Zuora Brings Unprecedented Real-Time Flexibility to Telecom Subscription Billing
Redwood Shores, CA – August 12, 2010 — Zuora, the company that defined and continues to lead the subscription billing industry, announced the company has successfully implemented a subscription billing platform for Open Range Communications, one of the nation’s hottest wireless broadband providers in under 100 days.
Traditional telecom billing systems can take years and millions of dollars to implement. In this case, Open Range required its new telecom billing system to integrate with seven different systems and provide the flexibility to change pricing across a broad range of customer communities in 17 states. Open Range selected Zuora to deliver real-time flexibility to support myriad pricing packages and promotions while scaling to support Open Range’s fast-growing business. Completed in less than 100 days, the implementation positions Zuora as the clear leader in subscription billing for next-generation telco business models.
While providers throughout the telecom industry face a critical need to increase the flexibility and agility of their billing systems, this requirement was mission critical for Open Range. Backed with $267 million from the Department of Agriculture and $100 million from One Equity Partners, the private equity arm of JPMorgan Chase, the company has launched an aggressive initiative to bring wireless high-speed Internet access to hundreds of un-served and under-served rural communities across America.
As it works to connect 6 million customers in 546 communities, Open Range needed to tailor a large number of pricing packages and promotions to fit the requirements of different areas, then sign customers in real-time via call center, online self-service, and door-to-door sales. In addition to billing by metered usage across a diverse and ever-changing spectrum of rate plans, Open Range must also perform complex tax calculations reflecting different tariffs for VoIP, international calls, and Internet access.
“As a next-generation provider, we need to be able to make changes at the speed of today’s fast-moving telecom marketplace while supporting subscription agreements as diverse as the needs of our customers,” said Q Saeed, Executive Vice President, Business Operations and Corporate Development at Open Range Communications Inc. “Zuora made it possible for us to bring modified pricing plans to market quickly, bill against them in real-time, and scale easily to keep pace with our rapid growth in the months and years ahead.”
Zuora completed its implementation of Open Range’s new billing platform in under 100 days even though the project had high degree of complexity with multiple integration points throughout company’s ecosystem, including:
- ERP general ledger,
- Salesforce.com customer and partner portal,
- Vertex tax solution,
- Paymentech credit card processing, and
- Allianza Telecom telco switch.
The system has been fully operational since going live in June.
“Time is of the essence as we work to hit our go-to-market launch dates,” said Saeed. “Zuora not only gave us exactly the capabilities we need to fully enable our business model, but did it in a fraction of the time of a traditional enterprise platform.”
“Telecom billing is a multi-billion dollar market traditionally dominated by expensive systems that take years and years to deploy”, said Zuora founder and CEO Tien Tzuo. “Our work with Open Range, where we tackled their complex telecom billing needs — and brought them live in 100 days — this truly shows the maturity and scalability of Zuora’s platform, and how much it truly is a game changer.”
About Zuora, Inc.
Zuora’s subscription billing and commerce platform changes the way subscription businesses manage and sell to customers, allowing them to bring new products to market in less time, with more flexibility and less hassle. Zuora customers are up and running within 90 days and often recognize 200% ROI within weeks. Zuora is built from the ground up by SaaS industry visionaries and veterans from salesforce.com, WebEx, Accenture, Google, eBay, Oracle and Vitria. Zuora customers include Reed Business Information, Coremetrics, InsideView, Marketo, Ricoh, Pandora, Box.net, Xactly, HD Cloud, and Cloud Central.
To learn more about Zuora, please visit zuorainternprd.wpengine.com.
About Open Range
Open Range is a broadband wireless provider using WiMAX technology to deliver wireless broadband to un-served and underserved rural American communities. Open Range plans to deliver portable and eventually mobile voice and Internet services to customers within its robust WiMAX footprint. Within the next five years, Open Range intends to serve 546 communities, making its services initially available to approximately six million people. Open Range’s wireless broadband network solution will connect customers through licensed spectrum, enabling communities to improve safety, economic growth, education, and quality of life and to remain competitive in the age of constant communications. For more information, visit www.openrangecomm.com.