Industry · TECH

Technology & SaaS

Technology companies rarely fail for lack of engineering. They fail because they solve the wrong problem, target the wrong buyer, price on guesswork or enter markets on enthusiasm. We give product, growth and leadership teams evidence from the people who actually evaluate, buy and use their software.

Discuss Your Market 8 ways we help

Last reviewed 2 October 2026 by the Hoog research team

What is technology and SaaS market research?

Technology and SaaS market research is the study of how organisations and users discover, evaluate, buy, adopt and renew software and technology services. It covers market sizing, product-market fit, buyer and user needs, pricing, churn and competitive positioning, and is used to guide product roadmaps, go-to-market plans and investment decisions.

How research creates value

Build what buyers need. Sell it the way they buy.

In technology markets, the gap between what a product team believes and what the market experiences is often wide. Usage data shows what customers do inside your product; it cannot tell you why prospects never signed, which alternatives they compared, what the buying committee argued about, or which problem they would pay most to solve. That is the job of research.

Hoog works with SaaS companies, platform businesses, IT and digital services firms, and technology divisions of larger enterprises — from pre-product validation through to scaling into new segments and geographies. We speak to IT leaders, business-line buyers, end users, implementation partners and lost prospects, and connect what we hear to your roadmap, pricing and go-to-market plan.

Segments we cover

B2B SaaS (horizontal & vertical)
Cloud, infrastructure & data platforms
Cybersecurity
AI & analytics products
IT & digital services / GCC services
Developer tools & APIs
HR tech, martech, fintech infrastructure
Consumer apps & subscription products

What’s changing

Forces reshaping Technology & SaaS

The shifts our clients most often ask us to help them understand and respond to.

AI in every product roadmap

Buyers are asking what AI features genuinely save time or money — and which are noise. Teams need evidence on which AI use cases customers will adopt, trust and pay for.

Efficient growth over growth at any cost

Investors and boards reward retention, expansion and efficient acquisition. That shifts attention to churn drivers, pricing and packaging, and ideal customer profiles.

Platform consolidation

Customers are reducing vendor sprawl. Point solutions must prove why they deserve a place alongside — or instead of — the platforms customers already pay for.

Longer, larger buying committees

Security, procurement, finance and IT now weigh in on decisions once made by a single team, lengthening cycles and changing what a winning proposition looks like.

Data protection and sovereignty

Regulation such as India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the EU’s GDPR and AI Act shapes how buyers evaluate vendors, hosting and data handling.

How we help

Research and strategy for Technology & SaaS

Each engagement starts with a business problem and ends with a decision. These are the questions we are most often asked to answer.

Product-market fit validation

“We have early customers, but we are not sure whether we have real product-market fit — or which segment it is strongest in.”

Questions we answer

Which customer segments experience the problem most intensely, and how do they solve it today?
How would users feel if they could no longer use the product, and why?
Which jobs-to-be-done does the product serve well, and where does it fall short?
Is pull strongest in a segment different from the one we are targeting?

How we do it

We combine jobs-to-be-done interviews with active, churned and never-converted users with a short PMF survey, then segment results by firmographics and use case to find where fit is genuinely strong — and where it is not.

Jobs-to-be-done IDIs
PMF survey (“how disappointed would you be…”)
Churned / lost-prospect interviews
Segment-level analysis
Usage-data triangulation (where shared)

What you receive

— PMF diagnostic by segment
— Jobs-to-be-done map
— Ideal customer profile (ICP) hypothesis
— Roadmap and positioning implications

Decision it enables

Where to focus — which segment to double down on, and what to fix before scaling spend.

Customer pain-point & problem discovery

“We are deciding what to build next. Every customer asks for something different and our roadmap is driven by the loudest voice.”

Questions we answer

What are the most frequent and most costly problems in the target workflow?
Which pains are customers actively trying to solve — and spending money on?
How do pains differ by role, company size and maturity?
Which problems are under-served by current tools?

How we do it

Structured discovery interviews map the workflow end to end, then a quantitative prioritisation (such as MaxDiff) ranks pains by importance and dissatisfaction so roadmap choices rest on evidence, not anecdote.

Workflow discovery IDIs
Contextual inquiry / screen-share sessions
MaxDiff prioritisation survey
Opportunity scoring (importance × satisfaction)

What you receive

— Prioritised pain-point map
— Opportunity matrix
— Persona-level problem statements
— Recommended roadmap themes

Decision it enables

Which problems to solve next, for whom, and which feature requests to deprioritise.

B2B buyer journey & buying-committee mapping

“Deals stall in the middle of the funnel and we don’t really know what happens inside the customer between demo and decision.”

Questions we answer

Who is involved in the decision — champion, economic buyer, IT, security, procurement — and what does each care about?
What triggers a search, and which sources do buyers trust?
Where do deals stall, and what objections arise at each stage?
What finally tips the decision towards one vendor?

How we do it

We interview recent buyers — won, lost and those who chose to do nothing — across each role in the buying committee, then build a stage-by-stage journey showing triggers, information sources, objections and decision criteria.

Recent-buyer interviews by role
Win/loss interviews
Sales and partner interviews
Journey mapping workshop

What you receive

— Buyer journey map by stage
— Buying-committee role cards
— Objection library
— Sales and marketing enablement recommendations

Decision it enables

How to align marketing content, sales process and proof points to the way buyers actually decide.

Related capability: B2B Research

Customer journey & onboarding experience

“Customers sign up but take too long to see value; some never fully adopt.”

Questions we answer

What does a customer need to experience to reach first value?
Where in onboarding and adoption do customers get stuck or lose momentum?
Which moments create advocates, and which create detractors?
How does the experience differ for admins, end users and executives?

How we do it

We map the post-sale journey from contract to renewal through customer interviews and diary-style follow-ups, overlaying product-usage milestones where available, and identify the moments of truth that drive adoption.

Customer IDIs
Onboarding diary studies
Customer success team interviews
Journey mapping
NPS / CSAT with driver analysis

What you receive

— End-to-end customer journey map
— Moments-of-truth analysis
— Time-to-value barriers
— Prioritised experience improvements

Decision it enables

Which onboarding and success interventions will most improve adoption and renewal.

Pricing, packaging & willingness to pay

“We priced by looking at competitors. We don’t know if we’re leaving money on the table or losing deals on price.”

Questions we answer

What value metric aligns best with how customers perceive value?
What are customers willing to pay, by segment and package?
Which features belong in which tier, and which should be add-ons?
How do our prices compare with alternatives buyers actually consider?

How we do it

Qualitative interviews uncover value drivers and acceptable value metrics; quantitative techniques such as Van Westendorp, Gabor-Granger or conjoint estimate willingness to pay and test package structures.

Value-driver interviews
Van Westendorp / Gabor-Granger
Conjoint or MaxDiff for packaging
Competitive price benchmarking

What you receive

— Willingness-to-pay curves by segment
— Recommended value metric
— Tier and add-on structure
— Pricing change risk assessment

Decision it enables

How to price and package to grow revenue without harming win rates or retention.

Related capability: Pricing Research

Churn, retention & win/loss analysis

“We’re losing customers and deals, and the CRM reason codes don’t tell us why.”

Questions we answer

What are the real reasons customers leave or downgrade?
Why do we win and lose against specific competitors?
Which early warning signs predict churn?
What would have changed the outcome?

How we do it

Independent, third-party interviews with churned customers and recent wins and losses — people speak more candidly to a neutral researcher — synthesised into root causes and fixable actions.

Churned-customer interviews
Win/loss interviews
Competitive switching analysis
Root-cause synthesis

What you receive

— Churn root-cause report
— Win/loss insights by competitor
— Early-warning indicators
— Action plan for product, sales and success

Decision it enables

Which product, sales and customer-success changes will reduce churn and lift win rates.

TAM/SAM/SOM & ideal customer profile

“Investors keep asking for our TAM and we need a number we can defend — and that guides where sales should focus.”

Questions we answer

How large is the serviceable market by segment, region and company size?
Which firmographic and technographic attributes define our best customers?
How many target accounts exist, and where are they?
How fast is the category growing, and what drives growth?

How we do it

Bottom-up sizing built from account counts, adoption and pricing, triangulated with top-down data and validated with experts — linked directly to an ICP and target-account universe your sales team can use.

Bottom-up account modelling
Top-down triangulation
Expert interviews
Firmographic / technographic analysis

What you receive

— Transparent TAM/SAM/SOM model
— ICP definition
— Target-account universe sizing
— Investor-ready market narrative

Decision it enables

Where the revenue opportunity is — and which accounts sales and marketing should prioritise.

Related capability: Market Research

New market entry & go-to-market

“We’re successful in our home market and want to expand to the US, India, the Middle East or a new vertical. Where and how?”

Questions we answer

Which markets or verticals offer the best combination of demand and accessibility?
What do local buyers expect — integrations, compliance, references, pricing?
Who are the local competitors and how strong are they?
Should we go direct, partner-led or through marketplaces?

How we do it

A market screen narrows options; in-market buyer, partner and expert interviews test the realities; we then design entry mode, positioning, pricing and a phased GTM plan.

Market attractiveness screening
Local buyer interviews
Partner / SI / reseller interviews
Competitive benchmarking
GTM workshop

What you receive

— Market prioritisation
— Local buyer requirements
— Entry-mode and partner recommendation
— Phased GTM roadmap

Decision it enables

Whether, where and how to expand — and what to invest in first.

Related capability: Market Entry & GTM

Who we research

The people behind the decisions

Technology buyers

CIOs, CTOs, CISOs
IT and infrastructure heads
Enterprise architects

Business buyers

Functional leaders (sales, marketing, HR, finance, operations)
Procurement and vendor management
Founders and CEOs of SMBs

Users

Admins and power users
Developers and data teams
Everyday end users

Ecosystem

System integrators and consultants
Resellers and marketplaces
Industry analysts and former executives

What we measure

Evidence, not opinion

Product-market fit score by segment
Pain-point importance vs satisfaction
Willingness to pay and price sensitivity
Purchase criteria by buying role
Win/loss and switching drivers
NPS / CSAT and their drivers
Time-to-value barriers
Brand awareness and consideration among target buyers

Typical engagements

What working with us looks like

Representative scenarios that show how we scope work in this sector. They are example scopes, not client case studies.

Pre-Series B PMF and ICP sprint

Situation: A SaaS company with early traction needs to show where product-market fit is strongest before a funding round.
Approach: JTBD interviews with customers and lost prospects, a PMF survey and segment analysis.
Output: PMF by segment, ICP, and a focused growth narrative.

Pricing & packaging redesign

Situation: A platform is moving from seat-based to usage-based pricing and fears revenue and churn risk.
Approach: Value-metric interviews, willingness-to-pay research and package testing.
Output: Recommended value metric, tiers, price points and a migration plan.

US expansion for an Indian SaaS company

Situation: Inbound US interest, but no clarity on segment, competition or entry model.
Approach: Market screen, US buyer and partner interviews, competitive benchmarking.
Output: Entry segment, partner strategy, pricing and a 12-month GTM plan.

Relevant capabilities

Capabilities we bring to Technology & SaaS

Customer & Consumer InsightsUnderstand needs, behaviours, perceptions and the journey to purchase.B2B ResearchReach decision-makers, specialists and channel partners that are hard to access.Market ResearchSize markets, map demand and understand the forces shaping your category.Competitive IntelligenceKnow how competitors compete, where they are heading and how to respond.Market Entry & GTMDecide where to play, how to enter and how to win in new markets.Pricing ResearchWillingness to pay, packaging and price positioning grounded in buyer evidence.

Case studies

10 Technology & SaaS engagements

How we approach the commercial questions this sector asks most often.

View all 10 →

Technology & SaaS

Technology Market Entry Assessment

Evaluating whether and how a software company should enter a new international market, including segment, channel and pricing choices.

Example engagementRead case

Technology & SaaS

Product-Market Fit Diagnostic for an HR-Tech SaaS Platform

Identifying which customer segments experience genuine product-market fit — and which do not — before scaling sales and marketing spend.

Example engagementRead case

Technology & SaaS

Pain-Point Discovery to Reset a Developer-Tools Roadmap

Replacing a feature-request-driven roadmap with a prioritised map of the problems developers and engineering managers most want solved.

Example engagementRead case

Technology & SaaS

Mapping the Buying Committee for a Cybersecurity Platform

Understanding why deals stalled between technical evaluation and purchase by mapping every role in the buying committee.

Example engagementRead case

Technology & SaaS

Customer Onboarding and Time-to-Value Study for a Finance SaaS Product

Mapping the post-sale journey to understand why customers took too long to reach first value — and which interventions would accelerate adoption.

Example engagementRead case

Technology & SaaS

Moving from Seat-Based to Usage-Based Pricing

Testing whether a usage-based model would be accepted by customers, and designing tiers that protect revenue and win rates.

Example engagementRead case

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

How do you measure product-market fit?

We combine qualitative and quantitative evidence. Interviews with active, churned and never-converted users reveal how essential the product is and for which jobs. A short survey asking how users would feel if they could no longer use the product gives a comparable indicator, analysed by segment. Usage and retention data, where shared, are used to triangulate.

What is customer journey mapping in B2B SaaS?

It is a structured view of every stage a customer goes through — from recognising a need and evaluating vendors, through onboarding and adoption, to renewal and expansion — showing what each stakeholder does, thinks and feels, and where friction or delight occurs. It is built from interviews with real buyers and users rather than internal assumptions.

Why use an independent firm for win/loss and churn interviews?

Customers and lost prospects tend to be more candid with a neutral third party than with the vendor’s own sales or success team. Independent interviews also apply a consistent structure, so findings can be compared across deals and over time.

Which pricing research method is right for SaaS?

It depends on the decision. Van Westendorp and Gabor-Granger give a quick view of acceptable price ranges; conjoint analysis is better when testing packages and feature trade-offs; qualitative value-driver interviews should come first to identify the right value metric.

Start a conversation

Facing a Technology & SaaS decision? Let’s find the evidence.

Tell us about the decision you are facing. We will come back with a clear view of how research can help — and what it would take.

Discuss Your Market