Reflection — Learning Launch   Guiding a Digital - First Mindset Shift in an   Online Enterprise SaaS Business 

 By Santosh Kumar 

 Challenge     Enterprise businesses offering digital SaaS ( Software - as - a - Service ) products often rely heavily   on traditional Sales workflows . This means , the selling process is entirely manually driven with   individuals , or even whole teams of Sales and Pre - Sales professionals being involved in   helping a customer make a purchase decision and closing a deal . While this has worked   traditionally because of such digital products usually being expensive , high dollar - value items ;   it comes at a great cost to the scalability of a business , especially when entering and capturing   newer or larger markets .     As a member of my organization ’s marketing leadership , my team of cross - functional experts   and I were faced with the challenge of proving the market demand for a scalable , fully digital ,   “ try - before - you - buy ” business model to our Executive leadership who had grown accustomed   to the traditional methods of doing business and reflected a fixed mindset1 , convinced that   the market , or the customers , did n’t voice such a need for change . 

 Selection     My team and I have decided to employ the Learning Launch tool as we have already gone   through several Design Thinking activities and tools such as co - creating a Journey Map2 of   “ What Is ” our customers ’ current state of engagement with our product ’s website to   understand what is or is n’t working in helping them express interest in buying our product   and starting a purchase - conversation with us .     We have also engaged in mind - mapping3 activities building alignment on the “ What If ”   scenario of our proposed solutions and we feel that a Learning Launch , being an   experimentation tool , will help us quickly gather valuable data4 in testing our hypotheses   and validating market - demand for a fully digital , instant “ try - before - you - buy ” experience of   our product as outlined in the “ Challenge ” section above . 

 Application     For our Learning Launch aimed at validating market demand , we focused on curating and   improving the information architecture5 of our product website . In particular , we wanted to   see if we could accelerate our customers ’ journey , i.e. , reduce the time they need on our   website to get them to understand the core value propositions of our product and sign - up for   a trial . For this we co - created an experiment , bringing together stakeholders6 from Design   and Engineering to prototype7 and implement a prominent call - to - action button that read   “ Start your 30 - day free trial ” which led to a simple sign - up form that customers could fill up   to get on a priority waitlist for the product trial experience .     This would test our assumptions8 that ( 1 ) customers wanted to engage with us and try our   product before they bought it and ( 2 ) if given a fully digital route to try the said product , they   would express interest quicker by signing up on our website . 

 Insight     By applying the Learning Launch described in the “ Application ” section above , we found over   a 14 - day period , that our customers were up to 6.2x more likely , on average , to engage with   us and sign - up for our product if a fully digital , “ try - before - you - buy ” experience were on offer .   We uncovered these insights by comparing the click - through rate on the new call - to - action   button against the number of e - mail Sales inquiries initiated by customers during similar 14- day periods at various points in the previous 12 months when the new call - to - action button   did not exist .     Upon further data analysis , this Learning Launch also helped us to definitively highlight   behaviors that led to the traditionally low interest from our customers , and therefore , our   Executive leadership ’s misassumptions regarding market demand . It did so by confirming the   truth9 that our customers are fast - paced professionals and did not prefer their first   interaction with a business or a product to be a Sales call or an email thread , and therefore   avoided it unless necessary . 

 Approach     We found our experiments from our Learning Launch to be highly effective as they were fast   and inexpensive10 and helped us gather strong and definitive data points in setting the 

 direction for our next set of efforts . We plan to conduct more of such experiments and   incorporate the findings from these Learning Launches into a Storytelling format to   disseminate to an organization - wide audience in building a cohesive growth plan together . 

 References to video lectures 

 1   The Story of George & Geoff ( 10:48 ) 

 2   The Good Kitchen Story ( 3:36 ) 

 3   Mind Mapping Tool ( 10:06 ) 

 4   Learning Launch Tool ( 6:22 ) 

 5   Strategic Opportunities ( 4:27 ) 

 6   The Good Kitchen Story ( 7:46 ) 

 7   Introduction to Design Thinking ( 10:21 ) 

 8   Learning Launch Tool ( 15:09 ) 

 9   Learning Launch Tool ( 5:39 ) 

 10   Introduction to Design Thinking ( 11:18 ) 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: Santosh Kumar
PHONE_NUM: 
STREET_ADDRESS: 
URL_PERSONAL: 
USERNAME: 

### Task: You are a PII (Personal Identity Information) Detection. Given a essays written by students, you have to identify ONLY the following:
NAME_STUDENT - The full or partial name of a student that is not necessarily the author of the essay. This excludes instructors, authors, and other person names.
EMAIL - A student’s email address.
USERNAME - A student's username on any platform.
ID_NUM - A number or sequence of characters that could be used to identify a student, such as a student ID or a social security number.
PHONE_NUM - A phone number associated with a student.
URL_PERSONAL - A URL that might be used to identify a student.
STREET_ADDRESS - A full or partial street address that is associated with the student, such as their home address.
### Input: Reflection — Learning Launch   Guiding a Digital - First Mindset Shift in an   Online Enterprise SaaS Business 

 By Santosh Kumar 

 Challenge     Enterprise businesses offering digital SaaS ( Software - as - a - Service ) products often rely heavily   on traditional Sales workflows . This means , the selling process is entirely manually driven with   individuals , or even whole teams of Sales and Pre - Sales professionals being involved in   helping a customer make a purchase decision and closing a deal . While this has worked   traditionally because of such digital products usually being expensive , high dollar - value items ;   it comes at a great cost to the scalability of a business , especially when entering and capturing   newer or larger markets .     As a member of my organization ’s marketing leadership , my team of cross - functional experts   and I were faced with the challenge of proving the market demand for a scalable , fully digital ,   “ try - before - you - buy ” business model to our Executive leadership who had grown accustomed   to the traditional methods of doing business and reflected a fixed mindset1 , convinced that   the market , or the customers , did n’t voice such a need for change . 

 Selection     My team and I have decided to employ the Learning Launch tool as we have already gone   through several Design Thinking activities and tools such as co - creating a Journey Map2 of   “ What Is ” our customers ’ current state of engagement with our product ’s website to   understand what is or is n’t working in helping them express interest in buying our product   and starting a purchase - conversation with us .     We have also engaged in mind - mapping3 activities building alignment on the “ What If ”   scenario of our proposed solutions and we feel that a Learning Launch , being an   experimentation tool , will help us quickly gather valuable data4 in testing our hypotheses   and validating market - demand for a fully digital , instant “ try - before - you - buy ” experience of   our product as outlined in the “ Challenge ” section above . 

 Application     For our Learning Launch aimed at validating market demand , we focused on curating and   improving the information architecture5 of our product website . In particular , we wanted to   see if we could accelerate our customers ’ journey , i.e. , reduce the time they need on our   website to get them to understand the core value propositions of our product and sign - up for   a trial . For this we co - created an experiment , bringing together stakeholders6 from Design   and Engineering to prototype7 and implement a prominent call - to - action button that read   “ Start your 30 - day free trial ” which led to a simple sign - up form that customers could fill up   to get on a priority waitlist for the product trial experience .     This would test our assumptions8 that ( 1 ) customers wanted to engage with us and try our   product before they bought it and ( 2 ) if given a fully digital route to try the said product , they   would express interest quicker by signing up on our website . 

 Insight     By applying the Learning Launch described in the “ Application ” section above , we found over   a 14 - day period , that our customers were up to 6.2x more likely , on average , to engage with   us and sign - up for our product if a fully digital , “ try - before - you - buy ” experience were on offer .   We uncovered these insights by comparing the click - through rate on the new call - to - action   button against the number of e - mail Sales inquiries initiated by customers during similar 14- day periods at various points in the previous 12 months when the new call - to - action button   did not exist .     Upon further data analysis , this Learning Launch also helped us to definitively highlight   behaviors that led to the traditionally low interest from our customers , and therefore , our   Executive leadership ’s misassumptions regarding market demand . It did so by confirming the   truth9 that our customers are fast - paced professionals and did not prefer their first   interaction with a business or a product to be a Sales call or an email thread , and therefore   avoided it unless necessary . 

 Approach     We found our experiments from our Learning Launch to be highly effective as they were fast   and inexpensive10 and helped us gather strong and definitive data points in setting the 

 direction for our next set of efforts . We plan to conduct more of such experiments and   incorporate the findings from these Learning Launches into a Storytelling format to   disseminate to an organization - wide audience in building a cohesive growth plan together . 

 References to video lectures 

 1   The Story of George & Geoff ( 10:48 ) 

 2   The Good Kitchen Story ( 3:36 ) 

 3   Mind Mapping Tool ( 10:06 ) 

 4   Learning Launch Tool ( 6:22 ) 

 5   Strategic Opportunities ( 4:27 ) 

 6   The Good Kitchen Story ( 7:46 ) 

 7   Introduction to Design Thinking ( 10:21 ) 

 8   Learning Launch Tool ( 15:09 ) 

 9   Learning Launch Tool ( 5:39 ) 

 10   Introduction to Design Thinking ( 11:18 )
### Output: 