Team Specific B2B SaaS products are software solutions built for a specific team within a company such as a procurement team or finance team as examples.
These products are typically only used (at least in a management capacity) by a specific group or team of people with a business and the purchasing of these products happens within the confinements of those teams.
This approach favours products that have a low initial cost or that are free because it means you can shorten the sales cycle by not involving lots of stakeholders and procurement. Some common attributes of B2C2B SaaS products are:
Unlike selling to individuals, with team specific products you are often having to engage multiple stakeholders. Typically this is the manager of the team in question and then at least one of team member. For example this could be the CFO and a financial controller in a finance team.
Generally when selling a team-orientated product like accounting software or HR software your license fees are abit higher and therefore they often required a bit more due-dilligence when it comes to purchasing. For example purchasing a marketing tool like HubSpot can sometimes be expensive and is not something you can expense on a company credit card.
Tools that are built for specific roles and functions often have to itnegrate into the existing tech stack and eco-system. This is because teams in modern businesses use multiple software solutions that need to work in harmony to sync data across them all. Some SaaS companies sell these products in partnership with other tools and that is part of the go-to-market-strategy.
Team and functin specific SaaS products are often built around specialist features. Unlike B2C2B products that are more generic with multipl use cases, team-specific SaaS products have functionality that is limited to the scope of the team. You do sometimes have products that span mutliple teams like Sales and Marketing where they work very closely together.
By definition a team works together to achieve a common goal. That is why these types of role-based products are often only really useful when they are used in collaboration with others. Not to say you can't use these tools if you are just a team of one, but the benefits of the software become more apparent when your team grows and you can use the tools to collaborate.
One common factor between this SaaS businesses is that they typically scale by introducing packages for different sizes of business. Because of the product is focused on a specific team they can usually develop the product and scale the company by offerering solutions for start-ups, SMEs and Enterprises. It is worth noting it is often easy to start with a product for start-ups and build on top than the other way around, typically because enterprise products are difficult to re-engineer and can have a lot of technical debt.
Here are some examples of SaaS products that sit in the category of team-specific. These are tools that are typically used in specific teams within a business and often require collaboration and integrations with other software tools in the same space.
Sage actually offers a number of products but Sage Accounting is a specific finance solution that integrates with many other tools and is offered to small businesses as well as scale-ups and enterprises.
Procurify is a purchasing and AP automation solution. Typically used by procurement teams and finance teams within large organisations. It integrates with finance tools like Quickbooks and Sage.
Webflow is a no-code website builder that is used by designers and marketers. It integrates with other marketing tools like HubSpot and Google Analytics to help great B2B SaaS websites.
These types of software tools typically have a longer buying cycle because there are more stakeholders involved and a roll-out of this type of tool will sometimes involve some professional services such as implementation services, integration work and training.
It is also worth noting that there are sometimes team-specific tools aimed at start-ups that can still use the same approach as B2C2B. These are function specific like Quickbooks but they can still be sold to an individual when they are a start-up before they scale the teams.
These types of tools also often rely heavily on the existing ecosystem within the organisation and therefore integrations play an important role in the growth strategy of these companies, sometimes evening forming mutually beneficial partnerships with vendors in the same space.
Some of the most common marketing strategies used by these types of products are:
SaaS products built for specific functions like finance, marketing and sales as just some examples are often hevily reliant on the existing tech stack. Marketers working in these companies should pay attention to the target audience's tech stacks and look for opportunities through strategic partnerships as well as utilising well worn inbound marketing techniques like SEO.
These products often offer solutions by company size. Bear in mind that it is easier to scale the product from a start-up self-service model to enterprise than the other way around.
At B2B Hackers we speciliase in providing knowledge and support for B2B SaaS companies. Whether that's through useful guides and templates or our recommended list of B2B SaaS specialist agencies we're here to help.
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