Q4 2021 Startek Inc Earnings Call
[music].
Good afternoon, everyone and thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss our techs financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31st 2021, joining us today are star Techs Global's CEO , Bob Rowe and the company's global CFO Mr Shah.
Following their remarks, we'll open the call up for your questions. Before we continue we would like to remind all participants that the discussion today may contain certain statements, which are forward looking in nature pursuant to the safe Harbor provisions of the Federal Securities laws. These statements are based on information currently available.
US and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.
Star Tech advises all those listening to this call to review the latest 10-Q and 10-K posted on its website for the summary of these risks and uncertainties start tech does not undertake the responsibility to update any forward looking statements.
Further the discussion today may include some non-GAAP measures in accordance with regulation G. The company has reconciled those amounts back to the closest GAAP based measurement the.
The reconciliations can be found in the earnings release on the investors section of our website.
I would now like to remind everyone that a webcast replay of today's call will be available via the investors section of the company's website at Www Dot Star Tech Dotcom now I'd like to turn the call over to Star, Texas Global CEO Pirate row. Please go ahead.
Thank you Jonathan.
Good afternoon, everyone and thank you all for joining I would also like to introduce Ron.
Juliet who has.
Just come on board towards the end of January .
And.
Has joined us as head of business transformation.
Ron is the former Chief operating officer of WNS and brings a wealth of experience to starting.
So please welcome.
They're all on board.
Since joining as President in October 2021, I've had the pleasure to travel across the globe and meet with our employees customers and stakeholders to get a firm grasp on the opportunities and challenges across our entire organization.
Before I jump into the details I wanted to start this call by taking time to tank, all our dedicated employees and stakeholders across the globe.
Your commitment and dedication to static throughout all the difficulties we faced in the macro environment.
Has been instrumental to our continued progress.
We deeply appreciate the support.
For the structure of this call I'm going to begin by walking through our accomplishments in the fourth quarter.
And what we've been able to achieve in the first five months.
That I've been on the helm.
I'm going to pass it to our new global CFO initial shock to walk through our financial results for the quarter.
And provide the full year in more detail.
Finally, I'll return to discuss our strategic growth initiatives going forward.
On that note, let's dive into the fourth quarter.
Our fourth quarter performance was primarily focused on supporting our steady growth across our core verticals.
In developing our operational foundation to hit the ground running in 2022.
Our progress was reflected by our year on year revenue growth for both the fourth quarter and the full year, which occurred in conjunction with the cost management initiatives.
Implemented throughout the year.
Our revenue in 2021, and the fourth quarter increased year over year, primarily resulting from the growth we experienced in our key verticals.
Telecom continues to be our largest vertical in terms of percentage of revenue and we saw healthy growth largely driven by adding new lines of business with our existing clients.
The large win with the South African telecom clients that we spoke to in the previous quarter.
We went live on October 1st.
Ramped well through the quarter.
Although e-commerce and consumer.
A slight overall decline due to volume reduction for U S based client.
We were able to offset some of that due to a substantial ramp in our e-commerce and food delivery platform in India.
Why is the uncertainty brought on by the pandemic has started to recede or travel and hospitality verticals have yet to rip out.
The discussion with clients have started to refocus around growth and ramp.
Therefore, we expect the travel sector to rebound sometime in the second half of 2022 .
On the other hand financial and business services saw large recoveries.
Back to pre pandemic levels as we began to move away from the macro constraints that were brought up in the past.
As mentioned before a vaccination program in the second quarter was a success leading to a 32% increase in revenue within our health care and education verticals for the year.
Despite some of our verticals, having slight decline due to macro economic conditions and volume reductions, we were able to largely offset these decreases with sustained growth across our leading verticals.
Operationally, we continue to be focused on strengthening our technological infrastructure.
As many of you know we were hit with a malicious cyber attack earlier in 2021.
Since then we bolstered the operations and security to ensure that our company stays resilient to any future event.
Our initiatives included adding multiple layers of security to our data service and email.
Including Geo fencing.
And a two factor authentication.
Stablish Ing, a 24 by seven center of excellence monitoring.
And scanning our networks across the world amongst other efforts taken to ensure that we provide and enhanced secure environment to both our clients and employees.
As technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace. We believe it is our responsibility to maintain our platform.
And that is up to date with the state of art security measures for our customers.
And we remain committed to that responsibility going forward.
We also spent much of the past quarter evaluating consolidation.
And right sizing opportunities across our footprint.
It has been our goal to maintain a lean and efficient organization that will be increasingly important as we look to produce meaningful revenue growth.
We have already begun improving efficiency some of our U S delivery centers.
Especially as we transition to our overall hybrid and remote work plan.
We remain set on our outlook of having 75% and 25% split off campus versus remote agents.
Respectively.
Which will have a substantial effect on the utility of each campus.
As such we are working to maximize the utility of each center as part of our right sizing strategy, which includes the consolidation of facilities and even close yes.
We'll keep you abreast of any material changes to our footprint as well.
Further evaluate the best course of action.
In addition to evaluating optimal efficiency across our footprint. We also continued to build out our executive team.
Our company is rooted in the business of people.
And that starts with our leaders in the organization.
In October .
It'd be appointed Vivek Sharma.
As global Chief revenue Officer.
Who has helped us to lead our efforts to deepen our existing relationships with customers.
As well as pursue new growth opportunities.
Coming on the horizon.
He has a stellar record in the outsourcing industry, having spent over a decade at Infosys PPO, where he headed the global sales and marketing team and was also a member of the Executive Council.
Rebecca Godfrey join Us in November as our Chief marketing officer with more than 20 years of experience in brand marketing.
She will be using her expertise to ensure that started has a strong presence across all channels and drive a new go to market strategies.
Around the same time, we appointed a bin and then Jane.
As Chief Digital Officer.
He will be spearheading, our digital innovation and ensuring that we remain focused on leveraging and expanding our digital partnerships.
Our leadership team has seen a large transformation in the past year.
During my transition to my current role as global CEO .
And each member new and incumbent have been Paramount in driving company initiatives.
Our executive team was not only part of the organization we expanded upon.
We consider our sales ecosystem is one of the main pillars of this company.
And we invested heavily in this area by revamping our sales infrastructure.
But the reorganized to loosening and lead generation teams. We also invested into our marketing team to better identify our brand positioning and effective go to market strategies.
In addition replaced much of our attention and driving digital partnerships by entering into Boc's without clients. These P O sees off.
Being supported by leading digital companies and startups with whom we intend to establish partnerships to boost our digital practice and provide most advanced and flexible solutions to our clients.
For a leading computer manufacturer for instance, we are deploying a hyper intelligent automation tool for <unk> and case creation, which helps them drive customer response times.
By 70%.
Leveraging an AI based noise cancellation application for a major telecom customer to deliver superior why support.
Deploying our voice based artificial intelligence omnichannel platform to transform customer service for a major utilities company.
These are a few examples of the kind of POC that I alluded to earlier.
The fourth quarter.
And much of the back half of the year shared common team in preparing the company for its future growth opportunities, which I will discuss later on during the call.
Overall I'm very proud of the progress we've made across the organization and firmly believe that future is bright for static.
Before I jump into our strategic initiatives for the year.
And going forward.
I would like to turn the call over to initiate Shah our global CFO to provide further detail on our fourth quarter and full year financial results.
Michelle.
Thank you, but for the for the introduction.
I like to begin by expressing my excitement to join this organization.
And use my expertise to help accelerate the growth and enhance value for all stakeholders.
There is much to look forward to with the strong foundation, we have in place.
Look forward to executing on our drug.
Right.
With that being said, let's drive into the financials for the quarter.
Quarter four.
Starting on the top line.
Net revenue in Q4 slightly increased to 178 7 million.
Battle dollar one of $74 5 million.
In the year ago quarter.
On a constant currency basis.
Net revenue increased by 2% compared to the year ago quarter.
This year over year growth reflects continue.
Continued performance across our key verticals and geographies.
Gross profit for quarter, four was $26 8 million come back $2 2 million in the year.
So a quarter.
Gross margin was 15% compared to 17, 3% in the year.
Good quarter.
Which was primarily attributable to the growth in our telecom and banking and financial services vertical.
That are delivering.
[noise] onshore.
The gross margin for the <unk>.
For the quarter.
For 2021 was also impacted by a special bonus payout of around 2 million.
That one distributor across the organization.
Selling and general education.
E N a S.
Expenses for the.
Fourth quarter increased $2, $15 1 million compared to $1 $14 7 million in the year ago quarter.
As a percentage of revenue.
SG&A was the same at eight 4% compared to the year ago quarter.
As a result of continued operating leverage on the back of higher revenue base, we generated during the quarter.
Our investments in high performing sales.
So I'll just saw listening in marketing and digital team in order to drive growth and differentiation impact on SG&A in the fourth quarter.
Net income attributable to.
Starbucks shoulders for quarter for the increase.
Significantly $2 $6 7 million odd.
0.16 per share.
Come back to a net loss attributable to <unk>.
<unk> shareholders.
Abdullah.
Negative $7 6 million or dollar bracket.
Bracket 0.19 per share a year ago quarter.
Net income in the fourth quarter of 2021 .
We're at an approximate dollar for one 5 billion of impairment charge on the right to use asset.
That was driven by the decision taken to rationalize our brick and mortar facilities across multiple geographies.
Where the complete company site client services and pivoting towards at home deliveries.
The net income attributable.
Capex shoulders also include $1 $6 7 billion in fair value gains from the investment made in CSS.
Got it.
Yeah.
Net I just heard.
Income attributable to <unk> shareholders for quarter, four increased 47% to dollar $12 9 million $4. It opine three two per diluted share.
Prior to an adjusted net income attributable to <unk> shareholders of $8 8 million.
0.22 per diluted share in the year ago quarter.
Adjusted EBITDA in quarter four was dollar 18.9 billion cut back to dollar $23 3 million in the year ago quarter.
And as a person to grow revenue.
Adjusted EBITDA was 10, 6% compared to 13, 4%.
Quarter.
The decline was primarily.
As a result of impact to gross profit associated with the special performance bonus declared in December and due to high base and tornado Andy that had benefited from government grants.
The quarter was also impacted by increased cost related to upgrading all of our applications and major sticking it right now.
Got it and for our sector.
Pharma from a balance sheet perspective.
At December 31st tornado, everyone, our cash unrestricted cash increased $2 $55 4 million compared to $1 $58 6 million at December 31, 'twenty 'twenty.
The total debt at December 31, 2021 was 117 million compared to $1 6 million.
At the cemeteries plus 'twenty 'twenty.
The net debt excluding restricted cash at December 31st tornado anyone was $1 1 million compared to $91 5 million at December 30 restaurants 20.
We remain comfortable with our liquidity position as it stands today.
In addition.
We repurchased an aggregate of.
353810 shares of our common stock under our repurchase plan during the fourth quarter.
At an average cost of dollar for dollar four four per share.
This was a testament to our continued confidence in our long term growth prospects.
As well as our strong execution of this any sugar.
As we progress into 2022 .
We have maintained our commitment to further support our investments in key markets and growth initiatives.
We also plan to invest further and then bring that idea and the go to market strategy.
Including enhancing our digital capabilities.
And further building out our sales and marketing teams.
We expect this investment Tonight, I know I can announce infrastructure too.
So they have put in.
Place to booster, our operational foundation for the quarter ahead.
And we look forward to provide further updates on our growth trajectory.
Let me briefly review staff.
Full year 2021 performance.
Net revenue in 'twenty, 'twenty, one increased 10% $2 $73 6 million compared with 640.2 million and tornado.
Gross profit in 'twenty, and 'twenty, one increased 12% or $2 $97 6 million compared $1 $82 million in tornado.
And our gross margin increased 30 basis points totaling 13, 9% compared to 13, 6% in 'twenty or 'twenty.
Adjusted EBITDA in 'twenty, 'twenty, one increased 24% $2 $72 4 million compared to $1 $58 2 million in 'twenty 'twenty.
As a percentage of revenue adjusted EBITDA was 10, 3% in 'twenty or 'twenty one.
I Wonder if you basis points come back over 91% in 2020.
Net income attributable to product shoulders in 'twenty or 'twenty, one increased significantly to dollar $1 5 million or dollar did open zero four per share compared to a net loss of daughter $39 million or dollar point 99 per share in 'twenty or 'twenty.
It just didn't it didn't go Andrew predictable startup shoulder and tornado anyone increase Don Antonio in person next $2 3 million or.
Or.
0.67 per share compared to $1 815 million or 0.22% in 2020.
This concludes my prepared remarks.
I will now turn the call back to automatic.
Thanks Nishu.
I wanted to take this time to provide some commentary on our strategic initiatives for 2022 and beyond.
I've been involved with topics strategic direction since the merger with agents in 2018.
And I have seen the steady progress you've made these last few years to transform our company burdened with bloated cost structure.
Into a lean and efficient organization ready to grill being.
Being at the helm of an operational from an operational perspective.
Our focus over the past five months has been on preparing the company for the growth opportunities you've identified across our core verticals.
With all of the initiatives that I discussed earlier.
We have the utmost confidence in our position heading into 2022.
And we feel that we are now prepared more than ever to capitalize on the opportunities at hand.
Subsequent to year end, we continued our initiatives and bolstering our leadership team with the appointment of Ron Gillette.
As a strategic adviser and head of business transformation.
John was most recently the CEO at continued global solutions and was previously the Chief operating officer for WNS.
He will lead the charge and optimizing <unk>.
<unk> delivery capabilities.
To ensure that our platform can handle the ramp up in volumes that Fiat expecting.
We also have initiatives Shah and giant a lot Healy joining us as our newest members serving as our global Chief Financial Officer, and Global Chief Information Officer, respectively.
Nishu brings years of industry experience and financial reporting mergers and acquisition legal and compliance and much more.
He will be integral in our mission to maintain a balanced and efficient organization with healthy financials.
Giant does run off or invest ment to ensure our platform is fully capable in todays environment here.
He will continue to drive our transformation into an agile and secure environment for static and its clients, having a strong leadership team in place is paramount to accomplishing our goals that we set out for ourselves.
Confidence in the C suite that we have assembled.
Going into 2020 to Veeva continues to be expanding our overall capacity and optimizing our platform to enhance our omnichannel capabilities.
We will continue to invest in our sales ecosystem.
And we plan on hiring more senior sales staff to implement new initiatives in those areas such as targeting strategic verticals like BFS Si health care E Commerce and high Tech.
Our marketing team will be ramping up its efforts in communicating our brand unique digital first capabilities to existing and potential customers.
He has reviewed and further define our target audience to enable more focused demand generation activity.
As part of our brand building activity entered into partnerships with several third parties to develop our leadership content.
Furthermore, another key area. We are focused on is driving new digital partnerships in 2022.
In fact I'll be Jane.
Has been driving a few very interesting POC is with some of our strategic clients that have vast potential to become standalone solutions that we can bring to the market.
We are also focused on taking up very strategic digital projects and partnerships that can help us offer cutting edge and relevant solutions to our clients.
We will continue to optimize our delivery centers.
Efficiency ramps up further.
Campuses will undergo some internal efficiency changes in order to maximize their utility.
And we are exploring all options to ensure our company is at the right size.
We have begun discussions with clients and establishing more sustained hybrid working model.
And we have had very encouraging and engaging responses from outside.
Most of the new deals that make us participating in also have a greater preference for the work at home model, which we believe is going to be more prevalent going forward.
We are therefore closing down some of our sites.
Particularly in the high cost geography.
Lastly, I would like to provide an update on the non binding acquisition proposal by CSP management limit.
On December 28, 2021, our largest shareholder issued a nonbinding proposal to acquire all the shares of stock that it does not already own.
$5.40 per share in cash subsea.
Subsequently our board of directors formed a special committee of independent directors to evaluate the proposal.
Do you have brought on legal and financial advisors to thoroughly examine the deal.
While the committee continues to evaluate its evaluation process.
I don't have any material updates to provide but we'll continue to keep shareholders updated on any meaningful progress.
Overall, we have taken necessary steps to prepare for accelerated growth and be ready to hit the ground running.
We continue to expect top line growth.
We will continue to invest heavily for the future, which we anticipate will limit growth to the bottom line in the near term.
Our core verticals are ripe with opportunity and we are confident in the foundation, we've built to capitalize on those prospects.
With that we will now open the call for questions Jonathan.
Do you.
Thank you certainly thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any questions at this time. Please press Star then one on your Touchtone telephone. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue. Please press the pound key our first question comes from line of Chris Howe from Barrington Research. Your question. Please.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Yeah.
First off.
I wanted to.
Welcome welcome everyone to the call, that's new and it's good meaning everyone for.
For the first time.
I wanted to talk about fiscal year 'twenty two.
You mentioned some of them.
Food.
That's been some of the performance within key verticals.
For example, travel and hospitality you said sometime in the second half you should see some recovery as.
As we look at the first half.
Full year 'twenty two versus the second half of fiscal year 'twenty, two how would you place revenue.
And do you expect expense structure into context versus what you saw this last fiscal year.
Hi, Hello, Hi, Omar.
Hello.
Hi. Thank you. Thank you for the question Am I audible at your end.
Yes sure.
Wonderful.
So just to make sure I understand your question because we had a bit of a disconnect on the call at our end.
The question around.
How do we see the first half of 'twenty two versus the first half of last year did I understand that correctly.
No that's not the question.
Well.
With regards to the key end markets, you mentioned that certain end markets should see a recovery in the second half of fiscal year 'twenty two.
So as we look at the first half of fiscal year 'twenty two in the second half fiscal year 'twenty two how would you compare and contrast them to this last fiscal year.
On revenue and also the expense structure.
Right. So on the first I'll just provide an overview and then we can do.
Take any more any specific questions. When we look at the first half of 'twenty two.
Versus the second half of 'twenty two.
What we do expect is that some of the initiatives we have put in place.
From a digital perspective with the buildup of our sales team in the first half of 'twenty two.
I'll start showing us results in the second half of 'twenty do typically.
As you would expect.
Some of these initiatives, especially in our industry.
They do take time to come to fruition. So there is a there is some lag between the investments made the people that come on board. So we are working through that so we do expect to have more sustainable revenue.
And beef going into the second half of 'twenty two I did.
<unk> that we should see recovery in some of the verticals the travel et cetera going into the second half of 2022.
So in summary, I think it would be fair to say that the first half of 2022 wont have the same benefits that we had in 2021 because in 2021, we still had the benefit in the first half of some of the Covid related work.
We provided a lot of support for but we should see the efforts of the first half of 2020 to culminate into much stronger pipeline.
Revenue perspective going into the second half of 2022.
Equally the.
Investments clearly have to be front ended so we would expect.
From a bottom line perspective, the first half of 2022 to be relatively flattish.
In terms of bottom line, because we do see the investments that we have to make upfront to be able to realize the benefits in the second half and then into 2023.
That's very helpful.
Thank you.
Paul.
Ill dig into the.
You mentioned, you you're identifying centers with suboptimal performance.
For further evaluation and consolidation can you talk about this in more detail what you've discovered as you.
Obviously, you have more flexibility with the work from home modality.
What's your timeline.
For this consolidation or optimization of your footprint.
Yeah.
Sure I think that's a that's a very good question, what we have done so I just to ensure that I'm very clear in terms of what we mean I wouldnt call them sub optimal performance. This is more in the context of the point that you just made on a transition to work from.
Mhm and therefore, some idle capacity so what we the way we looked at was how do we rightsize the organization and ensure optimal capacity utilization. So that's the way we looked at it as opposed to looking necessarily at sub optimal performance. If you will.
So we looked at how do we optimize capacity.
So that we can ensure that we are also able to provide the optimal focus from an operational perspective.
So we have done we have already taken steps in that direction and towards the end of this quarter for <unk>.
Identified.
The executive team.
True to identify the facilities that we could potentially consolidate.
And we've already taken that upfront so going into 2022.
We will actually see the benefits of that flowing through into 2022.
Michelle do you want to add anything to that.
Yes.
Would you want to add any more color to that.
Yes, that's about it so.
If you go back to the the initial discussion that we had in the call we did cover that.
Tom impediment gosh that were done in quarter four.
And thats besides the linked to the discussion that you just mentioned on some of the facilities that we're looking at to optimize and that'll give us a benefit in 2022.
Thanks Nishu.
<unk> provide you.
Some more color to that.
It helps.
You'll get a better understanding.
Yes, that's perfect.
One last one if I may squeeze it in.
John You mentioned some of the details as much as you could regarding the nonbinding proposal.
And the special Committee is ongoing its review.
Of this proposal.
Does this in any way affects.
How you go forward with new growth initiatives.
Yes.
Just to get it out there.
Sure.
Very very pertinent question in light of everything that's happening currently.
Short answer to your question no there will be no impact from an operational perspective, the initiatives that we've identified and.
And our priorities for investment will continue unabated.
No.
There will be no impact.
From a management perspective on the direction that we've chartered and the initiatives that we have prioritized going into 2022.
Okay. Thank you so much for all the detail.
Yeah.
You're very welcome.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Zach Cummins from B Riley Securities. Your question. Please.
Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Brian I just wanted to ask you around some of these fire foundational aspects that you spoke to during the call ever since he took over the leadership position you've been building out some of these key aspects to really get.
The company, who are ready to scale as we move forward I mean can you discuss maybe some of the areas that you're focused on and kind of some of the key.
Actions that you took to really get the foundation in place for the company to grow moving forward.
Yeah.
Hey.
Sure Zach and good to reconnect.
So in terms of the areas.
That we have prioritized going into 2022 and the work already started in quarter four of 2021, when I stepped in as president.
The three pillars of our group.
Growth will be.
Digital solutions.
And building our digital capabilities.
As I mentioned last time and I continue to re trade that our focus will be on our digital initiatives partnerships working closely with clients to identify areas of optimization internally.
And solutions and customer insights that we could offer our clients.
The second area is.
Revamping and rebuilding our entire sales ecosystem.
And the third area for Us is.
Building, a robust technology platform.
We've continued we've always invested in our technology, but clearly after what we went through.
We wanted to ensure that we have significantly improved capabilities on a technology front to ensure a stable and a secure environment.
So these are the three pillars.
Going forward, we will also build serious capabilities on our technology.
Infrastructure.
Across a few horizontals.
Now given that these three areas.
Key areas of focus on the digital side fee building out our capabilities with Abbvie Jain who joined US in quarter three of 2021 and he is currently building out a team.
As I mentioned, he's already got a few.
Concepts.
Pilots underway.
So I'm pretty excited about everything that we're doing in that space. Because this is going to create serious IP for us as we go into 2022 and beyond.
From a sales ecosystem perspective.
As I mentioned, we brought in in quarter four we had the big Sharma, who joined US from Infosys V. P O.
And <unk> is now building out his team.
We have already revamped our solutions and lead generation team because that effectively is the foundation for.
A much stronger sales ecosystem.
We also brought in Rebecca who brings a wealth of experience in brand management and knows the industry wherever she joined US from cycle and is working on some very interesting initiatives on the brand repositioning front.
As I mentioned, we also strengthened our lead generation and solution capabilities.
And added on a few experienced resources across geographies in that area on.
On the technology front apart from implementing a number of recommendations that.
The team the technical expert team from Palo Alto networks that we had regained provides.
Provided us after we had the ransomware attack.
So he we implemented a number of their recommendations bivious strengthened the team and recently had giant a lady who was the CIO of first source and he brings extensive experience from large organizations, such as Wipro and Accenture and he brings a wealth of XP.
Greetings and we'll be building out.
Dial in infrastructure ecosystem. So what we've done is identified our key areas of investments.
And ensure that we get the right people to build out those areas.
And last but not least.
In fact, as having run onboard.
John brings a wealth of experience.
And he has kind of come in.
To help us with.
Our entire transformation.
And provide the kind of deep domain expertise as I mentioned earlier, he was the CEO of WNS and prior to that.
Very senior partner at Accenture, Deloitte, a number of other organizations having spent over three decades building this business.
Ron.
If you would like to add.
Some of your insights and provide some more color on the kind of initiatives that we have going into FY 'twenty two I really appreciate that.
Thank you.
Sure Brian Let me just add that I think <unk> covered a lot of it.
I think the work that's being done by.
Sure.
And the digital spaces.
Really.
As we.
Star Trek and the whole company has experienced.
The pivot to work from home during Covid.
And some of the other.
Things that they had.
Brought home to us was.
Certainly the need for more technology enablement, and then to work in the new operating model going forward.
North America, the United States in particular.
Desire on behalf of the employees and employers so in this case our clients.
Have agents work from home, which presents some technology challenges that many of them were addressed.
In a fashion to be able to enable that pivot from home, but you know us.
Rob mentioned strengthening our technology platform and our environment to enable that not just here in North America, but globally. There is important because work from home has caught on and some other locations as well.
And you will find itself more institutionalized but.
The initiatives that all of these are focused on the use of AI and machine learning.
Robotic process automation to strengthen our service delivery I think are very promising certainly we've had some of that in place with some clients, but knowledge, adding to that and building that out and making it available to more clients and making them part of our core offering going forward. So very.
Promising.
Potential here an opportunity so the hard pitch that was delivered from.
Covid has also been something that star tick responded too well at the time and.
Theres learn from and is making that part of our guiding principle here.
What we do with the company going forward.
Thank you Ron.
As I hope that provides you some clarity.
Yeah, absolutely I always appreciate the additional insight there and just my other question is really on potential cost pressures I mean, just given the current inflationary environment and the challenges to find talent to really execute upon these projects. How are you planning on kind of managing the <unk>.
Cost with that and being able to maintain margins here in the near and longer term.
Very good question, Zack and I guess this is an issue that has faced not only by starting but by everyone globally and that's why we talk about E.
Ensuring that we have the right delivery platform.
At what we can offer onshore versus nearshore and offshore right shoring, if you will of our proposition.
And that is one element.
The other element is.
Maybe start having a lot of technology enablers.
Two distributions we provide.
The benefit of rich.
Clearly flows through to customers.
And therefore, they see the value that our proposition brings in and therefore to a certain extent insulates us from the kind of cost.
Pressures that we face.
But equally I think what is going to be important as technology is also going to be a big enabler in helping us improve the kind of engagement that we maintain without agents Ron alluded to some of the challenges around the work from home.
Situation so to the extent, we have technology and technology enablers that provide us to improve the experience that agents have when they work from either from any remote location all from our centers.
A long way.
In.
Helping us create the right environment and culture to be able to offset some of these cost pressures.
Does that does that give you some guidance in terms of what we are looking to use to mitigate the effect of the cost pressure.
Yeah, Yeah extremely helpful. I think that's all the questions I have for now so thanks again for taking my questions and looking forward to reconnecting spin off line.
Thanks, Thanks, Zach you very well.
Thank you. This does conclude the question and answer session of today's program I'd like to hand, the program back to or at Rao for any further remarks.
Thank you Jonathan and thank you all for joining US this afternoon and for your continued support of static I look forward to speaking with you next when we report our first quarter.
Results.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program you may now disconnect good day.
[music].