What happened
Shares of Atlassian (TEAM -0.22%) rose 93.7% in calendar year 2020, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. It was a rocky ride for the collaboration software maker, with many single-day drops of more than 5% along the way, but the good days vastly outnumbered the bad.
So what
Atlassian crushed Wall Street's expectations in all four of last year's earnings reports, often by very convincing margins. Cloud-based collaboration tools are an easy sell in the coronavirus era of work-from-home policies, and Atlassian is an established leader in that space.
Image source: Getty Images.
Now what
The Australia-based company isn't resting on its fluffy laurels, either. CFO James Beer provided this update on Atlassian's capital management approach in October's first-quarter earnings call:
"We've very much taken the stance of investing through this challenging macroeconomic period for our customers with very much the strong belief that, that will drive long-term competitive advantage for us," Beer said.
In other words, Atlassian is using the tailwinds from the coronavirus crisis to accelerate its long-term growth plans. Investing in new products, better business processes, and a stronger infrastructure may hurt the company's bottom line today, but should pay dividends in the long run.
