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Subscribed 2016: Extending Your Zuora Platform
The document outlines an initiative by The Economist to enhance their Zuora platform through the integration of advanced digital solutions, resulting in improved customer experiences and operational efficiencies. Key goals include better targeting and tracking, cost savings, and developing a best-of-breed ecosystem for digital subscription management. The timeline details a comprehensive discovery and elaboration phase to select appropriate partners and implement various solutions, culminating in a more effective and agile subscription management system.
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Subscribed 2016: Extending Your Zuora Platform
- 1. Extending Your ZuoraPlatform Preview of latest technology that adds more capabilities to Zuora Core Products Lukasz Weber Product Manager, Zuora Extending Your Zuora Platform Preview of latest technology that adds more capabilities to Zuora Core Products Lukasz Weber
- 2. welcome page 02 Subrata Mukherjee, VPProduct Management The Economist
- 3. Goals Why the Economistconsidered this initiative
- 4. Goals for this initiative page 04 Customerswould gain better experience and are more satisfied Accurate Access across platforms Self help Smoother service Better looking personalized content, emails & targeted Ads More product and payment options
- 5. Goals for this initiative page 05 Marketingcan make a wider portfolio of products available with superior customer services Less time spent on Customer access & fulfillment issues Better segmentation & tracking Targeted messaging gaining attention Wider portfolio of products with quicker time to market
- 6. Goals for this initiative page 06 Bestof breed solutions within platform Digital solutions could focus on building a digital ecosystem and become a driver for growth and efficiencies Cleaner central master data Better targeting, insights & reports Service oriented Architecture enabling & smoother integration
- 7. Goals for this initiative page 07 TheEconomist Group as a business will gain cost efficiencies and become leader in digital enablement Become Industry leader in subscription best practices and gain from relationships with industry leaders Cost savings by replacing existing systems & partners, better financial reconciliation and better Brand commitment with Customer centric processes
- 8. guidelines for our discovery page 08 Technical Suitability? •Solution Completeness/Fit • Vendor Product Roadmap • Architecture Deep Dives • Support/Maintenance Considerations Manageability? • Manage scope • Initial Prioritisation/Value • User Stories • Functional Deep Dives Affordability? • Cost Negotiation • Effort breakdown • Total cost of ownership • Long term Support staff Deliverability? • Implementation approaches • Mapping delivery to requirements • Customer References • Confidence Capability? • Domain knowledge • Similar project • Team experience • Forward looking vision Discovery
- 9. Our journey How TheEconomist went through the journey
- 10. Discovery extended June 2014 14Front end added to the mix to tackle lack of front end skills The Economist CASE Selection page 010 Discovery phase May 2014 10 Subscription Partners identified based on Industry reports and market research our 20 month journey
- 11. Feasibility phase Aug 2014 Feltone partner did not have it all Came around to the idea that we needed to assemble a pair of Front end with back end partners who understood the publishing business Formed two partnerships pairs page 011 Jul 2014 RFP Phase 7 Partners in each bucket 2 week response period with 100+ questions Focus was on how much was “out of the box”, how much “configuration” and how much “customization” The Economist CASE Selection
- 12. Elaboration phase 1 Nov- Dec 2014 Elaboration workshops were conducted with Vendor M and we realized our revenue recognition models and CPQ would be difficult to replicate without customization. Back to the drawing board page 012 Sep-Oct 2014 Awareness Road show Each pair participated in two sessions – business and a technical presentation A panel of about 10 executives voted on a dozen different parameters. Scores were tied at the end with no clear winner. Price tag broke the tie The Economist CASE Selection
- 13. Elaboration phase 2 Jan-Apr2015 Elaboration workshops were conducted with Vendor H We met with three Solution providers and the implementation costs were wide in range. From $800K to $3M, which caused un-certainity at steering level page 013 Jan 2015 Elaboration phase 2 Instead of going back to the other pair, we went back to see if any possible pairs were missed Vendor H came back with better offering and that they have paired with Vendor Z at a telecom project. Decided to pair Vendor H with Vendor Z The Economist CASE Selection
- 14. Elaboration phase 3 June2015 Elaboration workshops were conducted with Novactive who is our implementation partner for eZpublish and a elaborate fully functioning demo was organized to show some key use cases. Contract signed for EZPublish work to begin page 014 May 2015 Delivery approach changed Since the price did not work for the entire package out we decided to phase the project – first tackle the eCommerce and front end and then tackle the subscription management platform EzPublish was selected and we went back to the possibility to consider one of our original pairs The Economist CASE Selection Its happening folks!
- 15. Elaboration phase 4 Aug– Nov 2015 We came up with about a half dozen proof of concepts encompassing our most complicated use cases Our Customer Services firm had concerns on Zuora due to the number of steps in the B2C subscription management flows and we did a gap analysis for each crucial step. All POCs were solved with one-click orchestration flows page 015 July 2015 Zuora signed with terms We were confident that Zuora had potential to solve all of our business challenges but we were adamant that we did not want to invest in complicated revenue recognition customizations Zuora took up the challenge and decided to invest in their platform to upgrade their offering. We agreed on the acceptance criteria The Economist CASE Selection
- 16. The real journeybegins… Jan 2016 Team formed and an Agile project schedule created factoring in the prioritization provided by a cross functional team page 016 Dec 2015 Extension platform born Zuora invested in their platform to build an extension platform to address similar needs from customers Will allow Zuora to build out-of-the-box functionality for some without impacting all others. The Revenue recognition package is one of the first in that platform The Economist CASE Selection
- 17. Outcome What products andservices we ended up with
- 18. Best of breed ecosystem page 018 Master Data CRM Ecommerce Buyerflow, Payments, CMS templates Access control Paywall, metering, Entitlements Economist Website & Mobile / native AppsCustomer Services CSR & Self Service Print Fulfillment Business Intelligence Data Warehouse, Insights & Reports Communications Email & push notifications Subscription Management Renewals, Revenue Recognition
- 19. Best of breed platformsfor business growth page 019 Master Data source Segmentation tool Customer Service tool Call center scripts Knowledge center In-bound & Outbound telemarketing Agent & offline order processing Label run management Distribution management Letter shop mail processing Sales Management tool Journey Builder tool Template building tool Buyer flows My Account portal Registration / activation pages Paywall & Regwall tool Personalized paywalls A/B & Multivariate testing Order metrics & tracking Transactional emails Renewal emails Newsletter personalization tool Push notification tool Data cleansing & de-duping Address & email verification Circulation & ABC Reporting Business intelligence Metrics Revenue & Sales Forecasting Subscription management Credit / debit card processing Alternate / regional payments Earned & Deferred revenue Taxation, VAT, Cash management Month / Qtr / Yr end closing Cloud infrastructure Integration hub Canonical model Login & Single signon Entitlements management eCommerceCRMCommunication SubscriptionsAccessctrlFulfilmentBI
- 20. Revenue recognition Issue based page 020 Setup Products SelectRevenue Model & Rules Upload Publication Calendar Revenue Milestones & Schedule Transaction Reporting & Accounting Customer Service Z-Billing Z-Payment Z-Finance Salesforce Zuora Revenue-Impacting Events (e.g. Cancel/Refund)
- 21. Zuora Platform Preview oflatest technology that adds more capabilities to Zuora Core Products Lukasz Weber Product Manager, Zuora
- 22. INTRODUCING ZUORA A prospect-to-cashsolution for relationship-centric enterprises SUBSCRIBER MANAGEMENT Cross-sell, upsell renewals, 360 sync, self service PRICING & PACKAGING Pricing, Bundling, Entitlements QUOTING Configuration, Guided-Selling, Rules Engine BILLING Rating, Invoicing, Taxation PAYMENTS Offline & Online Payments, Credits, Adjustments Integration. Scalability. Reliability. Security. Compliance. Extensibility. App Marketplace. Platform REVENUE Revenue Recognition, Accounting Close, GL Integration REPORTING & ANALYTICS Report builder, Dashboards, Segmentation, Predictive
- 23. Platform GL CPQCRM Tax And more DATACONNECT FRAMEWORK ORCHESTRATION SERVICES APPLICATIONS & RBM CONNECT
- 24. APIs Built on AmazonWeb Services DATA CONNECT FRAMEWORK DATA MAPPING CONFIGURABLE SYNC ENGINE BATCH or REAL-TIME SYNC
- 25. EVENT IN ZUORA NOTIFICATION Email orAPI New sign-up Provision service Invoice sent Send invoice Payment overdue Send alert Gmail Now Hi there, welcome to Cloudstream! Login now. G m a i l N o w Your invoice is now ready 📝 G m a i l N o w You have an overdue payment! ORCHESTRATION SERVICES
- 26. RBM CONNECT Pre-built appsto meet every need
- 28. Applications Extensions overwrite orextend existing Zuora capabilities
- 29. Zuora Capabilities Core ZuoraObjects Today, custom solutions are built outside of Zuora Customizations An extensive library of core objects Zuora capabilities spreads across multiple objects
- 30. Zuora Capabilities Core ZuoraObjects Tomorrow, extensions can be built directly on the Zuora platform Extensions Extend existing capabilities or add brand new functions
- 31. Rating Extension Pricing ChargeModel Capabilities Core Zuora Objects How extensions work Rating extension example Extension Logic Meta Data Data Store Which values are assigned based on the logic? What attributes do I need to collect in Zuora? Capabilities have pre-existing functions other functions new aggregation logic new rate calculation rate calculationrate calculation aggregation logic aggregation logic
- 32. Add any numberof extensions to supplement core Zuora capabilities Zuora Capabilities Core Zuora Objects rating extension revenue recognition extension tax engine extension ...
- 33. What does thismean for you? ● Minimal footprint ● Upgradable ● Consistent user experience ● Leverage Zuora’s secure & scalable hosting infrastructure
- 34. Zuora Platform Timelines InDevelopment Notifications on any Event Service for publishing events, and service for notifications on any event (starting Q3) Planned Universal Data Connect Service for extracting any Zuora data in batch and real-time and framework for connectors for CRM, ERP (starting Q4 for SDFC Sync, additional connectors in 2017) Backlog RBM Connect Hosting Hosting for RBM Connect applications and specific extensions such as tax engines
- 35. Check out ZuoraAcademy for more great info and actionable advice. All the info you need to build and run an amazing subscription business. https://www.zuora.com/academy/
Editor's Notes
- #23 This is why we built Zuora. Zuora is a prospect-to-cash solution for relationship-centric enterprises that helps businesses launch, manage, and analyze their subscription business. We help with new sales as well as upsells/cross-sells to maximize growth. Let’s jump in.
- #30 Zuora is built on an extensive library of core objects such as the subscription, rate plan, etc. Layered on top of those objects are different capabilities that we enable, such as a flexible product catalog or invoicing. These capabilities span across multiple objects and are used by a number of different personas. As our customers have grown over the years, many customers develop unique and sophisticated use cases that Zuora doesn’t support out of the box. Today, we help build custom solutions (outside the Zuora platform) to help customers maintain their pace of innovation.
- #31 We’d like to make this even easier, so we are opening up the Zuora Platform. Instead of customizations, we want to enable developers to build extensions directly on the Zuora platform. This reduces the amount of code and time needed to enable any specific use cases.
- #32 Here’s an example. Let’s say you want to price based on multiple attributes. You can extend the existing pricing logic in Zuora - instead of re-writing the entire piece of code, you can overwrite certain pricing calculations. This is your extension logic. In addition to the logic, there may be lookup tables or data you need to refer to as part of that logic - for example, how much should price be adjusted based on each attribute. These can be uploaded and configured in the data store. Finally, to extend this logic directly into the Zuora UI, new meta data can be collected in Zuora to trigger this extension. For this pricing example, that might include Location, Time of Day, or Customer Type.
- #33 We anticipate that there can be a number of extensions for any one of our customers - here are just a few of the categories. The extensions that will be built first depend on where we see the greatest need.