Workiva Inc. (WK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
March 4, 2024
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Brett Klein
analystAll right. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. It's Brett Klein from the Morgan Stanley tech banking team. I really appreciate everyone being here. Julie, I particularly appreciate you being here with us.
Julie Iskow
executiveThank you all for being here and interest in Workiva. I appreciate it.
Brett Klein
analystI tried to avoid that and it still happened anyway. Julie, just to start for any investors in the room that are less familiar with Workiva. Let me just take a few minutes and frame that we'll keep a story and the opportunity ahead for everybody.
Julie Iskow
executiveSure. Workiva was started in 2008 by some accountants and engineers and the goal was really for around financial reporting, transparency and financial reporting. But since that time, over the past 15, 16 years, we've evolved into a leading cloud platform for assured integrated reporting. And what that means is we have capabilities on a cloud platform that are around financial reporting around ESG or sustainability or nonfinancial reporting and around governance, risk and compliance, audit, SOX, risk management, policy procedures and so forth. So we've come -- again, it's integrated reporting, financial and nonfinancial reporting integrated together with GRC and assurance and risk management.
Brett Klein
analystAnd I can say almost 10 years ago now, were IPO, I was a user and we actually produced the SEC documents on the platform, obviously, much bigger and broader today.
Julie Iskow
executiveYes. And our growth opportunity is when we look at our TAM, we've got a significant TAM, relatively unaddressed around the -- we go out with a $25 billion TAM. We see ESG as a greenfield opportunity, and we see the concept of assured integrated reporting as something we can lean into the trends in the world around regulatory complexity around investor scrutiny, data management, ingestion and reporting is just -- it's around trends in the world that are just coming together around as we grow our platform and our capabilities to fit into that world.
Brett Klein
analystGreat. And you've been at Workiva several years but took over about a year ago now as CEO. Congratulations again. I know it's old news in some ways. But what are some of the changes you implemented since becoming CEO over '23 that you're most proud about? And then what are some of the opportunities ahead in 2024 and beyond that you see?
Julie Iskow
executiveI won't say I walked in the door and there were changes necessarily. We had a very smooth transition from Marty, the prior Founder, CEO -- and that was important. And beyond that, we've had an incredible year, a fun year, I'd consider a lot of the accomplishments that we've made, however, things that were started over the last few years. A lot of it is around the growth of the platform and focusing on multi-solution and account expansion. You see our -- we go to the market with providing numbers around our large contract customers and those continue to grow recently 30% over the year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. So we continue to increase there. ESG is a very -- it's an evolving market, and we've continued to evolve with it. We've built out our platform to become the leading platform for ESG reporting. And of course, I would say also a lot of focus on the -- on non-GAAP operating profit. So we continue to focus on productivity as well as growth and that's something we've shifted towards as well.
Brett Klein
analystAnd maybe we could go a little deeper on AI, a hot topic now, and you were early release I was at the event for your customers announcing GenAI capabilities in the platform. How are you thinking about the GenAI opportunity in the near term and then longer term?
Julie Iskow
executiveSure. We did roll out generative AI capabilities. We brought in large language models from Google and Microsoft in app, and we integrated them throughout our platform and all of our workflows. So they are available for customers. We're getting great feedback, and they do appreciate that it's in our secure controlled environment. That was the first phase. But we're finding customers are testing AI with their trusted vendors of what we feel privileged to be one. We're watching them leveraging the capabilities, utilize it and we're iterating with them. Our goal initially is to find out what brings the value, and we want to work with them to understand that. And then as we find the capabilities around generative AI that bring the customer value, we will lean in and go into more specific use cases and ultimately, of course, monetize. But really, we're focused on efficiency and effectiveness in the customers leveraging. And I will say we did roll out to a capability specific for ESG. You can do a draft ESG disclosures. So we're following customers' leads understanding how they use it, what they're finding value in and we'll continue to grow out a very robust road map with our generator AI capabilities.
Brett Klein
analystI've never told you this, but I left amplify at that event. And my wife is a General Counsel at a public company, and I pitched her Workiva. I was like, you need this. I hear you drafting rises from scratch.
Julie Iskow
executiveWe're building champions everywhere.
Brett Klein
analystYou've hit on this, Julie, through many of these questions are on the platform. But can you just talk about some of the fundamental use cases, maybe some of the bigger use cases that are on the Workiva platform. And then how penetrated do you think you are in those specific areas?
Julie Iskow
executiveSure. Well, as you know, we don't give specific numbers around how penetrated we are in the market. But suffice it to say, SEC, again, one of our early flagships beyond everything beyond that really has a very big opportunity for us as far as moving into the market. I mean the TAM that TAM, that $25 billion TAM significant around the non-initial SEC use case. And it's in financial reporting, and it's in ESG, of course, being an evolving -- a fast-evolving market, a very big market. And then, of course, on the GRC opportunity, governance, risk and compliance. It is in every boardroom, every C-suite, the solutions that we have being talked about everywhere. So the market is significant and again, relatively untapped.
Brett Klein
analystThat's great. And talk a little bit deeper on the multi-solution journey because if I think about some of these use cases you mentioned, you may have an internal lawyer that's focused on SEC, but then also involved in ESG, and there's some real synergy, but there's still more users than the enterprise when you add these new use cases.
Julie Iskow
executiveSure. I mean that's what it is all about, and our growth is expanding. And as I mentioned earlier, I mean, the large contract accounts continue to grow. We've put a heavy emphasis on multi-solution and account expansion. And we have a significant number of capabilities across the platform. We roll out again with the financial reporting, which includes not just SEC reporting, but multi-entity reporting and management reporting and private company or annual and interim reporting. It's our capital market supporting. That's all in the range in the bucket of the financial reporting. And then, of course, as I mentioned, our Governance, Risk and Compliance Suite has multiple solutions there. And then we've got the ESG, of course. But we also have verticals that we play in. So Financial Services, of course, is a significant one in the public sector and energy and so forth. So we've got use cases around all of these. And again, relatively untapped TAM for us to go after.
Brett Klein
analystThat's great. And let's shift gears to ESG a little deeper here. ESG, the mandates are coming online now as we speak and even into the next several years that are mandated in but not yet necessary need to be met. Is ESG, talk about the growth you've experienced since launching that solution. And then are you finding that a new tip of the spear for new customers? Or is it really being cross-sold into existing Workiva customers on other so.
Julie Iskow
executiveThere's a lot there in that question.
Brett Klein
analystSorry. I did bundle a bunch.
Julie Iskow
executiveStart with ESG. Clearly, a very significant global opportunity for Workiva just getting started in that space. We go out, I think we estimated a $3 billion TAM, but certainly not the upside there. It is being supported, of course, for us with regulation globally. We just have the corporate sustainability reporting directive past not too long ago and the requirements still being defined, but very definitive time lines when companies need to comply with that. This past year as well, we had the Climate Disclosure rule in California. That's regulation that companies are looking to work with and need to comply to. In a few days, our SEC is meeting and they're going to talk about the SEC climate ruling their disclosure rule. So it's very much supported by regulation across the globe. But we've been selling ESG now, excuse me, for almost 2 years, and it's been in a top booking solution for us even without the regulation in place, particularly in North America, right? Regulation hasn't been there, and it's still a top solution for us. Why? Because companies or thinking about risk management. They also want to disclose those financial or nonfinancial factors that affect their financial valuations and, of course, their stakeholders, not just their shareholders. And so, we're -- some of them have made science-based targets and are wanting to be tracking and monitoring and held accountable with those science-based targets. So even without regulation in place, we are seeing a lot of traction and companies wanting to disclose and wanting to be accurate in their disclosures when they're needing data consistency, data integrity and the data and narrative together. And that is where we come in. That's where we shine when that is the mandate for these companies. So both regulatory factors propelling it, but also companies wanting to ensure that they are reporting for their stakeholders and again, doing an accurate and responsible way.
Brett Klein
analystA lot of complexities, particularly at the enterprise that you're talking about that you solve and then a lot of different use cases. What do customers -- what do companies do that aren't your customers? Are they using Excel? Are there competitive solutions by certain use cases? How should we think about the competitive landscape?
Julie Iskow
executiveSure. We've got competitors, we've got point solution competitors in some of our markets, but we've got some legacy technology customers, things like that or nontechnology, me, competitors. But I mean when you think about our competitive advantage in the market and our moat, it really is what we've described a little earlier, as first and foremost, we have the platform. There is no other company in the world today that provides this financial reporting, the nonfinancial, the integrated report, along with Assurance or the Governance Risk and Compliance capability. There is no other company. So we have that moat. Companies want to buy, particularly in this market, a platform for all the reasons we understand platforms to be superior. It's a common repository for your data, a single source of truth. It's the user experience across the user base and the various departments across your company. It's collaboration anywhere, again on that same platform. So we have that, of course. And then when you think about other capabilities of Workiva house , we've been doing investor grade reporting for well over a decade. And again, we are the only companies providing whether point solution or legacy tech than investor-grade reporting for a decade. We have been doing regulatory reporting for the same time period. And when I say regulatory reporting, we have the expertise, we have the capabilities in our technology to be able to respond to regulatory changes, whether these new laws and capabilities coming out, taxonomy changes that happen frequently. So we can be there when the law becomes -- when the regulation comes to law, we enable our customers to be compliant immediately, right? And that -- those 2 things, regulatory important, regulatory changes, the ability for us to provide the single platform, just the experience we have with the -- with investor grade reporting, those are reasons. And then the competitors themselves are really point solutions oftentimes that we run into that don't have what I just described to you. They don't have the experience that we have. And then there are, of course, some legacy companies and competitors. But again, when it comes to the platform and our experience together and of course, the capabilities that we have, we have very innovative technology, a fit for purpose for the uses at our customers.
Brett Klein
analystOne of the things I've always been impressed with is you've got the technology element that you described, the thought leadership of your employee base, too, and whether it's services teams or success teams. They come in, they own these tough complicated regulatory-driven mandates and rules and really facilitate for large enterprise customers, how to deal with that? Very impressive…
Julie Iskow
executiveI mean, another great benefit and competitive advantage. We have 100 -- Fortune 100, we've got 90% of those customers in our base. We've got 6,000 customers overall across the globe. We have 85% of the Fortune 500, and we have 80% of the Fortune 1000. That is a significant base. They're customers that trust us. We've built long-standing relationships with so many of them. And they know us and they know how to use our platform and ready to accept additional capabilities and solutions that we can help them to become successful with.
Brett Klein
analystGreat. Let's shift gears a little bit and talk about the macro and you recently put out earnings. Maybe just a first bigger picture one. I'm sure everyone's going to be asking all of our companies here this week. But how we're key to seeing the macro environment, IT spending. You're a very steady business over the decade, you've been public.
Julie Iskow
executiveWe have been steady, of course, as we go. I will say, first, we had a very strong quarter in Q4. We had record booking quarters outside of the U.S. and for the company overall. So very pleased with our performance over the last quarter. We met guidance over the full year in 2023 and exceeded. But we did see a macro softer macro, and we do see that extending into 2024. And we look at it as around our guidance is for that uncertainty that we're seeing, and it is taking longer for deals to get over the line. We're not losing them per se, but it's taking longer. And we call it a very measured buying environment. That's what we're seeing. And we saw that in '23, and we're seeing it as we move into 2024, just a lot more scrutiny on the buying, right? And we're doing it too with our own purchases of software. We're making sure we really need it. We're thinking it through more methodically and deliberately and thoughtfully. So we're seeing this in our customer base. So we're being thoughtful again and prudent as we go out into 2024.
Brett Klein
analystOne of the strong points that I noted in your earnings was financial services, in my industry. I think you disclosed more than half of your million customers are in financial services. you referred to it earlier, but let's talk a little bit more about the financial services opportunity for Workiva and what you're experiencing that…
Julie Iskow
executiveYes, very significant. One of our strong verticals. And financial services, it's driven by regulation. You've got it everywhere. And we have a long history with the company of providing specific use cases and capabilities around the regulation. So we've been doing that for whether it's Dodd-Frank or Solvency or [ living well ]. We've been doing that, and we've built out a number of use cases on the platform that are specific to financial services. And we talked -- we highlighted in our recent earnings call, some of the successes we're seeing in our financial services customer base. And half of our customers that are $1 million or more in contract value, of course, well over half are in financial services. So those customers, many have been with us a long while, and they're moving into many, many multiple use cases with us. So we see a significant growth opportunity there in financial services, and we have solutions that provide a significant amount of value for financial services.
Brett Klein
analystAnd there's still a long runway, though. The customers are penetrated. Absolutely. And new mandates or new regulations come out and the platform can expand.
Julie Iskow
executiveAnd they're also in financial services is one of the verticals that, of course, where ESG is a very clear mandate for moving forward with your funds and so forth. So just a wide-open opportunity for us in an area we're putting a lot of focus and emphasis both on solutions, both on our go-to-market capabilities. So a big area of growth for us.
Brett Klein
analystExcellent. On the go-to-market side, you've been a direct selling model historically, but also a big focus on building out the partner channel now and a lot of success in that area, too. Talk about the sales model maybe at a high level, and then I'll come back with a follow-up on the partners.
Julie Iskow
executiveOkay. So partners is one of my favorite topics. I see it as an area for Workiva just to expedite our growth in a significant way -- we've been using partners for a while now, but we have pushed hard over the last several years, and we're strengthening the ecosystem, broadening the ecosystem, getting better at working with our partners, but we go to market with them as a co-sell and we are beginning to rely on them more and more for source deals. And that is exactly what we want to do. We want to move our services towards them. So they are lower-value services to them. They develop a lot -- they've got capabilities there, centers of excellence around implementing the Workiva solutions, but then they go sell significant services around that. You think of a big foreign regional advisory. I mean they are everywhere we want to be in our customer base and potential customers with -- they are in the digital and financial transformation. And when we work with them, we sell higher in the companies. We sell broader, we sell more. Our win rate is higher. Our deal sizes are higher. We are highly successful with them when we work with them. So we have been putting a lot into the ecosystem and strengthening that ecosystem and getting our team better at working with them and selling with them and enabling them, again, to not just do our services and implement Workiva capabilities, but to work with us and provide ever more value for our customers. They help us remain more sticky when they're in. They build use cases around it and capabilities. So we have an incredible partnership with our consulting and advisory partners.
Brett Klein
analystYes, I think you already hit up my second part, but I'll still ask it anyway. The partners, lots can be driven by these bigger digital transformation projects across the office of CFO or the office of the GC. So it's almost -- I don't know, net new is not quite the right term, but they're exposing these bigger rollouts and then all the benefits you…
Julie Iskow
executiveAbsolutely. And you talked early about multi-solution and account expansion. They are key for us in driving large account value and account contract sizes. So it's exactly what we get in. We still own the customer, so we can go in together. Again, they recommend us for other solutions while they're in an they've built trusted relationships with their customers and many customers pay many, many millions of dollars to have them in-house and guide them and provide recommendations on where they go with the technology and how they digitally transform. So building those strong relationships with those partners is key. It's also key in globally, right? I mean when you think about our footprint in Europe and in APAC where we are continuing to grow in foot emphasis, we're not as well-known there as we are in the North America region. So we rely on our partner ecosystem even more there, and it's the part of the way we move and go to market in an even more significant way.
Brett Klein
analystLet's double click on international. Again, noted in the Q4 earnings, a very strong international year for Workiva. Obviously, there's still a big North American opportunity. What's different in the international market that statutory reporting comes to mind as a bigger opportunity outside the U.S. But what are you seeing there from a demand perspective?
Julie Iskow
executiveSo, for us, when you think about Europe, Europe passed the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, or CSRD. And what is that? It says financial data and financial reporting and nonfinancial data of nonfinancial reporting or ESG or sustainability reporting need to be in one integrated report, and it needs to be assured. Again, who else in the world has a platform capable of providing that support to customers, we do. So that's what Assured integrated reporting is, and we are the only platform in the world capable of providing that. Now when you go to market, as I mentioned, in Europe, we're not as well known. So partners partner first plays definitely the way we go to market. There -- it's not as easy to go out like in the U.S. where you have one country with very similar regulation. Every country is different. And we're not alone in this -- in the SaaS market, you need to approach each one of those markets a little bit differently, understand regulations and how they work. So there's work to be done. But again, the partners have a significant role in that, too. But we see a tremendous opportunity there. While they've been doing sustainability reporting longer than the U.S. has I mean the regulation has come in. They're moving. We're in more and more conversations with our customers about CSRD. And while it's not hockey stick because the regulations are phased in over the next several years. Reporting starts for the 2024 reporting --2024 data in the '25 reporting year. So it is, again, a big opportunity, and it's not just ESG. It is that integrated report of financial reporting and nonfinancial sustainability reporting again with audit. And by the way, we didn't talk yet about tagging, but we're the world's leader in extra tagging and as these regulatory requirements continue to move forward, tagging will be a significant piece of it as well.
Brett Klein
analystOkay. Great. I'm going to shift gears and just hit on financials and a little bit of what you said just a couple of weeks ago, a very strong 2023 announced a couple of weeks back in February. Total revenue was up 16% year-over-year. Subscription revenue is up 20%. You referenced this 32% year-over-year growth in customers at scale, which I think was $300,000 ACV or more. So all in all, very strong 2023. The question is really around the 2024 guide. I think it was around 14% at the midpoint, which is a slight deceleration. So can you just talk about the underlying assumptions around the 2024 guidance that you gave.
Julie Iskow
executiveThank you for giving us credit for the 2023 2024 through the year. The guidance is really for the 1 or 2 points of deceleration, it's really around a couple of things. And we talked a little earlier about the software market and what I mean there is the uncertainty, right? I mean we have -- we really look at the buying environment, very measured buying environment. So we're being prudent about that. We're also -- I didn't go into any detail on it, but I did mention we're moving our low-margin services to our partners for obvious reasons for, again, commercial success with them and source deals and co-sell. So very deliberately part of our strategy and by design. So we're not expecting our services bookings to go up. And then, of course, the -- we've not been quiet about the challenging macro and the uncertainty in -- that we saw in 2023. So our bookings were a little softer. And when we met our revenue guidance, I think everyone here understands the concept of bookings versus revenue. So for those reasons, the softer bookings, the uncertainty and, of course, the services, we're just being very prudent as we go out to market. Now having said that, as I described, we have a very significant long durable growth market. The concept of the Assured integrated reporting, the financial and the sustainability and the GRC together is resonating with our customers. Regulation is absolutely in our favor. We're -- we feel very confident in it, but we want to go out in a measured way, again, because of the buying environment, not unlike many SaaS companies that we're all talking to today.
Brett Klein
analystMakes perfect sense to me. Capital markets. On that as well. That's a portion of your business and oftentimes, a capital market issue or, let's say, an IPO company, may become a full platform company over time. So a very important or nice part of the Workiva business -- now we've seen some softness in the IPO market the last 2 years in the obvious, I feel it personally. What's embedded in your expectations for capital markets in 2024?
Julie Iskow
executiveSoftness is one description. There are others, of course, for what happened in the capital markets. There you go. And I mean, what's great about highlighting that is one of our capabilities, one of our solutions is our S - 1s around IPOs. And because we have broad-based demand for capabilities across our platform, we're still able to meet our -- we are very resilient and still able to exceed our targets and our guidance to the Street. And we're -- again, that uncertainty, and we don't know, you don't have a crystal ball. We don't have that crystal ball either. So we've not baked any of that come back into our guidance for 2024, it will be upside. But we do work with a lot of companies who are hopeful, IPO hopefuls. We work with them before they go IPO because of our private company reporting because of internal controls. So we are happy to work with them on their journey from private through public and we're talking to those. So we have a pretty good eye on the market. But again, we're being very prudent. We're not baking any of that in. It will be upside. We, of course, have something in our capital markets there because it's not 0. We do secondary offerings and there are some IPOs. But the market for the IPOs was we saw a little bit of a comeback in Q3 and then softer in Q4 simply because of how those IPOs did. So we're being very realistic and practical about thinking about that market. But we all know there is some pent-up demand. It will be back, but we're not counting on it in the next several quarters, and we have plenty of opportunity around that. And again, we still work with those companies in their journeys to go public and…
Brett Klein
analystYes, that's right. The IPO itself is not necessarily the first time to provide value. As these companies are private. And if they do stay private longer, they can still drive that value. Absolutely. I'm going to open it in a minute to any questions from investors here in the audience, 1 or 2 more before I do so. Let me -- I'm going to start big picture then come back to the guide. But bigger picture, you got new in the seat as of a year. How do you think Julie about the trade-off between growth and profitability and what you're trying to achieve on the operating margin and free cash flow side of the business?
Julie Iskow
executiveSure. I will first say -- we're very pleased with the improvement that we saw in our non-GAAP operating profit over last year, having in Q3 and Q4 in particular. Having said that, we focus on both growth and improve productivity and improve efficiency, and we will continue to do that. Make no mistake about it. We're going after the growth. We'll continue to invest in areas that we believe can help accelerate our TAM. We'll do that on the sales and go-to-market side. We'll continue to invest in areas around the platform. We spoke earlier about generative AI and what that can do for our customers and for us and our platform and our capabilities -- we'll continue to focus on data management, which is becoming and fast becoming key to our customers and managing all of their data and particularly for their financial and nonfinancial sustainability reporting and doing audits and controls and so forth. So, we'll continue to invest in there. And again, that platform play, having all of our solutions and capabilities be better together. That is our significant moat, and we'll continue where we need to do that. But we will focus on both growth and productivity. I mean we're not choosing necessarily one over the other, but we are going heavy into the growth. Yes.
Brett Klein
analystGreat. And then similar to how I ask on the revenue, maybe a deeper dive on operating margin, really strong margin trajectory in Q3 and Q4 of 2023. The guidance doesn't -- for 2024, it doesn't reflect the same margin improvement that you experienced in those quarters. But just again, what are the underlying assumptions I mean behind operating margin.
Julie Iskow
executiveI mean, we're -- again, we're balancing -- and I wouldn't even say balance, we're going after growth, and we are working to become more productive at the same time. And growth, of course, requires investment. And we just want to leave ourselves the opportunity to be flexible to use that money in the right way to go after our large and relatively untapped unaddressed TAM. So that's highly important to us that we keep that flexibility to be able to do that. So, is it an investment year? Sure. Every year, when you are a SaaS company, our size is an investment year. So we're going to continue to invest where it makes sense, we're going to be thoughtful, supporting our strategy. When you have a growth market like we do, ensuring that you continue to invest is critically important. We're not going to sacrifice that for the growth. So again, it's a balance of -- again, I hesitate to use the word balance. We're going after growth, and we're going to continue to become more productive as we do as we grow and we scale and we mature.
Brett Klein
analystThat makes a lot of sense. Let me pause here. Any questions for Julie from the audience?
Julie Iskow
executiveWe got one here in, I'm sorry.
Brett Klein
analystYes. Great.
Unknown Analyst
analystI guess how should we think about the uplift of customers that you work with that are private and the revenue impact of them going public for you?
Julie Iskow
executiveSure. So again, we mentioned those on the private to public journey might join us initially for private company reporting and internal control so they can prepare, of course, for SOX compliance and their public offering. And then they are with us for that year. And then we may see a downtick initially as that -- as the IPO capabilities, our S -1 capabilities move away. But the conversion rate to then the financial reporting is incredibly high. So they will join us for whether it's SEC in the U.S. or ESS in Europe and so far, CEDAR in Canada, we will continue to bring that customer along. They'll do the financial reporting, then they may -- depending on size and scope and globalness, they may do our multi-entity reporting, but they will certainly want to do their controls and audit with us and move to GRC and SOX, right? And then there is the management reporting and ESG reporting. So once we have that customer and their initial public offering, we will plan to do account expansion. So which is why it's such a great land for us when we do get those wins or an extension from the private company. So we call it and we go to market with this as our private-to-public journey, and we help customers all along that life cycle pre-IPO, extending through a public company and maturity. So ultimately, assured integrated reporting customer.
Brett Klein
analystGreat question. Any others from the audience? We have a few minutes to go. A couple more. I'll ask you again to keep thinking those questions. I know you've hit on this throughout this entire discussion, Julie, but let's put it together in one simple spot for the investors in the room. One of the key investment payers were Kiva's making today, I'll call it, over this year or 1.5 years, that will drive sustainable growth going forward. What are you excited about?
Julie Iskow
executiveWell, I think, as I mentioned earlier, our growth strategy is very much intact, right? We're going to continue to build out the capabilities around our solutions to keep them leading in the market, significantly feature functionality, enhanced over our competitors. We're going to continue to strengthen that platform, making it ever more open, intuitive, intelligent and connected, making the solutions upon that platform, again, working better together to serve the customer. We're going to continue to expand our footprint and be excellent everywhere we play across the globe. And we are -- importantly, we're going to continue to strengthen our high-performing partner ecosystem so that we can expedite our growth and move into our TAM. Now having said that, specific areas again are going to be our sales and our go-to-market specific feature and capability around making sure we are leveraging new technology, whether it's AI or capabilities around that platform. I'm not sure we can meet all the regulatory requirements as they come with our customer base, ensure that our platform is built for managed services, if our partners want to move in that direction with us as they have been doing so over the last several years. So we're going to continue to invest in our platform. We continue to invest in our capabilities and our partners.
Brett Klein
analystGreat. Last chance, anyone in the audience, a final question or 2 for Julie. Last one for me, almost 10 years since the company went public. I remember well in December of 2014. Where do you see Workiva 10 years from now?
Julie Iskow
executiveFive to 10 years is a long vision for a technology company to be looking out. So I wouldn't trust much of what someone would say at the 10-year mark, but certainly over the 3- to 5-year mark. I would say, as we've been building the best platform and solutions for financial reporting for sustainability, nonfinancial or ESG reporting and for governance risk compliance, we've also been building a platform that's incredibly capable of providing our customers with the capabilities around transparent reporting and regulatory disclosure. So that assured integrated reporting that we talked about for the next 1, 2, 3 years, that's a phenomenal market for us, phenomenal opportunity, lots of green space and the market around us is perfectly suited for a platform like ours. But we don't look at that as a limit for us. We look at this platform is able to move in the direction of all the trends around investor scrutiny, regulatory complexity, again, cloud and so forth. And there are going to be a lot of areas of regulation. You can think of areas around the -- in verticals that are getting more and more regulated, we believe, over the next 5-plus years that we will be that platform for, again, regulatory disclosure and wherever you want to report transparently and we are fast approaching that area. But what do we look like in 10 years? I mean we believe we'll have significantly moved into that tremendous TAM and untapped TAM that I've talked about, whether through organic or acquisition, we believe we will have significantly moved into that ESG opportunity. That's green space today, but it's fast becoming an area that companies are going to have to pay attention to if they're not doing so voluntarily now. So we see ourselves as a large company move beyond the $1 billion with certainty over that past 5-year mark. And again, playing just a broader role in transparent reporting and regulatory disclosure. -- is the direction we're fast moving.
Brett Klein
analystI want to thank you, Julie, and Workiva for being here as well. At a pleasure, Brett. Appreciate the questions. Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone.
For developers and AI pipelines
Programmatic access to Workiva Inc. earnings transcripts and 32,000+ others is available through the
EarningsCalls.dev REST API. Plans from $24.99/month — full transcripts, speaker segments,
full-text search, and the recently-added /api/v1/transcripts/recent polling endpoint for ETL pipelines.