Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our analyst call on Q3, and thus also on the first nine months of the ongoing financial year, 2022 of Bechtle AG. I'm very happy to see that many of you are interested in our company. The year is drawing to a close, and the general framework conditions we've been dealing with for the whole year are far from over. We all know that, and the war of Russia in Ukraine is unrelenting and there is high risk inflation. The situation in the global supply chain has improved somewhat, but is still far from being back to normal. Also the situation around COVID-19 is still with us, and we'll have to wait and see how we get through this winter together. Against this general backdrop, we're very happy that in Q3, Bechtle AG has developed very positively. We're a rock in stormy seas, as it were, and we'll show you the numbers in a minute that will reflect that trend. First of all, just a quick technical remark, by way of exception. I'm not going to be the one presenting the presentation today, but Martin Link, the Head of Investor Relations. The reason for this is that, I am somewhat sick, so if you know me, you will have heard that my voice is not what it usually is. I am going to be ready to answer your questions in the Q&A session later on. I hope that, you will understand why we have chosen to have Mr. Link present the presentation. Good morning, everyone. Even though I'm a different speaker, the presentation as a whole is going to remain unchanged. It is subdivided in four major sections. We're first going to take a look at the key financials for Q3, and we'll take a quick glance at our share performance. We'll also look at the highlights, the non-financial highlights of Q3. Of course, we'll also end with an outlook for the remainder of the year, although it's already November now. Let's start with business development. I'm sure you've looked at the numbers that we published at 7:30 A.M., and you will have seen that we have experienced an unchanged high pace of growth at Bechtle, driven by our customers consistently high demand for IT solutions. We're not yet registering any major restraint on the part of our customers. This is especially important because we've been asked many times whether we're seeing the first indications for recession, but that is definitely not the case across the board for our customers. Our customers have recognized the high level of relevance of IT, and investments continue at a high level. At the same time, we are becoming better at gradually reducing our historically high order backlog compared with the level at June 30th, 2022. It has already decreased by around EUR 200 million- EUR 1.6 billion. We also see this positive trend reflected in the development of our business volume. Business volume growth gained further momentum in the third quarter, now totaling over 20%, even more momentum than in the first two quarters of the year. At 18.9%, most of the growth we saw in Q3 was organic. In the first nine months of the current year, our growth rate was almost 15%. Given the challenging underlying conditions, I consider this a really impressive performance. Another thing you see looking at these figures is that in a quarter like the one under review, Q3 that is, it becomes particularly clear how important it is to also focus on business volume. We introduced this ratio as an alternative ratio because software revenues are no longer to be reported under revenue according to IFRS 15. Business volume is the only ratio that fully reflects the scope of our software business. This business, unfortunately, we're no longer able to show it under our revenue, is a very important business area, and has been one of the growth drivers in Q3. From here, let's turn to our revenue. With revenue growth at 14.6%, Bechtle managed to maintain the high level of the previous quarter. Organic revenue growth was 12.7%. You see high discrepancy between business volume and revenue, and this is due to higher demand for software overall in Q3, but also to large volume software business that Bechtle conducted in the period under review. Demand was also high in the service and hardware areas. As figures show, the global supply chain situation has continued to improve. We've heard it, we're far from business as usual and we see improvement for individual product categories only and not yet across the board. Let's now take a look at revenue development in the segments and the different regions. In the segment view, we see that the roles that we've seen assigned over the past few quarters have been reversed. In the third quarter, our growth engine was the IT System House & Managed Services segment. At 21.7%, we were able to significantly boost sales in Q3, organic sales too increased considerably by 18.6%. Year-to-date, we were able to grow from quarter- to- quarter. Business is returning to normal after COVID-19, and customers are increasingly investing in their existing IT infrastructure. We've always pointed out that our customers have focused on the newly created home office structures and investments into on-site infrastructures were not prevalent in 2020 and 2021. There is a catch-up effect. As a rule, the revenue growth of 21.7% also includes some large volume projects. At such a level of sales growth, this is stating the obvious. In the IT E-Commerce segment, revenue increased by 3% compared to the previous quarter. In addition to the challenging comparative figures from the previous year, this is also due to high software share in the business. In terms of business volume, however, growth in this segment was at remarkable 7.4%. The 3% is somewhat misleading, but still we see that the software business is a driver. Let's quickly take a look at the distinction between Germany and abroad. The picture is rather balanced with a slight advantage for our companies abroad. This brings us to the development of earnings, and we will first take a look at EBIT trends by quarter. It is relatively obvious that, pressure has increased from quarter- to- quarter, a trend we anticipated for two main reasons. One, some of the cost savings resulting from the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 no longer applied in the course of this year. The effect was even stronger than anticipated. We have seen that things went back to normal and the cost base increased year-on-year, particularly in the case of vehicle costs and travel expenses. Secondly, inflation has left its mark in the form of higher costs, especially in the area of facility costs due to the increase in energy prices. What is more, our business in Q3 was characterized by comparatively high proportion of large volume and thus low margin hardware and software projects. Finally, we were up against a positive net extraordinary effect of EUR 3 million in the previous year. We managed to at least partially offset this effect by writing back risk provisions in Q3. It was a low- single-digit million amount. Let's take a look at the development of our segments. In the system house segment, this effect was more pronounced due to close and direct customer contacts. Vehicle costs are more associated with this segment's business model. Likewise, building costs have a greater impact since we're talking about more than 80 different locations. The large volume projects mostly took place in the system house segment, which also resulted in greater pressure on our earnings and margins. In addition, the one-off effect in the previous year was fully accounted for by this segment, the system house segment. The effects are more marked in this segment. Having said that, a margin of 6% in the system house segment is still very good. The level of the previous year, 7.8%, is definitely not the normal numbers. In addition to the offsetting effects of all these factors, there's yet another reason for the very positive development in the IT E-Commerce segment. Thanks to the higher share of smaller scale business, price effects have had a more positive effect, impact, and these effects had been obvious in the first two quarters for both segments, but this has changed somewhat. Let's now take a look at cash flow still showing a positive trend. Operating cash flow in Q3 was -EUR 28.3 million. It goes without saying that we cannot be satisfied with this number. As you can see, in this chart. There are some positive aspects here, which we want to explain. One is that cash outflow from inflated inventories no longer reach the high level of the previous year, and the same goes for the build-up in accounts receivable. For both items, we see positive effects now, and this is, of course, a trend that we would like to see continue towards the end of the year. Another thing we saw in Q3 was that cash outflow from the reduction of accounts payable is more marked. However, this effect was deliberate, and we trust that we can manage this effect in Q4. It's difficult to manage inventories. It all depends on the supply chain shortages. It depends on whether our customers are ready to accept partial deliveries. It also depends on revenue growth in Q3. Or Q4, rather. We don't have much leverage here. In terms of accounts payable, we have some discretion, and we are planning to do and use that discretion. Let's now turn to our headcount development. As of September 30th, 2022, Bechtle's headcount was 13,789. This equals 8.2% or 1,045 people more than in the same quarter last year. 239 new colleagues joined Bechtle in the course of acquisitions, which amounts to around a quarter of the total increase. In organic terms, our headcount grew by 6.3%. In addition to recruiting new employees, the focus of human resources work at Bechtle has always been on training and further education. That was definitely the case in Q3. We continuously invest in certifications for our employees, for instance, in the vital areas of security and multi-cloud architectures. Now I'm going to be brief, but still we'll take a look at the performance of our Bechtle share. Now we're not an outlier. The situation on the stock markets remains very tense. The reasons are well known. Dr. Olemotz already mentioned them, the framework conditions, the war in Ukraine with its economic repercussions, such as the energy crisis and increased inflation, the ongoing problems in the global supply chains, the uncertainties about the overall economic development and the interest rate policy of the central banks. This unfavorable mix has also hit the development of our share. You can see here that since the beginning of the year, our share price has dropped with slight ups and downs in July and August. You know the reasons. Tech values are under pressure and the situation is still ongoing. There's the assumption that cap values show higher flexibility and also sensitivity to interest rates. Whether this is true remains to be seen. We can see this, that this is a trend that we cannot simply ignore or withdraw from, and it also hits us. It's not possible for a single share to withdraw from that. We had excellent press statements such as, for example, the further internationalization. If you take a look at the share price development, you can see that this hasn't really reflected itself on our share price. These statements come and go, and afterwards, the share price of Bechtle just follows the overall trend of the stock market, which this year has been downwards, unfortunately. Now, as unfortunate as this is for our shareholders on the one hand, that doesn't really affect us because we still focus on our operational business because we are convinced that valuation in the capital markets will also reward our success. As usual, let's then talk about the non-financial special highlights in Q3. We'll talk about three highlights, and they cover our strategically most important fields of action, namely training and securing skilled workers, our international positioning, and our further expansion of cloud services. Let's start with some beautiful news regarding the new training year, which started in September 2022. In the training year 2022, Bechtle set a new record. With 256 trainees and bachelor students, more young people started their careers at Bechtle than ever before. Across the group, we're currently training 815 junior staff in 12 technical and commercial apprenticeships and 9 dual university program students, 106 more than in the previous year. The training ratio across the group is around 6%, and Bechtle aims to increase this to 10% by 2030, as you know. There's a new vocational training course, because we've now got the so-called Digitalization Management Assistant. As far as the courses of study are concerned, we've now got cybersecurity, data science, and software engineering as new degrees. As you can see that with vocational training and university degrees, we're leading again. The next highlight concerns a partner award that we're particularly pleased about. Let me say this upfront. Every day, we could come up with statements about awards, almost every day. Let's just talk about this one here because it's really special for us. The U.S. network specialist Cisco has honored Bechtle as Public Sector Partner of the Year in the EMEA region. With this award, the manufacturer once again acknowledges the outstanding development of the corporation in public sector digitization projects and in the modernization of network infrastructure for customers from all industries. Why is that so special? For two reasons. They're honoring our international positioning because this EMEA award doesn't focus on our strength in the DACH region, but recognizes Bechtle as an international player. You know that internationalization is particularly important in our strategy. It's important to us to be a really true European player. Therefore, we're pleased that Cisco has recognized us as an international player and has given us that fantastic award. Now, in addition, the award underlines our extremely successful positioning in the public sector. Bechtle is one of Cisco's strongest partners in the education sector, especially in the high growth market segments of schools and universities. Now, the third highlight is the expansion of our data center capacities to our customers. Bechtle is expanding its capacities for private cloud services with a new data center in the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region. To this end, we are cooperating with a colocation provider, PFALZKOM. In addition to high availability and comprehensive security, PFALZKOM's data centers already meet the essential criteria of the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact. With us significantly expanding the existing capacities is not only important for us, but customers can basically then use this also for their sustainability reporting. They can report that they are using a data center which is fulfilling largely all of the criteria of the climate neutral data center requirements. Therefore this is important also for the usage of renewable energies. The Bechtle data center built in Mutterstadt enables the highly available and scalable operation of private cloud services, and it allows us to use cloud services. This will be good news for medium-sized and large companies as well as public clients. To conclude the presentation, I would like to take a look at the remaining weeks of the year and give you our outlook. Now it's the middle of November. The year 2022 will be soon over. Nevertheless, uncertainties remain. We still don't know what the last weeks of December and even November will look like. Unfortunately, there will of course, also be uncertainty, especially for the year 2023. We at Bechtle can be very satisfied with what we have achieved so far. The year to date development is completely in line with our expectations and in some cases even exceeds them. You've seen this by looking at our figures. However, the fourth quarter is again decisive for the success of the year as a whole. Therefore some of you who've been also attending Capital Markets Day, who have been chatting with us in between will know this. We are confirming our outlook, our forecast for 2022. Even back in August with the Q2 figures, we confirm the guidance and we haven't increased it. Some of you might have expected it. We're not increasing it. Let me also tell you why. We're fully aware that the top line is above our guidance, a bit above our forecast and that there are good chances we will exceed it. Also, the October figures are not the reason as to why we're confirming our guidance or our forecast. Because again, the top line growth is extremely good and has reached a great level. However, the forecast is composed of various components after all, and there's not only top line growth, but also bottom line growth. Then you also have to consider the margin development. If we don't increase our forecast, it doesn't mean that there will be a bad top line development in Q4. It means that uncertainties regarding cost development are extremely high and the overall macroeconomic development continues to be uncertain. For that reason we prefer to leave our forecast, our guidance as it is. Let me just give you the following hint, because if I'm in the driver's seat, I might also be allowed to make a personal comment. If we consider that other companies on two occasions have had to correct their guidance downwards twice, we think it's very wise of Bechtle to leave our guidance as it is. That doesn't have to be a disappointment to the capital market. As I just explained, we believe that we have a very clear view on top line development. Yes, we're exceeding our forecast, but uncertainties regarding bottom line and margin are such that we should be in line with the consensus of the capital market. We're still positive and optimistic as far as the trend towards the end of the year is concerned and also the development in 2023. That was it. Thank you very much indeed for listening and we're now looking forward, Dr. Olemotz and myself, to answering your questions. Ladies and gentlemen, let us now start with the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, press star followed by one on your touchtone telephone. If you wish to withdraw your request, press star followed by two. Again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one. We'll start with the German language questions and then switch over to the English room. We first have Knut Woller of Baader Bank. Your question please. Well, thank you very much and I hope you'll be well soon, Dr. Olemotz. First question, strong growth in System House and Managed Services. Would you say that the weakness in consumer business helps you somewhat, also with a view to supply chain shortages that prevail? If we assume that this were to continue in the next year, what options do you have in order to keep the margins at a high level? That was my first question. Second question on business volume. You said that there is strong demand for software, also some large volume orders. Would you say that software demand provides support for your business overall? You also said that inventories have built up less quickly than in the previous year. What do you expect? When are we going to see a reduction of inventories? Are you expecting a further slowdown of the previous trend? What is your outlook for the coming year? Thank you very much, Mr. Woller, for your questions and also for wishing me well. Much appreciated. One- by- one. Growth in the system house and managed services segment. Of course, it's also supported by the weakness you mentioned of the B2C business, especially when it comes to the client business, the classical modern workplace business, as it were. It really helps us that manufacturers are rerouting volume, so to speak. At any rate, that would provide some tailwind for our development. Now, going forward, also in connection with our order backlog, Martin Link has said it. There's been a reduction in order backlog amounting to EUR 200 million in a single quarter. Now, if you remember, we always said that at the peak of EUR 1.8 billion-EUR 2 billion order backlog, we said that it's going to take 6-12 months at least to get back to normal levels. I think our numbers fit very well here. With that volume of EUR 200 million, we feel quite good. Of course, you're right. The IT System House & Managed Services segment benefits from this trend in particular because we've given you the rationale in the past because here we find large volume projects that are made up of different components. Your classical case would be network components with delivery times of 6-12 months, even beyond that in some cases. In some small projects and data center projects, these are impacted and were impacted. Now this trend is starting to reverse, and the larger projects will now benefit from that. As far as the margin level is concerned, it is true, we're still at a comparatively good level, especially when you look in the rearview mirror. We're still very profitable in our classical system house business. Martin Link has said it, more and more we see cost inflation leaving its mark, especially energy costs, travel expenses, building costs, and that's quite real in our case. It's hard to say whether we'll be able to maintain our margin level. It will depend on the development of the front- end and back- end margins, whether we'll be able to push through higher price points in this environment. All of this amounts to the uncertainties that Martin Link mentioned. Here, our rationale is quite consistent, and it doesn't fit the general environment. Although some figures may have suggested it that we increase our guidance, but in the general environment, we do not think it would be sound to do that. We said that uncertainties were simply too high at this point in time. After this good month of October, we're quite bullish going into the rest of the quarter. The development of business volume, which has been very positive, I have to say, is also thanks to the development of our cloud business. Not exclusively so, but very much so. In the first nine months of the year, we're at 60% above the level of the previous year, which is really a fantastic development. We assume that, taking advantage of the year-end sprint, we will be able to further grow this percentage. Growth significantly. Whether it will be enough to double revenue, well, we'll have to wait and see. Growth rates are very impressive and also serves as a confirmation of our cloud strategy. Secondly, Mr. Link mentioned it during the presentation, there are some large volume software deals which meant that percentage growth of our business volume was as strong as it was also compared to the still impressive revenue growth in this quarter. This positive discrepancy is rather unusual, I admit, but it is thanks to our software business, especially also in the enterprise segment and with public sector clients. The last part of your question was about the cash flow and the trend going forward. We saw that in the past three quarters of this year, we already had a very sustainable positive trend here. We always pointed out what the reasons for this trend were. It has become clear, I believe, in the general macroeconomic environment, that these causes haven't changed substantially. Still, we need to work with a higher capital tie-up, so the major cash flow drivers remain under pressure, unchanged. We managed, on the other hand, to get closer to the most important levers in this context, and we're quite confident that we will manage to maintain this positive trend in Q4. We believe that the good trend we saw in the first three quarters can be maintained and there will be yet more positive development of cash flow in Q4, more so than last year even. Of course, we hope that we'll be able to reduce our inventories, but that would require supply chains to work better, as we've seen in recent weeks and months. We definitely depend on our supply chain in this context. Thank you very much. Yannick Ziering from Stifel is asking the next question. Thank you very much. Good morning and best wishes to you, Dr. Olemotz. Four questions. First, the number of employees. For a couple of quarters, there's been a strong increase now. Is that an expression that you're very confident in the development in 2023, I wonder? Next question. What are the most important levers to control increasing costs in many areas, especially in view of 2023? Regarding your M&A pipeline, would you kindly talk about that briefly? Is it realistic that even this year there will be further acquisitions after the couple of acquisitions you've already talked about this year? Last question regarding bonus payments and kickbacks, how significant was that aspect also considering the further strong growth in Q3? Thank you very much, Mr. Ziering, for these questions. That gives me the opportunity of talking about the business momentum and breaking it down. That might also be important for the other listeners because they are also important for the development going forward in 2023, and that was your question. Let's start about the last question, development of bonus payments and kickbacks, so the back end margin. We still have a situation, and you can see this quite clearly if you compare our growth rates with those of our peers, that we're gaining market shares significantly. This is not a new situation for us, because especially in times where the going gets tough a little bit, if I may put it like this, as Bechtle, when I started, I talked about the rock that we're solid as a rock, you know, when I started my presentation. Especially when the going gets tough, we usually show that we're very resilient indeed. That's decisively so thanks to the market position that we've developed over the last decades, we have to say. In that, we also benefit in the back end margin from that. Currently, we're one of the few big manufacturers or resellers that a manufacturer has to count on when they're operating in a difficult market environment and if they want to carry on growing at double-digit rates. For the big manufacturers' share of wallet with Bechtle, this is an important KPI which is decisive at the end of the day also for the way how you shape your kickback and bonus programs. In all of those programs, basically speaking, we are more than good in the money because all of our growth plans with the shown figures, revenues +15% almost growth, business volume even more than that. That's important because big OEMs are also software manufacturers. All of our growth programs have been beaten with our growth rates, and that has contributed strongly to our back end margin. Still, despite the strong cost increases that we have, having led to a situation where we believe that our overall margin is very comfortable also because the front end margin is still comparably stable because of the ongoing delivery issues and supply issues. I assume that if we're looking forward now, that going forward, the general situation will continue in the new year. Never waste a good crisis is what you sometimes say. There's this sloppy saying. We assume that 2023, of course, will not be an easy year. However, we believe it could be a year, at least for the strategically strong positioned companies in our industry, where despite worsening framework conditions, you can use the opportunity to gain market shares, and that is our clearly defined target also for next year. What is helping us here, and that might sound strange now against the backdrop of the cash flow, which is still under pressure, of course, is our financial strength. Because in this situation, the tied-up capital has gone up and we have got sufficiently high liquidity thanks to an increase in a line so that our business can still be driven going forward with a growth strategy. You can only do that if you are very solidly positioned. If there are many other small companies in our industry that certainly don't have that same possibility, and therefore a higher capital tie-up then, so, you know, hampers their growth because they can't prefinance growth. The figures we have now presented for Q3 do show that Bechtle is managing very well indeed. Where are we positioned in terms of M&A projects? I'm pretty confident that this year we will come forward with an announcement, maybe more than one. However, due to the most recent development, I just got an update this morning. Please bear with me if I can't tell you whether this will be in France, U.K., or the Netherlands. However, at least one of the three countries, or at least in one of the three countries, it should work out. This is a statement, Mr. Ziering, that will have to suffice right now. As far as the development of employees is concerned, the absolute figure is diluting a little bit because there have been many acquisitions that explain these figures. The organic growth of employees is such that the growth is of 6.3%. Therefore, if we compare this with the past, it's still below the speed that we had wanted to grow at, but we're growing. Usually, at least a prudent businessman only hires or increases their headcount if they're confident in the company's future. In our case, that certainly applies. Although we are a little bit more cautious, we do assume that 2023 will again be a good year for Bechtle, whatever this will mean then at the end of the day in figures. Those topics which explain the growth of employees, so demographic change, lack of talent, qualification, those topics continue to exist just because other factors are dominating the news these days. We mustn't overreact. We believe that with a slightly reduced but still visible organic growth of staff, we feel at ease. 6.3% is the exact same growth rate that we had in Q2 without big acquisitions either. No change in the hirings. Where are the levers considering higher costs? Certainly, I don't want to avoid that question either. It's the same factors that each and every company has to address. We make sure that the headcount increase remains within a certain range. We've just said this. Due to the salary structure in Bechtle, we've got high variable components across the board, and that gives us the possibility of using variable salary components which are performance-focused. We can grow this way and therefore shift the cost pressure on variable salary components. We've got not so many possibilities to deviate from the high energy costs, such as all of the other companies. We rely on Germany as a location, of course. One possibility we're managing quite successfully these days continues to be a pretty stable front and back-end margin. We've already talked about the back-end margin a minute ago, but also the front-end margin, if we compare it with a normal situation of the past, if I may put it like this, continues to be rather stable. We're pretty confident that also in 2023, with the admittedly worsening framework conditions, we will still manage quite well. I'd like to add that we will try to pass on higher costs as far as possible to our customers, but that's not always possible. If you've got extremely well-trained IT service providers, it's easier. If you're talking about admin costs, it's difficult to pass them on to the customers. We have to watch out that we manage to increase productivity because then you can also explain higher HR costs, personnel costs. These are the challenges for 2023. You've also mentioned this, and that's true. You've also seen that the organic growth is 6.3%, top-line growth is 20%, revenue growth 14%. That's not so bad, that's the figures from Q3. Mr. Ziering, that was all you wanted to ask, right? Yes. Thank you very much. Now, Martin Jungfleisch from BNP Paribas Exane is asking the next question. Good morning. Two questions. First, the demand situation. Is there a difference between the public sector, the medium-sized, and the bigger companies? And how to what degree do you see a shift from investments, for example, from typical workstations to more complex projects? And what effects should that have on your margin? The second question regards the e-commerce segment. Growth here was pretty low with 3% in Q3. Can you suggest to what degree it was driven by public sector as opposed to the private sector? You noticed a certain restraint by customers, but hasn't historically a reduction in e-commerce been an indicator for a reduction in the overall business? Mr. Jungfleisch, let me start with the second question, which was about the structure of our demand. Indeed, we have noticed that currently, but that is certainly just true for the moment and not structurally true. In the third quarter, in particular, not in the first half of the year, our enterprise business and also the public sector business has developed better than our classical SMB business. That's also shown that coming from our basis, which is the broad anchoring in SMB business, which is still true, enterprise business and the public business in the last years has been strengthened strongly, and we're benefiting from this. Especially now, thanks to our stronger international positioning, we are well-positioned. That's why we have received the awards and have chosen to talk to you about the Cisco Award, because this is about our broader international positioning. Thanks to that, we have managed to become a partner of big enterprise customers, starting from Germany, usually. The typical situation is that we are in touch with big German corporations that have chosen us as their IT service provider because we can accompany them abroad with a classical hard and software business. Going beyond that, we can also then orchestrate the service business. It still applies that there are not all that many companies in our industry that can do this. That's still surprising. You know, there are not that many who can do this. There's no European provider that would be capable of providing, at the same time, campaigns in 14 countries about product launches. That is still the situation. Against this backdrop, we have been benefiting from this, and we've also benefited from this in Q3. If you wish, Mr. Jungfleisch, that's the structural change in business. However, we're assuming that in Q4, because of the strength of the public business, this will, you know, come into perspective a little bit. October has already shown that this will exactly happen, probably. Because of the relative strength of the public business, again, we will get back to normal, if we want to call it that, as far as the demand is concerned. Now, in terms of technological change in our projects, and that was your second question, it's not the case that currently big, complex projects are high in demand. They are supplied and fulfilled, but that is due to the fact that, as I mentioned earlier on, they are in our order books. What this means is that current demand behavior doesn't really reflect this. Thanks to the improved delivery capabilities and the fact that many delivery projects were tied for twelve months in the high order book, indeed, you're right as far as the content of your comment is concerned. This change isn't due to current changes, but rather due to the fact that we had a high share of these projects in our order book. Server storage and network components, those are the product categories where it's still difficult. If the customer was interested in such a project, we'd then have to say, "Well, you can get this in 6-12 months." Because of current uncertainties, the customer says, "Well, in that case, I'd rather have the high volume small business because I can receive the product in a couple of weeks." That's the main reason. It's not that customers wouldn't be interested in these projects, but currently, they can't be implemented in short- term. The third question, let me have a little bit more strong wording. Is the 3% e-commerce growth a weak signal? That's your question. Does this show that we're going up against a crisis? I don't see this at all. The 3% today is a one-off effect. I believe. Now, if I remember correctly, we had a very strong development in the same period of the last year. It was a very strong value that we had then in e-commerce, and that was even due to the fact that we had one or two really big customer projects which were unusually big. That's why I'd even say that if we manage to compensate this with running business in the structure, then the 3% to me are very strong value. Apart from this, I assume that also in e-commerce will grow again in Q4, and October has already shown that trend going in the right direction. Let me just corroborate this by giving you a couple of clippers. 23.4% was the growth in Q3 2021. That's the strong basis of the last year. Let me also point out that even in the presentation, I said that 3% revenues, yeah, doesn't look like a lot, but in business volume, we grew by 7.4%. The software business mustn't be forgotten. 7.4% doesn't look like weak at all, does it? Or customer restraint? You're right. e-commerce is the segment that much more quickly and much more sensitively reacts to overall macroeconomic conditions. You might interpret, therefore, that e-commerce develops weakly, more weak than a System House. That is more that we had an extremely high level last year, and the October figures do not show any weakness. In e-commerce abroad, we grew at double-digit rates. If you wanted to interpret a weakness here, then if anything, this would be in Germany, but certainly not across Europe. This is also my feeling here, that in Germany, there's much more talk about recession than abroad. In France, for example, that doesn't seem to be a big issue at all. Right. Thank you. Next question is by Florian Treisch, by Kepler Cheuvreux. Your question, please. Thank you. I have one or two questions about provisions. You said that you wrote back some provisions. My question would be, which area did that happen in? And second question, you set up provisions for long-term risks, where you said that if customers were to stick to prices that were originally agreed, is that a problem now? Availability is back and people would think, why should we grant a higher price? For Bechtle, is that a risk for you? And also, I would like to wish you well. Thank you. Let me start with the topic of penalties. I said it in my presentation, it's a low- single-digit number that we wrote back. As I said, it's not a lot. The well-known relationships still apply. We have a larger item in terms of provisions for penalties and then one for any impairments from accounts receivable. The PSB IT-Service GmbH sale that happened last year was also compensated for. In operating terms, the numbers are really basically the same. To answer your question, going forward, I don't see that there is an increased risk here because we haven't seen any increase in customer requirements in that sense. We're not writing back provisions, you know, just any day. We have sound calculations that we tested together with our auditors. Of course, we're not free to do as we please. When we find that for a period of nine months not a single claim emerged in terms of demands, then this provision would have been risky for us at the end of the year at the latest. In the current situation, it's definitely also something that we couldn't have continued beyond this year. Now, risk positions for defaulting receivables, here, of course, we're still going strong. In difficult macroeconomic environments, there are some defaults that you would have to reckon with. Thank you. Next question is by Andreas Wolf, Warburg Research. Your question, please. Good morning. I have a question on your orders on hand, and I would assume that you fixed your orders when there was the demand on the customer side. Now, can it happen that the products are available but at higher prices than were agreed at the time, when customers voiced their demand, so that could increase pressure on margins? I would assume that this is not the case, but maybe you can elaborate on that. Then a question on prices. For non-listed companies, compared with multiples in the market. Third question relating to the supply side. Last year, you wouldn't have dreamt of asking such a question, but here we are. Will Bechtle think about geographical diversification in order to reduce its dependency on individual regions? Well, Mr. Wolf, I'll start in the same sequence. Higher prices and thus an imputed risk on margins for our orders on hand. It's not the case, I can assure you, because our customers are still happy. Just imagine, you have a complex infrastructure and service project, which is all scheduled to be implemented, and then you have to wait a year because components are not available for it to be implemented. As a customer, you are indeed happy to see that the components are available now, and you can go through with your project. Now, the price discussion is no longer that important in that context. It also applies to framework contracts, where you don't have any price clauses, which is still the exception in our industry. In the past, there was almost a price reduction that people could hope for every year. We are indeed looking at these kinds of discussions with our customers, but so far we've been quite successful in our negotiations. I do not believe that our orders on hand can only be reduced at a significantly lower margin than what we're getting in terms of new business. Next question, M&A and multiple. You're correct. There's a really high discrepancy between listed and non-listed companies. The listed companies, and you can tell by looking at our company here, the multiples have clearly returned. In the area of non-listed companies, at least if we're talking about interesting companies, this is not the case yet to this extent. Some of the investment banks we're working together with have said that it'll take at least half a year or a year before the valuation level has also penetrated the area of non-listed companies. The three opportunities that I just hinted at in the U.K. and France and the Netherlands are all highly attractive companies. They're not exactly cheap either. Rest assured, we are not going to pay more than we have to pay. We're looking at multiples, of course. Next question on supply and dependency on certain geographical regions. In the short- term, you do not need to expect any change in our strategy. Our strategy is very clear. In the European countries where we're represented, we're still thinking about acquisitions in order to strengthen our footprint. In countries where there is system integration, we want to strengthen our business, where we only have e-commerce business so far. Our European omni-channel approach, if I may say so, actually constitutes our strategy in terms of mergers and acquisitions. Mind you, current dependencies would not change that strategy because, compared to the big vendors, who need to think about whether they still have production facilities in China and which countries to move to. These are questions that we do not need to deal with, as Bechtle. Unfortunately, of course, we're impacted indirectly. Now, just to add a comment here, 80% of the global IT production comes from China, and that's a fact we cannot change. Even if we wanted to diversify, it wouldn't be possible yet. Thank you. Great. Get well soon. If there are any further questions, please press star and one on your telephone. Right now, we do not have any German-speaking questions. We'll change over to the English room now. The first English question is from the line of Ross Jobber from Citi. Please go ahead. Thank you very much. Morning, gentlemen. A couple of questions, if I may. First of all, on costs. It's quite understandable that the COVID-related cost savings have now reversed. Could you just confirm that that is entirely the case, or do you think that in 2023 there will be a further bit of additional cost from a full year, if you like, of normalization on the cost base? That's my first question. My second question is around revenue growth rates and whether or not you can give us some idea as to what impact third-party product price rises may have been either a tailwind as opposed to a headwind to the revenues in the third quarter. To what extent did third-party price rises actually impact your revenue growth? The third point, just on headcount plans. You very kindly explained a 6.3% organic headcount growth. Just to get your thoughts for 2023, presumably you plan these things a long way in advance. Is that the sort of headcount growth, all else being equal, that you would expect in 2023? Thank you very much. Thank you for your question. I'll start with the question regarding our cost basis. Do we expect further additional costs in 2023? Yes, I expect some cost increases, especially coming from the wages side, which is not covered in the actual figures so far, I have to say. But not in a, let's say, significant size. Third-party price rises, your second question, are always kind of a tailwind for us if the market accepts them. That is the exception from the rule. Your third question regarding our headcount growth, yes, I expect the growth being also limited in the coming fiscal year 2023. If it's 6.3% or is it below or is it above that figure? It's not really reliable to answer, I would say, coming from the current figures. I expect it, let's say, to be a disproportionate figure regarding our top line growth. If I might add to your second question, the tailwind from the higher prices. We have calculated that it's roughly some 15% of our growth that is coming from the higher prices. So it's a smaller part. I know at least for the second quarter that Cancom mentioned that 1/3 of that growth was coming from higher prices in the second quarter, and in the third quarter it was not as high as expected. In the second quarter was from 10%-15%, first quarter some 15%. The major part of our growth is really based on higher volume. Great. Thank you. Just one small question, if I may as well. On e-commerce, I know it's the most international. I understand it's the most international part of the group. Was there much of an FX impact either way in e-commerce in Q3 on revenue? It's the same for both segments. It's, but you don't mean the price effects? No, the foreign exchange effects. Okay. Sorry. The major part of the countries are euro countries. Yes. We have strong business in Switzerland. We have business in the U.K., but we have some positive effects in Switzerland coming from the high Swiss franc. Compared to the overall size of the group, negligible. Yeah, I thought so. Thank you. We do have some U.S. dollar exposure as well, but as Martin already explained, in a limited size, and if I remember right, it's 100% hedged. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. Welcome. The next question is from the line of Gustav Frohberg from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Thank you, everyone. Most of mine have been answered, but I have one quick one on backlog. You mentioned backlog has come down quarter-over-quarter, and I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the revenue that you've generated in Q3, whether or not a large portion of this has come from the backlog reduction or if there indeed has been a lot of new business as well within the quarter. Then as a kind of short follow-up to that, how are you seeing the business developing into Q4? Are you mostly working down backlog, or are you also receiving new orders from customers? Thank you very much. Okay. We expect both, Gustav, just give us some time to have a look at the figures. Okay. If we adjust growth only in the third quarter, regarding the backlog issue you mentioned in your question, growth was something around 10% regarding the business volume, more or less. It's a 50/50 situation. 50% of our growth came from the backlog issue and 50% is really new business. That's great. Thank you. Into Q4, is the split kind of similar, 50/50 or is it more backlog skewed? No, I expect it to be similar, and that comes from some, let's say, logistic challenges we are confronted with, especially in Germany. 50/50 is probably a reliable ratio for the future as well. I think 50/50 is quite reliable, but we should not expect that order backlog is increasing because in the fourth quarter, normally we all hope that we can see more or less normal fourth quarter. Normally, we have really a high order income. We have high part of new business. Especially if you look at our public sector customers who normally invest more in the fourth quarter, we should not think that the order backlog part would be increasing. At the end of the day, Gustav, you know that it mainly depends on the supply chain frictions we are still confronted with. That is really not easy to predict regarding the development in the fourth quarter. Yeah, all very clear. Thank you very much. The next question is from a line of Michael Briest from UBS. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thank you. Just continuing on the backlog. The backlog's obviously dropped to nearly EUR 200 million quarter-over-quarter, and yet the inventory's gone up. I would have expected more of the inventory was tied up in these incomplete orders. Can you maybe say how much of the backlog and inventory are tied together? 'Cause it's a little surprising that they're not both moving in the same direction. Mm. Just in terms of the cost base, I got the impression that the reason you're not raising the guidance is you feel good about revenues, but there's a lot more uncertainty on cost. What specifically in the cost base for Q4 do you feel could surprise you one way or the other? Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you for the question. We would have hoped to see inventories to come down if we decrease our order backlog. Given the fact that we have increased the revenue in the third quarter by some 15%, it's just not possible. To realize such a high number of revenue growth, you need to have products in the warehouse. Yes, we have decreased the inventory related to pending customer projects. Mm. But to really tell you how it is, every place that was emptied in the warehouse was, in a second, newly filled with new products coming in. That's the situation. That is a problem for inventory, might be a problem for cash flow. Looking at the operating business, it's great to know that we don't use our order backlog and don't have any new incoming orders. Therefore, it's a positive news. Looking at inventory, and that is what. The inventory, yes, we could not decrease that. That is what I try to point out in the presentation, that it's really up to the development in the fourth quarter. Whether we see a high revenue growth, then it will be hard to decrease inventory and to decrease trade receivables. If we see a revenue growth, let's say, of 8%-9%, yes, maybe it would be more realistic that we decrease sharply. Surely, we want to see a decrease in inventory, but if I say decrease, we need a sharp decrease. It's all up to the business in the fourth quarter, and it's up to the frictions to the supply chain with to the ability of the OEMs to send out products to us. A lot of question marks, I know. And the last point is that even if we could send out some of the long-pending projects, and even if our customers right now are not so much asking for the, let's say, higher sophisticated large projects, nevertheless, we get new orders of larger projects. And therefore, we have new inventory coming in because we must wait for some products to have the full amount to do the work at the customer side. That's the situation. The linking between inventory and order backlog. There's not so much linking as you might would think. Regarding your second question, dealing with the question of potential cost surprises which might appear in the fourth quarter, from my point of view, I see mainly direct and indirect energy cost-linked positions. You know, we have a strong focus on our core costs, energy costs in general, heating costs, and so on. That might lead to some surprises. We already had Okay. We already had high car costs. We want it related to fuel. We don't hope that we will see an increase in the fourth quarter. We had high traveling costs because all OEMs had their events this year, and most of these events took place in the third quarter. HP event in Las Vegas and I don't know where all our colleagues have been all around the world. Now, with the fourth quarter, with these events not taking place in such a high number, maybe the travel costs will come down a little bit, but as Thomas said, the major impact or the major uncertainty is related to energy costs. Thank you. Could you just maybe say how much of the inventory is tied up in these sort of incomplete orders rather than sort of there to fulfill new ones and have a quick cycle time? It's still the major part of our inventory that is related to pending projects. Some 80%. This number did not change because as I mentioned, with some of the longer pending projects being sent out, we have new projects coming in. It's still some 80%. There's no real change that the, let's say, the free inventory is increasing and the bound inventory is decreasing. No change to that. Thank you. Just a tiny one. Have there been any order cancellations or is that just a natural decline, as orders have fulfilled? No more cancellations than normally. Completely just really only a small part. This business as usual looking at that. Really, we still think that the order backlog as we see it right now, EUR 1.6 billion, will be more or less to 100% transferred into revenue. Great. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone. There are no further questions at this time, and I hand back to Dr. Thomas Olemotz for closing comments. Thanks a lot for your question and the interesting discussion. As always, I enjoyed discussing with you. I'm looking forward to your reports and to your results regarding your view at Bechtle and say thank you. All the best for you for the future. Bye.