What is Product Enablement?

What is Product Enablement?

Product enablement is a procedure designed specifically for different departments of a company aimed at providing them relevant product knowledge. 

As the name suggests, it basically enables the employees to deal with product related issues in their departments.

Its name is derived from sales enablement in which the sales department is provided with all the relevant information that enhances their ability to sell the product. 

The significant difference is that here the whole organisation undergoes this process and depending on the departments, the process is tailored specifically to serve for each specific department.

A product enablement team works at  preparing and executing such programs for different departments.

Consider, for example, a sales team would learn mainly about the product’s benefits to the customer and how the product links with the customer needs. 

But for any issue or query that the customer may raise after buying the product, that will be addressed by the customer support team and, hence, this team will learn about the key details of product’s capabilities and troubleshooting issues. 

Communication plays a key role in product enablement. The team delivers relevant information through different educational resources and training for all the departments with an objective to improve employee productivity. 

It plays an important role in the sync of cross-functional teams similarly to the product ops team.

Why do we need Product Enablement?

The main benefit of product enablement is to prepare the employees with knowledge about those aspects of the product which will be of most use to them practically. 

For example knowledge of products required for customer support, sales, marketing, logistics, etc. 

This also results in proper coordination among different departments, overall enhancing the company’s performance establishing alignment across the company.

Benefits of Product Enablement 

Good product enablement equips the employees with sufficient information of the product’s concept, use, user personas, advantages, etc.

Everyone involved in the different areas of a product strategy needs to be fully aware of what the factors that link the product’s performance, purpose, capabilities, and anything else with their specific department are.

So it is critical for any company that is planning to launch a new product.

After going through this process the employees shall be able to deal with the customers effectively. 

This would bring affirmative results majorly in the areas of sales and customer satisfaction which in turn will give a boost to the company itself.

Common Challenges in Product Enablement 

The most basic one shall be the need to tailor different programs with respect to different fields of action in the company, which makes product enablement a bit complex. 

Also, the difficulty depends on the type of product too. For example a highly technological product would be hard to be understood by all the departments. 

It may even happen that the product enablement team suffers some difficulty themself in understanding the product.

The motive is to make a simple and easy to learn program which addresses all the practical necessities that the employees will encounter in their work.