From the project to SaaS, I saw a different scenery

Edit: As a product manager of B -end, do you understand the difference between traditional customized projects and SaaS products? In fact, there are certain differences between the product, sales management, and operation and maintenance costs of the product. In this article, the author explained in conjunction with personal experience and took a look at it together.

Projects and SaaS have always been a hot topic talked about by B -end product practitioners. It is also called B -side product manager. When it comes to traditional customized projects, the labels are Party B, customization, implementation of delivery, poor experience, service difference, etc. When talking about SaaS The user experience, such a huge difference label, also makes me in my heart to customize project products as big customers.

After experiencing more than two years of customized projects, I also successfully switched to the company's SaaS product line. Although it is also an e -commerce OMS product, whether it is in the design of the product solution, the ability requirements and collaboration methods of product personnel, or the ability of product staff There are no small differences from customized projects. On the SaaS track, I see a different scenery.

1. Market and customers are the finger lanterns of the product

In traditional IT projects, customers and software systems are point -to -point. Customer business needs are very clear. In this case, customers are paid, what to do, how to do, and implement according to customer requirements. It is the clearest choice for software suppliers.

And SaaS is a very important feature of customized projects, that is, the customers they face are a group. This group has some common characteristics for software products. In this regard, although SaaS products are the software system of To B, their philosophy is closer to the APP for C -side users. Therefore, if you want to do a good SaaS product, you need to learn from the analysis methodology of C -end products.

The C -end product, in the early stage of the product landing, will analyze the market and users as much as possible. The former will output the industry/market research report based on SWOT and other methodology, and the latter will use the user portrait to face the C -end. The user group is specifically carried out to better carry out post -landing work.

Therefore, before landing, SaaS products must also analyze the market and customer groups, so as to ensure that the product must first position the customer group who wants to serve. Then, through the abstraction of a series of indicators such as the industry, business scale, and organizational personnel configuration of the customer base, it depicts the portrait portrait of the customer group corresponding to the SaaS product, and then it can design products that meet this customer group.

Clear customer base positioning does not necessarily make the product success, but if there is no clear customer group positioning, it will cause the product design to deviate from the customer.

For example: In the past, when customized projects for large customers, we were used to splitting the function according to the responsibilities, but if the customers faced by SaaS products are small customers, there are fewer personnel configuration, and one person takes into account more positions. At this time It will bring great inconvenience to small customers.

2. Team collaboration is the soul that supports the healthy operation of the product

Traditional IT projects, sales and implementation are split, sales commission directly associated with the contract. As for the process and results during subsequent delivery, it is not so important. This also caused the cake painted when the sales team bidded, and eventually turned into tears during the implementation of team delivery.

Secondly, most of the customized projects, except for key project managers, development, products, and testing of core positions, other related personnel are basically not guaranteed, so the situation of project personnel and posts often occur. It is also very messy.

The SaaS product line, except for personnel and job configuration, have been configured with very segmented configuration, including pre -sale, sales, operation, product, development, testing, implementation, service and other positions. The synergy and operation methods between posts are also very different.

First of all, the goal of pre -sales and sales is not based on signing a contract as an important weight indicator. The renewal rate has also become the focus of attention. Because of this, the sales team needs to combine the status and planning of the production and research team to match the customer.

Secondly, the staff configuration is complete, professional people do professional things, operations are responsible for accepting and handling customers' needs and problems, production and research is responsible for landing, testing the quality of the product, implementing the early implementation and operation and maintenance of new customers. The service team is responsible for the operation and maintenance work of old customers. The order of the entire team is well reduced, which greatly reduces the energy investment of the production and research team on trivial things.

In addition, the management cycle management of demand has become more and more refined management of the C -side. After the operation receives the customer's needs, the first layer is filtered and transferred to the production and research team. It will enter the stage of production and research, which greatly reduces invalid investment.

In order to ensure the development quality of demand, after the test is completed, there will be the gray degree of the version. Priority chooses the customer parties proposed by the current version of the release requirements. The quality of recent demand can ensure a better user experience after the official release.

3. The cost of implementing operation and maintenance determines the lower limit of SaaS products

Product business and tolerance determine the upper limit of SaaS products, and the cost of implementation and operation and maintenance determines the lower limit of SaaS products. Large -scale customized projects, facing a single customer, the customer unit price is very high, so although there are many resources, it can still maintain normal profit. However, SaaS products are often faced with small and medium -sized customers. They are characterized by a large number of customers and low customer unit price. As a result, a problem brings a problem. If the cost of single customers is high, then the product is difficult to make profitable, even It will also be at a loss.

Therefore, when designing the plan, the product manager must not only pay attention to product compatibility design, the easy -to -use of the product, and the easy maintenance of the product are also the main points of product attention. Reduce the implementation cost of the entire product, thereby ensuring the profitability of SaaS products.

Although SaaS products are different from capabilities and other aspects of capacity requirements, both of them have the most important importance to product managers' business capabilities. Therefore, friends who intend to switch to SaaS products from customized project products can focus on the differences in the work. Points to facilitate building your own ability model and bring more choices to subsequent career planning.

This article was originally published by @没 本 本 本 本 is the product manager. Reproduced without permission

The title map is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol

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