What Is Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM)? 

Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) represents a segment of the Serviceable Available Market (SAM) that a company can capture. The SOM can be defined as potential customers and revenue that a company can target within a specific period of time by considering the company’s strategies, resources, geographical spread, pricing competition, sales capacity, and existing business.

Basically, SOM gives the answer to a very relevant question: what share of the market can actually be won?

How Does SOM Fit Into TAM and SAM?

SOM is typically considered alongside Total Addressable Market (TAM) and Serviceable Available Market (SAM):

• TAM: The total potential demand for a product or service if the business could serve the entire market.

• SAM: The portion of TAM that matches the company’s product, target customers, business model, and geographic reach.

• SOM: The realistic portion of SAM that the company expects to capture.

For example, a software firm considers all enterprises around the world as potential customers of the product in question – that would be the definition of its TAM. Though, if it has developed a program that only targets small companies located within the USA, the group that it can serve would correspond to its SAM. If, in fact, the firm has no means to expand either geographically or otherwise, besides a limited budget and an inadequate sales team, the real customers it is capable of getting would be its SOM.

How Is SOM Determined?

Businesses can estimate SOM by considering:

• Target customers: Which customers are most likely to purchase the offering?
• Geographic reach: Which markets can the company realistically serve?
• Competition: How much market share is already controlled by competitors?
• Sales capacity: How many customers can the business acquire and support?
• Pricing and revenue: What revenue can realistically be generated from the target customer base?

A realistic SOM helps businesses set achievable revenue targets, plan resources, evaluate growth opportunities, and communicate market potential to investors.

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