REDWOOD SHORES, CA--(Marketwire - December 2, 2010) - Zuora, the subscription billing and commerce leader, today announced the launch of Z-Force 4.0, a major update to its existing line of native Force.com products. With the release of Z-Force 4.0, Salesforce.com customers and partners can now manage all aspects of subscription commerce including:
- pricing and packaging for subscription and usage-based products and services;
- quotes and orders that have multiple products and recurring variables;
- subscription changes such as upgrades, downgrades, and add-on subscriptions (e.g. add 10 seats to an existing subscription);
- renewals, which can account for the majority of revenue for subscription businesses; and
- having a single source of subscription business metrics like MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue).
Closing the Commerce Gap -- Zuora Brings the Middle Office to Salesforce
With the explosion of cloud computing, many companies are changing their business models to online subscription-based services, much like the way Salesforce.com revolutionized the software industry. Salesforce.com is the front office standard for those companies with solutions that help recruit new customers and manage existing ones. Unfortunately, back-office systems such as order management, ERP and accounting applications were designed for one-time transaction commerce, and not recurring subscription business models. As a result, subscription-based models face numerous shortcomings in key parts of the Lead to Cash process, resulting in:
- spreadsheet-driven pricing and quotes;
- manual calculations of proration for add-on orders;
- inability to take online credit card orders in a PCI-compliant way;
- billing delays or errors that slow down cash collections; and
- the inability for AppExchange partners to take orders directly from the application.
"Salesforce.com has paved the way with Cloud-based front office applications, but customers with subscription-based businesses find they need support for 'middle office' processes," said Denis Pombriant, principal analyst of Beagle Research. "What's lacking is the pricing, quoting, orders and renewals for the subscription economy to thrive."
In the last three years, Zuora has become the standard on-demand subscription billing and commerce engine for these companies with its Z-Billing and Z-Payments applications. Now with Z-Force 4.0, Zuora is linking the front and back office with middle office functions including pricing, quoting, orders and renewals to enable frictionless subscription commerce for the Salesforce ecosystem.
Z-Force 4.0: The New Middle Office for Subscription Commerce
Z-Force 4.0 provides the Salesforce.com ecosystem with the middle office, a complete subscription commerce solution that seamlessly connects to Salesforce's front-end applications and Zuora's subscription billing and payments platform. Certified by Salesfore.com on the AppExchange 2 marketplace, Z-Force 4.0 works seamlessly with Salesforce's SalesCloud 2, ServiceCloud 2, Customer Portal, Partner Portal and Sites. Z-Force 4.0 includes:
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Z-Force Pricing: Instantly roll out pricing changes to your sales force in real-time by integrating products, pricing, rate plans and bundles into the SalesCloud 2 application.
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Z-Force Quotes: Create quotes for initial orders, quotes for add-on orders, upgrades and downgrades, and quotes for change orders right from within the SalesCloud 2 application, eliminating manual and double data entry and decreasing the find, engage and close customers.
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Z-Force Order Builder: A native Force.com toolkit that includes a set of custom objects, Apex classes and APIs that enable companies to create custom self-service order flows that are integrated into Salesforce Customer Portal, Partner Portal and Sites.
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Z-Force Renewals: Initiate renewals for existing customers from within the SalesCloud 2 to ensure maximum revenue capture.
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Z-Force 360: Enable your front office employees to view complete customer billing data, subscriptions, invoices and revenue metrics in the SalesCloud 2 and ServiceCloud 2.
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Z-Force Checkout for AppExchange: 1-click "Buy Now" capabilities that AppExchange ISVs and Force.com developers can enable right from within any application, allowing them to capture interested buyers immediately and rapidly monetize their Force.com applications.
Customer and Partner Success Across the Entire Salesforce.com Ecosystem
"To meet the diverse needs of our customers while maximizing revenue, we need the flexibility to negotiate renewal terms, up-sells, and other deals on a case-by-case basis," said Mary Collerton, Corporate Solutions Director at Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Group PLC. "The ability to automate and manage the implementation of these deals from within Salesforce with Zuora's Z-Force will help us support this strategy without sacrificing the efficiency of our sales organisation."
"As a leading telecommunications provider, we have a diverse set of pricing and packaging requirements and need to have CRM and billing work in sync," said Q Saeed, Executive Vice President, Business Operations and Corporate Development at Open Range Communications Inc. "Zuora's billing platform, combined with its powerful native Z-Force application, provided us with the flexibility and customization capabilities to leverage the power of the Force.com platform to automate quoting, orders and billing processes for our expanding business."
"Zuora's Z-Force provides seamless and unique integration with Salesforce allowing us to simply and quickly create accounts and easily manage the billing of hundreds of accounts with a single staff member," said Steve Ellis, CIO at ImproveIt360. "More importantly, Zuora provides us with flexibility to easily adapt our rapidly growing business ongoing and enables us to scale without having to worry about critically important, but non-revenue generating activities."
"Salesforce.com customers and partners are living and breathing the subscription economy -- constantly innovating and looking for new ways to grow top line revenue," said Tien Tzuo, CEO at Zuora. "Our new Z-Force 4.0 provides the missing 'middle office' for Salesforce.com customers and partners to manage the entire Lead-to-Cash-to-Renewals processes for their subscription businesses."
Zuora is a gold sponsor of Salesforce.com's Dreamforce 2010 at Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco December 6 - 9, 2010. In addition, Zuora's CEO Tien Tzuo will be presenting on the topic "Making Money in the App Economy" on Wednesday, December 8th from 12:15 p.m. - 1:15 p.m. at Moscone West 3007. Be sure to stop by Zuora's booth # 819 for more information.
Additional Resources
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, Box.net, Xactly, and Cloud Central. To learn more about Zuora, please visit www.zuora.com.
Contact Information:
Media Contacts
Maria Bradley
Reidy Communications for Zuora
(415) 704-5012