Q: All the key numbers are up by about a third. So what is driving that performance?
A: Well, you’re right. Our revenue growth was 33%. Our adjusted EPS was up by 32%. And if we look at those areas of growth, we really need to break it down to the organic growth and the growth through acquisition. In terms of the organic growth, again, we had a very encouraging year in which we saw constant currency over 15% growth.
By geographic area, we saw good growth from North America, Europe and rest of the world. It’s particularly pleasing to see the growth in North America of slightly above 20%. But also, by the types of revenue, so our licence, our maintenance and consulting. Again, licence fees grew almost 20%, maintenance by 10%, consulting 44%. And that growth in licence fees we all recognise as a driver of future maintenance and future consulting. So again, all very positive. So on the organic side of the business, which is the primary focus, we saw some excellent growth rates.
On top of that, we’ve also identified, through the strategy review, the potential to accelerate growth through targeted, true acquisitions. AcuCorp being the major acquisition, added about $26m (£13m) of revenues. So when you take that strength in the organic business, plus the strength of the acquisitions that we’ve acquired delivered slightly in excess of 30% revenue growth.
Q: And in terms of your high proportion of predictable and recurring revenues, so the licensing and the maintenance how much new maintenance revenue did you achieve in the second half, as opposed to that from existing customers?
A: That’s a good point because, again, we do have a very good high level of maintenance - almost half of our revenue streams, which is very robust, very predictable, very repeatable. And of that maintenance, the key drivers of maintenance are obviously keeping our existing customers happy.
Q: So in terms of targeting larger clients, which is one of your focuses, what is the average contract size that achieved in the second half?
A: Well predominantly, the business is still a high-volume, low-value transaction business. Again, very predictable, very robust, very secure. And we’ve seen some good growth in that underlying high-volume, low-value business.
Q: How confident are you that you’ll sustain double-digit organic growth in the coming year?
A: We’ve been very clear that our ambition is to continue to achieve double-digit organic growth at constant currency. So again, there’s no complacency whatsoever in the organisation. But we have the resources. We have the opportunity. We have the company to achieve that but we have to focus and we have to execute.
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