Demand analysis for B-side product operations!

When making B-side products, what types of user needs do we need to meet? This article is one of the summaries of the author’s work on the SAAS project for primary and secondary education informatization in the first half of the year and his recent study of SAAS products. I would like to share it with you here.

1. If there is only one demand for B-end products, it is efficiency

Why? Let’s think about this question: Why would companies purchase software services?

This is because companies have discovered problems in production, operation, management and other aspects. No matter what the problem is, it will eventually lead to low efficiency of the company. If the company is inefficient, its revenue will be negatively affected.

In a large enterprise, in a complex business line, there will be many links in the middle. If the efficiency of each link is improved a little, the impact on the entire business may even be exponential.

Of course, when companies purchase software, they must also consider whether the benefits of improved efficiency are higher than the cost of purchasing the service.

One of the major advantages of SAAS is that it allows users to obtain services at a lower cost. Therefore, more companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises with insufficient purchasing power, will purchase SAAS products.

Okay, B-side products should improve enterprise efficiency! But just talking about improving efficiency is not enough to guide us in our product work.

2. In what ways can B-side products help enterprises improve efficiency?

My summary is:

1. Improving office efficiency through informatization
2. Discover problems based on data/models
3. Provide efficient tools and services
4. Incorporating management methods to change employee attitudes

1. Improving office efficiency through informatization

1. After the office is informatized, paperless office is adopted, which saves a lot of printing and paper expenses.
2. Typing replaces handwriting, reducing a lot of repetitive work
3. Speeds up information transmission. For example: In a supply chain management system, after a customer places an order on the client side, the system will immediately send an instant message to the management side and pass on the order information. The entire process from the customer placing an order to the order administrator reviewing the order can be completed within a few minutes.
4. A lot of data calculations can be done by computers. For example: In a supply chain management system, when an order is confirmed to be shipped, the system will automatically reduce the corresponding inventory value.
5. Employees' work is also more standardized, which can effectively avoid the occurrence of low-level problems. For example: Informatization requires employees to follow fixed templates and prescribed processes, thereby reducing non-standard operations and ensuring the efficiency of task execution.

There is more to it, and additions are welcome.

1. Discover problems based on data/models

B-side products are usually required to cover the entire business line. What if the entire business line is not covered?

Well, let me give you an example: one day you are on a car from A to B, and at point C (no one is around) the car suddenly stops and says, "My mission is completed. Take your luggage and get off the car..."

Precisely because B-side products cover the entire business line, all aspects of business data will be fully recorded in the products.

Use these data to help users establish key indicators and analysis models, allowing users to discover problems in the business through indicators and models, and then think about, analyze and solve problems, thereby improving the efficiency of the enterprise.

For example, the supply chain management system can guide the adjustment of production, inventory, and distribution by analyzing data, thereby reducing inventory levels, improving inventory turnover, and reducing capital backlogs.

For example, in a certain SCM product, customers can adjust inventory and marketing strategies through order-related reports.

If it is found through regional statistical reports that customers and orders in region A are on the rise, the company can be guided to increase the inventory of the shipping warehouse in that region;

If you find through the product sales report that the number of returns for a certain product is too high, you can guide the company to discover the problem early and deal with it in a timely manner.

If it is found through customer order report statistics that the quantity of a certain product purchased by a certain customer is gradually decreasing, while the inventory level of the product is high, the company can try to carry out some marketing activities targeting this customer to promote the sales of the product.

For example, data can help companies analyze employees’ work, analyze who is doing well and who is not, identify outstanding employees, and then let outstanding employees pass on their experience to everyone, thereby improving team efficiency.

For example, through the statistics of new employees, we can find out the employees with strong ability in this area, and then explore their methods and experience to improve the team's ability.

1. Provide efficient tools and services

Let’s talk about tools first. Taking the online customer service system as an example, traditional customer service is manual service, and companies have their own customer service teams. However, the development of artificial intelligence technology such as speech recognition and semantic recognition has promoted the birth of customer service robots.

Most companies do not have the ability to develop their own robot customer service. At this time, the company can provide the customer service robot as an efficient tool to the company.

The connected intelligent customer service can help companies save labor costs and reduce users' waiting time during peak hours.

Tools are born for efficiency!

Speaking of services, when I was working on an education information technology project, because the company had high-quality course resources that teachers needed, I added content services to the product, which reduced the time required for teachers to find resources and thus improved teachers' work efficiency.

While tools and services improve enterprise efficiency, they also often bring market competitiveness to products. This is because these tools and services often have high barriers to entry. If we are one step ahead in providing them to customers, we will have an advantage in market competition.

1. Incorporating management methods to change employees’ attitudes

This aspect is the author's thinking after learning some knowledge of management. Among the factors that affect enterprise efficiency, one point is very important: employee attitude and enthusiasm.

Corporate managers can improve employees' work attitudes and increase their enthusiasm by building a sense of identity among employees, giving them objective and fair evaluations, and creating a sense of participation and the overall situation among them.

Collaborative software, such as teambition, allows employees to understand the tasks they are doing and the tasks done by other team members through task boards. It is naturally endowed with the genes to create a sense of employee participation and a sense of the overall situation.

One of the goals of the project I am working on is to improve teachers' enthusiasm for lesson preparation. The team plans to add teacher contribution evaluation to the project to recognize outstanding teachers and encourage hard-working teachers, so as to achieve the goal of improving teachers' enthusiasm.

Regarding this aspect, there are few cases in the SAAS products I have come across, and I hope to trigger everyone's thinking.

summary

The user demands of B-side products all revolve around "efficiency" .

From a breakdown perspective, products can improve enterprise efficiency in the following ways:

1. Improve office efficiency through informatization;
2. Identify problems based on data/models;
3. Provide efficient tools and services;
4. Incorporate management methods to change employee attitudes and increase employee motivation.

Regarding the summary of the demand for B-end products, I would like to throw out some ideas here and welcome everyone to discuss!

Author: Bruce Machine

Source: Bruce Machine