This slide deck was presented at the annual Project management Day (Autumn) hosted in Lviv, Ukraine (November 2018) in the flow dedicated to Product management. It covers specifics of developing and delivering products to enterprise clients, challenges in sales negotiations and pre-sales activities at the early stage interactions with an enterprise prospect, and potential communication traps that product manager might find himself caught in after successful deal closure and delivery start. The deck content is a 'presenting' type, definitely not a 'read-only'. But I hope one may find some interesting insights in it nevertheless.

1. PdM in enterprise
business development
November 2018

2. Client Partner
Head of Financial Services Lab,
SoftServe
MSTM LvBS alumni
MS in Finance
MS in Law
linkedin.com/in/antoninaskrypnyk

3. WHERE PDM MIGHT FIND HIMSELF TO BE
- We pitch about us, our skills and expertise - We pitch about product advantages and impact to
client’s business
- Client owns product’s idea and business context - We own the initial idea and product business context
- We might advice but not finger point directly - We configure and customize our product to align with
clients business ‘as is’
- We have to show value of our work and us being on-
boarded
- We have to show value of the product and its
capabilities
WE DEVELOP PRODUCT FOR ENTERPRISE CLIENT: WE SELL OUR PRODUCT TO ENTERPRISE CLIENT:

4. PAIN POINTS AND CHALLENGES
• Low trust to outsourcers
• Tend to ‘lock’ business ownership ‘in da house’
• Competition between in house PdM and vendor PdM
• We have PdM in here, we need yours just to track requirements/write user stories etc.
• Low or no access to up to date context and changes in strategic information
• Limited access to ‘proper’ stakeholders
• Low eagerness (or unobvious security issues) in sharing business related or sensitive information
• No internal alignment at the client side on product strategic vision or critical items
DEVELOP PRODUCT FOR ENTERPRISE CLIENT

5. PAIN POINTS AND CHALLENGES
• Long sales cycle and decision making reiterations
• Unpredicted stakeholders changes
• Severe procurement and IT&S infrastructure integration requirements
• Each enterprise is a unique ecosystem, requiring even ideally matching product to be ‘mapped’ on it
• Clear product value articulation to business stakeholders – advantages, impact, outcomes, threats, - in different
types of pitches
• ‘We talked to X/Y/Z competitor, they have this, and you don’t’
• ‘What if your product does this? – Do you need that? – Not really, but still does it?’
SELL PRODUCT TO ENTERPRISE CLIENT

6. ENTERPRISE COMMUNICATION PITFALLS
• Transparency with all stakeholders involved
(no politics playing, cause you will definitely lose, you will leave and they will stay)
• Only official communicational channels for stakeholders alignment
(all is good until is good, ‘…I have no clue of that, show me where it is in the meeting minutes’)
• Italian strike from unaligned or conflicting stakeholders
(Yes I will, … and nothing happens after for weeks/months, indirect ignorance)

7. BLACK SWAN EVENTS
• C-level decision maker to join the remote demo call unexpectedly (Always use and check the camera)
• Stakeholders conflict (‘…the Program owner is just escorted out of the building…’)
• Merges & Acquisitions/ Org transformation/ Strategic Partnership/ Executive Sponsorship
• The competitor re-bided with product zero price for Client’s Logo Reference (Possible internal deep connection)
• Congratulations, business made a full ‘buy in’. Say hello to our Malaysian Procurement third party.

8. PDM ‘TO DO’ LIST
• Be engaged, proactive and initiative in problem solving/issue approaching/risk detecting etc.
• Be committed to clients’ success with you. Not to just doing for the sake of doing
• Build informal relationships and do maximum networking/radiance inside
• Ask. Receive answer. Clarify and revalidate. Repeat
• You are there to ease their pain and living
• Be flexible. They might really don’t know what they want
• Be politics agnostic. You are there to bring value to all of them
• Be stress resistant
• Be ready for context change even at the strategic level. Все так не буде

9. THANK YOU!
Q&A