Insights on B2B Product Management by VIPKID Product Director Yang Kun

VIPKID Product Director Yang Kun

During the "Tech 大咖秀" sharing event hosted by JD Retail Technology and Data Platform, Yang Kun presented his thoughts on B‑to‑B product management.

Core: Helping enterprises solve business problems

Yang defined a B‑to‑B product manager as someone whose primary goal is to help enterprises improve revenue, efficiency, reduce costs, and ensure quality. He distinguished between enterprise‑built products and SaaS products, further breaking them down by vertical business, foundational services, trading platforms, and industry‑specific solutions such as retail, logistics, education, etc.

He emphasized that B‑to‑B products differ from C‑to‑C products in users, goals, and design focus. B‑to‑B designers must understand business processes, perform abstract modeling, and possess knowledge in management, economics, and complex system design.

Growth: Evolving with enterprise needs

Using a case study of a small shop growing into an omnichannel retail group, Yang illustrated how product needs change: from using Excel for basic management, to lightweight ERP for a small supermarket, then adding CRM, OA, and eventually building a middle‑platform to break information silos as the company scales.

He argued that mastering enterprise application architecture gives B‑to‑B product managers a global view of operations, broadening career prospects and enabling better high‑level design decisions.

Yang also shared examples from a food‑delivery platform and an internet advertising company to demonstrate typical B‑to‑B product design scenarios.

Breakthrough: From points to lines to surfaces

After discussing rigorous B‑to‑B design concepts, Yang outlined a growth path for product managers: develop business operation skills, solution design abilities, and complex project management; aim for roles such as product expert, consultant, or product director/VP. He advised focusing on a specific industry to become an expert and building a knowledge moat.

He suggested expanding knowledge breadth by deep‑diving into a niche, then linking related domains (e.g., delivery and warehousing), and finally broadening to a wider perspective.

Following the talk, Yang joined a themed salon with JD Retail core product managers to discuss middle‑platform business and the technical development direction for product managers.

Tech 大咖秀 is a series of exchange events organized by the technology and data middle‑platform, providing a platform for technical staff to interact with internal and external experts, broaden technical horizons, and enhance industry experience.