John Thackston’s Post

"And when we go crashing down, we come back every time 'Cause we never go out of style" One of the promises of SaaS is for clients to experience continuous innovation - for the software to never go out of style. But the truth is in some cases, you need to bring customers along the journey. This could involve changing their workflow, getting them to embrace a new version of a feature or migrating them to a new platform. Since innovation is continuous, this is critical and also not easy. Gainsight's #CustomerSuccess product was originally built on the force.com platform. While have deployed new clients on our cloud-native NXT platform since 2019, we spent the last few years upgrading existing clients to NXT. The rationale was customers could benefit from a more modern experience and faster innovation. And we're now done! 🎉 I asked Sundar Swaminathan who, along with Megha Mathur and their team, directed our NXT Upgrades effort to share some learnings for folks going through a similar process: 🎯 Strategic Alignment: We consistently made our Upgrades project a top company priority, with resources from Customer Success, Professional Services and Engineering heavily involved. 🔄 Streamline Processes: Sundar and his team defined a pipeline, from identifying Upgrade "demand" to planning to technical configuration to testing and then to change management. They constantly refined the process and created templates to drive efficiency and consistency. 🛠️ Pre-Upgrade Analysis: The team built tools to analyze the customer's existing environment, prioritize clients based upon complexity and define the pre-Upgrade cleanup that was needed. 🌐 Customer Enablement: Perhaps the most important success factor was readying clients for the process, with clear expectation setting and well-defined communications. The work involved - and stress - was massive. But the results below show how impactful the Upgrades were to our business and to our customers. Huge thanks to Sundar, Megha and the broader team for what they accomplished! 👏🏽

Here’s what I love the most about digital adoption: It's how effortlessly you can surpass customers' expectations. Most customers come to us with a straightforward goal: they're looking to cut training costs or slash the support required. But the beauty of digital adoption? It's so much broader than that. After we address their immediate concerns, there's a lot of room to explore other use cases, such as: - reducing training costs and support, - improving process efficiency, - enhancing data quality, etc That's why I'm always driving this point home to my clients: digital adoption is an ongoing journey. The deeper you dive into understanding its potential, the more ways you'll find to extract value from your implementations. So, take a moment. Look at examples from other clients and the immense value they've gleaned. This is how you go above and beyond in meeting expectations. Curious to know more? Looking for some concrete examples? Shoot me a message. I'm always up for a chat! #digitaladoption #changemanagement #softwareimplementation

Here’s what I love the most about digital adoption: It's how effortlessly you can surpass customers' expectations. Most customers come to us with a straightforward goal: they're looking to cut training costs or slash the support required. But the beauty of digital adoption? It's so much broader than that. After we address their immediate concerns, there's a lot of room to explore other use cases, such as: - reducing training costs and support, - improving process efficiency, - enhancing data quality, etc That's why I'm always driving this point home to my clients: digital adoption is an ongoing journey. The deeper you dive into understanding its potential, the more ways you'll find to extract value from your implementations. So, take a moment. Look at examples from other clients and the immense value they've gleaned. This is how you go above and beyond in meeting expectations. Curious to know more? Looking for some concrete examples? Shoot me a message. I'm always up for a chat! #digitaladoption #changemanagement #softwareimplementation

🌟 Navigating the Journey of Service to Product to Solution Transformation 🌟 As businesses continue to adapt to the changing dynamics of the market, the journey from service to product to solution has become more important than ever. But how can we navigate this transformational journey effectively? In this post, we will explore the essential framework and actions required to transition from service to product to solution. 🚀👨💼 The foundation of this transformation lies in building a robust framework that enables us to seamlessly navigate each stage of the journey. The first step is to understand the needs of our customers and identify the problems they face. By gaining insights into their pain points and desires, we can craft tailor-made solutions that meet their specific needs. This process involves a deep understanding of our customer's journey, their challenges and needs and what they expect from our services or product offerings. 🔑💡 Next, we need to transform our services into products. This stage involves defining the key features of our services, developing pricing strategies, and deploying digital transformation initiatives. We need to package our services in a way that is easy to understand for our customers and offer all the necessary support to enhance their experience. Customers should be able to relate to our offerings quickly and easily. But then, how do we transition from products to solutions? Once we have developed a viable product, the next step is to identify the unmet needs of our customers. By analyzing customer feedback and market trends, we can iterate on our product and build complementary features and services that further enhance its value. From this process, we can truly develop our products into solutions that resolve real issues which our customers face. Finally, we must foster a culture of innovation that embraces feedback loops and continuous learning. By regularly seeking customer input and feedback, we can remain agile and responsive, ensuring that our solutions remain aligned with customer needs. In conclusion, the journey of service to product to solution is a vital transformational journey that businesses must make to ensure their continued relevance in the market. By building a framework that centers around customer needs, transitioning from services to products, and developing solutions that truly address customer problems, we unlock endless possibilities and propel ourselves towards business success. So let's embark on this journey with determination, and embrace innovation, data-driven insights, and continuous learning to help us reach our full potential. 💪🌟 #ServiceTransformation #ProductDevelopment #SolutionBuilding #BusinessSuccess #ContinuousLearning.

When developing digital supported products we want to reach a product-market fit early in the game, while mitigating big risks along the way.  Read in this interesting article (link in fist comment) of colleague Niels Holvoet the why & how of a a Customer Discovery Program in the process of product development & product management. At Sirris | Innovation forward our experienced business & technology experts are dedicated to guide companies in the creation of innovative products and the adoption of advanced technologies. You can contact us for advice & guidance in effective product management & roadmap, pricing & segmentation, technology stack, trust & security aspects, data organization and analytics and the set-up of intelligent distributed systems. #digitalservices #saas #digitalproducts #productmanagement #customerdiscovery #productmarketfit

In the world of product development, great ideas are only the first step. My latest blog post explores how customer discovery programs turn those ideas into products that not only meet but exceed customer expectations. Don't waste time and resources developing products no one wants! You can find the link to the article in the first comment. #productmanagement #customerdiscovery #saas

🔍 Maximising Efficiency through Digital Adoption 🔍 In the realm of Digital Adoption, even small improvements yield substantial benefits! In a recent project, leveraging a digital adoption tool, we successfully reduced a process by 2 minutes through automation. While this might seem minor initially, when you factor in that each user performs this task around 7 times a day and there are 100 users in the team, the time savings quickly add up to significant proportions. Curious to learn more about how we can streamline your processes and drive efficiency gains? Reach out, and let's discuss how we can tailor solutions to suit your specific needs! 💼✨ #DigitalAdoption #Efficiency #Process #Optimisation #TimeSavings

Want the secret to human-first go-to-market? Sell an outcome. Deliver an experience. It’s that simple. 1️⃣Show up. ↳ Over prepare. ↳ Communicate clearly. ↳ Connect on a human level. 2️⃣Stand up. ↳ Stick to your ideal customer. ↳ Advocate internally for customers. ↳ Be committed to value promises and delivery. 3️⃣Stand out. ↳ Dare to differentiate yourself. ↳ Know the answer to “why buy from us?” ↳ Deliver the best end-to-end experience every time. How will you show up, stand up and stand out? #customersuccess #revenue #gtm #software #humanfirst

What a year it has been. Excited to share insights of my 3+ years experience, having been part of the implementation team. Over the next few weeks, I'll delve into the crucial distinctions between Solution Enablement and Product Enablement. Stay tuned for valuable lessons and perspectives. Let's ignite discussions on optimising technology implementations for success. #TechImplementation #SolutionEnablement #ProductEnablement #professionalinsights

A #Digital #Product-Centric #Reference #OperatingModel This Document: To be successful as a digital #enterprise, each #organization must make the shift away from traditional, #technology-focused management practices to a product-centric Operating Model. This document describes a Digital Product-Centric Reference Operating Model for Digital from The Open Group that can be used to support organizations in continuously and holistically managing the #value of Digital Products, while displacing older, siloed, technology-centric management models and practices. Since this operating model pursues consistency and #integration right across the organization, presenting an end-to-end product-centric #kernel to support Digital Products and digital offerings, this document supports The #OpenGroup #vision of Boundaryless #Information Flow™.