also visible in concrete customer and business use cases. So for example, in Banktech, we are already embedding Agentic AI into core solutions such as lending, ATM, financial crime prevention. In Caretech, we have moved from proof of concept to production in several solutions in Lifecare, such as Lifecare Smart Notes, which is a kind of AI-assisted documentation solution that helps health care and social care professionals to create high-quality notes using speech or text. Last week, we took a further concrete step to accelerate this through the strategic partnership with Microsoft. And together, we are moving AI from pilots to production at scale and building also capabilities across 5,000 consultants within our Tech Consulting business. So overall, we absolutely see AI as an opportunity to strengthen our role in the value chain and also increase our relevance in the years ahead. Let me then summarize the key highlights from Q1. Overall, we delivered strong profitability and solid performance within our software businesses. Then I must also say that I'm not satisfied with the revenue at minus 3%. However, it's also important to note that this includes around 2 percentage points of expected headwinds from legacy runoffs in Banktech and Caretech. Adjusting for these effects, the underlying growth in our software businesses remained healthy. At the same time, the weak market environment in Tech Consulting continues also to impact the overall growth. On profitability, we saw a strong improvement with adjusted EBITA increasing by over 4 percentage points year-over-year to 14.7%, and this is driven by our cost optimization program as well as strong margins in the software businesses. So then given the continued softness in the Tech Consulting market, we have also initiated additional cost actions to ensure competitiveness going forward. And as mentioned earlier, our strategic transformation continues, including large-scale AI capability buildup and then strengthening of the key partnerships like we saw with Orange, like you have seen also with Microsoft, and there's more to come. So overall, while the market environment remains mixed, we are improving profitability, continuing to execute our strategy. And as communicated in connection with Capital Markets Day, we regard 2026 as a year of transition for Tieto. As mentioned, underlying growth in our software businesses was healthy and profitability clearly improved during the quarter. In addition to that, let me highlight a few other points. So first of all, the leverage improved significantly and is now at 1.3x, supported by the completion of the Bekk Consulting divestment and also reflecting a strong balance sheet position. Secondly, our order backlog continued to grow. It's up 8% year-over-year, providing good visibility going forward. And it's also important to understand that we delivered a very high order intake in Q1 of 2025. And despite that, we are up 8%. And then finally, cash flow from operations was solid. If you compare like-for-like, we are actually up 9%. The number that you can see to the right includes last year, including Tech Services and then Bekk Consulting. So like-for-like, up 9%. So I would say that overall, alongside the profitability improvements, we are also strengthening our financial position and maintaining good forward visibility. Let's then have a look at the 4 different business units, starting off with Tech Consulting. And I would say that the market environment in Tech Consulting has remained weak, we have recently seen that increased geopolitical uncertainty has continued to delay decisions and the overall demand remains soft. I think I read this new article this morning from BCG. I think the kind of geopolitical picture is impacting a lot of different industries. And we can also see that this is reflected in our performance. Growth was somewhat below our internal initial expectations for the quarter and lower activity levels have also then impact utilization, which again has impacted the profitability. So based on this, we have taken additional actions to protect profitability. This includes targeted capacity adjustments in the delivery side, ensuring that we remain competitive while aligning with current demand levels. At the same time, we are ensuring simplification and strong execution going forward. So as part of this, we have also made a leadership change in the business. So Johan Nygaard, who previously led our Indtech business is taking over the leadership. This is to maintain momentum in execution while we initiate a broader search for a permanent leader. And while the short-term market remains a bit challenging, our long-term transformation continues, including strengthening our AI capabilities and partnerships as discussed earlier. So based on actions initiated, we have a good reason to believe that we will improve the relative performance already in Q2 2026. Furthermore, we see that AI is well visible in our agreements during the quarter. So for example, our partnership with Park Holidays is focused on AI-enabled enhancement, helping them improve customer-facing digital platforms. We have also helped one of our clients Offshore Qualific with enhanced end-user functionality through AI. So AI is used on the supplier portal for qualification and follow-up of suppliers within Energy and Utility sector. So again, overall, we are adapting to the market conditions while continuing to drive the transformation of the Tech Consulting business. Moving then to Banktech. And here, we continue to see good momentum. Profitability was strong during the quarter and underlying growth remains solid. So reported organic growth was impacted by a legacy contract runoff communicated earlier, which reduced the growth by approximately 5 percentage points. At the same time, the quarter included a one-off positive impact from a customer contract also resulting in a kind of 2-year extension of that specific contract. But adjusting for these items, underlying growth is around 3%, which we see as a solid performance in the quarter. Profitability clearly improved 17.3%, supported by our cost optimization measures initiated last year, and we are now operating at a strong margin level within Banktech. In addition to this, our order backlog remains strong, providing good long-term visibility, '27, '28 based on also signings back in 2025 and now during Q1 of this year. So this is absolutely visible in the backlog, and we have concluded also several agreements during the quarter. We entered into a strategic partnership with Danish BEC Financial Technologies. Our modern cash management solution will provide large corporate customers with real-time visibility of the liquidity. We also entered into a multi-year agreement with Sparebanken on the development of a new mortgage solution. So this solution is built on modern technology, real-time data that will automate assessments, decisions and process flows, of course, enabled by AI and also micro services components as part of this, which make it a kind of open industry standard solution to be also resalable. So overall, Banktech continues to deliver stable growth, strong profitability and a good forward visibility. Looking then at Caretech, we continue to see strong and stable performance. As in Banktech, reported organic growth is impacted by legacy business decline, which is washed out when we come into 2027, but which is also reducing the growth by around 5 percentage points in Q1. Adjusting for this, underlying organic growth is around plus 3% like in Banktech, which we see as a solid level. Profitability, as you can see, 26% margin is a very strong number, also improvement year-over-year. And during Q1, we also saw strong order intake supporting future growth. Importantly, we continue to develop our offerings with AI-enabled solutions. So for example, AI is already being used across the Care pathway from data capture, imaging to clinical decision support and risk prediction, helping them improve both efficiency and quality of care. On agreements, we have made good progress across the Nordic countries. So during the quarter, we signed a significant agreement with City of Stockholm to deliver Lifecare solutions for municipalities and welfare services. So agreement is valid for up to 13 years. Our solutions then offer support in daily operations, enabling efficient workflows across the entire care process from planning, follow-up to documentation and the mobile work. In Norway, we deliver a Lifecare workforce planner solution to Nittedal municipality, providing a modern resource management system to support workforce planning across the municipality. So overall, Caretech continues to deliver stable growth, very strong profitability, and I would say, a good momentum going forward. Then finally, in Indtech, we continue to see solid overall performance. Growth was 2% for the quarter, and it's worth noting that this includes clear negative impact from our Pulp, Paper and Fibre segment, absolutely also part of the geopolitical picture where the customers' activity has slowed due to the current situation. So with then also projects being postponed globally. So this alone is around 2 percentage points negative effect for Indtech impacting then the overall growth. Excluding this, the rest of the businesses are performing well with solid growth across most areas. Profitability again improved further and remains at good solid levels, supported by both the momentum of what we did last year in terms of cost efficiency, but also the top line growth, of course. So from a strategic perspective, the highlight in the quarter was the expansion of our Multichannel and BIX offerings into the U.K. market, which is an important step in scaling the business. At the same time, the order backlog remains healthy, supporting forward visibility. And as mentioned earlier, we have also announced the divestment of Edlevo & HR & Payroll businesses, which is closed -- expected to be closed in Q2 of this year. So we have also strengthened our position in the Danish public sector. We were selected by Denmark National Bank to deliver an electronic case and documentation management system based on our Public 360 solution. Furthermore, Butterfield Bank chose Tieto's Multichannel to consolidate document distribution and then this bank is a full service bank and wealth manager operating across Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Jersey, the Bahamas, Switzerland and Singapore and the U.K. So with our platform, Butterfield will consolidate document distribution across digital and physical channels. Overall, Indtech continues to perform well, solid underlying growth and good strategic progress. So Tomi, that leaves us with the CFO report.

Thank you, Endre, and good morning, everyone. So Q1 highlights were significant profitability uplift in accordance with our plan and solid performance in our software businesses. Group overall growth was impacted by known legacy contract runoffs and continued weak market demand in Tech Consulting, as mentioned. Our profitability improvement of 4.1% compared to prior year was driven mainly by our successful cost optimization program, which aims for a significant EUR 50 million cost base reset. Good to note that we continue to compare against prior year with IFRS5 cost burden, which accounted for 1.8 percentage points of the improvement. Our onetime items for Q1 were positive by EUR 15 million, impacted by gain on sale from BEKK divestment of EUR 20 million. Full year one-time item expectation is unchanged at 1.5% of revenues, excluding the capital gains. Other Q1 highlights would be our strong cash flow and continued solid order backlog with 8% year-on-year improvement. Our EUR 150 million share buyback program, which returns BEKK sales proceeds to our shareholders is ahead of the original time line, and we expect to finalize that early September. As mentioned, we delivered strong operating cash flow of EUR 85 million in Q1. Our net working capital decrease of EUR 14 million was seasonal. This is resulting primarily from the prepayments received in the beginning of the year. Note that Q1 '25, so prior year cash flow includes contribution from the divested businesses as the cash flows are not restated for prior periods. On a comparable basis, our Q1 operating cash flow has improved approximately 9% compared to prior year. We also delivered strong free cash flow of $202 million, which included net cash proceeds of $147 million from the BEKK divestment. As discussed already in our Q4 report, our net debt to EBITDA improved significantly and was 1.3x at the end of Q1. Main reason for the improvement is the BEKK divestment with divestment proceeds decreasing the net debt and the gain on disposal increasing the EBITDA. During the year, when we execute the share buyback program, our leverage will gradually increase. And on a fully adjusted basis, our leverage at the end of Q1 is already at targeted level, so slightly below 2x when we consider the impact of the BEKK divestment, completion of our share buyback program and the IFRS5 cost burden impact. Then a few words on our cost optimization program, where we have reached EUR 105 million run rate savings by end of Q1, and we are fully on track to deliver the full EUR 130 million run rate savings by end of 2026. As communicated earlier, this program aims for a permanent cost base reset of approximately EUR 50 million while mitigating the cost burden from Tech Services divestment and reducing the overcapacity in the Consulting business primarily. Our estimate of the onetime costs from the program are unchanged with EUR 55 million to EUR 60 million, of which we have incurred EUR 46 million by end of Q1. On employee matters, LTM attrition remained at low levels being 7.6% at the end of Q1. This reflects the soft market environment. During the quarter, our net personnel reduction was 800 FTEs, of which 430 FTEs relate to M&A activities, namely BEKK divestment and Tieto Iberia acquisition. Overall personnel reduction year-on-year amounts to approximately 14%. We expect group salary inflation for the year to be between 3% and 4% compared to 4% in '25. The lower inflation expectation reflects the overall softer market environment. Next, some outlook remarks for Q2 '26. On growth, we expect group revenue growth to improve from Q1 levels. Tech Consulting will continue to be impacted by weak demand across all markets. We expect growth nevertheless, to improve from Q1, but still to remain negative. The improvement is primarily driven by easier comparables. Banktech continues to be impacted by legacy contract runoff impact of 6%, which is an increase of 1 percentage point from Q1. However, revenue growth is supported by continued underlying growth in the software businesses. Caretech continues also to be impacted by legacy contract runoffs by negative 5 percentage points, which is at the same level as Q1. However, revenues are supported by continued underlying growth in the modern software portfolio. Indtech growth continues to be supported by strong order backlog. On profit remarks, cost optimization program contributes to profit improvement across the whole company. Consistent with prior year, our annual salary increases take effect in April. On other remarks, there is only a minor impact from the working days. Then as usual, Q2 profitability outlook per business. We expect Tech Consulting, Banktech and Indtech to be above prior year profitability level and Caretech to be at or above prior year. As the year 2026 includes some specific headwinds, we created this table in Q4 to help everyone to navigate the growth dynamics of 2026 on a quarterly basis. The outlook for the year remains unchanged in terms of the growth dynamics, and we continue to believe on neutral growth momentum for Tech Consulting in Q4. To note, Caretech legacy runoff impact in Q1 was 5% instead of the estimated 6%, which we have adjusted in this table. Remaining of the year is unchanged. In summary, these specific headwinds amount to negative 3 percentage points at group level and are fully accounted for in our guidance, which remains unchanged. Now back to you, Endre.

Thank you, Tomi. And then summarizing then the quarter, Tech Consulting performance was slightly behind our expectations. However, we have taken good progress with transformation and then also taking new actions to ensure a future competitive cost base. Secondly, our software businesses are delivering according to plan, and I would say actually slightly ahead. Thirdly, we have a good order backlog build in the quarter, giving high visibility going forward. Number four, leverage is at a healthy level. And number five, we delivered a very good cash flow in the quarter. So I would say that our focus remains unchanged. We keep focused on execution of strategic priorities where direction is clear. So with that, we should open for the Q&A. And Tommi, I don't know if you have got any questions so far.

Yes, we have.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Daniel Djurberg from Handelsbanken.

Thanks for the detail and good work on transformation. I have a question on Banktech. Looking at your current customer installed base and annual exposure, do you have any knowledge or should we expect any more of the additional legacy extensions in the remaining part of '26 similar to what you saw here in Q1?

I would say that on the negative side, we have the one main contract that was terminated end of August of '25, which gives now this 5 headwind or minus 5 percentage points in the quarter. That will be ended in the year comparison, as we all understand, and when it comes to end of August this year. When it comes to the kind of one-off effect related to that specific contract, we also have the kind of 2 years or extension of that contract, which also gives us an order backlog buildup. So I don't know if that's kind of answering your question.

I guess it's hard to be more detailed. May I ask you on Tech Consulting on the continuous work there with up to 500 employees. Can you comment a little bit on early days, I guess, but regions involved, will you also be in U.S. with the MentorMate and will that also include some divestments or similar on such as MentorMate?

I would say that this will be more or less equally divided between offshore and nearshore. And then it's based, of course, on who are on the bench in which geos. So that's the deciding factor. So 1/3, like you saw in the Q1 presentation, 1/3 of this is related to already announced reductions of SG&A. 1/3 is related to people on the bench, which is, I would say, equally divided more or less between the different geos. And then the last 1/3 is related to one specific client where we are in a transition from one geo to another geo, and we had to carry part of that cost as part of the transition.

Okay. Fair enough. And also, if I may ask you on the solid order backlog, up 8% for the group. You commented that you have a strong backlog in Banktech and good order intake in Caretech but no real comments on Indtech in terms of backlog or order intake. Is it a big deviation within Indtech? Or can you give any more color would be good.

Of course, we have the different business units or the entities that we have with Indtech. But I would rather say that we didn't comment specifically related to Indtech, but we have for second half, a very solid backlog based on signings that we did in Q4 last year for elements that has not yet been put into production. There's a ramp-up period for some of these contracts. So we have high level of comfort in terms of delivering on the guidance for all the software entities based on the visibility we have on the backlog. I think it's also quite important to factor in when we look at the different quarters, Q1 is traditionally the weakest quarter. Then second half is also traditionally a better half compared to first half. So I think -- I mean, that is also why we keep the guidance levels when you look at both top line and the profitability. This is basically based on the visibility that we have in terms of the backlog. I would also say that we have good early signs of the results from what they have invested into in terms of sales. So that's part of the explanation why we have the backlog buildup, and we can also clearly see this in the CRM measurements that we have now at a quite close monitoring going forward.

The next question comes from Felix Henriksson from Nordea.

I have 3. I can take them all individually. It seems like in Tech Consulting, there are additional cost savings on the table beyond the current program from the new headcount reductions as well as the Orange capacity agreement. Can you quantify these by any means in terms of monetary value? Or is there a reason why you choose not to do so?

Can you be more specific?

He was talking about the monetary value effect of the 500 reductions because -- like I said, 1/3 is already factored into the cost saving program that we have announced and then the 2/3 was related then to people on the bench and then 1/3 related to one specific client where we have a transition from one geo to another geo where we have already built up 150 people approximately in the new geo. The reason why we're taking that 1/3 of the 500 is that we have to take the cost of the reductions in the one geo transferring to the next geo. But the monetary effect of this, Tomi?

Well, I would probably break it into these elements. So this SG&A is part of this EUR 50 million cost base resets, which I have commented and also the -- how it's intended to be visible in our P&L. So EUR 15 million was visible in '25, incremental, EUR 25 million visible in '26 and the remaining EUR 10 million in '27. This is how the skew of the cost base reset will be in our P&L. So that 1/3 is embedded in that and all the OTIs are also in our OTI 1.5% guidance. The second one is taking out the bench from Tech Consulting. And of course, that's a 1:1 because these people are now not contributing to revenue. So that's kind of a 1:1 of the 1/3. Then the remaining 1/3 is more of a shift from other geo to the other. So yes, there is no revenue implication per se and the cost implication works similarly to the bench, what we take out because we need to pay some of this cost ourselves.

Okay. And the capacity agreement with Orange, is that a meaningful savings contributor as well?

Absolutely, it is.

There are 2 factors into the Orange deal. First of all, we are transitioning from different vendors into a consolidated environment of Orange, which will give cost reductions when we come into '27. So there is very, very limited effects of this in '26. The second part of the strategic partnership with Orange is that in order to do the expansion internationally, the selective expansion that we have announced, we also need a strong infrastructure partner. Orange being a global player, that's a quite important thing for us then to have that in the different delivery structures that we have going forward, of course, in addition to what we have done now with Microsoft in terms of also public cloud Azure, et cetera. So we have several partners playing on this. So there are 2 angles of Orange. One is kind of cost reductions. One is the revenue growth.

Got it. And also on the Microsoft deal, it seems like correct me if I'm wrong, but this is kind of a way for you to make the Consulting business more productized as an implementation partner and less dependent on time and materials-based billing. So is that the correct way to think about it? And are there other similar deals in the pipeline with other vendors?

Yes. I think this is actually spot on, and we have been quite transparent on this before that part of the market growth has been clearly related to application development and maintenance and not necessarily time and material. We have been too heavy on time and material. That's why we have been through in all this transitioning within Tech Consulting, of course, still ongoing. And this is also quite important. When we look at the ecosystem of Microsoft, that's a big part of the IT spending. That's a big part of application development and maintenance and also handling then, I would say, the infrastructure management towards public or private cloud. So it's a quite fundamental shift. We're talking about 5,000 people that we go through upskilling eventually during '26 and '27, also to become, like you say, to become more relevant in terms of where is the market demand.

Got it. And then final one for me. You mentioned the low leverage, and you also have these 2 divestments in Indtech closing soon. Would you consider upsizing the existing buyback program after that? Or are there any other ways to sort of act with that additional capital?

Yes. We need to go back to what we communicated on the Capital Markets Day. We have a clear capital allocation principle and not yet decided what we will do with the surplus from that sale. But we have also communicated that with surplus capital that will be delivered back to the shareholders, if it's dividend, extraordinary dividend or share buyback, that will be decided when we come to the closing of those 2 deals, expected to happen first half of June this year, and then there is a Board decision what to do. And we will, of course, communicate it immediately after having kind of closed that deal, what we will do with that surplus.

The next question comes from Sami Sarkamies from Danske Bank Markets.

Okay. I have 2 topics. We'll take this one by one. Continuing on Tech Consulting. You're clearly not happy with Q1 results as you're doing these leadership changes and announced new cost programs. Can you help us to understand what part of the sort of disappointment is market related and what is related to your own actions that you can improve during the rest of the year?

So first of all, I think this is spot on. And I would say that like we are seeing now on the cost measures, 1/3 is related to people on the bench, and that is partly explained by the geopolitical picture. It's partly explained by the kind of supply, demand and supply in the market that we are not necessarily 100% relevant. And that is also why we announced this Microsoft upscale structure. When it comes then to looking forward and based on the cost measures now taken and also previously announced related to the 1/3 SG&A, which is 1/3 of the 500, we are quite comfortable that we have seen the bottom of the fall in Tech Consulting and that we will deliver according to the plan rest of the year. And the reason for saying that, that we have pretty good visibility on Q2. We need also to keep in mind that a relative performance, we had weak Q2, Q3 and Q4 in 2025. So based on the transformations that we have been through, based on the cost initiatives that we have been through, based on also then the upskilling that we do, we are now seeing that Tech Consulting is tractioning towards what we have communicated in connection with Capital Markets Day.

Okay. And then second question related to Tech Consulting. Just trying to understand that how much lower your capacity will be, let's say, during the second half of the year once you have implemented all these actions relative to the starting position in first half last year?

If you're talking about upskilling, is that your question or the effect on the upskilling?

No, like delivery capacity like FTEs.

Yes. So I would say that we have now come to the FTE level where we can start also then performing at a higher utilization rate. Then, of course, implementation of this upskilling of 5,000 people, like I said, that will happen gradually. It's not going to be in one big chunk. This will happen gradually during 2026 and 2027, not necessarily impacting the top line. So this is a quite important thing that we need to -- we have a very thorough plan now geo by geo, skill level by skill level, how to execute on this going forward. It will be a combination, of course, of some weekend training, some evening training, some on-the-job training, et cetera. But the important thing here is that the different 8 geos that we have, they need to be accountable and responsible for the implementation and execution of this. It doesn't help that group headquarter is driving this. This needs to be driven by the different geos. Any comments, Tomi?

No. So what we now today released as the reductions, this is accounted for now as what we commented on the Tech Consulting of stabilizing growth momentum towards the end of the year. So of course, we size this to the way that our utilization is at reasonable levels.

Okay. And then I have a final detailed question for Tomi. Just to clarify, sort of EUR 4 million onetime item you booked at Banktech in Q1 related to this contract renewal that was visible in both sales and adjusted EBITDA. And when we think ahead, there's not going to be like a change to the run rate of this agreement?

Yes, that's correct.

Correct. That's correct. The only change is that we got 2 years extension of the contract. That's the change.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Deepshikha Agarwal from Goldman Sachs.

Just I had like 2 basically. First one on the margin trajectory. Clearly, this quarter was helped by the cost optimization program as well as the software business being strong, which we see is also helped by that contract in banking. So how should we be thinking about like the good -- the margin trajectory over the course of this year, especially keeping in mind, it's typically for Tieto, it's always second half weighted? And I don't know, the line was, I think, a bit unclear when you talked about the employee reduction in Tech Consulting. Is there any one-off cash costs related to those reductions that we should be mindful of? So that's on the margin side of things. Then the other one is basically you've talked about like the ongoing simplification of the core, and there are 2 assets which have been announced today and which are to be closed. Are there any -- like are there any more assets that you're looking at? Any color on how do you plan to go about the further simplification of core for Tieto?

So first, on the margin, maybe also, Tomi, you can comment on this one. But I will say that we have communicated a target of EUR 130 million run rate by end of this year based on the cost efficiency program that we launched in 2025. As you have seen, we are at end of Q1 at EUR 105 million. So you will see also then for the next quarters, the cost saving efficiency coming through in the following quarters. Second comment on this one is that Q1, like I said, is usually the weakest quarter in the year. Second half is usually the best quarter that has been the historic trend since many years. So we are -- also when you add on then the visibility that we have in terms of backlog, especially for the software businesses, we don't have a high level of visibility in Tech Consulting for second half, quite good for second quarter. But when you look at the software businesses, we have very good visibility now for the full year. So I think that is also impacting the bottom line for sure, meaning the revenue coming through -- the revenue growth coming through going forward. I think that is basically the main effect on the bottom line. Margin?

Yes. I would maybe still comment that, yes, you will continue to see the benefits coming from the cost saving program throughout '26. Then when we reach the latter part of '26, we start to have the comparables also including some of the impact from this program. So if you model that, you should be mindful for that change. So then the delta will become lower, but of course, the profit levels are higher. Then in terms of the Q2, so we typically, as I commented, have our annual salary inflation kicking in Q2. So that's why seasonally, typically, Q2 is lower from the profit point of view than Q1. And then the second half, as you yourself mentioned, that is typically stronger. One of the driver is Q3 vacation periods and of course, sort of getting towards the year-end and getting the growth in, as we have commented, that strengthens the profit profile towards the year-end.

And it's probably also worthwhile mentioning that the headwind in Banktech with big mainframe contract from a top line point of view, which was also kind of a negative margin will also kind of help the year-over-year comparison when you go to Q4 already actually from Q3, September. So that's also worthwhile factoring in. Then when it comes to simplification, as you have seen, we have a lot of initiatives ongoing. So for example, we have now integrated more or less all the components of different entities within Tech Consulting. So talking about Infopulse, MentorMate, we have sold out Bekk Consulting. We have EVRY India, which is now integrated. And the last piece out was the kind of conglomerate of entities in Sweden called Avega, which will be now fully integrated during Q2. So that's a quite important part of the simplification. Then, of course, when it comes to M&A, we don't have any plans in terms of adding on any large M&A. And it's also important to say that we are kind of having the shareholder value creation view on what gives top line growth and what gives a solid bottom line effect for each and every single entity that we have in the company. That's the kind of optimization and simplification that we will constantly be working on. So I think that's basically it.

I would still comment on your question of the 500 FTE reduction and the cash impact. So it's not onetime cash impact. So typically, when -- as we commented in here, these reductions will happen during Q2 and Q3. Once these reductions happens, it's typically between 3 to 9 months, 3 to 12-month period when this cash flow -- cash outflow happens. So just to be clear.

Thank you. And thank you, Endre and Tomi. There's no further questions at this point. So I would like to thank everyone for participating, and have a great rest of the day.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.