In the last ten years, the business world has shifted significantly towards subscription models to open new recurring revenue streams. Enterprises with legacy product lines are developing SaaS products to increase the lifetime value of existing clients and attract new ones. SaaS products also enable them to deepen relationships through updates and feature releases, a cycle that helps keep their offerings up-to-date and growing in value.
In addition to the importance of product design and development, the launch strategy and execution are crucial parts of the success of any new product. Not only do they represent a significant investment in time, resources, and money, but they can have an enormous impact on client perception of the product and its long-term financial success.
Launching new SaaS products can be challenging for enterprise companies with legacy product businesses due to the complexity of their existing systems and operations. The SaaS model requires a different approach from legacy product launch strategies. There are several aspects to consider when designing a successful SaaS product launch, ranging from business alignment to platform expertise. When working with our enterprise clients, we suggest the following approach to designing an effective launch strategy.
Align Customer Needs and Business Goals
Enterprises launch SaaS products to achieve a broad range of business goals. Some create product extensions or enhancements to retain customers whose needs are evolving. Or the SaaS model may enable a broader platform strategy or innovation required to maintain or grow their market share. It can even be a first step towards a larger transformation in the legacy products’ technology design and strategy.
No matter the motivation, finding success requires aligning the SaaS product business goals with the customer pain points and a broader understanding of the target market. Map out how the product will help your enterprise meet its target business outcomes (revenue, efficiency, cost savings, retention) while serving customer needs. A clear understanding of these factors will help ensure that the SaaS product launch is successful and aligned with the overall strategy and goals of the enterprise product business.
Start Small
Enterprise organizations often go big and fast, especially when pursuing a new opportunity or anticipating changes to the legacy product market. In many cases, it’s wiser to embrace smaller-scale SaaS product launch strategies. Start small, ensure product-market fit, and then make a big splash.
This is especially important if this is the organization’s first push into a new SaaS model. An iterative approach is always the best way to ensure you invest in the right features and roadmap. Starting small also gives everyone in your organization a chance to make the needed transformations to support the new model, including customer success and support, operations, finance, and revenue. The bigger your legacy business, the harder it will be and the more important it will be to maintain quality in all departments to protect the brand.
Soft Launch
Try a soft launch with a friendly customer that matches your primary target market. It’s a great way to ensure product-market fit with fast feedback and iteration cycles. It will also give your departments time to adjust to the new model, implement change management, and refine operations before scaling anything.
Public relations and communications can happen in parallel with the limited launch. Controlling the initial access to the product can help amplify your messaging, demand, and perception of value through market anticipation. Scaling gradually mitigates technical and infrastructure risks, which can be hard to judge on platforms outside your core experience.
Involve Your Stakeholders
All stakeholders and departments must be committed to a shared strategy — not just the product development team — for your launch to be successful. Involve stakeholders across your organization early in the product launch and release planning process to ensure alignment and effective execution. Some will want to go fast to generate revenue, while others may be reticent about the new model and technology risks. But everyone must collaborate to identify potential roadblocks or challenges and develop a shared plan to address them. Identifying potential impacts on existing products, systems, and processes is particularly important. It may also be necessary to provide training and support for employees involved in the new SaaS product.
Tap the Experts
Utilize all the expertise available to you to handle platform-specific considerations and change management. Beyond the technical and training aspects, different platforms often have different user experience paradigms, customer support expectations, partner expectations, and other standards unfamiliar to a large legacy product organization.
If necessary, look outside your organization to find the right knowledge and support. You might already be working with a platform expert like CodeScience, a Product Development Organization (PDO), to build the product. Tap into their insights to help your organization prepare for the internal transformation needed to support the new platform. CodeScience provides our clients with platform business and user insights to help them anticipate technical and cultural hurdles, recommend how to address them, and communicate throughout the enterprise to enable effective change management and adoption. After the product has been delivered, our Managed Services group continues to support and guide the client as the product is brought to market, evolved, and enhanced in subsequent releases. By integrating our platform expertise with their product team, the initial and ongoing product releases are more effective in supporting the product and business strategy.
Start spreading this knowledge as soon as possible. Get those insights early to inform decisions directly impacting the product build, such as feature prioritization, road-mapping, maximizing platform value realization, budgeting, and design of KPIs and OKRs. Find a PDO to consult with you on all of those, not just write code and push releases.
Launching a new SaaS product can be a natural extension of the legacy product business—when done right. Strategic product integration has to happen at every stage, from design to launch, for that to be possible. Initiate a rollout plan alongside your product design and development to ensure market, technical, and cultural alignment. A hands-on, proactive approach to an enterprise SaaS product launch can help organizations successfully extend and transform the business.
If you want to learn how CodeScience can help with your SaaS product launch on Salesforce, contact our team of experts.
