Today, we will focus on the three core functional modules and typical work processes of to B operations , the problems that may be encountered in the transition from to C operations to to B operations, and finally, we will give three suggestions to to B operations practitioners.

Expand below.

Typical operation process and positions of B to B operation

At different development stages of B2B business, the driving force of growth logic will change from market-oriented, to product-oriented, and then to service-oriented. However, in terms of specific operational logic, it still revolves around three key operational modules: user acquisition, payment conversion, and user service. Under these three modules, different product types and operating models have created different operational positions.

Before talking about specific operations positions, let’s first look at what operations are needed in each operation module for platform-based business, service-based business, and hardware product business, and then look at what operations positions and job responsibilities will arise based on the operations.

1. Key operational actions and positions of platform-based businesses

In yesterday’s article, we defined platform-based businesses. Platform-based businesses will have two types of users. One type is to B corporate users, such as users who open stores on the Alibaba website and driver-side users on Didi; the other type is to C consumer users, such as shoppers on the Alibaba website and passengers using Didi.

So, what are the steps for a B2B enterprise user to operate? Let’s take the operation of a Didi driver as an example.

1) First, it is the customer acquisition stage.

What are the results of the customer acquisition phase of platform-based businesses? If we want to give a definition of customer acquisition, we believe that customer acquisition for platform-based businesses refers to the phase in which users complete registration and pass review.

What needs to be done in the customer acquisition stage? We drew a simple operation flow chart:

In this flowchart, we divide the customer acquisition process into three parts. Offline BD is the link closest to new users. Through face-to-face visits, we introduce the business value to potential users, and ultimately the number of new users is the operating result.

Didi initially found its first batch of driver-side users through offline BD. Next, it expanded its driver-side users in large numbers through subsidies. Here, it began to take operational actions related to advertising channel promotion and spread the recruitment information through various online and offline advertising media resources.

The task of advertising channel promotion is to obtain leads from potential users, and these leads will be followed up by offline BD personnel for conversion. For platforms like Didi, the conversion threshold for driver-side users is relatively low, and registration conversion can be achieved directly through advertising channel promotion.

The main thing done in this link is channel operation . The two actions of offline BD and advertising channel promotion are to convey business information to users. As for what kind of information to convey, this requires positions such as copywriting and event planning to come up with ideas, and positions such as design and products to implement the ideas. Finally, the ideas are presented through DM, advertising copy, H5, offline activities and other methods.

2) After acquiring customers, we enter the service phase.

Let’s take Didi as an example. Once a user registers as a driver, he can start taking orders and making money. Various questions may arise during the process of taking orders, such as why should he travel so far to pick up passengers? What should I do if I am caught and fined by the traffic police? What should I do if I can’t withdraw the money I earn? And so on and so forth. These questions all require dedicated people to answer and resolve doubts. We generally call this position customer service or merchant operations.

The core purpose of merchant operations is to increase the activity and retention of corporate users and provide a foundation for subsequent platform revenue. Only by answering various questions users may have can users continue to stay on the platform. For example, Taobao has established Taobao University to sort out the common problems of merchant users and solve these problems through articles, video courses, offline training, etc., so that merchants can get solutions to their problems as quickly as possible.

In addition to solving problems, what needs to be done is to motivate users to be active. In order to increase the activity and online time of Didi drivers, Didi often stimulates the activity and retention of drivers by rewarding 50 yuan for 15 orders or more and 50 yuan for 4 hours or more online.

In the service link, the main purpose of operation is to increase user activity and retention. More and more companies have improved the operational efficiency of this link through productized mechanisms, such as Taobao University and various official WeChat groups of Didi drivers. Here, different operational strategies will also produce different operational actions and positions.

3) The third link is the paid conversion link.

Platform-based businesses generally do not charge corporate users in the customer acquisition stage. Their revenue mainly comes from platform commissions or other value-added services, that is, value-added service operations.

For example, Didi extracts a certain percentage of the driver users' income as platform revenue, while the main revenue of Taobao and Tmall comes from advertising, finance and other value-added services, and the revenue of WeChat public platform mainly comes from the fees charged by "advertisers" for placing advertisements, etc.

For platform businesses that generate revenue through value-added services, sales positions will facilitate cooperation in the paid conversion process. Some platforms will develop agents to represent these value-added services, and agents may also provide service positions such as Taobao agent operations.

4) Summary

Focusing on the establishment and maintenance of customer relationships, the to B operations of platform-based businesses have generated three main positions in the three aspects of attracting new customers, services, and revenue: channel operations, merchant operations, and value-added service operations , which are responsible for the three key indicators of new user registrations, user activity and retention rates, and platform revenue, respectively.

Each link will produce differentiated operating mechanisms, such as serving users through online communities, social groups, new media and other mechanisms, converting users through content, training users through courses, etc., which will lead to various positions such as content operation, event operation, new media operation, etc. The job titles and responsibilities are different, but the operating goals of each link are the same.

We summarize the operational positions generated by the to B operations of platform-based businesses as shown in the following figure:

2. Key operational actions and positions of service-oriented businesses

The operating logic of service-oriented business is attracting new customers - payment - service - re-payment . Therefore, in terms of specific operational actions, we still look at it according to these three major operating modules.

Compared with the platform-based business model, the service-based business model requires users to pay first before providing services, so the operations of attracting new users and payment are more complicated.

Let’s take the product Teambition as an example. Huang Youcan, the author of “The Light of Operations”, recorded a conversation between him and Qi Junyuan, the founder of Teambition. Although the conversation took place in September 2016, Teambition’s organizational structure and operating procedures are still typical.

In terms of to B operations, Teambition is divided into the Marketing Department, Sales Department, Growth Department, and User Success Department. The responsibilities of each department are as follows:

• Marketing Department: Mainly responsible for traffic acquisition and brand communication;
• Sales Department: Mainly focused on revenue and key account sales;
• Growth Department: Develop growth strategies and mechanisms based on data, and propose requirements for products and various operational links;
• User Success Department: Mainly helps users solve various problems during use, helps users better use TB to improve collaboration efficiency and bring value to the enterprise.

How do these departments cooperate? First, the marketing department attracts users through channels or activities and is responsible for the number and cost of customers. After users register and start using the free version of the product, the product department is responsible for the length of time users use the product and how long they continue to use it.

After using the free version for a period of time, users will try the enterprise version. At this time, the sales department will follow up. The sales department is only responsible for user purchases (the Growth department is involved in both sales and product links). After the user purchases, the user success department will follow up. The user success department will be responsible for indicators such as user reputation and renewal rate.

This process can be divided into two stages, namely the potential customer stage and the customer success stage , depending on whether the user pays.

In the potential customer stage, there are many ways to acquire customers. The most common ones include content acquisition, event acquisition, market BD, etc. In general, the customer acquisition methods at this stage can be divided into the following two types:

• One is to convert users directly to the official website for registration through marketing channels and marketing activities , such as SEM channel promotion or offline activities;
• Another way is to build brand influence so that users can actively search for brand keywords and register on the official website.

The purpose of guiding users to register is to leave sales leads. Sales leads are generally communicated by telephone customer service first, and after confirming the user's purchasing intention, they are transferred to sales staff for follow-up.

At the same time, in the customer acquisition and conversion stage, there will also be a pre-sales engineer role to develop product description plans based on customer needs.

In this conversion process, a lot of user loss will occur. For these lost users, a series of operational methods such as new media operation, community operation, and social group operation will be generated, which will also create corresponding operational positions.

The operational goals of the prospect operation stage are, on the one hand, the quantity and quality of sales leads, and on the other hand, the number of conversions of paying users.

As shown in the figure above, the main positions generated in the potential customer operation stage include media channel operation , which is responsible for building the brand; marketing channel operation , which is responsible for directly obtaining sales leads; telephone customer service/sales is responsible for following up sales leads; and pre-sales engineers are responsible for developing product plans for customers.

The ultimate goal of the potential customer operation stage is to increase the number of paying converted users. According to the specific responsibilities of different positions, the positions in the marketing customer acquisition stage are mainly responsible for the quantity and quality of sales leads.

After the customer pays, the customer success department will step in to provide services to the customer, entering the customer success stage. During this stage, we will increase user usage of our products through services and provide reasonable product usage suggestions to improve customer efficiency or revenue, with the goal of achieving "customer success."

Service-oriented businesses increasingly value the importance of customer success. The value of customer success lies in increasing user usage of products, achieving user retention, and then renewal.

Compared with the marketing costs generated by a series of customer acquisition and conversion processes, renewal of old customers can more easily enable service-oriented companies to achieve sustainable revenue.

It is particularly worth adding that service-oriented businesses, especially product-mediated services, such as business models that provide services to enterprises through products and technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence, are seen as the main trend in the next stage.

Therefore, for practitioners, the service-oriented business industry has great development potential, many job options to choose from, and is also a relatively ideal employment option.

3. Key operational actions and positions in B2B hardware business

We define the to B hardware business as the business type of "selling hardware products to corporate users", such as Samsung supplying screens to Apple, Snapdragon supplying processors to Xiaomi, and small vendors delivering vegetable condiments to restaurants, all of which are to B hardware businesses.

The B2B hardware business is more in line with the type of enterprise services we traditionally refer to. In the operational process surrounding the establishment and maintenance of user relationships, the four key modules are still customer acquisition - transaction - service - re-transaction.

What are the key operational actions around these four modules? Let's take a look at it through a picture:

To B hardware business has two main channels in the customer acquisition stage. One is the online channel, such as obtaining sales leads through e-commerce websites (Alibaba/HC360, etc.), industry classified information websites (Business Opportunities Network, etc.), brand keyword searches (SEO/SEM, etc.), etc.

Depending on different online operation strategies, the positions involved in online operations may include e-commerce operations, promotion channel operations, branding, public relations, etc., as well as new media operations, community operations , etc.

Another customer acquisition channel is the offline channel, such as directly acquiring customers through market BD, acquiring customers by participating in industry exhibitions, developing agent channels, etc. In addition to sales positions , the main positions involved also include market planning, event planning, agent operations , etc.

After obtaining sales leads in the customer acquisition stage, sales personnel are responsible for following up the leads and continuously tracking user needs until the final conversion. This link is mainly the responsibility of sales, who are mainly responsible for actual revenue.

In the customer service link, the two key links in the B2B hardware business are after-sales engineers and warehousing and logistics. After-sales engineers solve installation, deployment, maintenance and other related tasks during user use; warehousing and logistics are responsible for timely delivery according to customer order requirements.

With the gradual expansion of the Internet + product model, the B2B hardware business is ushering in the transformation of industrial Internet, and the demand for Internet talents in the operation process is also increasing. In addition to the online customer acquisition methods, in the service link, the development of industrial Internet has made the warehousing and logistics links highly information-based.

Many companies use information management software to improve efficiency through self-development or procurement, which will result in a series of positions such as product operations.

4. The three core functional modules and common job requirements of B2B operations

In order to answer the question "What positions are there in to B operations?", we collected nearly 1,000 to B business job recruitment information from recruitment websites such as Lagou and Liepin, and finally summarized the following table:

In this table, we have subdivided 25 positions according to the three operational modules of attracting new customers, converting transactions, and user services. However, not every B2B company will have these positions. Different business models and operating models will also create new positions.

Therefore, in the research on to B operation positions, we will focus on the core positions and their job responsibilities in each link, and make a brief description of the subdivided positions generated by different operation models.

According to the three types of business operations of to B, we sorted out the operation process of each business, explained the key links of each process, and finally came to a conclusion:

All operations of to B businesses are centered around the three major operational links of attracting new users, paying conversions, and user services. Therefore, the core functions of each link are as follows:

• Attracting new users : Promote business information through online and offline channels, establish contact with potential users and guide them to register, leaving sales leads. The user attraction link is responsible for the quantity and quality of sales leads ;
• Paid conversion : formulate targeted sales strategies based on user needs, follow up the user's payment decision-making process until the user signs the contract and pays. The paid conversion link is responsible for the user's payment results;
• User service : Solve problems encountered by users when using the product, be responsible for answering questions and after-sales maintenance and services, and at the same time help customers use the product rationally to achieve the goal of improving business operating efficiency or business operating results, guide users to pay, and the user service link is responsible for the user's reputation and renewal rate of the product .

Based on these three functions, three core positions for B2B operations are created: channel operations, sales, and customer success .

1) Channel operation job functions and sub-jobs

The channel operation position is mainly responsible for establishing and maintaining relationships with various promotion channels, and disseminating business and company brand information through various promotion channels, guiding potential users to leave information such as purchasing needs and contact information.

Channel operations have generated many subdivided positions from the channel dimension and professional dimension , such as:

• Baidu bidding, WeChat Guangdiantong and other channels have created positions such as SEM that are specifically responsible for paid bidding promotion;
• Brand/PR positions were created by publishing PR articles in the media or placing elevator advertisements;
• Enterprises have established new media channels and created new media operation positions;
• The need to collaborate with industry partners for joint promotion has led to the creation of industry partner BD positions.

This is a subdivision of positions generated from the channel dimension. From a professional perspective, the following positions will appear :

• In order to write more appealing copy, a special copywriting position was created. The value of copywriting lies in combining product value and user needs through words. This position is also called product operation or product marketing position according to the different businesses and changes in functions.
• Sometimes, some activities need to be promoted through channels to promote user conversion. Planning what kind of activities involves the position of activity operation. For example, when promoting Luckin Coffee, old customers will forward coupons to new customers. This requires the development of H5 and mini programs, which involves the roles of product and technology.
• For the same activities, some companies focus more on online activities, while others focus more on offline exhibitions and salons, so there are positions for online and offline activities operations.
• The event involves promotional materials, such as posters, roll-up banners, etc., which requires the position of art designer;
• More and more B2B companies feel the need to produce some content that has industry influence, so there will be positions such as industry research or content operations based on new media channels.

The refined job division of B2B operations is generated based on operational strategies and needs. The requirements for responsibilities and abilities of different positions may be slightly different, but in essence they are all for the purpose of attracting new users.

The strategy for attracting new users is actually to convey the business value to potential users with needs. Therefore, no matter what position you are in, you cannot do without the recognition of the business value itself and the understanding of user needs .

2) Sales job functions and sub-jobs

The core responsibility of a sales position is to convert sales leads obtained in the customer acquisition phase into paying users. From the perspective of sales process and division of responsibilities, some of the subdivided positions generated include:

• Through channel promotion, potential users are directed to the official website. Users may have the need for consultation, so the online consultation function is developed, which leads to the position of telephone customer, who is responsible for answering the calls from users who take the initiative to consult;
• In addition to sales leads from channel promotion, sales will also expand their own customers, such as finding a large number of potential users' phone numbers, calling to introduce products, and inquiring about purchasing intentions. This position is generally called telephone sales;
• If the customer is a large group customer with a relatively high order amount, but requires a complex process such as bidding, a large customer sales position will be created;
• What salespeople need to do is to explain the product value to users, but what if they can’t explain some more complex products? Moreover, different customers have different needs. At this time, there will be a special position to design product description plans based on product functions and user needs. This position is generally called a pre-sales engineer;
• Some businesses adopt the agent sales strategy, so B2B companies still need someone to manage agents, which creates positions for agent operations.
• For businesses with low average order value, such as an activity fission tool, which does not require human intervention and can complete the purchase online, or like teambition, which requires guiding free version users to try the paid version, a new position will be created here, called user operation.

So we see that in the sales process, different business models and operating methods require different positions.

However, it is important to remember that no matter what the position is, all positions in the sales process are responsible for directly facing potential users and converting potential users into paying users.

Therefore, all operational strategies and methods revolve around the result of payment.

3) User service job functions and subdivisions

In service-oriented businesses, user service positions are generally referred to as "customer success," and they are responsible for product installation and deployment, user training, question answering, etc. They also need to make reasonable suggestions based on the product and user's business to help the product realize its value during user use.

The job segmentation of customer success can be divided into two categories according to different service methods. One is customer success through human service, and the other is customer success through product.

Customer success through human services, such as advertising companies, consulting companies, and human resources outsourcing companies, requires professional job skills according to the type of business. For example, advertising companies require professional advertising planning capabilities, and ASO optimization businesses require professional ASO optimizers.

For product-based businesses, customer success is divided into two levels based on the degree of understanding of the customer's business. Primary customer success requires a thorough understanding of the value and usage of one's own products, and mainly focuses on answering customer questions. For example, customer success for big data analytics products requires mastering basic SQL query statements, and the main capability requirements are based on product features;

Advanced customer success requires in-depth understanding of users' usage scenarios and understanding of the industry in which the users are located. For example, senior customer success for big data analysis products will be classified according to industries such as finance, Internet, automobiles, and real estate. What senior customer success needs to do is to provide customers with reasonable suggestions based on industry knowledge and understanding of the product, so that the product can be truly put into use.

In addition, customer success also focuses on the frequency of user usage of the product, which is very similar to the purpose of user operation to increase user activity. Only high-frequency usage can ensure that users have the need to renew their products.

5. Three key positions and job responsibilities for B2B operations

Above, we have summarized the three core functional modules of to B operations, but for job seekers, how should they choose a position?

After a lot of research, we found that at present, product operations, marketing activities operations, customer success and sales are the four positions with the highest demand in the B2B industry and the best future development trends.

Here we will focus on three key positions and job responsibilities: product operations, marketing activities operations and customer success .

1) Product operation position: convey product value externally and feedback market demand internally

Simply put, what product operations need to do is to convey the value of the product to the outside world and provide market feedback internally. His/her job responsibilities mainly include three aspects: one is to improve the reputation of the product, which is similar to branding work; the second is to explore market demand and write promotional materials to introduce product features; the third is to promote product upgrades.

The abilities that TA needs to possess mainly include three aspects :

• The first is the requirement for work skills, that is, text editing ability . Product operations need to use text to convey their insights into user needs and product value;
• Second, organizational coordination and communication skills . Product operations need to communicate with product and technology departments to discuss product highlights, communicate with users to understand user needs, and communicate with marketing, sales and other departments to understand the needs of different departments.
• Third, you must have a good sense of the market and the ability to understand user needs . The product value conveyed by product operations is based on user needs and market demands. You must understand the needs of companies in different industries, at different stages of development, and users in different positions, as well as understand the differences between similar competing products on the market and your own products.

2) Event operation position: obtain effective sales leads through online and offline activities

There are three main job responsibilities for event operations: one is the planning and execution of online and offline marketing activities; the second is the sale of event-related resources, such as advertising space at the event site; and the third is the maintenance of event resources, such as industry experts, media channels, etc.

Activities have always been regarded as an effective means of acquiring customers in the B2B industry. Various industry exhibitions, supplier conferences, etc. have always been important channels for connecting with customer resources. With the advent of the Internet, activities in the B2B industry are not only limited to offline, but are also developing online activities such as online live sharing and registration benefits.

Moreover, the activities are not only reflected in the two links of attracting new customers and converting transactions. For B-side users like Didi drivers, rewards such as providing subsidies based on the number of orders completed are effective strategies to mobilize user activity and enthusiasm.

Moreover, in the customer operation of SaaS products, training activities and welfare activities initiated for actual users can also increase user activity.

Therefore, the responsibility of event operations is simply to promote the conversion of new users and the activity of old users through online and offline activities. But it should be noted that the entire purpose of the activity is to obtain effective sales leads.

Compared with the conversions brought by channels such as SEM, the theme of the event itself is a screening of users, filtering out some invalid users, and good event design can bring about spontaneous dissemination by users. For example, SaaS products in the education industry carry out training activities around enrollment, and the users who come are users who have demand for this topic.

Event operation is also one of the low-cost customer acquisition methods that the B2B industry is actively exploring. Compared with offline exhibitions and other event forms, online events have become a new trend.

Online activities do not require costs such as venues, materials, and construction, and the manpower requirements are also lower. For event operations, there are still many forms of activities that can be tried in the to B industry. Therefore, we believe that event operations are also one of the to B operations positions with potential.

3) Customer success position: responsible for user renewal, which is the key to sustainable business development

We have said before that service is the core of the stable growth of B2B business. By releasing product value through service and helping customers succeed, on the one hand, renewal of old customers can bring revenue guarantee for business operations, and on the other hand, it can establish market reputation and bring in more new customers.

We call the key position in the user service link "Customer Success". The responsibilities of the customer success position can be summarized into three points: one is to implement and deliver the product and provide customers with usage guidance and business solutions; the second is to summarize customer cases and the customer's business status to drive product upgrades and marketing actions; the third is user renewal.

The core competency of this position is reflected in two points: one is experience in using similar products; the other is experience in customer service.

There are not too many hard requirements for the abilities of a customer success manager, but in fact, excellent customer success requires a lot of "soft skills". For example, understanding the industry the client is in, understanding the problems the client faces, and the ability to propose solutions to client needs based on the product; for example, how to initiate meetings during communication and service with clients, how to understand needs, and how to motivate users, these are all things that customer success personnel need to think about and are responsible for.

Have experience in to C operations,

Can you be directly responsible for to B operations?

This is a question that many people are concerned about. For the same operation, with the experience of to C, can it be directly transplanted to to B?

We think it's difficult. There are three reasons:

1. Users have different expectations for the value of products or services: C-side values ​​functions and experience, while B-side requires a complete solution

The motivation for individual users to generate demand is often temporary or fragmented, and it is enough to solve a certain aspect of their needs; while corporate users have only two core value expectations for products or services: one is to improve efficiency and reduce costs, and the other is to improve results and increase revenue.

Solving these two needs often requires combining multiple single-point functions into a complete solution.

2. Different ways of establishing user relationships: The C-side emphasizes personal demand guidance in multiple scenarios, while the B-side requires one-on-one follow-up to meet the needs of each role in the decision-making chain.

Whether C-end users use the product is determined by individuals, and there are many factors that influence user decisions. It may be because of an event, a sentence of copywriting, or a recommendation in the electronic market, or it may be because you see the person next to you using it on the subway, all of which may lead to the conversion of new users.

So what about B-side products? Compared with C-end products, the trial and error cost of a new product for an enterprise is high. Not only does it cost money to buy it, but it also has to be promoted within the enterprise after purchase, which will cause one or more departments to learn and adapt. These are all operating costs of the enterprise.

The user conversion of B2B products or services often requires facing the needs of an entire decision-making chain. The demand department saw the product information, thought it was useful, and told the person in charge of purchasing. After the person in charge of purchasing conducted a demand assessment, he began to research similar products on the market. The demand department and the purchasing department then reported the results to the boss, who then decided whether to buy and which product to buy.

This purchasing decision chain includes three roles: the demand department, the purchasing department, and the boss. The entire decision-making process often takes a month or even longer. During this process, B2B operations must continue to follow up to meet the needs of different people in the decision-making chain.

3. Different ways of maintaining user relationships: C-end users value experience, while B-end users value the actual value brought by the product.

C-end products can achieve user activity and retention by constantly launching new topics, new activities, and iterating new functions. At the same time, C-end operations often need to manage hundreds of thousands, millions, or even tens of millions of users.

How to keep products and content in line with changes in user demands and the differences in demands of different user groups is the difficulty and challenge in maintaining C-end user relationships.

However, for B-side products, user needs do not change as quickly, and the demand for user experience is not that high. B-side users pay more attention to the actual value brought by the product or service.

The B2B business will not have millions of users, but maintaining user relationships requires more sophisticated operational strategies.

The customer success personnel we are talking about now must not only understand the characteristics of their own products, but also understand the needs of the user's industry and the stage of the business. The goal is to be able to use their own products to solve business needs and help customers succeed.

Although the user groups they face are different, the differences in the groups lead to differences in product requirements (B-side products have more complete functions), user needs to be considered when acquiring customers (considering the needs of each role in the decision-making chain), and user relationship maintenance (helping customers succeed). These differences lead to great differences in the operational ideas and methods of to B and to C.

Therefore, even if you have experience in to C operations, there will still be many difficulties in being directly responsible for to B operations, and you will need to fill some gaps through work and systematic learning.

3 tips for working in to B operations

Through these two articles, we analyzed three different types of B2B businesses and their respective operational growth logics, and sorted out common operational positions based on operational processes.

If you want to work in B2B operations, we will give you some suggestions in three aspects: industry selection, career development and capacity building:

1. Industry selection: Choose an industry with wide coverage, which will not be replaced in the short term and has clear industry development prospects.

How to understand this sentence? For example, the enterprise OA system is an industry that has been developing for many years. As an information system to improve enterprise management efficiency, it is used in a wide range of industries, but the traditional OA system is being replaced by SaaS office products.

Compared with traditional OA systems that need to be installed on each computer, SaaS products have low installation and deployment costs for users, fast updates and iterations, and are more in line with the Internet office needs of modern enterprises.

If you receive an offer for a traditional OA product, you need to consider whether this industry will be replaced by other products within 2-3 years.

Because the future growth space of to B operations pays more attention to whether or not one has work experience in a vertical industry. It takes 3 years or even longer to understand a vertical industry.

Therefore, when choosing an industry, you should choose an industry with a wide coverage, which will not be replaced in the short term and has bright industry development, which can provide a foundation for future career development.

Currently in the B2B industry, SaaS products are an industry with certain development potential and a wide industry coverage. According to the "China Cloud Computing Industry Ecosystem Map 2018" released by iResearch, SaaS services currently cover multiple industries such as CRM, OA collaboration, HR, transportation, retail, education, hotels, medical care, catering, finance, and tourism, providing software information services to tens of millions of small and medium-sized enterprises in China.

If you want to work in B2B operations, the SaaS industry can be an option.

2. Career development: Focus on the development of a vertical industry and gain an in-depth understanding of industry trends and user needs

The significance of choosing a good industry is to provide a foundation for future career development. To fully understand an industry often requires more than three years of industry experience.

On the one hand, the industry trends of the to B industry are constantly changing. On the other hand, the customer demands faced by the to B industry are also subject to the industry in which the customers are located. Only after a long period of sedimentation can we truly understand the characteristics of this industry.

Different types of customers have different demands for products. Insights into the needs of each business come from accumulation during the service process. In addition to different customer sizes, there are also industries in which customers are located. For example, the retail industry and the financial industry will have very different human resource management methods; Internet companies and sales companies have very different organizational structures.

Therefore, there are two ways of career development in B2B operations: one is to be vertical in an industry field , such as real estate, catering, and finance, to understand the specific needs of companies at different stages of development and become an expert in this industry field ; the other is to be vertical in an industry solution , for example, big data can be applied to various industries, so you need to understand the value of big data to different industries.

3. Ability training: Communication and expression are essential skills for B2B operations

Communication and expression seem to be one of the abilities that every profession needs to possess, but it is even more important for B2B operations.

The communication and expression of B2B operations are reflected in two scenarios: one is to convey solutions to customers, and the other is to propose collaboration needs internally.

When users choose to B products, they focus on the value that the product can bring to them. Before actual use, the transfer of value is mainly through communication and expression.

An excellent communication foundation comes from the understanding of market trends and user needs, which is why to B operations require accumulated industry experience. Imagine that in your communication with customers, the most topics are about product functions and user pain points. Users from different industries can talk about industry trends, celebrity companies, and industry pain points. This is considered an excellent communication and expression ability.

In terms of internal communication, to B operation consists of three major links: customer acquisition, paid conversion, and user service. Focusing on the operation process of a customer, these three links need to promptly convey user needs and characteristics, and at the same time communicate with products, technology and other departments, feedback needs from the perspective of the market and users, and promote product iteration.

China's Internet has been developing for 20 years. In the past 20 years, we have seen many star products for the C-end. With the disappearance of the demographic dividend, the market for C-end Internet products has been saturated, and there are still many possibilities in the B-end, that is, in terms of corporate services.

Finally, if you want to engage in to B operation work, I hope these two articles can help you. Due to space limitations, there is no explanation for the specific to B operation strategy in the article. However, at 7 o'clock tomorrow night, three classes will be spoken out here and officially launched the To B operation course . The course content covers two most important modules of the B-side business: effective customer acquisition and customer success . I believe it can meet everyone's expectations!

Author: Three Lessons

Source: Three Lessons