CGI - Q1 2026
January 28, 2026
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to CGI's first quarter fiscal 2026 conference call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Kevin Linder, SVP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Linder.
Kevin Linder (SVP of Investor Relations)
Thank you, Julie, and good morning. With me to discuss CGI's first quarter fiscal 2026 results are François Boulanger, our President and CEO, and Steve Perron, Executive Vice President and CFO. This call is being broadcast on cgi.com and recorded live at 9:00 A.M. Eastern Time on Wednesday, January 28, 2026. Supplemental slides, as well as the press release we issued earlier this morning, are available for download, along with our MD&A financial statements and accompanying notes, all of which have been filed with both SEDAR+ and EDGAR. Please note that some statements made on the call may be forward-looking. Actual events or results may differ materially from those who are expressed or implied, and CGI disclaims any intent or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
The complete safe harbor statement is available in both our MD&A and press release, as well as on CGI.com. We recommend our investors read it in its entirety. We're reporting our financial results in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS. As always, we will also discuss non-GAAP performance measures, which should be viewed as supplemental. The MD&A contains definitions of each one used in our reporting. All of the dollar figures expressed on this call are Canadian, unless otherwise noted. We are also hosting our annual general meeting this morning, so we hope you will join us live via the broadcast at 11:00 A.M. Now I'll turn the call over to Steve to review our Q1 financials, and then François will comment on our business and market outlook. Steve?
Steve Perron (EVP and CFO)
Thank you, Kevin, and good day, everyone. In our first quarter of fiscal 2026, we demonstrated discipline in the management of our operations while continuing to make the necessary investment, guided by our AI strategy. In the quarter, we delivered $4.1 billion of revenue, up 7.7% year-over-year, or up 3.4% when excluding the impact of foreign exchange. Growth was driven by our recent business acquisitions and continued demand for our APAC delivery center, with this segment reporting growth of 5.8%, mainly through delivery of managed services. In our UK and Australia segment, with our acquisition of BJSS, growth was 31%. This acquisition is transformative to our UK operation, adding significant scale, and we can now showcase the breadth of CGI's end-to-end services to our new clients.
In our Western and Southern Europe segment, growth was 9%, led by our acquisition of Apside, which includes engineering services. As we indicated last quarter, our U.S. operations were impacted by the federal shutdown in the quarter. The timing and related impacts were in line with what we communicated last quarter. While a sequential improvement is expected in the next quarter, our U.S. Federal segment is still operating in a very dynamic environment. Bookings in the quarter were CAD 4.5 billion, for a book-to-bill ratio of 110%, led by U.S. commercial and state government at 169%, Finland, Poland, and Baltics at 124%, and Scandinavia, Northwest and Central East Europe at 113%. Bookings continue to be led by our managed services at a 117% book-to-bill.
SI&C book-to-bill was 100%, last reached in our first quarter of fiscal 2025. With the U.S. Federal shutdown, we had previously called out that our bookings would be impacted in the quarter. This was indeed the case, and excluding U.S. Federal , our teams delivered a combined book-to-bill of 118%. On a trailing twelve-month basis, book-to-bill was 110%, with North America at 122% and Europe at 101%. On the same basis, managed services had a book-to-bill ratio of 122%, and the SI&C book-to-bill ratio was 96%. Our contracted backlog reached CAD 31.3 billion or 1.9 times revenue. Turning to profitability.
Adjusted EBIT in the quarter was CAD 655 million, up 7.1% year-over-year, for a margin of 16.1%, down 10 basis points. In the quarter, our results were impacted by the US federal shutdown and a CAD 8 million one-time impact of past service costs related to statutory employee benefits in India due to a change of regulation. Including acquisition and related integration costs of CAD 26 million, earnings before income taxes were CAD 600 million, for a margin of 14.7%. Our effective tax rate in the quarter was 26.3%, 40 basis points higher than last year, mainly explained by the statutory tax increase in France. We expect our tax rate for future quarters to be in the range of 26%-27%.
Adjusted net earnings were $461 million for a margin of 11.3%. On the same basis, diluted EPS was $2.12, an accretion of 8% when compared to Q1 last year. Net earnings were $442 million, for a margin of 10.8%, and diluted EPS was $2.03, an accretion of 6% when compared to Q1 last year. Turning to cash. We generated a strong $872 million in our cash from operations, representing 21.4% of total revenue, due to the strength of our collection efforts. DSO was 37 days in the quarter, an 8-day improvement sequentially, and a 1-day improvement when compared to the prior year.
As a reminder, in general, our first quarter has the lowest DSO, due mainly to higher levels of client prepayments or annual IP maintenance fees. In Q1, we continued to deploy our capital and invested CAD 87 million back into the business, including strategic investment in advanced AI, CAD 106 million on business acquisitions, CAD 577 million to buy back our stock, and in addition, we returned CAD 37 million to our shareholder under our dividend program. Yesterday, our board of directors approved the renewal of our NCIB program until February 2027, authorizing us to repurchase for cancellation up to 19 million shares over the next 12 months. At current share price levels, we expect to remain very active in our repurchase program. In addition, our board of directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of CAD 0.17 per share.
This dividend is payable on March 20th, 2026, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on February 18, 2020. With CAD 2.4 billion in capital resources readily available and a net debt leverage ratio of 1, CGI has the balance sheet strength and capacity to deliver on our profitable growth strategy. CGI's capital allocation priorities have remained consistent, focused on investing back in the business, pursuing accretive acquisition, and share buybacks. Now, I will turn the call over to François to further discuss insights on the quarter, the progress on our AI strategy, and the outlook for our business and markets. François?
François Boulanger (CEO)
Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. We started the year with positive momentum that deepened our position as one of the few firms with a local presence, global scale, capabilities, and commitment to be a partner of choice for our clients, an employer of choice for our people, and an investment of choice for you, our shareholders. In Q1, we delivered year-over-year revenue growth, strong profitability, and record high cash of CAD 872 million. This further expands our capacity to fuel our build and buy profitable growth strategy in line with our capital allocation priorities. The trust clients have in CGI as a partner for delivering on their priorities, including for advanced AI, is evident in our results. This extends to bookings, which reached nearly CAD 4.5 billion in the quarter, up by more than CAD 300 million year over year.
Just over half of bookings were comprised of new awards and add-ons, which typically expand our delivery scope with clients. In addition, our win rate on renewals was over 95%, demonstrating the confidence clients have in CGI's ability to continuously innovate. On a trailing 12-month basis, total bookings were up 12%, reaching a high of nearly CAD 18 billion. This was led by managed services, up 16% compared to the previous year. Systems integration and consulting bookings were also up on a sequential quarter, year-over-year, and trailing 12-month basis. Compared to this time last year, the Q1 SI &C wins were up by more than CAD 360 million.
From an industry perspective, all commercial segments closed the quarter with a book-to-bill above 100%, led by Manufacturing, Retail, and Distribution which was up more than CAD 530 million or 65% year-over-year. Representative awards in the quarter included: A European-based global manufacturer initiated a new strategic partnership with CGI to modernize critical IT services, including the integration of advanced AI solutions into their operations. A leading global luxury group in France renewed its relationship with CGI to deliver SAP services in support of their retail and manufacturing operations. CGI will also expand the integration of AI to our IP to optimize service quality and productivity in IT management. The Swedish Board of Agriculture expanded its relationship with CGI through a multi-year framework agreement, supporting the agency's digital transformation and expansion of trusted AI capabilities across systems development and operations.
Highmark, a US health insurer, renewed and expanded its partnership with CGI to accelerate innovation in claims payment accuracy and integrity. Through the engagement, CGI will deliver a range of AI-enabled services through our ProperPay IP, which helps identify potential risk earlier, improves efficiency, and reduces billing errors at scale. As shared last quarter, government sector bookings were impacted by the Q1 US government shutdown. On a trailing 12-month basis, our government wins were 104%, or 113% when excluding our US federal segment. Globally, the pipeline of government sector opportunities continues to increase, up 30% compared to this time last year, as agencies continue to prioritize modernization, cybersecurity, and cost efficiency. Now, I will summarize the progress against CGI's AI strategy, starting with embedding AI into our end-to-end services.
In Q1, the rollout of our AI-enabled software delivery lifecycle is improving engineering speed and quality, with strong adoption of AI development assistance and advanced tooling. We are reinforcing trust and compliance through CGI's responsible use of technology framework, embedding AI risk governance directly into sales and delivery life cycles. In terms of client adoption, we continue to see an evolution from experimentation to enterprise integration. The transition is not a fast or a direct one, as success depends on strong foundation for data quality, platform modernization, and governance. All of which are strengths for our team. Recent examples of AI projects include: launching an agentic AI strategy for a Canadian financial institution to guide their outcome-oriented AI adoption. Delivering AI-driven application reverse engineering for a US federal agency to support faster modernization decisions.
Applying deep learning AI for a UK healthcare provider to improve IVF embryo selection and patient outcomes. Implementing AIOps at a Canadian retailer to help improve IT reliability, efficiency, and cost optimization. Deploying an AI-enabled developer assistant for a US utility to simplify system integrations and accelerate customer billing implementations. Recognition of CGI as an AI-to-ROI client partner continues to be recognized by leading industry analyst firms. For example, in Q1, CGI was positioned as a leader in the IDC MarketScape for worldwide AI services for state and local government. Moving to how we are leading with AI-integrated platforms and alliances, 65% of CGI's IP solutions incorporate AI-enabled intelligent automation. Our industry-leading solutions are relied on the enable mission-critical business operations, delivering direct value to client every day.
Our technology alliance partner program also continues to expand, introducing new channels to market and growing our relationships with the hyperscalers and AI-native firms. We recently announced a multi-year agreement with Google Cloud to help clients accelerate agentic AI outcomes with Gemini Enterprise, and a global go-to-market alliance with OpenAI to help clients deploy advanced AI capabilities securely, responsibly, and at an enterprise scale. Turning to how we are uniting talent and AI technologies. While our CGI partners are naturally using AI as part of their everyday work, approximately 40% of our consultants have expertise in advanced AI and data, more than double the numbers since this time last year. Given this, AI-related training continues to dominate the learning and development courses our experts are completing through our CGI Academia platform. Our learning and hiring investments also contributed to CGI earning new alliance certifications and partner tier status.
Over the past quarter, this included progress with AWS, Snowflake, ServiceNow, and UiPath, all of which expand our capabilities and create new business development opportunities in advanced AI, cloud, and data. Lastly, we also progress CGI's internal AI adoption. Through the new engagements with Google Cloud and OpenAI, we are expanding our current use of these platforms by equipping and adding to show tens of thousands of consultants and experts. We also launched our internal AI Exchange platform with widespread engagement as our teams contribute and reuse proven code assets and best practices, delivery processes, and playbooks. CGI's AI Exchange is designed to help us scale and industrialize AI delivery globally while maintaining quality, speed, and cost effectiveness. As we reflect on the past 50 years in business, and more importantly, our future... I will now outline CGI's value creation strategy for our three stakeholders, and namely you, our shareholders.
Our value creation strategy is built on four streams: systems integration and consulting, including the services related to IP; managed services, including our IP solutions; accretive acquisitions; and share buyback and dividend programs. By design, these streams are complementary and countercyclical to external market dynamics in order to foster continuous revenue growth and EPS accretion for the benefit of our shareholders. This positions CGI to deliver results even as the global business environment remains complex and uneven. Starting with our first value stream, SI&C. In stronger economic markets, client priorities tend to expand to innovation, experimentation, and growth. As clients spend on more discretionary initiatives, our SI&C capabilities support them in business evolution, integrating core systems, and creating and scaling new platforms and applications, regularly including consulting on our IP solutions.
Today, we are seeing early indication of an uptick in demand in the market as the pipeline of new opportunities is strong, including for AI advisory and AI integration services related to CGI IP and alliance platforms. In fact, our pipeline of SI&C opportunities in advanced stages is up by more than 40% year-over-year. Additionally, in Q1, SI&C revenue grew 9.8% year-over-year in constant currency. As Steve mentioned, the SI&C bookings in the quarter reached 100% of revenue. Turning now to our second stream, CGI's Managed Services, which fully embed advanced AI as a standard practice, making them especially attractive for clients. When there are market uncertainties, clients typically want to reduce spending to increase their financial flexibility, with the goal to reinvest in digitization.
This is why we see demand rise for CGI's Managed Services, which allow clients to benefit from longer-term, outcome-based partnerships with clear cost structures and commitments for productivity improvements and innovation. CGI's global delivery capabilities also play a critical role in our managed services, including our Global Capability Center expertise, which was recently recognized by Everest Group. Through our managed services, including those delivered with our IP solutions, we become a core extension of the client teams. This drives longer-term recurring revenue with higher margins for CGI. From a revenue perspective, over the past 12 months, our managed services business increased more than CAD 600 million or 8% compared to the previous year. In Q1, managed services bookings were up on both a year-over-year and trailing twelve-month basis.
Notably, since Q1 last year, 40% of our managed services wins were new business, and the pipeline of new opportunities reflects this uptick, increasing by more than 20% over this quarter last year. Regarding our third stream, CGI's business, CGI's buy strategy. Given the ongoing strength of CGI's balance sheet and current market conditions, we continue to pursue accretive acquisitions at pace. In the quarter, we closed 2 mergers. In Europe, we completed the merger with a division of Comarch, which expands our presence in Poland and the Baltic States and deepens our public sector expertise and IP portfolio across social security, health, agriculture, and other mission areas. In North America, we expanded our Canadian footprint through the merger with Online Business Systems, an established IT consulting firm based in Winnipeg.
Through this agreement, we enhanced our capabilities in AI, digital transformation, and cybersecurity with enterprise clients in Canada and the U.S. I would like to warmly welcome the more than 800 new consultants who have joined CGI from these mergers. Our pipeline of additional merger targets remain robust. We are committed to making sure that we acquire the right companies at the right time and at the right price, all three without exception. The final stream, share buybacks and dividends, provide additional value creation to our shareholders, especially now, given that we believe CGI stock is undervalued. We plan to remain very active in our share repurchase program while these conditions persist. As we look ahead, across the markets we serve, economic conditions and client priorities continue to vary by region and industry.
These priorities are influenced by geopolitical uncertainty, shifting regulatory requirements, and the growing importance of IT systems to national resilience, sovereignty, competitiveness, and everyday operations. At the same time, interest in AI remain high, making it more, even more important for organization to separate the hype from practical impact. In this environment, trust, deep industry knowledge, and proximity to the client matter more than ever. To address their priorities successfully, clients need partners like CGI, who have the end-to-end capabilities and industry expertise necessary to modernize core systems, strengthen cybersecurity, and sustainably integrate AI-led digital capabilities into their operations. In closing, while the environment is still uncertain, we are observing gradual improvement in some industries and geographies. As such, we anticipate continuing improvement for the rest of the year. CGI has been built to grow and last.
For 50 years, we've been at the heart of continuous technology innovation and business transformation, combining human ingenuity with the power of technology to help our clients achieve meaningful outcomes. As the pace of change accelerates, we remain focused on what matters most: helping our stakeholders succeed. Thank you for your continued interest and support. Let's go to the question now, Kevin.
Kevin Linder (SVP of Investor Relations)
Thanks, François. Julie, we can now poll for questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, press star one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, press star two. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Richard Tse from National Bank, Canada. Please go ahead.
Richard Tse (Managing Director and Technology Analyst)
Yes, thank you. With respect to acquisitions, does the volatility and uncertainty around AI has that sort of changed the way you evaluate these transactions, kind of, you know, given that uncertain future?
François Boulanger (CEO)
No, not at all. Thanks, Richard, for the question. No, we continue to see AI anyway as an enabler for the future. So when it's time to look at the acquisition and merger, we're still looking at, you know, how we can improve our footprints in our several metro market where we're lacking presence. And naturally, looking also at the larger ones and the transformational one that can help CGI in the future. So it's not changing anything in our policy or politics or our view of merger and acquisition. We are looking at relationships. We are looking at the, you know, places where we can continue to grow.
AI is actually an enabler and not something that is asking us to change our philosophy on M&A.
Okay. And just my second question has to do with the U.S. federal government. Obviously, you know, last quarter, we had that sort of a government shutdown. But as you step back, do you think that there's some things that are maybe happening in the background that structurally sort of resets that business? And I guess related to that, at what point and how quickly could you sort of, you know, restructure if needed, you know, if that was the case?
Again, we still think that the, you know, federal government is a very good client of ours. It's more than 30 years that we're dealing with the federal government. And they need IT to support their operations. So we still think it's a very good market. But sure, you know, we are living in a geopolitical environment that is very dynamic. You know, yes, we finish the—we had a shutdown. Now, we're talking perhaps another shutdown at the end of this week, we'll see. But that's short-term headwinds. We're still thinking on the long-term basis that it's a very good market for us.
Richard Tse (Managing Director and Technology Analyst)
Okay, that's helpful. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from Stephanie Price from CIBC. Please go ahead.
Stephanie Price (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Hi, good morning.
François Boulanger (CEO)
Hi.
Stephanie Price (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Could you be just following up on the U.S. Federal question? Just curious around margins. Obviously, you'd messaged the margins were going to be a little bit weaker in the U.S. Federal , just given the shutdown. How should we think about margins in U.S. Federal going forward, just given, as you noted, it's pretty dynamic environment here. Are you seeing any pricing pressure? What are you seeing out of the government in terms of pricing here?
François Boulanger (CEO)
Yeah. For sure, you know, the fact that, you know, the revenue and profit was down this quarter was also the fact that, you know, we, our utilization rate went down. You know, with the shutdown, you know, we had some people that were not able to bill, and so we had the cost and not the revenue. So with, you know, when the U.S. government did reopen, we were able to redeploy our people in the contract. And so, that improved the utilization rate and thus improving the margin. So, it's not necessarily cost pressure or rate pressure that we have in the federal.
It was really related to the fact that with the shutdown and the fact that it's temporary, you know, we wanted to keep our workforce, and so that was... That's why it put a pressure on the utilization rate.
Stephanie Price (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Okay, so going forward, we should expect more in line with historical. And then in terms of SI&C , it was great to see that bookings were solid in the quarter, and you mentioned the pipeline for advanced stages was up. Can you talk a little bit about the regions and industries where you're seeing the improvement in SI&C ?
François Boulanger (CEO)
Yeah, for sure. Thanks for the question. For sure, we're seeing a SI&C improvement a bit across every industry, and I'll start with example in the financial sector. You know, they need some advice, example, in AI. So, we are helping them to deploy some of these AI tools, like I gave some example on that in my script. Same thing in manufacturing. You know, they need consulting, again, to deploy these tools. So a lot of consulting, not business consulting is still soft, but everything related to CIO consulting, and especially with these tools, we're seeing a lot of new demand, and I would say mostly in all industries.
Stephanie Price (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Great. Thank you very much.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from Suthan Sukumar from Stifel Canada. Please go ahead.
Suthan Sukumar (Managing Director)
Good morning, gents. For my first question, I wanna touch on the sort of the industry theme around vendor consolidation. Can you speak a little bit about around what clients your clients are doing today with their IT partners? And roughly, you know, what percentage of some of your new business and existing business expansion today is a function of continued vendor consolidation?
François Boulanger (CEO)
Yeah, that's a great question. For sure, we're seeing a lot of that trend across the world. You know, clients realize that, you know, they need to reduce the number of partners, and especially, you know, using a lot of freelancers in the market. So you'll have a lot of-- They'll deal with very small companies, and so because of relationships sometimes with the buyers. So, you know, we won several of them, vendor consolidation. We won one, a big one that I think I announced last quarter, with a large bank in Europe that was actually a vendor consolidation. They went from hundreds of suppliers to four or five suppliers, and we were one of these suppliers.
We're seeing that especially in the very large companies and clients. Same thing happened in Germany with an automobile company, where they had thousands of suppliers, and they wanted to reduce, and we were one that gained some activities with this vendor consolidation. So, you know, we see that. We will continue to see that in the future. And the fact that we're very close to our clients, I think that's a tailwind, or at least opportunities to us to win new business in our existing clients.
Suthan Sukumar (Managing Director)
Great, thank you. That's helpful. For my second question, I just wanted to touch on, sort of the broader theme of enterprise AI adoption. So you've, you guys have recently announced new partnerships with OpenAI, Google Gemini on this front, as did some of your global peers also more recently. You know, from where you sit today, where are we at in the enterprise AI adoption cycle? And is AI spending today, is it—do you see it being more additive or, or still displacing existing IT spend budgets? And how resilient is sort of this AI-related spending, with respect to the macro?
François Boulanger (CEO)
Well, you know, what I would say to you, first of all, you know, as for the tools by themselves, I think a lot of companies already deployed these tools. So now all these tools are, at least for the large companies, they deploy them. Now, what they need to do is to realize the outcome with these tools, and that's where, you know, they need companies like us to help them to produce these outcome for them. So that's really where we are today, and that's why we have a lot of consulting with these clients, because they don't know what to do, to a certain point, with these tools. And so that's where we are helping them.
Another good example is, you know, a lot of these clients will have old solutions or old applications that they didn't touch for the last 15, 20, 25 years because it's too complicated, and it's too... You know, they don't want to touch it to break it. And now with tools like AI, it's, you know, they can see it in another way, and having these tools helping to do the conversion or the refreshment of these application. So that's brand-new demand and services that they were not existing in the past.
People were saying: "Let's not touch that, and let's, maintain them, but, let's forget about them." Now they're saying: "Well, perhaps we can reduce our run cost by, by changing these, these applications." And so that's brand-new demand that, we didn't see in the past, so I think that we will see that, to continue. And, and finally, again, in managed services, you know, that is still very relevant, and people wants to, to have savings on their, on their run of application. I know AI is a tool to, to help to achieve these, these savings. I know we had the offshoring, but now we have offshoring and AI to help to create these savings for clients. So that's why we still think that, that will open doors to new demand in the managed services side.
Suthan Sukumar (Managing Director)
Thank you for the feedback. I'll pass the line.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from Thanos Moschopoulos from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thanos Moschopoulos (Managing Director)
Hi, good morning. First of all, just given, the very strong ROI that I presume clients can get from AI, if we just look at, you know, the most recent quarter, your trailing numbers and what's been holding back growth, is it that the CIO understands the value of AI, but the CFO is constraining the budget? Is it that just, you know, more education was needed about what AI can do for them, and now you're starting to see more implementation? Just what's been the holdback, in terms of clients putting the pedal to the metal on these AI initiatives?
François Boulanger (CEO)
... I don't think it's necessarily a holdback. I think, like I'm saying, I think people realize that it's a little, a lot more complicated than people thought. And so that's one thing. The other thing also is data quality. You know, it's nice to say that, you know, you have AI and you deployed AI, but AI will be as good as your data is good. And I think that's also, again, one of the challenge that a lot of these company has. And so they-- that's where the work needs to be done.
And again, they're saying, like, as a CFO, yeah, the CFO is seeing the cost coming in of these tools, coming in, on a monthly basis, but they don't see necessarily the outcome. And that's where, you know, again, the CIOs wants to showcase that. But to do that, they need to clean up the quality, clean up some of the quality of the data, clean up some of these application, and that will take some time. So that's really... I think that's... I would say on that specific item. I think overall, the macro is still something that you see in the market. You know, still we're restarting to talk about tariff, for example, in some places.
So it's for sure, it's concern in some places, especially when I'm talking to some clients in Europe, you still see some concern on that side, and that's hurting a bit the pro side.
Thanos Moschopoulos (Managing Director)
Great. And then just in terms of your own internal use of AI, when we look at your margins for this quarter, I mean, would you say that you start to capture some, you know, material margin improvement from AI? Is it early days on that front, as we think about kind of the benefits you're already capturing?
François Boulanger (CEO)
Yeah. I'll start, and I'll ask Steve to continue. But for sure, you know, we are seeing already some savings with AI. For sure, some of it we are reinvesting in the business. But you know, also in the quarter, you know, it was hit to a certain point with a one-time cost in India, but you will see the margin picking up in the future. And perhaps you can talk a little bit about some of our examples.
Steve Perron (EVP and CFO)
Yeah, but look, we are using it obviously internally, and the team are using it well. It's bringing efficiency, obviously, but we are continuing to invest in it. We want a further efficiency. We want further improvement. But in terms of, you know, as mentioned, the global margin that we had in the quarter, we're pretty proud with some good improvement in many SBUs. Obviously, there was a one-time in India, and also what we called out at the last quarter in federal. But if you look at Scandinavia, Northwest Europe and Central East Europe, a clear improvement in terms of margin. You see also the benefit coming in terms of the margin from the integration of BJSS.
And also, in France, the margin has improved, so Western and Southern Europe also was a good improvement year-over-year. So, quite good activities that has strengthened our margin, and it's quite good for the next future quarters.
Thanos Moschopoulos (Managing Director)
That's great. I'll pass the line. Thank you.
François Boulanger (CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from Robert Young, from Canaccord, Canada. Please go ahead.
Robert Young (Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst)
Hello. The comment on the government pipeline up 30%. I was hoping you could parse that out between, you know, U.S. Federal , you noted that bookings were impacted and, and the higher volatility. And then I guess on the other side of that, it looks as though governments around the world are looking for more sovereignty, more control over local technology. Perhaps maybe just talk about, you know, where those bookings growth is, or the pipeline growth is coming from.
François Boulanger (CEO)
Yeah. Thanks, Robert. So yeah, government, we are seeing good momentum across the world. You know, I'll start with our home here in Canada. As you know, Canada wants to invest a lot in the defense side, for example, and so defense is including cybersecurity, for example, and so they'll need IT to support them. They want to reduce costs on delivering services to their citizen. And again, that will need to... They'll need to build a new systems, and so we are seeing that as good potential in the future, and we have some conversation with the client, with the government client in Canada, to understand when and how it will be deployed.
Same thing in the rest of the world. The rest of the world, you know, as you know, they want to invest a lot on the defense side, and we have already some of these defense ministries, for example, in Germany and U.K., already they're clients of ours. NATO is a client of ours. We are seeing momentum and discussion there, so we see good opportunity on that side. Going back in the U.S., U.S., I would say, staying local, so everything related to the state and local government in the U.S., we are seeing good momentum.
To some point, they are taking the place of the federal government in some of these investments, so we are seeing also good momentum on that side. On the federal government, for sure, we are seeing a pickup versus, you know, last year when, you know, we were talking about those, and we had the U.S. shutdown. So we are seeing also opportunities in the pipeline on that side. Now that, hopefully we won't have another shutdown, we can see some of these RFP going out and be awarded in the next couple of months.
Robert Young (Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst)
Okay, so it sounds as though you're pretty confident that that type of pipeline growth is indicative of, you know, sustainable top-line growth in the future, both in the U.S., U.S. Federal , but all around the globe, I guess?
François Boulanger (CEO)
I would say all around the globe, for sure. As for U.S. Federal , you know, again, we just need to be... Yeah, it can be lumpiness a bit, with everything that's happening there. But at the same time, state and local, in the U.S. is going pretty well.
Robert Young (Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst)
Okay. And then the headcount number was flat quarter-over-quarter, up year-over-year. But it, it—I mean, the revenue growth is still outpacing your headcount growth. And that's interesting because you highlighted the utilization headwinds in the U.S. So just talking a little bit—if you could talk through the revenue per employee growth, and then also, if you could be clear on whether Comarch and OBS are included in the headcount number or, but—so are we gonna expect to see growth in the next quarter?
François Boulanger (CEO)
Yeah. Comarch and OBS, yes, are in the headcount numbers since they were closed before end of the quarter. As for the revenue per headcount, for sure, it did grow again, and will continue. You can expect this to continue to grow. Like I said in the past, you know, a lot—most of our managed services are outcome-based, and so with the fact that we're using more and more AI in our delivery of managed services, you know, I don't need necessarily the same headcount number or the same number of people to deliver the services.
So, you can still expect this headcount versus revenue, or at least the revenue by headcount continue to grow, because of the new technologies that we're deploying.
Robert Young (Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst)
Okay, last quick question. Last quarter, you talked about outcome-based pricing, and you're talking a lot about outcome-based programs this quarter. One of your competitors was highlighting a significant growth in fixed-price contracts related to their proprietary platforms, and so I'm just curious if you're seeing that and, you know, how that might affect the model and margins going forward, and then I'll pass the line.
François Boulanger (CEO)
Yeah. No, and, and, you know, outcome-based can be fixed price also, especially when it's shorter, you know, duration. If, we're talking about a managed service of 2, 3 years, a lot of time, we, we can, fix it even for that full 3 years duration, for example. For sure, when it's longer, we need to take into account the, the volume, and, and, and it's both sides. It's good for the client, and it's good for us because by linked to the volumes or, or the outcome is, is good on, on both sides. But yes, we'll have more, also fixed price project. I think really, the, the input-based, model, that's really what's standing to, to, to reduce, and will continue to reduce, to, to be replaced by these fixed price and outcome-based.
Robert Young (Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst)
But does that have an impact on margins?
François Boulanger (CEO)
Well, it won't have, you know, because even, I would say, a fixed price will be able to improve our margin in the long term, because and when after that, it's fixed, every way of reducing the cost would go directly in our margin improvement.
Robert Young (Managing Director and Senior Technology Analyst)
Okay, thank you.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from Kevin Krishnaratne from Scotiabank Canada. Please go ahead.
Kevin Krishnaratne (Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Hey there. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Nice to see the, the SI&C , bookings, strength there. You talked about, you know, the early indications of, uptick in demand, and you did talk about, you know, more on CIO consulting, less business consulting. I still think the trends look pretty good, a little bit maybe different than what some of your peers are talking about recently. So I'm just wondering, maybe if you can comment on, you know, unpack a little bit further into that, like what, what's, you know, maybe unique about, you know, CGI, in this segment, relative to some of the peers that is leading to sort of some of those, earlier signs that, that you're seeing relative to the, broader industry?
François Boulanger (CEO)
Yeah, you know, I don't know for the other companies, but I'll say for us, our model and the fact our proximity model, I think that's really the differentiator with the competition. We are close to our clients. We are building relationship with them. We know their business, we know their industry, so I think that's helping us to be there and we're top of mind of these clients when it's time to find the right expertise and the people to help them in their deployment of new technology, for example. So I think that's really going back to the model that we have, that's helping us to win.
Kevin Krishnaratne (Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, got it. Second question, just more on, you know, the theme of enterprise adoption of AI. Can you maybe talk about any differences you're seeing in, in this technology and, you know, the deployment of enterprise AI versus enterprise software and what that means for, from a CGI and other IT providers? For example, you know, some of these AI use cases, they seem to come more from the bottom up, individual workers or teams, might be different than how an ERP deployment you know, starts from the top. So just any thoughts there now, you know, maybe talk about the entry point of AI into the enterprise, versus prior cycles and, you know, and how you see that, you know, what that might mean for your business?
François Boulanger (CEO)
Yeah, for sure. You know, it's a tool that is, you know, deployed to everyone. So when it's deployed to everyone, you know, everyone is playing with the tool. And so, you'll have the business side that will take the tool, will use it, and try to invent something with it, and sometimes it's good, sometimes it's less good. I think like anything else, you know, you'll see some balance from that. I'll give you the analogy also with cloud.
I think cloud, when cloud went out, you know, everybody said, "Hey, it's way cheaper, it's way easier, you know, let's deploy it." And, you know, that—you saw that happening, and to realize at a certain point in time that the savings were not there anymore because it was not managed. It was... You know, everybody was able to buy cloud, cloud, computing, and so at a certain point, it was even more costly and than, than before. So I think that's the same thing here. If people are leaving it to only the employees, and they can do what they want with it, I think it will just create more cost in the machine, and we'll need to be careful about that.
So I think that's why, one way, it's good for innovation and all that, but on the other way, you need still to put some, I would say, processes, to be sure that it's well managed, and that's where we can help clients with the definition. And that's what we're doing today. And a lot of these business consulting or these consulting side is that we're helping them to put some processes, so that this approach of bottom up, like you're saying, is still not chaos, and that we can, the clients can manage it.
Kevin Krishnaratne (Director and Equity Research Analyst)
That's helpful, color . Thanks a lot. I'll pass the line.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from Surinder Thind from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Surinder Thind (Equity Research Analyst)
Thank you. François, when we think about just the interest in understanding about how important AI is out there, why isn't there a bigger rush to improve the infrastructure, the data, you know, platform modernization efforts at this point in the cycle, given that if you can get the back end fixed, then you can start to realize the benefits? It just seems like everybody is slow walking this, and, and it's hard to figure out why.
François Boulanger (CEO)
I think because you're saying, yeah, the back end can be easily done, but it's, again, it's the data itself and the complexity of all that. You have in companies so much data that they are managing, and you know, people... It's not all necessarily relevant data, and I think that's the hard part, that they need to be sure that they're cleaning up that data to use the right one, to put it in the machine, to have the right outcomes, and that's difficult. It's bringing a lot of complexity, you know, and it's the same thing for agentic, right?
Because we're talking about a data for AI, but when it's time to put AI for processes and agentic AI, you know, you're dealing with applications, and big companies are talking about thousands of applications. So it's not that easy to implement, and so it's something that, you know, people needs to deal with. The other thing also, it's everything related to cybersecurity. You know, we have clients today, and for good reasons, when they were saying, "We can put some AI in the delivery of the managed services." Some already, other ones, are saying, "I need to understand the impact on cybersecurity. I need to im-" So it's a lot of different...
It's a new technology, and like any new technology, it's not that easy to implement an environment that were built in the last 25 years. So I think it's a journey, and that the journey will continue, and that's why they need help from companies like ours.
Surinder Thind (Equity Research Analyst)
So, I guess as a point of clarification, though, I think the idea here is that we still need to do a lot of the core work before we even tackle the AI problems. And I guess that's really where my question is: Why isn't there maybe more core work being done, right? Because we need to know that... Build these data platforms and so forth, before we can even get to AI. And I think that's where it is. Is it that companies got burnt after maybe the pandemic, where there was a lot of investment, and they didn't realize the return on that investment, so they've gone to this mindset of, "You know what? I'm going to slow walk this.
I want my ROI calc to be an in-year ROI versus I'm going to make these big investments," because we, we can see in other parts of the infrastructure, there is an incredible amount of investment being made, and there is this big rush to be the first to go out there and get some of this done, but it, it just doesn't seem to be happening at the corporate level.
François Boulanger (CEO)
I think when you're saying big investment, we're seeing a lot of big investment in the hyperscalers and these companies to some point. I think, again, I'm meeting a lot of clients, and all these clients, you know, they invested, you know, in the tool itself, and they deploy these tools itself, but like you're saying, they don't necessarily see the returns. And so that's why they're coming back, and that's why we're saying, you know, yes, we're seeing some deployment, a lot of experimentation in the past. Now, we're seeing some deployment, but it's true that they're going a bit slower just to be sure that, you know...
And finally, they will see a return on their investment, because for now they put a lot of money in the tools without necessarily to see the return for now. And so that's, that's why it's, it's a journey, and it will take some time. But people are, you know, and I'll say example, in the financial institutions, they, they are looking very and they are doing some very large, yeah, larger use cases in the banks to see how they can have a return. In some places they are seeing a return, but it won't, it won't happen in a month, that's for sure, Surinder.
Surinder Thind (Equity Research Analyst)
Understood. And then, you know, could you elaborate on the earlier comment in your prepared remarks around just expecting continued improvement over the rest of the year? Is the idea that, you know, things should get sequentially better, and is that on an organic constant currency basis? How should we think about that part of the journey as you kind of talked about this idea of things getting better?
François Boulanger (CEO)
Yeah, that's actually what I was saying to some point. Yes, we are expecting to see some improvement quarter after quarter, especially in places like in Europe. So we are expecting that. For sure, the caveat I have now is the shutdown. You know, I thought it was behind us. We'll see Friday if we have another shutdown in the U.S. Federal government and what would be the potential impact. But if I'm taking that out of the equation, yes, we are seeing some improvement, and we would see improvements on a sequential basis.
Surinder Thind (Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. And is the expectation then to get back to positive organic constant currency growth by the end of the fiscal year, or, how are you thinking about that?
François Boulanger (CEO)
The idea is to improve the growth, overall growth on a constant currency basis, including the organic side of the equation. So that's the goal, that's what the team is working on, and we're seeing some positive movement on that side.
Surinder Thind (Equity Research Analyst)
Thank you.
Kevin Linder (SVP of Investor Relations)
Julie, we have time for one more question, please.
Operator (participant)
Perfect. Thank you. And your last question for today comes from Jerome Dubreuil from Desjardins. Please go ahead.
Jérôme Dubreuil (Senior Equity Analyst)
Hey, merci beaucoup. Thanks for taking my question. Another one that I wanna push a bit more on the contrast that Kevin has highlighted between your comments on the SI&C and, or more discretionary with some of the peers. I'm wondering how reliable are the leading indicators in terms of the bookings and the pipeline for this recovery, specifically since we haven't been hearing that from peers? And do you think that we've seen the trough in organic growth this quarter, notwithstanding the shutdown?
François Boulanger (CEO)
At least I won't talk for the other ones, but to us, for us, yes, we're seeing, you know, that we perhaps pretty hit the bottom this quarter, and that we're expecting some gradual improvement in the future quarters. Again, and that's a caveat on the shutdown, if we have another one. But that, that's the idea. And that's what we see, at least for now, is that we are seeing some improvement that would happen on a quarter-over-quarter basis. And Jerome, the SI&C bookings, you know, it's short-term bookings, so that's why when we see that it's going back to, you know, a 100% mark, it's quite... It's giving us confidence on the forecast for sure.
Jérôme Dubreuil (Senior Equity Analyst)
So, what you mean by this is that, the higher bookings is not, like, offset by kind of longer-term contracts, is what you mean, right?
François Boulanger (CEO)
We're saying that converting, you know, SI&C booking and revenue is going, it's a lot faster than managed-
Jérôme Dubreuil (Senior Equity Analyst)
Yeah.
François Boulanger (CEO)
Than managed services.
Jérôme Dubreuil (Senior Equity Analyst)
Okay. Yeah, makes sense. And a last one for me. I'm trying to assess maybe the evolution of the industry in this time of AI. Are there areas in which you're winning deals where you used to lose or maybe losing deals where you used to win? And maybe what are the explanations that our clients giving on this?
François Boulanger (CEO)
I would not say that we're necessarily losing or more or less in one area than others than before, if you're saying before AI, if that's the-
Jérôme Dubreuil (Senior Equity Analyst)
Yes
François Boulanger (CEO)
... ultimate question.
Jérôme Dubreuil (Senior Equity Analyst)
Yes.
François Boulanger (CEO)
So, no, not, I don't see it. Like I'm saying, the idea and what we need to be sure at is that to stay competitive, example, in managed services, that we need to embed and continue to embed these new technology in our delivery to be sure that we are competitive. And that's what we're doing, and we'll continue to do. That's our strategy. And having, naturally having the talent with the right tools, so that's why we continue to invest in these area. But like I'm saying, you know, and, you know, in some places we're not... Example, we're we don't have call centers and client call centers and stuff like that, so.
But even that, you know, it will create demand because, you know, to replace a call center by AI, it's a lot of investment, it's a lot of changes, and they'll need companies like us to help them in these changes. So not necessarily I'm seeing a trend or, you know, losing business in area that we were strong in. I don't see it. But for sure, we need to continue to be relevant and continue to invest, and that's what we will do.
Jérôme Dubreuil (Senior Equity Analyst)
That's great. Merci beaucoup.
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, this is all the time we have for today's question. I will now turn the call back over to Kevin Linder for closing remarks.
Kevin Linder (SVP of Investor Relations)
Thanks, everyone, for participating. As a reminder, a replay of the call will be available either via our website or by dialing 1-888-660-6264 and using the pass code 35024. As well, a podcast of this call will be available for download within a few hours. Follow-up questions can be directed to me at 1-905-973-8363. Thanks again, everyone, and look forward to speaking soon.
Operator (participant)
This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect. Thank you. Have a great day, everyone.
