Most of the existing content on Product Management is focused on the B2C (business to consumer) model, targeting products for the end consumers. B2B i.e. Business to Business product management often requires significantly different approaches when it comes to product discovery and development. B2B Product managers possess more industry expertise, and understanding of enterprise users and the ecosystem they serve. In a B2B context, the enterprise users can be CXOs, Team leaders, Project Managers, and other employees in different functions like finance, operations, and procurement. Project sponsors and executive team members have very different needs as compared to the end-users. They all strive to actively collaborate together to make the business successful. The business person responsible for buying the product is not typically the actual user of the product. The product managers in B2B companies like that serve their enterprise customers, closely work with the sales teams to build new features. They follow industry news, and trends and regularly engage in site visits to understand the ever-evolving needs of the business users. Distribution approaches for enterprise products can be on-premise, cloud-based, or hybrid with either proprietary or open-source licensing. As a PM, it is not just important to build but also to study their Microsoft, Adobe, Shopify, Atlassian, Zendesk, Zoom, and Salesforce empathy for different enterprise users business processes and functional relationships. Some of the common realities of B2B product management are:- Customers and users are business-driven Relatively fewer customers but pay higher price points Big clients are critical for product success Customers have explicit demands and expectations Users require (often paid) specialized sales and customer support The buying process is complex & takes more time (no impulsive buying) Development has and higher testing standards slower release cycles User data is limited and feedback loops are longer PMs need high industry expertise Products are often for businesses with support for multiple customized 3rd party integrations Some of the common myths of B2B product management are:- is ok for business users Clunky User Experience Features are mostly prioritized on sales inputs/pressure Innovation is low Customers only care about business revenue, savings, and efficiency Let’s understand how to build features for an enterprise/B2B product through the example below:- Case Study Problem You are a product manager for an accounting software product. The product caters to small to medium-scale businesses in the United States with a sizable number of employees and a high number of business transactions month on month. These business owners are looking for product solutions that make team collaboration and delegation easier with sufficient controls in place. They need solutions that can replicate the business processes like the manual approval process for Purchase Orders and Invoices. Situation Business Customers need a unified purchase order and bill approval workflow to increase business speed and efficiency while strengthening checks on cash flow and frauds. Assumption:- The current product lacks an approval workflow for purchase orders and bills which makes it harder for the employees to collaborate. It also makes business owners vulnerable to fraud and cash flow issues. Maintaining physical proofs (paper trails) is time-consuming and inconvenient. Opportunity Analysis To assess the needs, we need to do opportunity sizing across geographies by taking into account - Customer feedback (survey/interviews) Sales feedback Competitor solutions Alternatives available in the market (3rd party add-ons) Market research As per customer feedback, the approval workflow is manually managed by some customers (assumed). It is tedious and causes poor efficiency and collaboration. Some customers are already using 3rd party tools along with accounting products. Approvals and payments can also be automated. This reportedly can lead to a saving of more than 60% in accounts payable processing costs. It is estimated that processing a paper invoice can cost anywhere between $8 and $60 due to labor costs and costly data errors (source: ). Invoice management for modern businesses by Patrick Whatman As per current market dynamics, small and mid-sized businesses are working to rebound from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. For two-thirds of small businesses, finding new customers is their biggest obstacle, and over one-fourth struggle to manage them*(source: ).* Businesswire Mission The company’s mission (hypothetical) is to drive global prosperity by assisting businesses in managing their financial problems. Users **Primary Users / Customers
\ - who own companies with Small to Mid-market business owners The high monthly volume of business transactions or cash-flow A sizable number of employees (>50) They are concerned about a) Expenditure and cash flow b) Fraud/loss c) Slow overall workflow E.g. Manufacturing companies, real estate Secondary Users Finance Dept. employees Procurement Dept. employees Project Managers Dept. heads Characteristics of other users a) Concerned about accountability b) Do a lot of manual work Pro Tip: External Accountants, Auditors, Suppliers, Legal team, Sales team, Customer Support, Vendors, IT team & Leaders can also be users of the enterprise products as they need visibility to business processes like the billing and purchase process For more details on “users and customers”, read - How to identify users? User Needs & Pain Points Needs and Pain Points of Business Owners Small business owners want better control over their business by streamlining finances, increasing productivity & reducing enterprise costs. Moreover, they need - Faster decision making and execution to increase speed of business Visibility/alerts on cash flow, credit cost, and expenditure Better collaboration and delegation between employees like avoiding unnecessary approvals Simplified business processes Checks on misappropriation of funds Needs and Pain Points of other users Company employees and their vendors want to manage the accounts payable and billing process smoothly while simultaneously increasing the speed and accuracy of document processing. They also have the below needs and pain points - Need for - easy tracking and approvals to save processing time better collaboration Manage due to paperwork high workload Difficult to audit - lack of proper documentation Manage accountability by proper authorization of finances Accuracy in data and reporting - prevent and reconcile errors Solution Considering the internal capabilities and technologies required to enable the required functionality, multiple solutions can be evaluated. For eg - 3rd party partner integrations (like add-ons, APIs) Acquisition of existing products in the market In-house product feature The solutions are to be assessed for prioritization on the basis of - a) Customer Value, b) Business Value, c) Development/integration costs, d) Time to market, and e) Risks. Solution presentation Success Metrics Various metrics on business value, client success, product usage, engineering, and customer service need to be monitored for measuring the overall performance of the feature. Some of the to be measured at the time of launch are:- key metrics Total number of Bills and PO Approvals processed Number of Paid users NPS Also Published here

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Nominated for 2022 - HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - Product

Nominated for 2022 - HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - Product Development

Nominated for 2022 - HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - Product Management

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Nominated for 2022 - HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - Management

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All you Need to Know About Building a B2B Product (Example Case Study Included)

All you Need to Know About Building a B2B Product (Example Case Study Included)

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