From Subscription Models to Customer Centricity | DisrupTV Ep. 117

In Episode 117 of DisrupTV, hosts R “Ray” Wang (Principal Analyst & Founder of Constellation Research) and Vala Afshar (Chief Digital Evangelist at Salesforce) sit down with three leaders who are reshaping how companies think about growth, customer success, and financial innovation:

  • Robert (Rob) Reid — Managing Director & EVP at Sage Intacct. Rob has led SaaS companies through rapid growth and financial transformation, bringing a CFO’s perspective on how finance teams must adapt to recurring revenue and usage-based business models.
  • Amy Konary — Vice President of Customer Business Innovation at Zuora. A pioneer in the subscription economy, Amy helps organizations transition from product sales to recurring revenue models, focusing on customer value, billing innovation, and outcome-driven engagement.
  • Esteban Kolsky — Founder & Principal at ThinkJar. A leading analyst and strategist on customer experience (CX) and customer success, Esteban brings sharp insights on how enterprises must evolve beyond acquisition to deliver meaningful, measurable outcomes.

Together, they explore how subscription, usage-based, and outcome-driven business models are changing finance, customer relationships, and leadership in today’s digital economy.

Major Themes & Insights

Evolution of Subscription & Usage-Based Billing Models
Amy Konary, given her role at Zuora (a leader in subscription/usage billing), highlights that businesses are moving beyond flat subscriptions. Usage-based and outcome-based models are becoming more popular because they align payments to value delivered.

Financial Performance & Operational Implications
Rob Reid (Sage Intacct) brings insights into how finance teams and the C-suite are adapting to these changing business models: forecasting, revenue recognition, billing complexity, and cash flow become more dynamic and require better tooling and data integration.

Customer Success & Outcome Focus
Esteban Kolsky emphasizes the shift from product-centric to customer outcome-centric thinking. It's not enough to acquire customers; the focus is on retention, expansion, and ensuring customer satisfaction with value delivered over time.

New C-Suite Roles & Leadership Mindset
As business models shift, leadership structures must adapt. Roles like ‘Chief Customer Officer,’ ‘Chief Revenue Officer,’ or other hybrid roles gain importance. Leaders must balance cross-functional coordination (finance, operations, customer success, product) in subscription/usage/outcome models.

Challenges: Complexity, Trust, and Metrics
The adoption of usage/outcome billing introduces complexity: tracking usage accurately, managing billing and invoicing, ensuring customer trust (e.g. transparency in what the customer is paying for), and defining metrics that matter. Organizations need to invest in systems, cultural alignment, and metrics frameworks.

Final Thoughts & Implications for Leaders

  • Align Billing & Value: Businesses adopting subscription or usage-based models must ensure that billing reflects real customer usage or outcomes, not just features sold. This builds trust and fosters growth.
  • Upgrade Financial Infrastructure & Visibility: CFOs, finance, product, and operations teams need real-time visibility into usage metrics, billing anomalies, revenue recognition, and cash flow implications. Legacy systems may not suffice.
  • Redefine Leadership & Internal Collaboration: As customer outcomes become central, cross-functional leadership (customer success, product, finance) must be deeply aligned. New roles and accountability models may emerge.
  • Invest in Transparent Metrics & Trust: Be open with customers about how usage is measured, billed, and what “value” means. Mistakes or lack of clarity here can undermine customer relationships.
  • Customer Experience is Continuous: Retention, churn, upsell, and feedback loops depend on continuous value delivery—not just one-time sales. Organizations must measure what's meaningful to customers, not just internal KPIs.

Related Episodes

Here are other DisrupTV episodes that explore similar topics—business model innovation, SaaS, customer success, and leadership changes:

 

Business Research Themes

Future of Work, Next-Generation Customer Experience, Tech Optimization

Roles

Chief Customer Officer, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief People Officer, Chief Technology Officer