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Product Management principles to realize an enterprise SaaS software success story
Product Management principles to realize an enterprise SaaS software success story

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1. Introduction

Building any SaaS offering starts with a critical consideration of the Total Addressable Market (TAM). The potential TAM that the product can capture will decide its future financial performance. A product that can be sold to all personas across businesses would be ideal. But to build a SaaS software the whole world can embrace, many first principles of product strategy, product management and product positioning get tested.

When you want to cater to the whole world, you better have a unique value proposition for everyone. This is easier said than done and to accomplish this calls for a set of principles that are anchored in the basics yet challenges the boundaries. This blog lays down some of the fundamental product management principles to help guide us in executing on this vision.   

2. Standard Rules of the Game

2.1 Product Strategy & Vision

Before even defining the product, it is important to have a clear articulation of the product strategy and vision. The strategy and vision should guide the product roadmap, its positioning and the eventual communications. Without a clearly articulated strategy, the product does not have any anchor and falls apart in short order.

Creating a product strategy and vision is an iterative process of creation, validation, and re-alignment. A sound product strategy needs to consider multiple dimensions - environmental factors that point to an opportunity, company attributes that represent the ability to execute on the opportunity, ability to offer a clear and differentiated value proposition, and the key strategic themes that guides the execution.

2.2 Product Roadmap

Once the product vision is created, it should then feed into the product roadmap and positioning. The roadmap exercise needs to be customer focused and data driven and need to avoid the pitfalls of making assumptions and hypothesis that do not stand the test of market validation.

Focus is one of the most important elements in product management while building the product roadmap and executing on it. Maintaining focus requires saying no many a times to a lot of stakeholders.

Always follow the agile approach to define the roadmap and be ready to adapt to changing market conditions. In the age of rapid technology disruptions and significant market movements, it is imperative to spot the bigger trends and understand the technology shifts. In the enterprise (B2B) space, it is also vital to have a clear understanding of the buying behavior of businesses as well as the user behavior of how enterprise software is consumed. There is a reasonably easy flow of capital and that means innovation will come from all players in the segment. Staying ahead requires to continuously push forward and not rest on past laurels.  

While environmental factors, markets, competition etc. evolve continuously, ensure that the roadmap is always aligned and expands on the product strategy and vision.

​​​​​​​2.3 Product Positioning

The realization of the product’s potential in the market depends on how well it gets marketed. Among other aspects in marketing like packaging, pricing, promotions etc., positioning is the most critical element for product success. Product Positioning is the crisp articulation of your unique value proposition to your specific target audience.

There could be multiple positioning statements – while a company positioning could be emphasizing the brand value, product positioning speaks the differentiating value of your product. There could also be multiple positioning statements that are inter-linked in case the product is sold to different verticals and personas with differing value vectors.

Remember to find your differentiation and then make your market. Finding differentiation requires a very robust inside-out and outside-in assessment of what value you create for your customer and why they should care. And making our market is about a clear understanding of the segmentation, the buying triggers, and the competitive landscape.

2.4 Product Management Principles

While we don’t want to get into the details of how each of the above areas can be planned and executed, one glance and we realize that things can get very complex very quickly, particularly when you try to address a larger TAM across verticals and personas. It is in this context that it becomes vital to have a set of guiding principles that we can rely on to keep us focused and help us make the right decisions. These principles help maintain a proactive approach to product building, instead of a reactive approach that chases the next hot trend in the market, or sways to the latest big win/loss or moves by your competition.

Products are often about technology, market share, customer successes, shareholder value etc. but what goes into bringing them to life and making them successful are people. Use these principles as a framework to guide you through the journey of making a great product, taking it to market successfully and staying there. But remember, the most important ingredient in all this is the pride and passion you bring to your product that is infectious and gets reflected in everything it does in the marketplace.

 

About the Author:

Niranjan Umarane,
Executive Vice President, Product Management & Pre-Sales, Icertis

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In his role as an Executive Vice President of Product Management & Pre- Sales, Niranjan Umarane provides leadership for the strategic and tactical development of Icertis product offering. He is also responsible for presales and solution consulting globally supporting the rapid business growth. As part of Icertis since its foray into the CLM market, Niranjan’s contribution over the last 10 years has been instrumental in positioning Icertis as the leader in Enterprise Contract Management.  

Niranjan has an impressive 25-year track record of building award-winning supply chain solutions. Niranjan has a bachelor’s degree in Production Engineering, an MBA in Supply Chain Operations from Mumbai University, and a Certificate in Global Business Leadership from the Harvard Business School. ​​​​​​​


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