B2B SaaS - Solving the UK's toughest economic problem

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."
John F Kennedy, Undelivered remarks for the Dallas Trade Mart, 22 November 1963

​The UK Government is trying to tackle a problem that has no solution. No not Brexit, productivity. Hiding behind royal engagements and outrageous tweets over the past few weeks have been a couple of huge announcements. The Chancellor’s budget speech and our new Industrial Strategy. Both focused on the question of productivity.
 
UK productivity has been sluggish to terrible for as long as I can remember. The latest official data tells us UK productivity per hour is 15% less than the G7 average. And growing at a slower rate.

Government does not have the answers

​The Chancellor calls these sort of numbers “economicky.” In my mind they are the essence of life. They are also the main reason I am so passionate about the tech sector.
 
Successive governments have shown that policy biases and ill judged, small scale subsidies are not the solution. Its not about shiny new ideas - Grand Challenges in the words of the industrial strategy. Government needs to focus on infrastructure, regulation and education. Leave productivity to entrepreneurs and consumers.
 
Technology is an integral part of the productivity solution. At the leading edge this means research in advanced areas like AI. Medium term these are essential but in the short term they will have little impact. By definition cutting edge ideas apply only to a small segment of businesses. That results in a limited impact on productivity. 

The right agenda for B2B SaaS

​The big prize will come from established businesses making better use of technologies that are already proven. Luckily, this is also what B2B SaaS needs to happen to drive the next wave of growth.
 
At a high level its simple. Either:
 

1. Your B2B SaaS enables business to generate more revenue with the same number of people.
2. Your B2B SaaS enables a business to generate the same revenue with less people.

 
In both cases your customer’s productivity improves. If everyone does this then the productivity of the whole economy improves.
 
You may oversee that ittle in the UK budget or the industrial strategy will help achieve this goal. Correct. Don’t waste too much time looking for examples elsewhere either. 
 
This will only happen if entrepreneurs and leaders make it happen. 
 
Everyone I know in a SaaS company is working to make this happen. And every business is different facing its own challenges and opportunities. You need to find the right way for your company. 

5 principles to help your SaaS and your customer

You will not go far wrong by following these 5 principles:

• Help your customers deliver business change. Customer success is 100% driven by change. Your SaaS will not deliver benefits alone.  Don’t just sell your product. Make it easy to change. 
• Build customer relationships. Real sustainable business and genuine lifetime value arise from mutual commercial relationships. Not pipelines and funnels. That’s why its called CRM.
• Listen to customer needs. Nothing destroys your reputation faster than selling the wrong thing to the wrong customer. Success is about listening not selling.
• Measure yourself by retention not acquisition. There are a thousand ways to acquire customer but only one way to keep them. You can only retain customers by delivering value. Value is the object of your business so this is what you need to measure. Read this from reforge for more about this point.

Use team incentives not individual sales commissions and quotas. Sales people don’t deliver value. Great software, excellent service, a strong business model and even a clean office all make a contribution. Reward the whole team not just the sales team.

The Chairman's view

​If this is too much, remember the first item on the list. Help your customers deliver business change. Without this, you will not have a sustainable or scaleable business. And your SaaS product will make no difference in the world. 
 
Its like a meta variation of the old saying: execution, execution, execution. Government will not solve the productivity puzzle. We will. So let’s get on with it. Wherever you live, your country needs you!