Zuora Launches RBM Connect Marketplace to Foster Subscription Business Model Innovation

Relationship Business Management “App Store” Showcases 57 Pre-built Apps From Global Technology Partners, System Integrators and Developers

FOSTER CITY, Calif. – May 13, 2015 Zuora, the subscription commerce, billing and finance leader, today unveiled RBM Connect, a relationship business management (RBM) marketplace designed to foster a new wave of subscription business model innovation. The most extensive partner ecosystem for companies driving the shift to the Subscription Economy, RBM Connect currently features 57 pre-built apps from technology partners, system integrators and developers across the globe, making it easier for companies to launch subscription businesses based on the Zuora solution.

“Companies such as salesforce.com, Amazon, Netflix, and Box heralded the shift to subscription-based business models, but today, companies in nearly every industry, including consumer goods, education, energy, financial services, healthcare, retail, and telecom, are looking for ways to participate,” said Zuora CEO Tien Tzuo. “RBM Connect makes it easier for companies to find the information and partners they need to begin their transformations, while providing our industry-leading partners with an opportunity to market their solutions and collaborate with other vendors.”

Subscription businesses require an agile and diverse systems infrastructure to meet the unique demands of creating and growing a healthy recurring revenue stream. For example, sales and operations teams need highly coordinated, seamlessly integrated processes that unify front and back office applications to support all stages of the subscriber lifecycle, from first contact through registration, payment and renewal. Finance teams need solutions for augmenting their general ledgers to effectively automate the complexity of subscription finance and deliver key subscription business metrics. And customer success teams need an intelligent view of subscriber touch points that can provide early warning signs of churn, adoption and upsell opportunities.

To create this infrastructure, visionary IT leaders who recognize that one-size-fits-all solutions simply won’t work are increasingly turning to vendors that have developer friendly APIs, open platforms and broad partner, developer and end user communities that enable them to rapidly build and connect apps that fit their unique business needs. Broad adoption of Zuora’s platform and API’s has given rise to a number of unique applications and integrations, and has resulted in a strong technology community focused on building apps designed to solve subscription use cases. RBM Connect makes it easy for vendors and companies to showcase these unique applications and collaborate with this community.

The new marketplace features more than 50 partner solutions tailored for subscription businesses, including configure, price, quote (CPQ), financial planning, e-signatures, ERP integrations and more. RBM Connect also harnesses the innovative spirit of Zuora employees, customers and developers who have built creative solutions leveraging Zuora’s platform and APIs to solve real-world use cases, such as lockbox file processing, custom dunning workflows, discount management rules and more.

Learn More at Subscribed, Zuora’s User Conference

To learn more about RBM Connect and meet many RBM Connect partners, attend Subscribed, the only conference designed to help companies succeed in the Subscription Economy. Subscribed will take place May 20-21, 2015, at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square.

Analyst Commentary

“More and more organizations are adopting recurring revenue-based business models, fueling triple-digit growth for Agile Billing solutions. Consequently, customers are looking for complementary products and services that extend the reach of their core platforms. MGI Research is pleased to see Zuora launch the RBM Connect Marketplace. Zuora is the first subscription management company to launch a marketplace of technology providers, SIs and developers who offer synergistic capabilities beyond core billing.”

Andrew Dailey, Managing Director, MGI Research

Partner Commentary

“SteelBrick and Zuora have partnered to integrate SteelBrick’s advanced CPQ platform with Zuora’s subscription commerce, billing and finance solution. The RBM Connect marketplace is the perfect site to present this powerful quote-to-cash solution to companies that are looking to accelerate their subscription business model journey through best practices and out of the box apps.”

Godard Abel, CEO, SteelBrick

“To create a competitive advantage in today’s Subscription Economy, organizations need to make data-driven decisions. Our technology partnership with Zuora and participation in RBM Connect will help enable users to take advantage of our native integration so the Office of Finance can collaborate and do all of their billing, budgeting, forecasting and planning in one environment, making finance truly a participation sport. This is a great step forward for our entire industry.”

Christian Gheorghe, Founder and CEO, Tidemark

“Our successful collaboration with Zuora provides our joint enterprise customers with an integrated CPQ and subscription commerce and billing solution. We welcome the opportunity to broaden our partnership by including PROS CPQ solutions into Zuora’s RBM Connect marketplace. Companies today are looking for smart applications that put their data to work and provide real-time actionable insights to drive better decisions for their subscription-based businesses. PROS Cameleon CPQ is the only CPQ solution supercharged with prescriptive price guidance, transforming CRM into a profit engine and enabling sales teams to deliver smarter, faster, winning quotes to customers.

Chris Jones, Senior Vice President, Alliances & Partners, PROS

“Acelerzi has always been committed to making it easier for large enterprises to augment their ERP infrastructure with agile solutions like Zuora’s that help them to be successful with subscription business models. We are excited to be able to showcase our Zuora-Oracle connection services on the RBM Connect marketplace and we look forward to collaborating with more Zuora customers through the RBM Connect community.”

Benjamin Ellsworth, President, Acelerzi

“Zuora’s platform and APIs have made it easy for us to build a number of integrations and reusable apps for our joint customers. We’re looking forward to showcasing those integrations and apps in the RBM Connect marketplace and we look forward to collaborating with other technology vendors in the RBM connect community to deliver more value-add solutions for the marketplace in the future.”

Fred Kao, Director, Frontera

“At Leeyo we understand that subscription businesses deal with a unique set of challenges when it comes to revenue recognition. Our technology partnership with Zuora helps enterprises of all sizes to solve those challenges by using Leeyo’s RevPro product in conjunction with Zuora. We’re proud to showcase this integration on the RBM Connect marketplace so that more companies can take advantage of our technology partnership and joint innovation, and tackle their revenue recognition challenges head-on.”

Jagan Reddy, CEO, Leeyo

“We’re excited to announce our technology partnership with Zuora. Our integrated solution leverages the Zuora platform and hosted payment technologies so customers can more quickly and easily capture eSignatures and collect customer payments in a simple, easy, and integrated user experience.  By joining the RBM Connect network, we’re able to more effectively reach companies using Zuora that need to automate the last mile of their sales process.”

Nick Stojka, Co-founder, Sertifi

 

Additional Resources

The Subscription Economy: A Business Transformation” by Tien Tzuo, CEO of Zuora
SlideShare: “Drivers of Success in the Subscription Economy

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About Zuora Inc.

Zuora’s solution allows any business in any industry to launch or shift products to subscription, implement new pay-as-you-go pricing and packaging models, gain new insights into subscriber behavior, open new revenue streams, and disrupt market segments to gain competitive advantage. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Zuora also operates offices in Atlanta, London, Paris, Munich, Beijing, Amsterdam, Vienna, Sydney, Copenhagen and Stockholm. Zuora clients come from a wide range of industries, including media, travel services, consumer packaged goods, cloud services, and telecommunications. Clients include Financial Times, Schneider Electric, Box, Honeywell, NCR, RTL, lynda.com, The Guardian, YP.com, BlueJeans, Shutterfly, TripAdvisor, Vivint and Trulia. To learn more about Zuora, please visit zuorainternprd.wpengine.com.

Media Contact:

Jayne Scuncio
Zuora@eastwick.com
415-820-4164

May 13, 2015