How does the product manager role change when you’re focused on enterprise customers vs mid-market and SMB?

Question

Rena Mashintchian · Accepted Answer

Enterprise vs. mid-market vs. SMB customers are typically defined based on the number of employees in the organization and its revenue.  Regardless of the organization size, many of the core PM activities are similar.  However, there are some key differences I’ve experienced that are worth noting.  PMs should keep these in mind and factor them in as they build out their product and release plans.

Build for all segments

Typically, you’ll have a small number of very large enterprise customers and a very large number of smaller customers.  The largest enterprises also usually contain a lionshare of the user base, draw in the largest account values, and have the most strategic relationships at the executive level.  Because of this, the focus may sometimes be heavily weighted towards these enterprise accounts and you may tend to over rotate on serving their needs above other segments.  Remember, though, that your product should serve all segments and prioritize your feedback and requests accordingly.

Speed of adoption varies based on segment

Smaller organizations tend to be more nimble when it comes to accepting/rolling out new products, features, or releases.  Because they are smaller, the change management effort is typically smaller, the product validation effort is usually faster, and they are typically more willing to roll out releases on a faster cadence as compared to enterprise customers.  Enterprise customers, on the other hand, tend to take more time.  It’s not uncommon for enterprises that tightly control change management to wait several months after a build is released to production before they are willing to deploy it within their organization.

Early testing and validation of features varies based on segment

* Larger organizations may be reluctant to participate in pre-release product betas, which are typically the best path for product teams to get early feedback on if the product meets users’ needs.  Their product feedback may not come until the feature is actually released and users can start using it.
 * In larger organizations, it may also be harder to find the right users who can validate the product/features.
 * On the plus side, larger organizations provide a greater diversity of use cases given the large number of users.  Therefore, customer research on and beta participation by SMB customers may require a larger volume to cover the breadth of use cases of a single large enterprise.

Based on these differences, here are some of the things you may need to do differently as a PM:

* Define different approaches for customer research based on org segment
 * Plan out different test and validation strategies based on segment
 * Define different deployment strategies to accommodate feature and release adoption based on the needs of the org segment

D Matthew Landry · Answer

In the broadest sense, the role of the product manager doesn't change. The customer profile changes, the buying patterns change, and the routes to market change. The core PM responsibilities don't necessarily change.

However, many of those customer changes have an impact on how the PM does their job.

For example, enterprises often separate the end user (the person who wants to use your product), the decision maker (often someone higher in the user's reporting chain), and the economic buyer (usually in a purchasing department). These are all stakeholders, and they all deserve attention from the PM.

Then there's the famous Request For Proposal. With all of those stakeholders in the purchase, everyone feels better when there's a structured approach to comparing alternatives and choosing a winner. The RFP is the tool of choice for almost every enterprise, and the RFP can make or break a product's success. It deserves its own discussion, but the point is that RFPs influence buying decisions, so RFPs deserve PM attention.

In terms of routes to market, enterprises see more of resellers, system integrators, and direct sales reps than self-serve marketplaces (of course, there's plenty of buying on a credit card, too). So your product pricing, cost structures, and selling approach may need to accommodate a more layered channel.

Finally, the relative number of enterprise customers (few) compared to mid-market (many) and SMB customers (MANY) usually means a PM can spend focused time with enterprises.

BTW, mid-market can take on some of these characteristics; depends on the customer and industry.