Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions)
Your first question comes from the line of Leo Carpio – Caris & Company
Leo Carpio – Caris & Company
First on the infrastructure expense, could you tell us how is that progressing along in terms of your spending year-to-date and what you anticipate for the rest of the year?
Dave Bassin
The investments on the infrastructure are on pace as we expected. As you know we talked about the extending over a 12 to 18 month period. We’ve completed the initial design phase going through the specifics of how this will be implemented. We’re focusing a lot of our attention on making sure that we have a common backbone between our commercial and our clinical group to generate efficiencies. So at this point I believe that we are on pace and are in the process of beginning the implementation phase.
Leo Carpio – Caris & Company
In terms of the cross-selling it sounds like you’ve had some good traction this year. What’s changed from year-over-year? Is it simply the new organization structure you’ve set up for cross-selling?
Blane Walter
We started this effort and organized it really in the third quarter of last year. We have identified 12 now [seam] teams which are an approach we’re taking that focuses specifically on 12 clients who we think were a particularly good fit. We’ve designed strategies around those clients and we’ve begun pursuing them. At the same time I would tell you that our organization as a whole continues to get more and more understanding and we continue to educate them on all that we can do and what we’re seeing is focus on those clients helping as well as our organization really is better able to spot integrated opportunities.
Leo Carpio – Caris & Company
Okay and turning over to the 2008 guidance, if I recall previously a comment for ’08 guidance that you were indicating 35% to 40% of the ’08 would come in the first half of the year and 60% in the second half, is that an accurate description still or has it changed slightly?
Dave Bassin
Maybe I can give you further clarification on the ramp up that we’re looking at for Q2 in the second half of ’08, each quarter’s earnings will be higher than the previous quarters in relatively equal increments as I mentioned on the call. And then maybe if we look at it from a segment level standpoint I can give you further clarity. So first starting with the clinical group you know that there is a payroll tax implication which will drive profit progression most dramatically in Q2 and Q3 as a result of the payroll tax. In addition within clinical given their strong track record of growth and performance we would expect further strong growth within that group creating significant expansion in the second half of the year as they have a number of opportunities within functional outsourcing.
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