OPINION: We are increasing the MGI 360 Rating of billing software supplier Aria Systems to 61 from 59 and reiterate a Positive outlook. Aria has been steadily progressing toward its goals by fortifying the product offering, growing its management team, fine-tuning its strategy, and focusing on prospects with over $100 million in revenue—an arena in which the company has a realistic chance of success. These measures have resulted in a number of competitive customer wins, successful implementations at marquee accounts, and growth in revenues and other metrics. Aria has also been expanding within its customer base beyond initial business units and product lines. The company will be widening its implementation partner channel this year as it needs to improve and accelerate the “out-of-the-box” product implementation experience.
Aria Systems, Inc. provides recurring revenue billing and monetization solutions to organizations with complex, contracts-based customer relationships. Current customers and prospects cite Aria’s capabilities in managing complex billing requirements across corporate hierarchies, geographies, currencies, and billing modalities from subscription to usage to hybrid. An active orchestration capability with workflow has helped Aria create differentiation in provisioning, customer engagement, and cross-application data synchronization for enterprise accounts. The company sells its software via a direct sales channel in the US and an emerging one in the EU. In 2014, the company serviced 35 million customer accounts representing near $800 million in billable customer revenue. Aria focuses on prospects with sales above $100 million in industries such as automotive, technology, media, healthcare, and financial services. Customer satisfaction is high, in part due to the flexibility of Aria’s solution and the company’s focus on customer success. Aria has 160 employees with 20% in sales and marketing.
USE CASE: The best use case for Aria is in enterprises hitting over $100 million in sales with complex B2C and B2B billing requirements across organizational hierarchies and geographies and benefiting from active provisioning. Implementation cycles range from three to nine months.
COMPETITORS: Metratech, Monexa, Netsuite, Oravle, SAP-BRIM, and Zuora are the primary competitors for Aria Systems which raised about $81 million in venture capital funding. The competitive peer group on which Aria’s rating is based includes 15 vendors. This rating does not cover the broader communications services provider and utilities markets solutions.
