In the field of product design and management, Liang Ning’s product thinking has always been highly respected. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of Liang Ning’s three golden formulas for C-end, B-end and financial product design, and reveals the unique construction framework of different types of products in terms of user experience, business logic, data application, accounting rules, and risk control.
01 Product definition
A product generally refers to anything that is used and consumed by people and can meet a certain needs of people, including tangible goods, intangible services, organizations, ideas, or combinations thereof. Simply put, “In order to meet the needs of the market, the functions and services created for operation “are products。 A product is a complex of goods and services intended for use.
A higher level of understanding, such as Mr. Liang Ning’s belief that product capability is “the underlying ability of people”, that is, by judging information, grasping key points, and integrating resources, the value of an individual or organization is packaged into a deliverable form, and the reward is obtained in return. For example, WeChat transforms Tencent’s ecological capabilities into services that users can rely on by integrating functions such as communication, social networking, and payment.
At the heart of the product is to continuously provide certainty that users can rely on. For example, the certainty of ATM machines is “banknotes”, and the certainty of WeChat is instant messaging. This certainty needs to be guaranteed by system capabilities, not by surface functionality.
Products are divided into tangible hardware products and intangible software products.
Hardware productsIt refers to the research, design, creation, and invention of tangible objects, such as the invention of computers, as well as the invention of electric lights, telephones, and phonographs by the great inventor Edison. Hardware products are biased towards research, and the idea is visualized in the form of physical objects, or hardware + software, such as unmanned aerial vehicles are masterpieces of hardware + control software.
How can product managers do a good job in B-end digitalization?
All walks of life have taken advantage of the ride-hail of digital transformation and achieved the rapid development of the industry. Since B-end products are products that provide services for enterprises, how should enterprises ride the digital ride?
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Software products, the ideas, ideas, requirements, and problems are realized through software code, unless otherwise specified, this article specifically refers to software products.
02 C-end and B-end products
1. C-end products(Consumer Product) is a product for individual consumers. It is mainly dedicated to providing convenience and fun to individual users.
Features include:
- Focus on meeting the needs and preferences of individual users.
- The design is simple and easy to use, with a focus on user experience.
- It covers various areas such as socializing, entertainment, shopping, etc.
- Rely on engaging users and building user loyalty.
2. B-end products(Business-to-Business Product) refers to products for enterprises or organizations, mainly used to meet the business needs of enterprises and improve operational efficiency. B-end products are more management and service, which is the starting point for management and a powerful tool to support decision-making.
Features include:
- Focus on solving specific problems and workflows for your business.
- Often with complex features and a high degree of specialization.
- Emphasize data accuracy and security.
- Help enterprises achieve digital transformation and enhance competitiveness.
With the development of the times, many C-end products have gradually transformed to B-end, transitioning from meeting individual consumers to enterprise groups with higher willingness to pay for services, achieving a win-win situation for the company and customers.
3. C-end products to B-end product cases：
- Slack: Initially a C-side video call tool, it was later transformed into a B-end enterprise-level online meeting tool.
- Tencent Conference: After April 4, 2023, the usage rights of free version users will be adjusted to the B-end customer group with stronger revenue
- Ctrip Business Travel: The function has been transformed from Ctrip APP to enterprise customers.
4. Comparison of C-end products and B-end products
03 C-end and B-end products and financial product framework formulas
Financial products are a branch of B-end products, but almost all B-end products will affect the financial system. The framework formula for the three types of products is as follows:
- C-end product = user experience + logic + data
- B-end product = logic + process + data
- Financial product = logic + process + data + accounting rules + risk control
Next, let’s talk about the details of the three-way framework construction in detail.
1. C-end products: user experience drives growth
Formula:User Experience (50%) + Logic (25%) + Data (25%)
1. User experience: the core of the core of C-end products
Product managers who do not understand user experience often do not do a good job in C-end products, which is a common problem of many product managers; User experience is not only a superficial visual design, but also a deep thinking involving human nature and psychology, such as the “likes” and “love” of WeChat videos, which are also recognition and praise of the video content, but likes are more likely to be triggered, and “love” is displayed on the friend page, exposing privacy, causing users to be cautious about touching “love”.
- Emotional design: Trigger user dopamine secretion through UI/UX (such as Douyin swipe interaction, gamified progress bar).
- User journey optimization: full-link experience design from “first contact” to “habit formation” (such as Pinduoduo’s bargaining fission mechanism).
- Peak experience shaping: Create a sense of surprise at key nodes (such as Keep medal system, WeChat red envelope animation).
2. Logic, also known as rules, is the underlying support of the product
- Business closed-loop design: the coherence of user needs→ functions→ conversion paths (such as Meituan’s “search-order-payment-evaluation” closed loop).
- Algorithm logic: recommendation system (such as Taobao), intelligent sorting (such as Xiaohongshu content feed stream).
3. Data (Optimization Basis)
- User behavior embedding: Guide iterations such as click-through rate, dwell time, bounce rate, etc. (such as A/B testing optimization button color).
- Growth hacking model: Drive growth through DAU/retention/LTV data (e.g., Didi Red Envelope Fission Coefficient Calculation).
4. Typical cases:
- WeChat: Minimalist interaction (user experience) + message synchronization logic (seamless connection across devices) + user activity data monitoring.
- Douyin: Immersive swipe interaction (experience) + recommendation algorithm logic (interest tags) + completion rate data optimization content pool.
2. B-end products: efficiency and process first
Formula:Logic (40%) + Process (35%) + Data (25%)
B-end products are products or services for enterprises, organizations or institutions, aiming to solve problems in the process of operation, management, and decision-making. It has the following characteristics: business-oriented, focus on efficiency and productivity, professional user group, and high degree of customization, because of this, B-end product companies want to achieve sustainable and stable profitability than C-end products.
The construction of B-end products is mainly based on the following three elements:
1. Logic: that is, business abstraction
- Business modeling: Abstracting enterprise requirements into configurable modules (such as customer lifecycle management in CRM).
- Permission logic: granular control of role-function-data permissions (such as departmental hierarchical approval of OA system).
2. Process: Efficiency improvement, B-end products are used internally or externally within the enterprise, emphasizing efficiency
- SOP digitization: Convert offline processes to online automation (e.g., ERP procurement approval flows).
- Exception process handling: compatible with business elasticity (such as multi-branch judgment logic for e-commerce returns and exchanges).
3. Data: It is the soul of the enterprise and provides support for decision-making
- Business performance indicators: man-efficiency ratio, process time-consuming, error rate (e.g., customer service ticket processing timeliness statistics).
- Configurable reports: Custom dashboards (e.g., sales funnel analysis, inventory turnover monitoring).
4. Typical cases:
- DingTalk: Attendance logic (clock-in rule configuration) + approval process engine (custom form) + organizational performance data dashboard.
- Salesforce: Customer relationship logic (opportunity stage management) + sales process automation (email follow-up template) + ROI analysis report.
3. Financial products: rules and risk control double bottom line
Formula:Logic (30%) + Process (25%) + Data (20%) + Accounting Rules (15%) + Risk Management (10%)
1. Accounting rules reflect compliance
Accounting rules are the norms and guidelines that financial products must follow, which ensure the standardization and comparability of financial information. Accounting rules include accounting policies, accounting standards, accounting systems and accounting methods. For example, the principle of objectivity requires that the accounting of an enterprise must be based on the actual economic business and truthfully reflect the financial situation and operating results of the enterprise. The principle of comparability requires that the accounting of enterprises should be carried out in accordance with the prescribed accounting methods, and the accounting indicators should be of the same caliber and comparable to each other.
Accounting standards mapping: Automatically generate GAAP/IFRS compliant documents (e.g., point-in-time revenue control).
Account system configuration: Support multi-account set and multi-currency accounting (such as the logic of multinational enterprise consolidated statements).
2. Risk Control (Safety Valve)
Risk management is an important part of financial products, which aims to identify, assess and respond to various risks that may affect the achievement of financial product objectives. Financial risks include market risk, credit risk, liquidity risk, operational risk, etc. For example, market risk refers to the risk of a decline in the value of an enterprise’s assets due to market price fluctuations; Credit risk refers to the risk of loss caused by customer default or inability to recover funds. Risk management and control methods include risk identification, risk assessment, risk response, and risk monitoring
- Four-eyed principle: separate approval and execution (if the payment application needs to be reviewed by two people).
- Audit trail: Operation traces and data cannot be tampered with (such as blockchain electronic invoices).
3. Synergy of other elements
- Logic: Checkout automation logic (e.g., automatic depreciation at the end of the month).
- Process: Budgeting-Execution-Analysis Closed Loop (e.g., rolling forecasting process).
- Data: Cash flow forecasting model, tax compliance check.
It can be seen from the above that logic provides a theoretical basis and way of thinking for financial products, the process ensures the efficient and orderly progress of financial work, data is the core content of financial products, accounting rules ensure the standardization and comparability of financial information, and risk control ensures the stability and safety of financial products. These five elements are interrelated and influence each other, and together constitute the whole of financial products. Only by organically combining these five elements can we design high-quality, high-efficiency and low-risk financial products to meet the needs of enterprises and society.
4. Typical cases:
SAP Finance Module:
- Logic: Cost allocation rules (allocation by department/project).
- Process: End-to-end process from procure-to-pay (P2P).
- Accounting Rules: Automatically generate vouchers that comply with local tax laws.
- Risk control: early warning of budget overruns and monitoring of anti-money laundering transactions.
In general, the essence of product design is to find the optimal solution under constraints – the C-end needs to balance user experience and business monetization, the B-end needs to coordinate efficiency and flexibility, and the financial product needs to achieve efficiency breakthroughs within the compliance framework.
