Zuora Inc. Venturing into Cloud Computing
Executive Summary
Zuora Inc is an industry leader in providing flexible, best in class billing software and platforms to Software-as-a-Service companies. Although only a year old, Zuora managed to outperform all its competitors and gain the leading market share, primarily on the strength of their corporate culture which lead to their aggressive marketing and sales team.
However, an emerging trend in technology suggests that cloud computing may eclipse SaaS in the future. Economic downturn also threatens Zuora, as their funds are limited and the economy has caused valuations of companies to drop across the board. In order to suitably adapt to the changing marketplace, Zuora needs to make choices on how to grow and what areas to focus on, balancing the tradeoff given their limited resources.
Zuora has three options available, choosing either to focus on just growing the SaaS slowly, expanding to the cloud computing market, or growing big to capture all subscription based businesses. Giving consideration the risk, cost, and strategic fit of these three options, the second one is the best choice for Zuora at this point in time. Zuora should expand into the cloud computing market while not neglecting the SaaS market.

Current Situation
Founded in December 2007, Zuora Inc was created to provide state of the art, low-cost billing systems for Software-as-a-Service. Zuora’s founding principle is that the world is moving from a manufacturing economy to a service economy. An e-commerce platform is needed to power this new services economy, and Zuora provides that platform. Zuora’s current product offerings are:
Z-Billing – Zuora’s key product, a billing module designed for companies that operate SaaS or subscription businesses.
Z-Payments – The second product, aimed to help businesses manage recurring payment cycles.