CEO Monetization Playbook - Vvimp
CEO Monetization Playbook - Vvimp
CEO Monetization Playbook - Vvimp
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
AN INTRODUCTION: RECURRING REVENUE AND FLEXIBLE CONSUMPTION MODELS
For today’s enterprise software companies, the question isn’t whether or not you have to shift to SaaS…it’s how. McKinsey, IDC, Gartner—they’ve all been sounding the
alarm for 10 years. You know the storyline, but what you don’t know is how to navigate or adopt this trend.
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84 percent of companies fail at digital
transformation—only about 1 in 8 successfully
managed the process.
—Forbes Global 2000 research
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1. RECURRING REVENUE AND FLEXIBLE CONSUMPTION MODELS
SUMMARY
“There will still be applications on-premises, licensed in the traditional sense. TYPICAL USE CASES
But growth is in subscription and cloud offerings. This means that most of Address changing customer demands
the largest software companies will be managing a hybrid scenario, from Visibility into predictable metrics—ARR, MRR, ACV, TCV
both a technology and a business model perspective—a tall order.” Move upmarket and downmarket easily by introducing
SaaS-centric pricing models
—Amy Konary, former program VP for Software Business Models and Monetization with IDC and current VP of
Customer Business Innovation at Zuora
Shift existing classic “transactional” offerings traditional pricing models focused on perpetual
towards repackaged recurring business models licensing and support/maintenance models to
or flexible consumption models like usage- SaaS-centric subscription pricing and pay-per-
based, with a meaningful promise and a use pricing models.
perception of affordability.
Companies can go all in on this strategy or opt
Conversion is typically the main play for for a partial conversion by shifting a portion of
transforming software companies: moving from their portfolio to SaaS-centric pricing models.
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CUSTOMER STORIES
PTC provides a good example of this shift in action. model. After implementing Zuora to build out the
While PTC is one of the 50 biggest software companies, necessary infrastructure to support this new model, PTC
in recent years their earnings had taken a hit. In the second now offers subscription pricing across its entire portfolio
quarter of 2015, PTC recorded $303M in revenue. A little of solutions and technology platforms.
over a year later, that number dropped to $288M. In the
Since making the shift, customer adoption of PTC’s
same period, earnings swung from $17.4M profit to a loss
subscriptions have accelerated every quarter. Based
of $28.5M.
on their current course and speed, by fiscal 2021, they
To satisfy consumer demand, PTC decided to implement expect about 95% of their software revenue to be
a broad, systemic shift to its business model from completely recurring.
perpetual licenses to a cloud-based recurring revenue
CUSTOMER EXAMPLES
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PROS AND CONS TO SHIFTING TO A RECURRING REVENUE MODEL
PROS CONS
Increase shareholder value by providing forward-facing recurring revenue Disruption of current business practices
business metrics
Potential revenue decline in the short term
Address market white space with limited investment Necessary investment in new underlying technology to enable
flexible pricing and packaging changes
Good leverage to justify connecting associated hardware
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BOTTOM LINE
Repackaging and introducing pricing flexibility is a great way “The statistics vary, but more than 85 percent of software
to revive or boost an existing product/service with low sales,
low coverage, etc. You can also leverage this strategy to con- is still run on-premise through vendors like SAP and Oracle. But that’s not
nect with associated hardware. You’ll just want to define a where the growth is. These categories are shrinking, and it’s hard to imagine
distinctive strategy per segment: transactional or recurring.
that any next-generation, forward-thinking company wouldn’t think about
a subscription-based model.”
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2. PRODUCT-AS-A-SERVICE
SUMMARY
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By selling a service as opposed to a product, businesses shift not only their financial model, but the value
of their offering. Product-as-a-service is a customer-centric model where customers subscribe for the
time, usage, or outcome of the product—rather than simply purchasing a product outright as a one-time
transaction. The shift for consumers is from an upfront price to usage-based pricing in which price is
TYPICAL USE CASES
aligned with use, i.e. value-based pricing.
It’s all about access and outcomes, not product ownership. This shift creates opportunities for businesses
Software-as-a-Service
to build ongoing, meaningful relationships with customers that they can continue to monetize over time.
Hardware-as-a-Service
Device-as-a-Service (IoT)
Information-as-a-Service
Security-as-a-Service “With even large, established companies seeing revenues fall as a result of
Network-as-a-Service startups taking advantage of new technology, it’s more important than
Unified-Communication-as-a-Service ever that savvy business owners start looking into whether the “as a service”
Payment-as-a-Service model could be applied to their own industries.”
—Deloitte
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PROS AND CONS
PROS CONS
Disruptive model to enable upstream and downstream sales flexibility Requires an upfront capital investment
Provides competitive advantage with smaller and nimbler start-ups Lack of initial visibility into success and revenues of product-as-
a-service offering
Very high stickiness for consumers because of perceived value (i.e. outcome-based
pricing: paying for the services/outcome/access you need) Paradigm shift due to complexity in product-related metrics
(e.g. product adoption, ASP,
Creates new revenue stream due to multiple ways of monetizing products while
MRR, ARR, CLTV, ARPU, Churn)
leveraging existing hardware (usage/consumption and subscription models)
Ongoing buyer-seller relationships require greater customer
Increased upsell and cross-sell opportunities support which may require
Creates additional feature capabilities and introduces additional revenue opportunities The build-out of a new customer success function
Visibility into predictive product metrics due to recurring nature of business (e.g.
product adoption, ASP, MRR, ARR, CLTV, ARPU, Churn)
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CUSTOMER STORIES
Symantec is the global leader in cyber security, with $4B in They reduced multiple ERPs down to one consolidated
revenue. Facing revenue decline and growing competition platform and provisioning down from 21 days to 5-10
in the security space from nimble SaaS startups, Symantec minutes. And they saw 28% YoY growth in GAAP revenue
knew they needed to transform into a security-as-a-service in 2017 and 35% growth in non-GAAP revenue.
provider, with the necessary infrastructure to support this
shift. With Zuora Central acting as “the heart” of their global
subscription platform, they were able to successfully make
the transformation from license to subscription.
CUSTOMER EXAMPLES
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BOTTOM LINE
Shifting to an as-a-service model is a highly disruptive “You call Zuora the hub, I call Zuora the heart, it’s the heart of the platform
strategy that enables new monetization streams. With more
flexibility in a service offering, as-a-service provides the because it holds all the intelligence around the billing and the subscriptions—
foundation for a much stickier customer experience while it’s the heart that ties it all together.”
also empowering companies to acquire more and more
customers. Once you pivot to as-a-service, businesses begin
—Sheila Jordan, CIO, Symantec
to measure profits in new ways, with new metrics. This is
a paradigm shift that can be challenging to undertake, but
ultimately this insight into more predictable business metrics
consistently leads to higher valuation caps, and therefore
higher shareholder value.
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3. LAUNCHING NEW FLEXIBLE CONSUMPTION OFFERINGS AND RUNNING
A HYBRID BUSINESS MODEL
SUMMARY “Not every company can jump feet first into flexible consumption—
Businesses today are increasingly under pressure to
commercial intensity does not equate to product readiness.”
monetize their offerings, through products, services, and
—Deloitte Flashpoint Edition 17 on Flexible Consumption Operating Models
subscriptions. A hybrid business model is a combination
of both fixed models and usage-based ones. It involves
continuing to employ traditional pricing strategies
(perpetual licenses) while at the same time tapping into a
flexible consumption model. TYPICAL USE CASES
The idea behind this hybrid model strategy is to start small Software-as-a-Service + Perpetual license + Support streams
and then evolve: companies launch new recurring revenue
Device-as-a-Service (IoT) + Device
model offerings while maintaining core offerings as fixed
models. These new offerings are then managed as separate Data-as-a-Service
business units from core legacy products, but enable Network-as-a-Service + Network Device
opportunities for upsell and cross sell between hybrid lines
of business.
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PROS AND CONS
PROS CONS
Tap into new revenue streams Launching a new offering has its own complexities in terms of
people, processes, and technology
Experiment with subscription models with mitigated risk/disruption to the organization
Potential lack of total organizational buy-in to this “side project”
Cross sell and upsell existing customers with new monetizations models
Initial investment can be heavier with lower typical ROI due to
Legacy product revenue streams are protected—which means that companies can small volume
avoid taking a massive dip in their revenues while making the shift to subscriptions
Greater complexity is built into your business management
Less volatility to cash flow processes, e.g. billing, invoicing, and collections
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CUSTOMER STORIES
Qlik is a great example of a customer who, although way that their savvier customer base wants to consume:
focused on a subscription-first strategy, realizes that subscriptions and flexible and usage-based consumption
they need to keep the lights on. methods.
With over 2,500 employees and over 40,000 customers With Zuora, Qlik was able to enable their sales team to
in over 100 countries, Qlik is re-inventing itself to go to market in a hybrid business model. And they are
become the leading self-service Business Intelligence empowered to focus on evolving their business model in
platform acquired on a subscription basis. To do so, the shift to subscriptions.
their business and IT teams need to support new and
traditional ways of going to market. They want to
enable innovation so as to serve value-add services in a
CUSTOMER EXAMPLES
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BOTTOM LINE
If you develop the right product for subscription monetization, this “dipping-your-toes-in”
approach is a great way to experiment with subscription models without disrupting existing
operations. Businesses can slowly evolve and transition their customer base to subscription
models without a disruptive “big bang.” This hybrid model is a win-win in that it provides
stability while building a subscription foundation on which a company can expand.
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4. MERGER & ACQUISITIONS (M&A)
SUMMARY
More and more companies in high tech are looking to In particular, we are seeing an evolution in the hardware/ billion to “unlock true value of the cloud” for their business
grow their service arm, specifically because they know software world towards acquiring more subscription savvy (according to a recent press release); Salesforce with their
that companies with customer-centric business models companies featuring recurring revenue models. Recent big acquisition arm continually taking on new companies,
are getting better valuations—valuations that may not be examples include SAP’s $8 billion acquisition of Qualtrics— including its recent acquisition of ClickSoftware to bolster
achievable via traditional business models. With the M&A putting a stake in the ground of the new digital world with its field service; and Alphabet / Google consistently
monetization strategy, legacy software works its way into a “land grab” into the emerging experience software (EX) acquiring pre-revenue companies in the subscription
a flexible consumption model through the acquisition of space to complement their existing traditional business in world to “enhanc[e] the technical capability of its cloud
SaaS pure plays (and, occasionally, through a merger). operational software (OX); IBM acquiring Red Hat for $34 applications”—to name just a few.
that as-a-Service software delivery challenges incumbents with is to pivot their a company, we experienced these challenges first-hand,
first when we acquired FrontLeaf, a subscriber experience
businesses to new models, often in the form of very large acquisitions.” analytics application, in 2015, and again, in 2017 when
we acquired Leeyo, the leader in revenue recognition
—Deloitte Flashpoint Edition 17 on Flexible Consumption Operating Models automation (now Zuora RevPro).
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M&A is a complex process. Most companies today are With the right infrastructure, companies can sell any kind
acquiring or merging with high-growth companies that of flexible consumption model and offer a seamless order-
are focused on recurring revenue business models. to-revenue process, both for customers as well as for TYPICAL USE CASES
These companies are agile and nimble, and it is critical the company.
Growth by acquisition for recurring revenue line
for the acquirer to maintain this agility and nimbleness
of business
With a successful acquisition, the customer experience is
via processes and systems. The next step is enabling
consistent, with quotes, invoices, and billing all coming out of
sales acceleration via upsell and cross-sell between
one system—regardless of what product line they subscribe
the acquirer and the acquired. To enable high growth
to. And the customer view is also consistent, with all
in the SaaS business, it’s just as important to foster soft
customer-related metrics coming from one system offering
synergies (e.g. sales acceleration) as hard synergies (e.g.
a unified view, rather than a skewed perspective derived from
cost savings).
mixing and matching info from disparate systems.
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PROS AND CONS
PROS CONS
Jumpstart digital transformation by injecting SaaS DNA into existing company DNA Only viable for software companies with cash reserves that
can afford the upfront financial investment of an acquisition
Land grab for existing line of recurring revenue
Challenge to integrate SaaS business in with legacy business
Cross sell opportunities: legacy software can sell new product to their install base in terms of people, process, and technology - companies risk
and sell into the customer base of the acquired company breaking the order-to-revenue process and killing the agility
of the acquired company
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CUSTOMER STORIES
Industry-leading cyber security software company and literally thousands of SKUs for every product they
Symantec was founded in 1982, and made its first sold. A staggering 90% of their order-to-cash process was
acquisition shortly after, in 1984. With 50+ acquisitions to performed manually.
date, M&A is clearly built into its DNA and has helped to
In 2015 they implemented Zuora, consolidating their
make it the powerhouse that it is today.
complex IT ecosystem onto one platform.
But a few years ago, they found their position in the
Since implementing Zuora, Symantec has made a number
security space threatened by the launch of smaller,
of acquisitions including Blue Coat Systems (cyber
more nimble SaaS startups. To compete with this heavy
security) in June 2016, LifeLock (identity theft protection)
competition, they decided to make the shift into a security-
in November 2016, and Fireglass (malware prevention) in
as-a-service provider, flipping the switch to transform their
July 2017. With Zuora, they’ve been able to standardize
entire model.
their order-to-revenue operations with a unified
As a 30+ year old company with many acquisitions folded salesforce, a unified billing experience, and a unified
into their main business, they had accumulated a complex customer experience. The result? A huge leap from -2%
IT ecosystem with multiple ERPs, quote-to-cash systems, to 29% growth YoY.
CUSTOMER EXAMPLES
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BOTTOM LINE
An increasing number of businesses—software/hardware “We made a strategic bet on Zuora as part of our global subscription platform
and otherwise—are acquiring companies to drive
subscription revenue. For larger established software to run our digital order-to-cash system for our cloud product and services
enterprises, acquisition can be easier than full-on because it offers a unique frictionless experience for our customers and
transformation. And the organizational knowledge brought
by native SaaS companies is invaluable for legacy software
partners... choosing Zuora has helped us eliminate SKUs, simplify our pricing,
companies. At the heart of all of this M&A activity isn’t just and allow our customers and partners to consume our products and services
the way that makes the most sense for them.”
a desire to build out or complement product offerings, or
to subsume competitors, but a strategic play to jumpstart
necessary digital transformation.
—Sheila Jordan, CIO, Symantec
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5. NEW CONNECTED SERVICES
SUMMARY
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“If you currently sell products that collect some sort of data (or could be data to a cleaning service, for example, so that the service
knows when to enter the room to clean without disturbing
retrofitted to do so) and there is someone out in the world who would find the guest. This is just one example of the interesting ways
that data valuable, IoT is a new revenue source for you.” that traditional companies can use connected devices to
penetrate new markets—consumer and B2B—to create
revenue opportunities that extend beyond their device.
—Scott Pezza, Blue Hill Research
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PROS AND CONS
PROS CONS
Connected services create a brand new revenue stream (which Requires connectivity (not a fit for all segments)
means a lower risk of cannibalizing other products in your portfolio)
The learning curve for a sales team of a traditional device company is steep
High margin contribution
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TYPICAL USE CASES
Opportunity to create value add monetary streams and create a stickier Remote monitoring of devices and equipment through the installation of devices
customer relationship. to collect data and with the possibility to set up alarm thresholds to be alerted
when unsatisfactory conditions are detected.
Cloud shared calculation and optimization services.
Device management and enablement software (PLM, etc.).
Development of services that calculate and optimize cloud required
capacity and use for multiple applications for a customer. Software allowing customers to centrally configure and manage different devices
(including data integration, automatic updates, enablement, etc.) throughout the
Predictive maintenance. entire lifecycle of a device.
Data collection and advanced analysis to track and early detect anomalies
Vertical business process SAAS.
in HW/devices/machinery to optimize cost and/or reduce downtimes—like
a supercharged phone-home service offering. Business process management software including various methods to model,
analyze, optimize, and automate a business process, delivered as SaaS for a
Vertical/Expert cloud storage (settings, templates, machine output, etc.). specific industry.
In order to extend its footprint, defend its broad install experiences. In other words, the focus isn’t on the
base, and create new market opportunities, ALE needed platform, but on the seamless communication that the
to add high-value cloud solutions, and adapt their pricing platform enables.
and business models accordingly.
As an overlay solution, Rainbow offers features like
As Pierre-Yves Noel, Cloud Services Product Owner at contact management, presence, chat, audio/video call,
Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, put it, “We wanted to build screen, and file sharing. Users can download and install
Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE), a world leader in
relationships where we could provide our customers with with a single click. And, as an open-platform-as-a-
communication and networking solutions, found
our technology at the core on-premise, but also overlay service, users can integrate Rainbow’s collaboration tools
themselves facing industry transformation. They needed
cloud services to complement our revenues.” directly into existing applications and business processes.
to differentiate from large “asset-less” entrants to the
Rainbow is available for free, but users can buy additional
communications market, players like GAFA (the big So in 2016, they launched Rainbow, a cloud-
features on a subscription basis.
four multinational tech companies: Google, Amazon, based platform that makes additional collaboration
Facebook, Apple) that were putting the market under services available to users, regardless of their existing With the right infrastructure, ALE has been able to build
high pressure. At the same time, they needed to protect communications systems. Its goal is to make companies a unified communication-as-a-service platform with
against new small players that were entering the market borderless, from a communications standpoint, and connected services like Rainbow.
by offering small feature sets, with great user experience. thus optimize the employee, supplier, and customer
CUSTOMER EXAMPLES
For software/hardware businesses, offering new “As a company, we are innovating from a technology perspective. To
connective services is relatively easy to start with and
puts a limited risk on the company’s financials. It’s a complement that technology innovation, we need the capability to innovate
strategic play to create brand new revenue streams, our business model as well. Zuora provides us with the flexibility to build
increase market opportunities, and become more
customer-centric.
those new business models.”
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About Zuora
More at www.zuora.com. 28