SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Zenefits today announced significant growth from 2017 and a positive outlook for the year ahead. The company’s first year under the leadership of Chairman and CEO Jay Fulcher was marked by several major business shifts that moved the company from a tech-enabled benefits broker to a one-stop people platform that manages all HR, benefits and payroll for small and medium businesses (SMB).
In 2017, the company, valued in excess of $2 billion, unveiled a new business model designed to meet the SMB market’s evolving organizational and employee expectations. As a result, Zenefits saw significant market adoption, which contributed to triple-digit growth in its subscription-based HCM business. With accelerating demand, the company plans for growth to at least double in its next fiscal year.
“At Zenefits, we are on a mission to build radically simple yet innovative HR products and services that change the game for growing small- and mid-sized companies – the backbone of America’s economy,” said Jay Fulcher, Zenefits chairman and CEO. “Our sole focus is forging lasting relationships with our customers by covering their HR compliance and removing complexity all from one easy to implement and use platform."
In 2017, the company focused on four key areas:
- Shifted from a free to paid subscription model. In early 2017, Zenefits changed its business model from a free offering to a tiered, paid subscription model. To date, more than 70 percent of Zenefits’ 10,000 customers have converted to paid subscription packages, showing the value of the People Platform. Furthermore, customers have been enthusiastic about extending their use of the platform, using an average of three additional core Zenefits HR apps.
- Shifted from a tech-powered benefits broker to the HR tech platform powering the industry’s best brokers. After nearly four years of serving as a benefits broker, in September Zenefits and OneDigital launched a partnership that moved Zenefits’ nearly 8,000 benefits customers to OneDigital. This move offered Zenefits customers the deep, localized expertise that OneDigital is renowned for, and allowed Zenefits to focus on building out its HR People Platform. Furthermore, the partnership opens OneDigital’s $5 billion book of business and 40,000 customers to Zenefits. OneDigital is Zenefits’ first Certified Benefits Broker partner. In 2018, additional partners will join the program.
-
Expanded
“radically simple” People Platform. Architected with
the primary objective of removing the complexity and hassle from HR
administration, the Zenefits People Platform pushes the boundaries for
business software ease of use. Zenefits customers report that
laborious, time-consuming tasks such as onboarding take only 15
minutes on average, and employee insurance enrollment clocks in at 9
minutes with the help of Zenefits.
Zenefits recognizes that customers want options that suit their company’s and employees’ needs. With a focus on offering API-integrations with the best productivity and HR apps on the market, Zenefits closed out the year with a total of 42 app partnerships, up from 27 the prior year. On average, Zenefits customers leverage at least three third-party apps within the People Platform. These partners include Google, Salesforce, Slack, Microsoft, and Expensify.
For the combination of ease of use and breadth of ecosystem offerings, Zenefits won a PC Magazine competitive review as the best HR software management solution. Zenefits also won three Stevie Awards for its fast, reliable customer service and sales infrastructure, as well as the 2017 Innovation Award for Digital HR by Aragon Research.
- Built out leadership team. Zenefits is powering this business transformation with the addition of seasoned industry executives across Engineering, Product, Sales, Service, Marketing, Finance and People roles. The leadership team comes from established market leaders such as Workday, PeopleSoft, SAP, Taleo, United Healthcare, PayPal and Facebook. In addition, after a poll of its readers, Fast Company listed Jay Fulcher as one of the top tech company CEOs for whom to work.
About Zenefits
Zenefits is helping more than 10,000 companies empower their modern workforce, manage change and stay compliant. Zenefits’ People Platform delivers the most comprehensive and mobile HR experience in the market for more than 250,000 people. Zenefits’ HR, Benefits, Payroll and Compliance apps combine with advisory services and tightly integrated partner apps to radically simplify HR administration — replacing paperwork and complexity with zen.
