by Brian Bell, CMO
The first conference for the Subscription Economy is already in the books and by all accounts it was a success. Hosted by Zuora, Subscribed 12 featured presentations, keynotes, round-table discussions and finally an awards show. The awards were presented in the closing moments of last Monday’s Subscribed 12 event. The winners include Zendesk, Dyn, Xplornet Communications, and SendGrid.
Zendesk,a cloud-based customer service software provider, was awarded the “Grow Award” by Zuora for its “aggressive growth strategies.” “Zendesk continues to grow at a rapid rate with more than 20,000 customers,” said Zack Urlocker, COO of Zendesk. Over 65 million people receive support from customer service departments and help desks powered by Zendesk’s platform. And Zendesk looks to be only getting started.
The second “Grow Award” was presented to Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) provider Dyn. “Most people don’t know Dyn, but they do know the major web brands we power,” explained Graham H. Chynoweth, COO of Dyn in the release. “And, if they are a geek, they probably know one of the hundreds of thousands of technologists that rely on us every day. We are proud to receive this award because it speaks to how our DNS and Email services drive the growth and success of our customers and to how our blended e-commerce and direct sales go-to-market strategy have driven our own growth and success.”
Zuora also presented an award for demonstrable efficiency in the Subscription Economy, and this “Flow Award” was presented to Xplornet Communications. Xplornet is Canada’s leading provider of broadband Internet to rural communities. Xplornet deployed Canada’s first 4G network in 2012 and has an enterprise-class infrastructure that “enables greater flexibility and agility to launch new offerings and to deliver the industry-leading customer service,” explains the release. “We have streamlined our complex subscription billing operations [with Zuora] and now have a lights out infrastructure that handles our end-to-end critical business applications. This has resulted in an end-to-end subscription software solution that is supporting the growth and scalability of our organization,” said Cathy MacDonald, CIO of Xplornet Communications Inc.
Finally, Zuora awarded email delivery company SendGrid its first ever “Know Award” for knowledge and visibility displayed in the Subscription Economy. According to Zuora’s release, SendGrid has already delivered more than 56 billion emails. “SendGrid uses a variety of metrics gathered from Zuora and other sources that enables SendGrid to make smart data-driven to accelerate the company’s growth,” explains Zuora’s release. “SendGrid is pleased to be recognized by Zuora, a valued partner that is helping us make intelligent, data-driven decisions that are driving our rapid growth in the Subscription Economy,” said Jim Franklin, CEO at SendGrid.