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SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences ProductCamp Boston, May 2015 1 Goran Begic, @gbegicw

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Page 1: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique

Challenges and Experiences

ProductCamp Boston, May 2015 1

Goran Begic, @gbegicw

Page 2: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

About the Presenter / Audience

• How many are in SaaS business today, including hybrid?

• How many involved in on-premise?

• How many C-level execs?

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About the Audience

• 15 years Product Marketing and Product Management in Software• Veracode• SmartBear• MathWorks• IBM Rational

• Twitter: @gbegicw

Page 3: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

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• PM in SaaS is different from On-Prem

• At a very high level the objective is the same - stay engaged and strategic

• Forces dragging one into tactical are very strong, often unique and certainly persistent• Pricing Model

• Deployment Model

• Release Cadence

• Operations

• Managed Services

• Feedback Volume

Overview

Page 4: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

In Scope and Out of Scope

• One challenge, opposite views

• Disclaimer...

• In Scope• Practical product management; real life examples and stories

• Out of Scope• Product owner vs. product manager topics

• Importance of business intelligence and metrics

• Cost of service and cost of customer acquisition

• Glossary• Product Managers and Product Management

• SaaS

• B2B

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Page 5: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

PM in SaaS - Is It Really Different

• Point of view

• Struggle between strategic and tactical

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/ 5

Page 6: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

http://pragmaticmarketing.com/ 6

At a Very High Level…

• Same problem• Getting stuck in tactical

Page 7: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

Let’s Play

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Anas-Edible-Creations

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Page 8: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

Hypothetical Situation 1

• Expansion opportunity in year 2

• Enterprise sales lead is all in

• No legal obstacles, budget is there

• Proved value in 1 BU, 15 more to go

• If there would only be this one new special feature…

• ROI not there, not aligned with roadmap

• Issue is escalated to the executive team

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Each quarter you may be going

through this with a significant portion of your customer base

Page 9: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

Pricing Model

• Annual subscriptions and renewal frequency

• Pace of adoption and growth of your product

• Feature creep and over-commitment traps

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• Review the planning process with your team

• The product team must be on the same page

• Review the escalation process

• Develop rules of engagement

Recommendation: Challenges and Opportunities:

Page 10: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

Hypothetical Situation 2

• Success in the marketplace.

• Landed 15 new accounts with high potential.

• Each account has a slightly different process and wants your product to fit.

• Buyer used to working with professional services who made customized on-premisesolutions.

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Your customers likely do not (want)

understand the implications of

having one product deployed in your

data center

Page 11: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

Deployment Model

• One deployment for all

• Shiny object syndrome: “Why don’t you just add another field here?”

• Standardization is a powerful source of business intelligence

• Concentration of specific domain knowledge

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• Develop API strategy

• Services

• Create plugins, examples of integration

• Enable partners

• Protect product design…

Recommendation: Challenges and Opportunities:

Page 12: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

Release Cadence

• Feature scope and relevance

• Each improvement is also a change… Are your enterprise end-users ready?

• Feature communication – who needs to know what

• Training…

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• Feature planning process

• Review release communication, what to communicate, to whom and how?

• Training process - internal and external

Recommendation: Challenges and Opportunities:

Page 13: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

Hypothetical Situation 3

• You committed to delivering new functionality by the end of May

• April 27: PM we need to make a decision…

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Tactical agility – get ready, you’ll need it

Page 14: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

You Now Have OPS

• You host the product on customer's behalf

• What do you do when something goes wrong?

• Tactical awareness -what are we doing, who is doing it, when...

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• Reserve time (drop other projects)

• Emergency response team. Get to know this team.

• Document and practice what if scenarios

• Communication templates -ensure that all customer facing teams know what to do and what to say

Recommendation: Challenges and Opportunities:

Page 15: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

Managed Services

• Staying up to speed with product

• Management of expectations

• Training, training, training...

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• Review feedback process (Enhancement requests)

• Self-help

• Technical Account Managers

Recommendation: Challenges and Opportunities:

Page 16: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

Volume of Feedback

• "Important customers"

• Subject matter experts

• All of the above

• Approach• Community

• CAB - Customer Advisory Board

• Idea board

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Page 17: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

Conclusion

• Not all SaaS products are $10 a month, low touch sales, no managed service

• Time Investments• Process definition and alignment• Communication management - frequency,

volume, target• Planning

• Working with a business process around a conveyor belt

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Page 18: SaaS, B2B and Product Management: Unique Challenges and Experiences - Goran Begic (ProductCamp Boston 2015)

Q/A

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