by Tom Krackeler, SVP Products at Zuora
IDC just came out with their first IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Subscription Relationship Management 2017 Vendor Assessment (Doc #US43172417, November 2017). Of the nine vendors evaluated, Zuora was named a Leader for SRM platform capabilities.
This is huge. Not only are we honored to be recognized as a Leader in this IDC MarketScape report, but this is some serious market validation.
We’ve been saying it for years: the Subscription Economy is here—and it hinges on the relationships we have with our subscribers and on the ability to offer and support the new consumption models that they demand. Our proprietary Subscription Economy Index (SEI) validates that the Subscription Economy is growing steadily. In fact, according to our most recent report, it’s currently growing 8x faster than the S&P 500. And now, with the first ever IDC MarketScape for Subscription Relationship Management, we’re seeing the market fully embrace the Subscription Economy—and recognize that the ability to successfully manage the subscriber relationship is paramount. Our belief is that growth in the future will only come from subscriptions.
But there’s still some work to be done in terms of building out the necessary infrastructure to support the shift to subscription business models. According to the IDC’s Digital Business Models Survey, while “60 percent of providers of digital products and services are developing subscription business models to give customers new ways to buy, only 20 percent have the right systems in place to support” this shift.
“This technology is essential for companies that are monetizing digital products and services. For many companies, the shift from physical products to digital services is ‘make or break’,” states the IDC MarketScape. “The heavily customized, hard-coded solutions of yesteryear do not meet the needs of today’s fast-moving digital enterprises.”
So what does meet the needs of today’s fast-moving digital enterprises?
The Zuora Central subscription order-to-cash platform, enabling success for more than 800 companies in the Subscription Economy®.
The IDC MarketScape calls out the key requirements for today’s SRM: “that the solution can be quickly implemented, includes key functionality out of the box, and has strong configuration capabilities.” Zuora Central has it all.
Zuora Central is the world’s only subscription order-to-cash platform that makes it much easier for companies to manage ongoing subscriber relationships and keep up with fast-changing go-to-market strategies.
As noted in the IDC MarketScape, Zuora’s Subscription Relationship Management platform supports five separate products:
- Zuora Billing. Industry-leading recurring billing solution.
- Zuora CPQ. The only CPQ system purpose-built for subscription businesses.
- Zuora Collect. Optimizing collections for subscription businesses.
- Zuora RevPro. Automated revenue management for ASC 606 & IFRS 15.
- Zuora Insights. The subscription metrics and analytics you need to run your business in real-time.
In addition to recognizing Zuora as a Leader for capabilities, the IDC MarketScape report also calls out how Zuora’s configurability of products, billing rules, revenue rules, and invoice templates are designed for ease of administration and fast go-live for customers.
Per the report, “Customers interviewed for this IDC MarketScape cited the breadth of functionality as a key feature of Zuora. In addition, customers were happy with the strong pace of innovation and the clear communication of the road map and quarterly release cycles.”
This IDC MarketScape for Subscription Relationship Management underlines the fact that companies large and small across all industries are shifting their business models from shipping products to delivering subscriber services and experiences. And this shift is only going to continue. We believe that, in the future, growth will only come from subscriptions. And it is our mission to continue to invest and innovate to ensure that our subscribers flourish.
We encourage you to check out an excerpt of the “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Subscription Relationship Management 2017 Vendor Assessment” report.