In order to create better product experiences, we must listen to the people who are using our products. But how do we effectively do this, while also driving better business outcomes? The answer lies in how we utilize product insights. When implemented in the right ways across the product development lifecycle, we’re able to more accurately understand how we can create better outcomes for our customers and their employees.

Understanding product insights

Product insights, in a nutshell, refer to the interpretation of valuable data collected from user feedback across multiple forms (attitudinal and behavioral), such as surveys, interviews, contextual inquiries, as well as data collected while people are using the products. The challenge with capitalizing on these insights is two-fold: organizing and analyzing these data streams together to tell a complete story, and rallying the product organization to turn insights into action. And with millions of users interacting with SAP products every day, there is an immense amount of data and many different stakeholders all working to find the outcomes with the greatest effect on business performance. The key is identifying actionable end user feedback and prioritizing it alongside key business metrics. It's a journey that involves collaboration, inquiry, and constant engagement across the entire product lifecycle.

Case Study: The People Profile within SAP SuccessFactors HCM

To illustrate how SAP utilizes product insights effectively, let's look at how we are reimagining the People Profile within SAP SuccessFactors HCM. The People Profile feature is the second-most visited experience in the solution after the home page. It provides a comprehensive view of employee information in a single screen, serving as a critical source of information and an all-encompassing resource for individual employment data.

With so much daily engagement, the People Profile has a tremendous amount of potential to serve as a primary source of employee-to-employee engagement. To make this potential tangible, the product team needed a deeper understanding of the historical experience data in order to define and set a clear path forward.

Fortunately, SAP SuccessFactors is instrumented with SAP employee experience management solutions by Qualtrics, allowing the product research team to use data from surveys collected along the user journey allowing to engage in-context sentiments about the experience.

The analysis of the product experience (PX) data revealed insights and common themes for investment: addressing design issues like too much white space, the ability to quickly find and engage the data and/or task at hand, and an opportunity to embrace the design principle of individualization so that every employee might better tell their story. This shortened the path for the team to begin asking the central question, “What do our customers, their employees and managers want to achieve, and why can’t they do it today?”

A collaborative approach to generating and applying insights

The key to uniting the entire product organization around the data stories uncovered through product insights is ensuring different perspectives are considered and aligned towards a shared goal.

For SAP SuccessFactors, this began with building a cross-functional team involving product management, user experience (UX) design, UX strategy, UX research, and engineering. This setup allowed the team to balance desirability, feasibility, and viability when examining end user feedback.

Critical to striking this balance was expanding the collaboration outside of the product organization. The team interviewed stakeholders representing sales, product implementation, and support to understand how user issues aligned with those identified by buyers, implementers, and system administrators - roles that are also critical within a business software ecosystem. Triangulating these perspectives helped the group frame where to focus to get the greatest return on their investment.

To ensure the team took the appropriate action, they used the Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) framework to contextualize the product insights in the work patterns and practices of the people using the People Profile. This allowed each actor in the development lifecycle to see what users are trying to achieve and what they need to succeed. This led the team to reach a productive consensus and a course of action.

Turning insights into action

After applying the findings from the PX data to a value proposition framework, prioritizing the problems to solve with various target end user roles and running several facilitated JTBD workshops, the team was able to surface three key jobs to be done that would help shape the future of the People Profile based on user needs:

1. Build my brand: Empowering every employee to build a comprehensive view of who they are and who they want to be.
2. Find the right talent: Enabling managers, recruiters, and project leads to find the right talent for internal projects or job postings by using AI to match the perfect combination of skills and aspirations.
3. Make confident decisions: Allowing employees, managers, HR admins, and payroll admins to make confident HR decisions by surfacing the full view and impact of changes, increasing trust and compliance across the board.

This is just one step in an exciting user-centered transformation happening across all SAP products. Collaboration across our disciplines and business lines allows us to push this innovation forward so that we can bring better experiences to all.

Why are product insights so important now?

In a rapidly changing landscape with evolving customer expectations, a shift toward consumer-grade experience is a must for enterprises. Not just because people want things to look and feel a certain way, but because the quality of the in-product experience affects how well someone can accomplish necessary tasks. If a poor experience impedes the user, it can lead to decision makers looking for alternative solutions. Generating product insights is essential to preserving business relationships and driving organizational change in a measured, data-driven way. By carefully listening to users and taking action as a team, we not only improve our products but also enhance the overall experiences of our teams and customers.

Data creates the facts and provides the evidence, but collaboration is the engine that turns these facts into insights. Sitting at the same table, looking at data points together and analyzing it from different perspectives creates co-ownership and acts as a team bonding factor beyond organizational silos. Giving life to data helps us to deeply understand our users and drive better product decisions, which in turn leads to positive business outcomes.

The journey from user feedback to product improvement is a challenging one, but it's a path that today’s businesses must tread. This collaborative approach, informed by data and insights, paves the way for SAP's success in helping customers build for the future of work.