Zuora Announces Winners of First Annual Subscribed Innovation Awards, Recognizing Companies Leading the Subscription Economy

REDWOOD CITY, CA--(Marketwire - Sep 20, 2012) -  

News

• Zuora, the subscription commerce, billing and finance leader, today announced the winners of the first annual Zuora Subscribed Innovation awards, which recognize companies that have fully embraced the Subscription Economy, and have creatively leveraged the subscription model to grow and enhance their businesses in ways never before possible. Four companies -- Zendesk, Dyn, Xplornet Communications Inc., and SendGrid -- were recognized in 3 categories of innovation:
  • Grow Award: innovation in launching and scaling subscription businesses
  • Flow Award: innovation in managing complex subscription processes to drive operational efficiencies
  • Know Award: innovation in using insight to improve subscription business success

2012 Winners Break New Ground in the Subscription Economy

• The Grow Award was presented to Zendesk, the proven cloud-based customer service software provider. More than 65 million people around the world already receive support from customer service departments and help desks powered by Zendesk's solution. Zendesk uses Zuora to innovate its marketing, pricing, and promotions to drive its aggressive growth strategies.
• A second Grow Award was presented to Dyn, the world leader in Internet Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Dyn is growing rapidly, and is leveraging Zuora's platform to offer a variety of pricing and packaging options to expand its base in international markets, which represent a huge growth opportunity for the company.
• The Flow Award was presented to Xplornet Communications Inc., Canada's leading provider of rural broadband. Xplornet deployed Canada's first 4G network in 2012, and did so faster than any previous provider. At the center of its strategy, Xplornet has an enterprise-class infrastructure that enables greater flexibility and agility to launch new offerings and to deliver the industry-leading customer service. Xplornet uses Zuora to effectively streamline its complex billing operations, including automating pricing, quoting, orders, billing and payments and managing customer care, such as change orders, customer cases and renewals.
• The Know Award was given to SendGrid, the leader in email deliverability. SendGrid has already delivered more than 56 billion emails, with many more added every day. To measure its growth, profitability and performance, SendGrid uses a variety of metrics gathered from Zuora and other sources that enables SendGrid to make smart data-driven to accelerate the company's growth.

Commentary

• "Zendesk continues to grow at a rapid rate with more than 20,000 customers," said Zack Urlocker, COO of Zendesk. "Zuora has allowed us to focus on what is most important: helping our customers deliver superior customer service."
• "It's exciting to receive Zuora's award for process innovation. We have streamlined our complex subscription billing operations and now have a lights out infrastructure that handles our end-to-end critical business applications. This has resulted in an end-to-end subscription software solution that is supporting the growth and scalability of our organization. Zuora has been a key part of our success with this initiative," said Cathy MacDonald, CIO of Xplornet Communications Inc.
• "Most people don't know Dyn, but they do know the major web brands we power. And, if they are a geek, they probably know one of the hundreds of thousands of technologists that rely on us every day. We are proud to receive this award because it speaks to how our DNS and Email services drive the growth and success of our customers and to how our blended e-commerce and direct sales go-to-market strategy have driven our own growth and success. Teaming with Zuora has helped us not only bring our business to new levels but also simplify it, despite the great breadth of plans we offer. We look forward to working together to drive the Subscription Economy forward," said Graham H. Chynoweth, COO, Dyn.
• "SendGrid is pleased to be recognized by Zuora, a valued partner that is helping us make intelligent, data-driven decisions that are driving our rapid growth in the Subscription Economy," said Jim Franklin, CEO at SendGrid. "And with Zuora constantly innovating its solutions, SendGrid has big plans for using sophisticated subscription metrics to drive our next phase of growth."

Zuora Commentary

• "Zuora's customers are groundbreakers, bringing revolutionary changes to how business is done by embracing the massive Subscription Economy opportunity," said Tien Tzuo, CEO, Zuora. "The inaugural Subscribed Innovation award recipients are defining how businesses 'grow, flow and know' in the Subscription Economy, and are setting the standard for those companies joining in the shift." 

About Zuora, Inc.
Zuora is the global leader in Relationship Business Management solutions. Zuora delivers the subscription billing, commerce and finance capabilities that have become the industry standard to help companies transition to the Subscription Economy. Enterprises and emerging companies alike use Zuora's multi-tenant cloud solution to enable growth strategies, to streamline key processes and to provide visibility into the metrics that matter most in the Subscription Economy. Zuora services innovative customers like Informatica, Tata Communications, Box.net, DocuSign, GigaOM, Xplornet, Ustream and Reed Business Information. To learn more about Zuora, please visit www.zuora.com.