Full Year 2021 NCC Group PLC Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt LLP, Research Division - Analyst : And well done on getting through what was a difficult here. I just have a couple of questions, if I may. First one I wanted to ask was on the MDR offer, which is obviously growing fast, and there's impressive order growth there. But on the slide deck on that pie chart, which shows the completion of the offer, it's clear that it's not quite there for you in terms of it's -- what you are offering within that. In fact, probably that's why you are adding the Sentinel capability or adding the machine learning capabilities to that. Do you think you can organically expand the MDR offer, including going to new geographies? Or do you ultimately think it needs to be scaled faster than is possible organically?

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt LLP, Research Division - Analyst : Adam, very clear. The other one I wanted to ask you, if we take U.K. Assurance and you take the -- I know MDR is larger in Europe. But if we take the MDR in U.K. away and you take the Remediation services revenue away from the U.K. Assurance, U.K. is actually probably not growing as fast as U.S. and probably explained by the fact that U.S. got these tech giants that are spending much faster. And also, I guess, in U.K., you have long established clients with probably much better penetration than you do in the U.S. But one of the things that kind of caught my eye is in one of the slides, you have this growth rate that you attribute to your top 10 clients. And if we look at other very fast-growing consultancy businesses, not just in cybersecurity, one of the things you note is that they tend to grow with their largest customers who, either through luck or targeting, end up being the higher spenders with the faster budget growth. In the U.K., are there any underpenetrated verticals for your U.K. Assurance business that might, let's say, lift up the growth prospects in the U.K.? Or do you think the U.K. market is just slowly getting back on its feet and therefore I shouldn't conclude that the U.K. is always going to be much slower than U.S.?

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt LLP, Research Division - Analyst : No. Again, cleared. And the last one I wanted to ask is, I think it has been touched a few times before in prior questions. But your utilization is up, I think, 5 points, but I suppose there is still quite some headroom before you need to worry about utilization being hot. Your attrition is also up. I guess that's the nature of the market. You see that everywhere as kind of we come out the pandemic. But the pricing is stable. So if assume wage inflation is definitely coming, which lots of people are seeing, and I'm sure you are also seeing as well, how helpful is this global sourcing going to be? And do you think global sourcing, which impressively doubled for you guys in terms of mandates, will it -- can it continue? Is there more global sourcing penetration within your offer to come that will potentially help you manage that wage inflation in an environment where pricing seems to be stable?

Question: Damindu Jayaweera - Peel Hunt LLP, Research Division - Analyst : And one last question, and I'll stop hogging the queue. Just on Software Resilience, IPM acquisition from memory, had some impressive sales leadership. Obviously, they are coming over. To the extent you can, could you kind of elaborate on what they will take over? Because one of the things that most people are interested is -- it was the fact that IPM actually had better revenue per sales head. So could we expect some of that REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 14, 2021 / 8:00AM, NCCG.L - Full Year 2021 NCC Group PLC Earnings Call magic to spread across more of the U.S. footprint and perhaps even elsewhere? So if you could comment on leadership, what the IPM guys will kind of take over or have taken over?