Zuora Enables FireHost to Triple Revenue, Double Customers, and Expand Internationally

REDWOOD CITY, CA--(Marketwire - Oct 4, 2012) -

Summary

• Zuora, the subscription commerce, billing and finance leader, today announced that Dallas and London-based Cloud hosting provider FireHost is using Zuora's Z-Business Relationship Business Management (RBM) solution to scale its secure, high performance and compliant Cloud hosting solutions. Z-Business offers subscription businesses the industry's leading commerce, billing, and finance capabilities to help Zuora's customers Grow, Flow and Know in the Subscription Economy:
  • Grow: Launch and scale their subscription businesses;
  • Flow: Manage their complex subscription processes efficiently; or
  • Know: Measure and monitor the right metrics to optimize their subscription business.
• With Zuora, FireHost has been able to execute an aggressive international growth strategy that has led to a 200% increase in annual revenues. FireHost's growth initiative has also resulted in a dramatic increase in customers, transaction volume and regional coverage. And because Zuora continues to expand its functionality for internationalization, FireHost is standardizing on Zuora to scale to $100M in annual revenues and beyond.
• FireHost will be sharing their story of Subscription Economy success as a guest speaker at Subscribed 2012 UK, Zuora's Subscription Economy-focused conference. The event will be held on 4th October 2012 at the Kensington Roof Gardens in London. Register here.

Zuora: the Catalyst behind FireHost's International Expansion

• Two years ago, FireHost selected Zuora to help the company rapidly grow, after concluding that its existing billing system would never be able to handle the increased transaction volume. After an implementation of only 30 days, FireHost was using Zuora to bill significantly more customers and to handle dramatically more transaction volume.
• In 2011, FireHost decided to expand internationally, setting up offices in the UK. Zuora was able to instantly support FireHost's international expansion plans, with no additional effort required on their billing, commerce and finance infrastructure. Zuora seamlessly handled FireHost's multicurrency, local tax and local payment method needs. Since switching to Zuora, the company has more than tripled its revenue, doubled its customer base and expanded its operations in Europe. With Zuora, FireHost has been able continue to grow its business without being held back by custom or legacy infrastructure.

Zuora Removes Roadblocks to Growth

• Zuora allows FireHost to flow its business better without encountering significant hiccups that can often occur when expanding rapidly. Zuora automates key subscription commerce, billing and finance processes such as Quote-to-Cash, Renewals, High Volume Payment Failures, Account Suspension, Amendments, Exceptions and Account Management.
• For example, FireHost uses Zuora to automate the calculation and collection of complex tax and remitting requirements, globally. Simplifying these processes enables FireHost to focus its attention and resources on growing existing accounts and expanding into new service areas.

Helping FireHost Know Its Business

• As its core enterprise system of management, Zuora helps FireHost know its business and customers better, including tracking key metrics of its business. FireHost's team can now run and export a standardized set of reports in minutes with details down to the product/service level, by customer and geographical region, no matter if a client is based in Amsterdam, New York, or another more exotic locale since FireHost has clients from 35 different countries.
• And FireHost's quoting system and ticketing system use Zuora's robust API to call and display accurate pricing information in multiple currencies, giving customer-facing support, billing, and sales staff access to consistent and accurate pricing at all times.

Commentary

• "Since we selected Zuora we have grown from a few hundred primarily US-based customers to a large global customer base invoicing in multiple currencies," stated Ben McCormack, FireHost's Director of Operations EMEA. "Zuora has continually innovated and has allowed us to facilitate centralised treasury management functionality across multiple legal entities around the world. We would not be supporting our secure cloud hosting customers as eloquently without Zuora's assistance."
• "FireHost is a perfect example of the tipping point that's been breached in the Subscription Economy," said Tien Tzuo, CEO of Zuora. "FireHost understands that global corporate demand for subscription services are exploding. And they understand that they need a subscription commerce, billing and finance solution that enables them to grow as fast as they can. Customers like FireHost are the reason Zuora is dedicated to providing the latest innovations to drive the growth of the Subscription Economy." 

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.

About FireHost
FireHost is a global secure cloud hosting company focused on protecting sensitive data and brand reputation. Customers with compliance or performance requirements use FireHost's PCI, HIPAA or high traffic solutions. Some of the largest eCommerce, SaaS and healthcare IT companies in the world use FireHost's secure hosting services. Recognised as a global company with clients in 35 countries, FireHost has combined the best of dedicated hosting (security, performance and reliability) with the advantages of a usage-based model (scalability, flexibility, and resource accountability) to be the first secure, public cloud hosting platform.