Subscription Economy

As consumers increasingly prefer usage to ownership, companies are finding new ways to transform products into the continuous services customers demand. To support such new business models, Zuora is making its platform available for purchase solutions for the first time, beyond subscription-only business. The benefit: Companies can monetize their subscriptions, products and usage-based services with a unified platform and thus a significantly improved user experience.

With 75 percent of consumers worldwide saying they increasingly prefer to use services rather than own physical goods, product-centric companies are looking to complement their physical goods with new subscription services. With Unified Monetization, Zuora enables these companies to participate in the subscription economy without barriers. The reverse is also possible. As a result, digital-first subscription natives can add one-off offers to their services to further build relationships with their subscribers over time.

Zuora customers thus have the freedom to monetize any combination of one-time, recurring, or usage-based services to generate even more differentiated continuous customer experiences. Zuora's Unified Monetization enables companies to ultimately monetize everything as a service.

"Subscriptions are essential for transforming businesses, but they
should not be the only option", says Sri Srinivasan, Chief Product and Engineering Officer at Zuora. "To provide the best subscription experience, companies are trying to combine their offerings in new ways from a mix of subscriptions, usage-based services, and one-time offers."

Zuora unveiled a number of enhancements to the platform at The Journey to Usership that will help users move even faster. Currently, Zuora Central processes more than three million invoices per hour and manages subscriptions from more than 100 million subscribers.

"Subscription-based business models and an exceptional customer experience share the same priority for many companies," said Stephen Hurrell, VP and research director at Ventana Research. "The key aspect of a positive customer experience in a subscription model can be summed up as 'seamless'. For companies with a mixed business model - combining one-off sales with subscription- and usage-based products and services - this seamless experience is important. Namely, it ensures that the customer is no longer aware of the potentially disparate systems that support the overall process."