Sapiens International - Q1 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Welcome to Sapiens Corporation 2023 first quarter financial results call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. For operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded May 3rd, 2023. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Yaffa Cohen-Ifrah, Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. Yaffa, you may now begin.

Yaffa Cohen-Ifrah (CMO and Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator. I would like to welcome all of you to Sapiens conference call to review our first quarter results for 2023. With me on the call today are Mr. Roni Al-Dor, President and CEO, Mr. Roni Giladi, CFO, and Mr. Alex Zukerman, Chief Strategy Officer. Following the summary of the results, we will all be available to answer any questions. Before we start, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call may contain projections or other forward-looking statements. The safe harbor provision in the press release issued today also apply to the content of the call. Sapiens expressly disclaim any obligation to update or revise any of the forward-looking statements, whether because of future events, new information, a change in its view or expectations, or otherwise. On today's call, we will refer to the non-GAAP financial measure.

A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results has been provided in our press release issued before the market opened this morning. A replay of this call will be available after the call on our investor relations section of the company website or via the website link, which is available in the earning release we published today. I will turn the call over to Roni Al-Dor, President and CEO of Sapiens. Roni?

Roni Al-Dor (President and CEO)

Thank you, Yaffa, and thank you to everyone who has joined us today. I want to welcome you to our earnings call. Sapiens has a solid first quarter with a 6% year-over-year increase in revenue to $124.8 million. Our hard work of dedication have paid off as we also deliver a higher operating profit of $22.5 million, resulting in an operating margin of 18%. We are exciting to continue this positive momentum throughout the year and achieve continuous success. Our customer-centric model implemented globally has consistently driven growth and profitability while generating cash flow. Sapiens has an established track record of growth, profitability, and high cash generation. North America is returning to growth. I'm happy to share that our hard work and extensive groundwork in North America are paying off. Thanks to the dedication of our team and my oversight.

We exited 2022 with improvement. The good news is that the momentum is continue into 2023. We are exciting to see that what we can achieve this year with this positive energy and drive. In North America, Sapiens serving the life and annuities market and the P&C market, which include workers' compensation and reinsurance solutions. Since the beginning of 2023, we have signed new P&C deals across all of our P&C products, co-P&C, workers' compensations, and reinsurance markets. Our specialization in offering differentiated P&C product that targets niche market with high growth potential sets Sapiens apart in North America market. As a result, we are making excellent progress in building our pipeline and developing new opportunities of all of our P&C products.

Our success in workers' compensation is driven by our leading CoreSuite for Workers' Compensation solution, which Aite-Novarica recently recognized as an established player for P&C policy administration system in North America. Our product is designed exclusively for our workers' compensation line of business. This give us domain expertise and an excellent referenceable client base. Since the beginning of the year, we have signed new workers' compensation deals and are progressing with additional deals. After two years of slowdown in the space, mainly due to COVID, the workers' compensation market represents a significant opportunity for Sapiens in North America and Canada this year and in the coming years. Our CoreSuite for P&C product has been bright spot for us in North America, thanks to our significant investments over the past two years.

During this time, we strengthen our foundation, enhance our cloud offering, and provide stability for our existing customers. After a brief pause, we resume our outreach and pipeline building efforts, which have led to new success and widespread product selection. In fact, we sign a new CoreSuite for P&C deal in the first quarter and are progressing with our additional deal, underscoring the strength and appeal of our product. Our North America life and annuity business continue building momentum in CoreSuite and business application offering for life. We secure another CoreSuite deal in the first quarter, demonstrating the continued demand for our product. While we are not disclosing specific detail about this particular win, we are exciting to have reestablished our position in this life market.

Additionally, we are seeing strong traction in our business application for life, with new deals signed and existing customers upgrading to the latest version of our software. Following our recent re-architecture effort, this is a proof to the quality and the value of our product. We are committed to continue to innovate and improve our offering to meet the market evolving need. We have achieved a high win rate in life, reflecting the quality and the value of our products and services. Since the beginning of the year, we have grown our North America sales and marketing and customer success team to support our future growth. As we continue to refine our sales and marketing plan and leverage our industry expertise, we are confident that we will further improve our closure rate in this market.

With a dedicated team and a customer-centric approach, we are committed to delivering exceptional solution and exceeding our client expectations. Switching to Europe. This market remains our highest growth region. Several positive dynamics contribute to the first quarter high single-digit growth we experience in the region. First, we see increased demand for system replacement in life and pension. Organizations are coming back to the market looking for core system replacement, and as a result, we have a lot of activity in the life and pensions. Second, we also see increasing demand for P&C and digital solution in the market. The third element contribute to grow in Europe is the increasing acceptance of the cloud. European insurers are embracing cloud solutions, and we have more customers open to the cloud solutions. I want to highlight our strategic focus in Germany.

The German insurance industry is one of the largest in the world, with a total premium exceeding EUR 220 billion annually. This represents a significant growth opportunity for Sapiens, we are well-positioned to capitalize on it by offering our core digital and reinsurance solutions. Since acquiring sum.cumo in 2020, we have invested significantly in establishing strong local presence in German market. Our efforts have focused on expanding our P&C and digital products and increasing our sales and support team in the region. These investments are paying off, we are seeing positive momentum in the market. We see opportunity for IDITSuite and Skip solutions with a top-tier German insurance player. In addition, the opportunity to develop this market for additional Sapiens product like reinsurance and digital, in the future, with the life and annuity solutions.

The EMEA region continue growing across processing casualty and life and pension. Our results reflect our consistent progress in these regions. Recognition from the leading industry analysts support our sales team effort and provide excellent reference. In early March, we announced that Sapiens IDITSuite for P&C won Celent 2023 XCelent Award for the breadth of functionality category in the EMEA region. The product was named as a Luminary solution, the top tier in Celent Technical Capability Matrix. As the only non US based solution given this award, IDITSuite is clearly positioned a leading platform in EMEA. The Luminary classification was also given to Sapiens IDITSuite in the APAC region. Celent also highlighted two other Sapiens solution. Sapiens Tia Policy Solutions was named a functionality and stand out both in EMEA and LATAM region, and Sapiens was named as a notable solution.

Switching now to Sapiens cloud and digital progress. Digital is a dynamic domain, we are building our SaaS digital proposition tightly connected, yet loosely coupled with Sapiens core solution that's enabling our clients to benefit from the complete Sapiens proposition while maintaining their freedom of choice. In order to achieve success in this segment of our business, we have established several key priorities for 2023. Our top priority is to provide a persona-based package for agents and for customers on top of each one of our core products, Life and P&C. The persona package is high focused on usability, UX, and also smart features, enhanced by artificial intelligence and machine learning to enable easier work and easier decision-making.

We plan to support more out-of-the-box machine learning modules in our portals, offer a dynamic questionnaire solution with Sapiens Decision, and integrate with DataHub as a real-time data consolidation layer. We also plan to offer pre-integration with data enrichment provider, which will help us deliver even more value to our customers. Another key element in our approach is enabling a swift time to market with local tools and the concept of smart components. The smart components introduce out-of-the-box features and components integrated with the core and data platform, enable changes and ability to add capabilities to each persona for rapid time to market. It enable groups to create their own repository to share between the implementation across the organization. Self-management is another critical area of focus for us, and we plan to introduce the first phase of our no-code management system.

We will also introduce company-level settings in the journey for Composer and offering multiple workspace and easy mapping in a API composition engine, making it easier for our customers to manage their operation and improve efficiency. Finally, we are committed to extending our touchpoints with end users to improve our connection and provide greater value. This include integration with leading platforms such as MS Dynamics, MS Office, Glia, SPLICE and more, which will help us provide a more seamless experience for our customers. This was a busy quarter on the marketing and brand awareness front. Sapiens team exhibited in the industry trade show worldwide in Spain, Germany and the U.K. and U.S. We are increasing our investment in Sapiens brand and our solution with digital activities and campaigns.

In addition, we are preparing to host our annual International Clients Conference in Barcelona later in May, and our North America Customer Summit in Arizona in October. Looking ahead to the remainder of 2023, our key objectives are, first and foremost, growing our presence in North America market. This will involve investing in our sales and marketing efforts, building relationship with key partners, and maintaining investment in our innovating solution that meet the evolving needs of our customer. In addition to expanding our presence in North America, we are also focused on deepening our relationship with our existing customer and growing in every territory we operate. We will also look for opportunities to upsell and cross-sell, an essential advantage of our long-term sticky customer relationship. In parallel, we have the solution to address their digitalization and cloud needs.

Another key objective is expanding beyond of our core offering into digital data and analytics, as we recognize the tremendous growth potential in these areas. Finally, continue our transition to the cloud will enable us to deliver our solution more quickly and efficiency, provide greater scalability and flexibility for our clients, and enhance our overall competitiveness in the market. By focusing on these key goals, we are confident that we will continue to drive success and growth of our company and deliver exceptional value to our clients. Our continuous investment in product and solution has earned industry recognition, enhancing our standing in the global insurance market. As the CEO of Sapiens, I am proud to lead team deeply committed to executing our strategic plan and delivering sustainable growth and value for our shareholders. Now, I would like to turn the call to Roni Giladi, our CFO.

Roni Giladi (CFO)

Thank you, Roni. I will begin my commentary with the review of the first quarter, 2023 non-GAAP results, followed by comments on the balance sheet and cash flow. I will wrap up with our update guidance for 2023. Revenue in the first quarter of 2023 was $124.8 million, an increase of 6% compared to $117.7 million in the first quarter of 2022. Revenue in North America was $50.4 million compared to $49 million in the year-ago quarter, an increase of 2.8% or $1.4 million. We feel confident that the revenue in North America will continue to grow in the coming quarters. Revenue in Europe was $64.6 million, a year-over-year increase of 9% from $59.3 million.

Revenue in rest of world, which include South Africa and APAC, increased 4.1% compared to prior year quarter, reaching $9.8 million. Gross profit increased in Q1 2023 by $3.4 million, totaling $56.4 million, while gross margin increased by 20 basis points to 45.2%. Operating expenses increased $1.7 million, a year-over-year to $33.8 million. R&D spending increased by $1.4 million, representing 13.8% of total revenue compared to 13.5% last year. The increase in R&D reflects our continuing investment in cloud solutions.

SG&A expenses remained at the same dollar level and were reduced to 13.3% of total revenue. Operating profit and margin in the first quarter of 2023 were $22.5 million, an increase of $1.7 million compared to last year. Operating margin increased by 40 basis points to 18%. During the quarter, we reached 51% offshore ratio, growing from 47.2% in the first quarter of last year, which support our activities and profitability. Financial expenses this quarter totaled $1.2 million compared to financial income of $348,000 in Q1 of 2022, reflecting the impact of currency hedging on the British pound, euro, and Israeli shekel.

EPS was $0.31 per diluted share for the first quarter of 2023, similar to Q1 of 2022, reflecting the improvement in operating profit, which offset by the negative impact of increased financial expenses due to currency hedging. EBITA increased by 7.6% to $23.6 million in 2023. EBITA margin in Q1 2023 was 18.9% compared to 18.6% of last year. Turning to our balance sheet. As of March 31st, 2023, we had cash and cash equivalents and short-term deposits totaling $182 million and debenture of $60 million. The cash position at the end of Q1 reflects a $20 million debenture principal we paid at the beginning of 2023.

The remaining $60 million will be paid in three equal installments over three years. Turning to our adjusted free cash flow. During Q1 2023, we generated adjusted free cash flow of $19.9 million. The improvement in adjusted free cash flow resulting from collection of delayed payments from 2022 and progress in ongoing collection processes. During the quarter, we declared a cash dividend of $13.8 million or $0.25 per share for the second half of 2022. The dividend was paid to our shareholder on April 24th. Our cash position, positive cash flow, and dividend distribution reflects our solid financial performance and position and our ability to execute our strategy even during a challenging macroeconomic situation.

This quarter, we provided additional view of our revenue gross margin to help our investor better understand the revenue buildup, predictability, and profitability. We split our revenue into two groups and provide period-over-period comparison as such new period is reported. The two groups are, one, software product and reoccurring post-production services and, two, pre-production implementation services. Software product and reoccurring post-production services include mainly term license, maintenance, cloud solution, subscription, and post-production services. The revenue stream is a mix of recurring and reoccurring in nature. Pre-production implementation services include mainly implementation services before go live, which are one time in nature.

In Q1 2023, revenue from recurring software product and reoccurring post-production services totals $81.8 million, representing 66% of total revenue compared to $75.6 million and 64% of total revenue in Q1 of 2022, an increase of 8.2%. The gross margin for Q1 2023 was 54.8% compared to 53.5% of last year. Revenue from pre-production implementation services totaled $42.9 million, representing 34% of total revenue compared to $42.1 million and 36% of total revenue last year. The gross margin for this group this quarter totaled 26.8% compared to 29.7% of last year.

To summarize, our software product and reoccurring post-production services are significant and growing, representing two-thirds of Sapiens' revenue with a gross margin of 55%, significantly higher than our pre-production implementation services margin and higher than our blended reported gross margin. I want to turn now to our guidance for 2023. We are increasing our full year 2023 non-GAAP revenues to a range of $507 million-$512 million compared to previous guidance of $502 million-$507 million, reflecting an organic growth rate of 7.3%. We expect our North America region to continue to build momentum that will translate to revenue growth in the coming quarters.

We are also increasing the guidance for the full year 2023 non-GAAP operating margin to a range of 17.8%-18.2%. Compared to a previous guidance of a range 17.6%-18%. We continue to improve our offshore ratio while implementing efficiency steps in our division and corporate, while continue our investment in our products. To summarize, Q1 2023 was a strong quarter for Sapiens. Revenue, gross profit and operating profit improved compared to last year. Our balance sheet and cash generation are solid. We remain committed to our focus on driving growth and profitability. I will now turn the call back to Roni Al-Dor. Roni?

Roni Al-Dor (President and CEO)

Thank you, Roni. As we move forward, we remain committed to executing our strategy, leveraging our strengths, and delivering sustainable growth and value for our shareholders. I would like to thank our clients and shareholders for their continued support and trust, and we look forward to delivering even greater success in the years to come. Operator, we are ready to open the call for Q&A.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press star one. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are using speaker equipment, kindly lift the handset before pressing the numbers. Please ask your question in a loud and clear voice. Your questions will be polled in the order they are received. Please stand by while we poll for your questions. The first question is from Kevin Kumar of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Kevin Kumar (VP)

Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask about Europe and strength in the region, this quarter. Roni, you called out strength in license pension, but curious, how did P&C perform in Europe relative to your expectations? You know, any regions in Europe that you would call out that had really strong performance in the quarter? Thanks.

Roni Al-Dor (President and CEO)

Roni G?

Roni Giladi (CFO)

Yes. I would like to start, Kevin, and then Roni can follow with the product. This quarter, we grow about 9% year-over-year on the European market. We see the growth coming from the German market, the U.K. and Nordic. This is across Europe. We also see in the quarter that we have some catch-up revenue from previous years. The 9% is on the high, but we expect to grow in this region at the level of high single digits during 2023. Overall, it look promising and good and will continue this.

Kevin Kumar (VP)

That's helpful. You know, I had a question on the new gross margin disclosure. I believe the software and post-production services gross margin improved year-over-year by over 100 basis points. Just curious, the moving pieces there, you know, that's driving the increase in the gross margin. Thank you.

Roni Giladi (CFO)

Yes. On the gross margin, on the blended rate, we see slight increase from 45 to 45.2%. The improvement is coming from several factors, obviously increasing our highly quality revenue, which include the revenue from subscription, term license, and managed services, let's say hosting cloud solution. This is one. The second thing, we increased the offshore ratio in the company. If we look quarter-over-quarter, we went from 47% in Q1 of 2022 to 51% in Q1 of 2023. This is another factor and some upside coming from the KMC. Overall improvement on that.

We look at the breakdown that we provided this quarter, breaking this to two group, which is the recurring and reoccurring versus the one-time, we see also improvement on the gross margin coming from the Group A, which is the high quality revenue.

Kevin Kumar (VP)

That's helpful. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Mayank Tandon of Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

Kyle Peterson (Equity Research)

Hey, good morning. This is actually Kyle Peterson. I'm from Mayank, thanks for taking the question. You know, wanted to touch on, you know, the quarter, particularly revenue in Europe. It sounds like there might have been, you know, some one-time kinda catch-up revenue that you guys kinda talked about. I guess could you quantify whether there was any kinda one-time, you know, non-recurring revenue or anything of note, you know, in that 1Q upside?

Roni Giladi (CFO)

The revenue in the European in Q1 was just some catch-up coming from a signature of contract and some of a milestone percentage of completion. This is the catch-up. This is not one time. This is recurring by nature. The overall growth in this region by end of year should be at high single digits.

Kyle Peterson (Equity Research)

Okay. That's helpful. You know, maybe, you know, just a follow-up, you know, particularly on the quarterly cadence, you know, of the year in terms of the growth rate. You know, should we be thinking of, you know, something reasonably linear, or should growth rate be a little more back-ended weighted given in the macro? I guess, how should we think about, you know, the progression of 23 relative to guidance?

Roni Giladi (CFO)

I think, we'll see step by step, the companies, closing new logos, adding additional layer of revenue for the company. We see step by step a growing revenue quarter-over-quarter until the end of the year.

Kyle Peterson (Equity Research)

Okay. sounds good. good quarter. Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Dylan Becker of William Blair. Please go ahead.

Dylan Becker (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Me maybe starting on the North America side. I know there's been a lot of restructuring over the past several quarters, seems like you're really kind of starting to hit stride here. Can you talk about some of those efforts, maybe how the pipeline's progressing and how that gives you kind of visibility and coverage throughout the remainder of the year, and how this is framed into that kind of revised outlook that maybe implies further strength, throughout the balance of the year as well?

Roni Giladi (CFO)

Ron, do you...

Roni Al-Dor (President and CEO)

Yes. Yes. About the investment that we are doing, I would like to start with the business development, sales, marketing, partnering, ecosystem, all of this. As Yaffa rejoin us again, so she's building together with the team all the marketing activity. We put more effort on the SDR. Right now over COVID, we are going to many events. We are continue to build the relationship. We analyze together with Alex, so this is in the marketing. On sales, Gary rejoin us, and is now building the team for what we call CC, is the account management.

As all of you know, we have many accounts in North America that we can, we believe that we can add more and more solution for them, like the cloud services, like digital data and any kind of a cross-sell opportunity. We also invest, we increase the sales organization. Overall, we are still in this process. Next week we have week after next, we have a big sales kickoff. Many new meet people join us from a different area, that's the investment. We believe that we can really see the fruits till the end of the year and the building pipeline for next year. That's about the investment.

About the product suite, again, I don't want to repeat, but the main focus area right now is our two life core system that we have, life and P&C. In the same times, we are continuing to put a lot of effort in our reinsurance, the component, decision management, and the unique solution that we have for the Workers' Comp, that we have a really good pipeline. We also mentioned that we closed deals. We are selected in another one, so we have a lot of activities in this area as well.

Dylan Becker (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. That's super helpful. Appreciate the color there. Maybe and kind of trending just to Roni G on the margin front, seeing some nice progression as well. Appreciate the color and breakdown. How should we think about kind of the mixed benefits, right? Software contributing to gross margin. You've got the optional warranty, but you've also got probably future productivity coming from those sales reps that Roni A was just talking about as well. Seems like maybe the software and the productivity can be more material drivers in the coming quarters here, tied to that traction cross-sell motion. I'm wondering how should we think about kind of the East levers from a margin perspective as well?

Roni Giladi (CFO)

Hi, Dylan. Yes, we need to see progression on the gross margin, especially in the group A, which include the product revenue and the post-production services. I would like to emphasize that this impact will be moderate and over several years. It's not one time bang. We are investing, and we are making sure that our customer are satisfied. We see progression, but moderate quarter-over-quarter.

Dylan Becker (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Got it. Maybe one last one if I could too, going back to Ronny A. You mentioned the data and digital piece too. Understand kind of maybe a complex macro sales environment as well for heavier kind of core systems in nature maybe, but how do you think about, like, those digital and data capabilities serving as a wedge, helping kind of accelerate maybe some initial modernization efforts and maybe leading to a future, cross-sell of more kinda core components going forward as well? Thank you, guys.

Alex Zukerman (Chief Strategy Officer)

Hey, this is Alex here. We definitely spot on. We see it as a strong potential to contribute in couple of areas. First, we see that the wallet share of our deals is increasing because of the fact that we are providing in many deals today, not only our, let's say well-known core solutions, but also the digital platform on top or the data or both of them with cloud services. A typical deal today for us includes more than one component. This is one aspect to refer to what you asked there.

The second one is we definitely see customers that are tending to start their digitalization journey, which is can be a major journey, through, first of all, dealing with their customer engagement problem, which means the digital component, the portal, web journeys, et cetera, to unlock the capabilities of working with their end consumers or agents, and then go to a core replacement. Also there, this allows us to insert ourselves into a, into the customer environment to put the feet in the door to start, and then based on good performance, we can continue to do larger projects on the core. Vice versa.

We can start a project on the core, when the customer sees our data capabilities, for example, then through the sales process, we suddenly see an increase, and more interest in those components as well. It acts both as an increase to the value of the deal and as a starting point that can lead for additional deals.

Dylan Becker (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Super helpful. Thanks again, guys, and congrats.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Chris Reimer of Barclays. Please go ahead.

Chris Reimer (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Most of what I wanted to ask has been already addressed, but I wanted to touch on the reorganization in the U.S. and the improvement in the execution setup that you mentioned you had there. Do you think that that kind of reorganization is necessary in any of your other geographies? Just touching on the offshore ratio, are you reaching an inflection point? Just how well-positioned do you feel with your total head count right now and how you're positioned going forward?

Roni Al-Dor (President and CEO)

Okay. This is Roni Al-Dor. I will take the first call and Roni Giladi can take the second one. In terms of the investment, as I showed you two things on the US investment. One, sales and marketing. We don't need to do any reorganization in Europe because we are from the last few years, we build it. Previous year, we put much more effort in German and Spain. Right now it's more or less stable. That's about the sales and marketing. I think that's mainly what I can say. Roni?

Roni Giladi (CFO)

Yes. Thank you. on the offshore ratio, over the last, 12 months, we go from 47% to 51% as we stand for Q1 2023. We in the management think that over a few years, we can reach the level of, 60%. This is something that we saw in other companies in the market. We feel it's doable to provide our product and services with high quality. This is the target, for the midterm that we have. We are growing our offshore over quarter. The attrition rate is obviously globally went down, so this is may delay the increase in the offshore. Obviously, every quarter we'd like to step up on the offshore ratio.

Chris Reimer (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it.

Roni Al-Dor (President and CEO)

I would like to add point that I just missed it, is, just to explain to everybody about the main reason that we are doing this investment in sales and marketing at this moment, because we decide a year ago to bring back our CoreSuite life to U.S. As all of you remember, we in the last many years, we have invest in our product. We grow very nicely in Europe, but we decide this is a good time to enter back to the U.S., and we also show the results. That's one. The second one is the CoreSuite P&C. We have some delivery challenges in R&D. As we mentioned a few times in the previous call, that it's right now it's much more stable.

I think we have excellent product to offer to the market. As we are feeling comfortable with our offering and we have much more reference, this is the right time to increase the sales and marketing. Those are the two main areas, the two core solution, P&C and life.

Chris Reimer (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Thank you. That's it for me.

Operator (participant)

If there are any additional questions, please press star one. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. Please stand by while we poll for more questions. The next question is from Surinder Thind of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Surinder Thind (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you. My question pertains to FX. You used to previously provide FX disclosures, those were removed this quarter. Any color there on that decision?

Roni Giladi (CFO)

Hi, Surinder.

Surinder Thind (Equity Research Analyst)

Currency for Q1.

Roni Giladi (CFO)

Yes. Hi, Surinder. This is Roni G. If we look at this quarter, the effects on the revenue level was a headwind for us. Without this, the company would grow even faster than this, a few points better. On the profitability level, it's the opposite. The currency, especially the shekel, was a tailwind for us and supported our improvement in the operation margin. The currency on the global base is unknown. There was a lot of fluctuation. We gave the guidance based on the last week currency going forward. This is for the full year.

Surinder Thind (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Then if I remember correctly, your guidance assumed a -0.5% FX headwind. Is that still true at this point with the updated guide?

Roni Giladi (CFO)

No, no. No, no. We are providing guidance based on the last week, based on the result of the business results. We take in the last week, here.

Surinder Thind (Equity Research Analyst)

Correct. I guess what is the expectation for the updated FX headwind, or is it announced it?

Roni Giladi (CFO)

Can you repeat, please?

Surinder Thind (Equity Research Analyst)

For your revenue guidance, what is the assumed FX impact at this point? When you gave guidance last quarter, the assumption was that FX would be minus 0.5% headwind. Is that still true at this point?

Roni Giladi (CFO)

No, no. The currency is tailwind, continuing going forward, if I'm looking at the remainder of the year. We have upside or tailwind from currency going forward. Again, it can change, but currency is a creating tailwind.

Surinder Thind (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Thank you. That's it for me. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

There are no further questions at this time. Before I ask Ms. Yaffa Cohen-Ifrah to go ahead with her closing statement, I would like to remind participants that a replay of this call is scheduled to begin in two hours. In the U.S., please call 1-888-269-0005. In Israel, please call 03-925-5938. Internationally, please call 972-3-925-5938. Yaffa, would you like to make your concluding statement?

Yaffa Cohen-Ifrah (CMO and Head of Investor Relations)

Yes. Thank you, Yoni. Thank you for joining the call today. We look forward to speaking with you again on our next earnings call. Please note that we are hosting a virtual one-on-one meeting with the Needham Technology & Media Conference on Thursday, May 18th. We are also attending the Jefferies Software Conference in California on May 31st and June 1st, and the William Blair Growth Stock Conference in Chicago on June seventh and eighth. We hope to see you at one of these upcoming events. Thank you again for joining the call. Operator?

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This concludes the Sapiens International Corporation first quarter 2023 results conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may go ahead and disconnect.