Maggie Nolan

Peterson stayed away from 2027 but expects gross margin above 32% in Q3 and Q4, driven by price increases and non-T&M profitability, with FX a slight negative rather than a tailwind.

Fejes drew EMEA parallels (domain-led go-to-market vs pure engineering) but declined a specific timeline, saying the rebuild is taking longer than anticipated; big-deal contribution is expected in 2027.

CFO confirmed bottom end of range reflects potential broadening of delayed decision-making. CEO specified travel and consumer sector already seeing impacts. Financial Services and Hi-Tech continue to see strong demand.

CFO attributed Q1 lower profitability to seasonal factors including social security reset and slow January. Highlighted Q1-over-Q1 gross margin improvement as first in a long period. Expects further gross margin improvement Q1-to-Q2 and Q2 2026 vs Q2 2025.

CFO attributed Q1 softness primarily to NEORIS largest customer declining mid-single-digits Q4-to-Q1, representing ~100bps headwind. CEO added strong pipeline visibility with European and Middle East markets providing confidence for full-year delivery.

CEO confirmed 2026 guidance already incorporates planned investments in business development, industry capabilities, vertical accelerators, and AI. No incremental P&L impact beyond what is guided.

CEO acknowledged early days for Agentic BPO. Made two acquisitions in the space including First Derivative and LYNXUS. Using EPAM-built platform for automation. Experimenting with simple and complex agentic flows requiring engineering beyond simple RPA.

Incoming CEO detailed 80%+ workforce AI upskilled in 2024. Now expanding to client-facing and back office teams. AI adoption curve accelerating but requires client cooperation to deploy in delivery.

CFO targeting utilization exit at 77%+ for Q4. More focused on account-level margin discipline and appropriate pricing. Work in progress but part of H2 focus.

CFO confirmed partnerships are an important growth driver but declined to quantify the revenue impact.

CFO outlined seasonal margin improvement in Q3, focus on utilization improvement to 77%+, and target to exit 2025 at 16%+ IFO.

CFO provided clear margin bridge from 16.5% to 15% midpoint. CEO explained investment is critical for GenAI readiness.

CFO broke down organic vs inorganic components and explained sequential growth expectations. Direct and quantitative.

Direct. Kumar gave TTM, first-half and prior-quarter bookings figures, flagged the two mega-deal compare, and walked through deal-size mix.

Direct. Credited vertical BPO leadership plus model-company partnerships, and pointed to TriZetto and AI data training services as proof points.

Ravi noted trailing 12-month bookings up from $24B range in 2023 to $27B+. Strong tail velocity into Q4 and 2026. Two swim lanes now active: productivity and innovation-led. Large deals expanding beyond Americas to Europe and APAC.

Ravi cited 30% code assist, GitHub Copilot Partner of the Year, Google Gemini Enterprise launch partner, Anthropic partnership, Guinness World Record hackathon with 53,000 associates. Over 250,000 employees trained on AI skills.

Ravi argued uncertain environments accelerate cost-takeout urgency. Acknowledged some deal lumpiness between quarters but sees strong timing for technology-led cost reduction.

Jatin noted pricing intensity in large deals driven by total cost of ownership reduction through AI productivity, not rate card pressure. Early AI advantage matters.

Chris said AI deals are margin accretive due to higher-value services attach and recurring revenue streams. Typically larger deals. AI becoming ubiquitous across the stack makes CDW optimistic about margin accretion going forward.

Al said cloud and SaaS demand remains durable with continued buildup. Current shift to hardware is a prioritization response to pricing and supply concerns. As that works through the funnel, spending will rebalance to netted-down categories.