Feishu Competitive Product Analysis

In recent years, OA office vertical products have shown a booming development trend.

With the support of the SaaS concept and the impact of factors such as the epidemic on the office field, "one-stop team collaboration software" represented by Feishu and DingTalk have emerged, which is in sharp contrast to the traditional Microsoft ecosystem's "separate and functional office suites".

There is direct and indirect competition between the two types of products.

This article specifically conducts a competitive analysis using ByteDance's Feishu product and Microsoft's office suite, a long-established office giant, in order to understand the respective advantages of the two models.

The starting point for writing this article comes from the fact that the author has interned and worked in two traditional industries' Fortune 500 companies, one foreign-funded enterprise and the other a state-owned enterprise. The office solutions adopted by the two companies are also quite representative.

The basic modes of the two are the same:

Intranet/core software with high business relevance + IM/OA with low business relevance.

Specifically, they are: a combined office suite of intranet + Outlook + Skype + Intel Unite, and a one-stop comprehensive collaborative office software of intranet + Feishu.

This article does not take any preconceived position and adheres to the principles of objectivity and neutrality.

First, we will give a brief overview of the market and industry, and then conduct an in-depth analysis of the differences between the two through the five elements of user experience. Everyone is welcome to participate in the discussion and provide criticism and corrections.

1. Market and Industry Macro PEST Analysis

1. Market

First, let’s briefly analyze the market status of To B office software solutions. We can discuss it from two aspects: buyers and sellers and their supply and demand contradictions in the current market context, with a focus on demand.

With the development and changes of the economy and the times, the scale of various types of domestic enterprises has gradually expanded.

As a result, higher-level demands have been made for office work, collaboration, organization, and business management within the enterprise. The new generation of enterprise managers have made more progress in their knowledge of IT software and generally pursue a more scientific management work model.

At the same time, more emerging enterprises at different stages of development are emerging in society.

The "quantity and quality increase" of enterprises has led to a rapid expansion of the market for office solution software, which, as an "internal factor", has promoted an increase in the number of buyers (or potential buyers) in the market.

As shown in Figure 1:

Figure 1 Potential users show an increasing trend

(Data quoted from iResearch)

In addition, the concept of "industry + Internet" has emerged in recent years, and the rapid development of the domestic Internet has also helped the iteration of traditional industries. As a result, the original internal management models and business operation models of many traditional enterprises have been impacted or changed.

Finally, the gradual recognition and popularization of new technologies and concepts such as cloud computing, big data, and AI, as well as the vigorous development of enterprise-level SaaS products around the world, and the huge impact of the epidemic on office models, have served as " external factors " that have led to a gradual increase in market demand.

As shown in Figure 2:

Figure 2 Market demand is gradually increasing

(Data quoted from iResearch)

On the other hand, as the seller and supply side of the market.

There is a "combined office suite" model represented by traditional IT software service providers such as Microsoft, Intel, and Cisco; there is also emerging "one-stop team collaborative office" software represented by Feishu and DingTalk.

Similarly, looking around the world, enterprise-level SaaS products covering various industries and scenarios are emerging in large numbers.

As shown in Figure 3 and Figure 4:

Figure 3 Some products in the enterprise office market

(Data quoted from iResearch)

Figure 4 Domestic enterprise-level SaaS investment and financing situation

(Data quoted from iResearch)

In summary, the total market size of the vertical field of integrated office solutions is huge worldwide, and shows a good trend of continuous growth (as shown in Figure 5).

However, as the number of buyers in the market increases and the total demand rises, sellers and new supply are also emerging.

In general, the market size, demand and competition within the industry are increasing simultaneously.

Figure 5 Global integrated collaborative office software market continues to grow

(Data quoted from iResearch)

2. Industry PEST

Analyze the current basic environment of the office software industry, focusing on the main factors affecting suppliers in the industry.

A brief analysis can be made from four aspects: politics, economy, society and technology.

1) Politics

This time, Feishu and Microsoft's office software products are compared and analyzed as competing products. Both are leading software companies from China and the United States respectively.

China and the United States pay attention to the development of this industry from the policy and regulatory level, that is, to promote the regularization and standardization of industry security and privacy, and formulate development plans for the industry, as well as guidelines for the construction of a standardization system.

As shown in Figure 6:

Figure 6. Cloud computing industry policies and regulations in China and the United States

(Data quoted from iResearch)

It can be seen that both China and the United States attach great importance to cloud computing and related IT service industries, and have high expectations for the future development of the industry.

At the same time, China and the United States have introduced relevant policies and regulations at the national level in a timely manner, which will help the industry to fundamentally form a normalized and standardized development trend, and will be beneficial to the future large-scale and industrialized development.

In addition, the improvement of policies and regulations also reflects the high attention and support of all parties to this industry.

On the one hand, it helps suppliers clarify the industry's policy attitude and reassures companies in the industry; on the other hand, it also consolidates and promotes the confidence and motivation of demand-side companies and users.

2) Economic

With the continued stable growth of domestic GDP, as shown in Figures 7 and 8, the domestic cloud service industry market as a whole shows a trend of sustained and rapid growth.

In 2019, the industry reached a certain scale and was affected by comprehensive factors such as investment and financing (as shown in Figure 4).

It is expected that the growth rate of cloud service scale will slow down from 2020, but will still maintain a high growth level of 30% or above.

As shown in Figure 8, in the past few years, the cloud computing industry infrastructure IaaS has grown the fastest and in the largest amount.

The SaaS market growth rate and overall scale are second, and with the rapid improvement of cloud computing infrastructure, the SaaS growth rate is gradually increasing.

In summary, based on the stable growth of the domestic economy in recent years, the construction of cloud service infrastructure has developed and improved rapidly, providing good support for upper-level SaaS service software.

In the future, the SaaS industry will continue to grow and expand vigorously based on better economic development and more complete infrastructure.

As an important category in the SaaS segment, comprehensive office software services have a good foundation at the economic level.

Figure 7 Domestic macroeconomic trends from 2010 to 2019

(Data quoted from iResearch)

Figure 8 2015-2023 Domestic Cloud Service Market Size

(Data quoted from iResearch)

3) Social

At the social level, the gradual recognition and popularization of new technologies and concepts such as cloud computing, big data, and AI have enhanced the society's general awareness of the software, Internet, and IT service industries.

In recent years, the vigorous development of well-known integrated office products around the world has made people pay more attention to and become familiar with the dynamics of this industry.

In addition, after the outbreak of the epidemic, changes in the social environment have had a huge impact on the traditional office model. The emergence of usage scenarios such as remote work at home has enabled users to have a broad understanding of this industry, while also putting higher requirements on office software products.

Finally, the faster pace of society has made people more urgent in their need to use tools to improve efficiency.

Especially in the office field, domestic enterprises and employees are gradually increasing their willingness to use SaaS software with significant energy efficiency.

4) Technological

The maturity of software algorithms, hardware and network technologies is also an important booster for the development of office software.

The development of technologies such as elastic computing, cloud databases, content distribution CDN, and cloud native has made the development and deployment of office SaaS simpler. The development and progress of technology has helped companies reduce subsequent use and maintenance costs.

Advances in hybrid cloud, communications, and cloud encryption technologies provide a safeguard for industry security.

The improvement of hardware computing performance empowers clients and the cloud, and also brings more technical feasibility to various solutions such as edge cloud.

2. Competitive Product Analysis

Reasons for choosing competitors: The author has interned at a foreign-funded and state-owned enterprise in traditional industries, both of which are leading companies in their respective industries.

Among them, foreign-funded companies have businesses all over the world, while state-owned enterprises focus on the domestic market.

Based on their different businesses, the comprehensive collaborative office solutions adopted by the two companies are also representative of their own.

Specifically, they are: a combined office suite of intranet + Outlook + Skype + Intel Unite, and a one-stop comprehensive collaborative office software of intranet + Feishu.

The two modes of office software are competing products and both can meet usage needs, but there are significant differences in the user experience. In order to analyze the origin of the differences and the advantages and disadvantages of different product forms, two typical office solution products are disassembled and analyzed.

1. Strategic level

Product strategic positioning, product goals and user needs.

It can be seen that there are similarities and differences between the two at the product strategy level.

First of all, both are office product solutions. Although they adopt different product models and forms, they have similarities at the product strategy level.

• The products are mainly aimed at the B-end market;
• Vertically in the field of office solutions;
• Positioned as a software product with office tool attributes;
• The product's use value is centered on improving work efficiency in various types of office scenarios, based on building various functions that meet daily collaboration needs, with high efficiency, high availability, security and stability as advantages, and with well-known manufacturers and good ecological support as the superstructure;
• Solve the needs and problems of office collaboration and efficiency in various (traditional, mobile, home) office scenarios for enterprises and organizations of all sizes, in various industries and fields, for a wide range of user groups;
• Business model: paid subscription.

There are two key points when analyzing the differences in product strategies.

1) Different product models

• Feishu is a one-stop team collaboration and comprehensive office solution with highly integrated functions and a single software body;
• Outlook + Skype + Unite is a combined office suite separated by function, with multiple independent software entities with clear functional boundaries.

This results in differences in the software's architecture, usage process, and experience.

2) Products have different understandings and definitions of user needs

Therefore, the user needs solved by the products are not exactly the same, resulting in differences in the scope of product functions.

Feishu embodies the workbench model, office platformization, intelligence, agility, expandability and customizability of the strategic thinking.

Feishu takes the daily high-frequency demands in office scenarios: IM and OA as the entry point, and integrates functional modules covering the three main parts of collaboration, organization, and operation.

It also provides an open platform that allows access to expansion software from ecosystem vendors and supports customization, reflecting the strategic direction of office platformization and agility.

Product solutions represented by Outlook + Skype + Unite have a long history.

It embodies the traditional idea of ​​collaborative office solutions, which is composed of multiple systems and a product portfolio with clear boundaries, complete functions and respective responsibilities. Each product is iterated independently and each provides limited ecological access and secondary development capabilities.

In addition, Microsoft's Microsoft Teams software is gradually replacing the Skype + Unite combination, providing similar functions for the hybrid work field while improving functional integration, reducing the number of products and the sense of fragmentation of use.

2. Scope layer

The main focus, highlight features and content of the product.

According to the above table, the main functions and highlights of the two products are compared and analyzed:

Both solutions can effectively cover the key needs of daily office collaboration, but Feishu has more functions and more comprehensive capabilities.

The Outlook + Skype + Unite combination suite is more in-depth and professional in single-field functions.

The similarity is that both are centered around communication and collaboration, schedule management, document management, and remote collaboration, providing basic functions such as instant messaging, email processing, conference systems, schedule task management, online file sharing, and remote collaboration tools.

By taking advantage of the characteristics of cloud computing technology, while providing stable services, it realizes collaboration and sharing functions, as well as high availability across platforms and regions, and supports hybrid office scenarios.

Cloud server storage ensures data redundancy and backup, achieving disaster recovery.

Both provide enterprise-level data encryption transmission and storage to ensure the security and availability of functions.

The difference lies in the different development directions of upper-level capacity building.

As shown in the figure below, the author believes that in the efficiency tool category to which comprehensive office collaboration software belongs, Maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid model can be transformed into the following three levels.

1) Bottom layer

The core capabilities that need to be continuously honed for tool-type software products are the fundamental basis for the product's value.

Usability helps users achieve the fundamental goal of improving efficiency by meeting their functional needs, while ensuring that the product is stable and available.

2) Upper layer

Capacity building enables products to have a better user experience through product design, technology application and other means.

Continuously expand product capabilities horizontally (iterative optimization of functions) and vertically (function expansion).

This will provide a better product experience, expand compatibility with more usage scenarios, expand the user base, and amplify the product's influence.

As a bonus item of the product, it enhances the product's use value and makes the product better to use.

3) Top layer

It is the improvement of the product ecological layout. A single product cannot solve the user needs of all segmented vertical fields. Through open interfaces, an open product ecological platform is created to support partners within the ecosystem, third-party application plug-ins, etc., to improve the product ecological layout.

Expand dimensions, improve product flexibility and adaptability, upgrade product capabilities and value, and user experience.

The products can support a wider range of user needs in more industries, fields, and usage scenarios.

The author believes that only products that use the current industry situation as an evaluation benchmark and meet the three-level capability model can be called excellent products.

From this perspective, both products meet the definition.

In the construction of upper-level capabilities, there are differences in the development paths of the two.

Through actual use and table analysis, we can intuitively find that:

Feishu's integrated functions are more concentrated, and the functions are interconnected and complementary, making the one-stop user experience more integrated and smooth.

The combination of Outlook + Skype + Unite has more fragmented functions, requires more frequent software switching, and the sense of collaboration is relatively fragmented.

However, in terms of single-item functionality, such as email processing, the combined office suite has more advantages. The three products have been deeply developed in their respective independent areas of responsibility, establishing more comprehensive, powerful and professional functions.

Feishu’s product improvement route at this level is:

Through a one-stop comprehensive office solution, functions are highly integrated into one software, functions are interconnected and switched seamlessly, improving the overall smoothness of use.

A lot of functional optimization has been carried out in the horizontal aspect of the product, with many bright ideas, and additional *Feishu MiJi and expandable third-party applications are provided to upgrade the functional experience.

Add more functions to expand product capabilities in the vertical direction, such as project management, knowledge management, and human efficiency management.

The focus of the upper-level capability building of Outlook + Skype + Unite office suite solution is vertical depth:

Continuously enrich the functions of each independent software, deepen the functions of a single field, and make the functions rich, comprehensive, in-depth and professional. And continuously iterate and optimize at the interaction and UI levels to provide a better experience.

Utilize rich interfaces to connect software, use cloud computing to achieve efficient online collaboration, and support secondary development of programming to expand capabilities.

Develop software such as Microsoft Teams to optimize and replace the Skype+Unite combination, reduce the number of products and the sense of fragmentation in usage.

At the top-level ecological layout level, Microsoft's ecosystem undoubtedly has huge advantages at all levels, with a large number of official applications and third-party ecological products, and good support for secondary development of programming, enabling it to adapt to a large number of scenarios.

Feishu's open platform also provides a large number of functional plug-ins, which are integrated into Feishu, maintaining a highly consistent user experience while achieving overall efficient interoperability. Supporting agile and low-code development, the Feishu ecosystem is developing rapidly.

3. Structural layer

Product structure diagram, information framework.

During daily use of the two products, users' decision-making and operating processes are different.

First, users generate demand and seek a certain function to meet specific work needs.

The difference in the user's product usage process is that the first step for users of office suites is to decide to use a certain software, and then enter the corresponding software to operate it. The main functions are all on the first-level interface.

Feishu users skip the decision-making process and directly enter Feishu, then switch to the corresponding function interface to operate (sometimes loading is required). Some functions are stored in the secondary menu.

Therefore, the process cost of the office suite mainly exists at the decision-making level. Users need to learn about the product and know the functions provided by each software in order to make correct decisions.

The advantage is that the main functions are all on the first-level interface and can be used right out of the box.

The cost of using Feishu lies in the fact that the operation is more complicated and is limited by the interface size and software volume. Some functions are stored in the secondary and tertiary menus and need to be found through the global search function.

In addition, some functions require a short delay to load and refresh when switching.

As shown in Figure 9 and Figure 10 below:

Figure 9. Feishu product function structure diagram

Figure 10 Outlook + Skype + Unite office suite product function structure diagram

Feishu has more comprehensive functions, higher product complexity, average functional depth, and slightly higher learning and usage costs.

Each suite of the office suite has a more detailed functional division for its respective area of ​​responsibility. It has sufficient depth, but the coverage is not wide enough. The Microsoft-style functional structure is straightforward and easy to use.

4. Framework layer

Product page content, interface design, navigation design, and information design.

Feishu uses a sidebar tab navigation method to concentrate the main functions of the product on the left side of the interface. The user avatar is in the upper left corner, and the team logo and switch button are at the bottom left.

The main functions are only expressed by icons, and there are no text prompts to mark the corresponding functions. It takes some learning and adaptation, but it is easier to remember after you get familiar with it.

The author suggests adding appropriate text prompts for the main functions. After all, compared with similarly designed products such as the WeChat client (which only has icons without function names), Feishu, as an office platform, has different usage scenarios, more functions, and higher software complexity.

In office scenarios, we should try to minimize the decision-making costs of users when using products, reduce the chance of accidental function triggering as much as possible, optimize each process link, and help users improve efficiency.

In addition, annotating text reduces the learning cost of the software to a certain extent. As an efficiency tool-oriented software, it should give more weight to the balance between practical and convenient functionality and aesthetic design.

The search box and related functions of each workspace of Feishu are placed in the upper left corner of the workspace close to the side navigation bar, and the function is consistent: comprehensive search.

There is a function navigation bar for the workspace below, and the style is consistent when switching to each tab. The page frame design is highly unified.

The larger area on the right half of the workspace is the conversation box, which displays detailed information and specific functions. The right sidebar sets shortcuts to commonly used functions in this workspace to improve operational convenience.

The path for users to achieve their needs is: function navigation → workspace function entrance → operate specific functions → achieve their needs.

In general, Feishu, while complying with user habits (its framework is similar to that of WeChat client), has achieved reasonable distinction of page functions, a generous and appropriate interface layout, efficient and concise navigation design, intuitive information display design, and good readability.

Figure 11 Feishu framework diagram

The framework design of Outlook (2019) is consistent with the consistent performance of Microsoft products. A large number of functions are arranged on the first-level interface, which is easy to operate.

The user habits cultivated over a long period of time bring a familiar feeling and are easy to get started.

The author would like to mention here that the interface design style of the new generation of Microsoft products, such as Microsoft365 (Outlook 2020, etc.), has changed significantly. Figure 12 is for reference only.

Skype's profile, search box, function navigation, and conversation entrance are arranged vertically on the left side of the main interface, with a reasonable functional hierarchy and clear logic. Function shortcuts are set above the conversation box for quick operation.

Unite has a simple interface and you can directly connect to the meeting room by entering a PIN code.

In summary, the office suite benefits from the clear functional boundaries of each independent software, the more single field it faces, and its existence as an independent individual. It can be operated quickly, the framework design is straightforward and generous, and the functional layout is staggered.

Figure 12 Outlook framework diagram

Figure 13 Skype framework diagram

Figure 14 Unite framework diagram

5. Presentation Layer

The overall visual performance and visual design of the product.

Comparing the visual performance of the two products, Feishu's overall design style is more simple. The combination of the dark gray navigation bar and the white background highlights the elegant, simple and capable style.

The workspace uses richer and more flexible color combinations, and the addition of various bright-colored icons makes the visual performance more lively and agile.

The office suite products follow Microsoft's design standards for this generation, with a simple blue-gray color scheme, clear interface and text annotations, reflecting a traditional and steady business style, and still meeting the consistent requirements of office products.

However, Microsoft's new generation of products, such as Microsoft Teams, have major changes in visual presentation, a more modern style, and have more similarities with products such as Lark.

Because Microsoft's product series is in a period of style iteration, this article will not make too many comments on it.

Conclusion

Against the backdrop of the rapid development of the current office collaboration software industry, emerging "one-stop collaborative office" software such as Feishu has emerged, challenging the discrete office suites created by established manufacturers such as Microsoft.

According to data analysis, the collaborative office software market has gradually expanded in recent years, and competition has also intensified simultaneously, showing an overall hot development trend.

This article starts from the actual situation and compares and analyzes two representative software in the two solutions.

Feishu: The representative of the new generation of comprehensive collaborative office software.

S (Advantage): As a rising star, its advantage lies in the office platform, with functions interconnected and providing a one-stop solution to office needs.

Intelligent, agile, scalable and customizable development strategies help it build an ecosystem and achieve functional expansion.

A wider range of product functions and many killer highlight features make the product go from "usable" to "easy to use".

The simple yet agile interface design style is very appealing to young users.

W (Disadvantage): The disadvantage is that it integrates more functions, and the more complex software structure brings certain operational process inconveniences, as well as higher learning and usage costs.

The depth of some functions cannot be compared with independent software, but it can meet most daily usage needs.

It is recommended that Feishu moderately enhance its functional depth.

O (Opportunity): The rapidly developing integrated office SaaS sector and the open platform bring rich ecological support.

T (Threat): There is fierce competition from similar products such as DingTalk and WeChat for Enterprise, and traditional office software is catching up.

Office combination suite: It is composed of multiple independent iterative product combinations with clear boundaries, complete functions and respective responsibilities. It is interconnected based on open interfaces and cloud computing, which is the traditional idea of ​​collaborative office solutions.

S (Advantage): The advantage is that it is backed by Microsoft, the product is suitable for global users, and is friendly to multinational companies and overseas companies.

Each independent software has polished out very deep and mature functions in its single field.

The interface design conforms to the habits of a wide range of users and is easy to operate and highly efficient.

W (Disadvantage): The disadvantage is that the functional coverage is insufficient and it relies on other software in the ecosystem for expansion.

The user experience brought by functional boundaries is slightly fragmented, and the degree of connection between functions is not as good as that of platform products.

The interface design is a bit monotonous.

Of course, Microsoft has also launched products such as Teams to replace Skype + Unite, and related problems have been solved.

O (Opportunity): The development of cloud technology has enabled a higher level of interconnection between software, and machine learning technology has enhanced intelligence.

T (Threat): Differentiated competition among platform-based office products such as Feishu and DingTalk leads to an increase in alternatives of the same type and similar functions.

Finally, as a hot spot, the office software track has a lot of opportunities. Both up-and-coming companies and traditional players are embracing change and moving forward proactively.

Currently, there is no software that can perfectly meet user needs, but we can see the strategic direction of platformization and intelligentization of office products, as well as the development trend of integrating cloud and local applications with cloud services.

Each product still needs to be down-to-earth, polish core functions and user experience, learn from others' strengths and make up for one's own weaknesses.

As a newcomer in the product field, many of my analysis methodologies are not mature enough. I hope that product seniors will give me some criticism!

Author: Dashun66

Source: Dashun66