Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Your first question comes from Sarah Friar - Goldman Sachs.
Sarah Friar - Goldman Sachs
Could I ask a question just first on the top line? Lars, when we saw your at the success connect event, clearly you were talking about some of these larger deals in the pipeline like the Siemens deal for example, but low confidence in terms of when you could close them. Could you give us a little bit more color of how much more confidence you’re feeling given the slight turn. Are you starting to see sales force accuracy going up, better ability to predict closure rates, just to gives us some sense of what to expect over the next couple of quarters?
Lars Dalgaard
I think the important indicators that give us confidence are that close rates really did increase. Unfortunately, predictability did not. We also saw a real strengthening of the pipeline, and we saw significant deals close that we did not expect. So, the predictability is certainly not what it used to be a year ago. In fact, the number of customers are less than they were both in total transactions and new from the same time last year, but they were increased sequentially and then that’s very exciting for us.
Particularly, important for our model, of course, is that we achieved higher renewal rates and that was an extremely important indicator. As you know, we have reworked our sales force to focus on that partially, and that work has really paid-off.
Sarah Friar - Goldman Sachs
When you say higher renewal rates, can you give us any kind of sense of size of the shift?
Lars Dalgaard
No, I guess the biggest message is that it’s not backwards, which it could have been in this market. It’s just very tad, but we’re just excited that was up and not back, because it’s been a lot of work. Having companies like Wachovia renew inside of Wells Fargo and having those types of indicators and many other businesses renew that have troubled businesses, but decided that SuccessFactors’ software was important to get them through the situation they were in. So, the team has really stepped up their game in making that happen.
Sarah Friar - Goldman Sachs
Then, Bruce, just on the margin side, so you made the comment, clearly the G&A number was amazing this quarter, but you said there was a seasonal impact there. Could you give us a sense of what that might be, just as we think of what to model off of as we look forward?
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
