Intuit QuickBooks Connect: Where Small Business Is Big Business

Posted on October 29, 2014 by lauriemccabe

This is part one of a two-part blog series discussing Intuit’s strategy to help SMBs better capitalize on technology. This first post provides perspectives from Intuit’s 2014 QuickBooks Connect event. The second post, Intuit’s Strategy to Bring Game Changing Technologies to SMBs, provides a detailed glimpse into Intuit’s approach in the SMB market.

QBconnectLast week, Intuit held its inaugural QuickBooks (QB) Connect event in San Jose. The 4,000-plus attendees included accountants, developers, small businesses, press, influencers and analysts. The agenda included a good mix of updates, announcement and inspiration from an all-star line-up of speakers. Below are my top takeaways from each of these areas.

Turning the Cloud Corner

While newer competitors, such as Xero, have made a lot of noise, they haven’t had much of an impact on the market. Instead, Intuit’s Small Business Group continues on its growth trajectory, especially in the cloud. QuickBooks Online’s U.S. subscribers grew 32% in 2014. QuickBooks is no longer just a U.S. solution, however. Intuit now sells QuickBooks in 124 countries, and has translated the solution into 12 languages. As of September 2014, the company has 705,000 paid subscribers for QuickBooks Online, and a total of 32 million customers worldwide.

cloudIntuit has clearly turned the cloud corner. In 2009, just 5% of new users were online, now the majority opt for QuickBooks Online over packaged QuickBooks products. In addition, 80% of QuickBooks Online customers are new to the Intuit universe, indicating the cloud version is doing a good job of pulling in net-new customers. The event signaled that Intuit will be doing more thought leadership as well, as evidenced by offering entrepreneurs one-on-one speed mentoring by Lean Startup Productions at the event.

Intuit’s QuickBooks Online development platform is also growing. Developer booths were in the spotlight at the event, and hundreds took Intuit’s Hackathon (link() challenge for a shot at winning a chunk of the $100,000 pot. Method:CRM took home the $55,000 grand prize for its Method:Donor app. Payments Cloud by Cloud Conversion, Safety Net by Jobber, and Service Titan won the $15,000 runner-up prizes.

Finally, Intuit’s Accountant Partner Network has always been essential to the vendor’s small business success. Throughout the event, Intuit speakers discussed “the power of we,” and ways in which the company is enhancing Intuit’s QB Accountant Edition to reduce the amount of time accountants need to spend on low-value data entry chores and increase the time they spend providing their customers with strategic business advice (some of which I note below).

Of course, the combination of a healthy pipeline of new QuickBooks Online customers plus a vibrant developer and accountant ecosystem bode well for continued growth.

Sometimes Less Is More 


As Intuit CEO Brad Smith noted, Intuit is not focusing on creating more and more features for fewer and fewer small businesses. Instead, the company is looking for ways to make things easier for small businesses. According to Dan Wernikoff, senior VP and general manager of Intuit’s Small Business Group said, Intuit’s goal is to “make accounting completely invisible to small business owners.”

To that end, Intuit is plowing much of its R&D budget (which is about 16% to 17% of its revenues) into making its products simpler for small businesses, accountants and developers to use. Key announcements unveiled at the event included something for everyone:

Small businesses:

  • A full-service payroll solution, that handles payroll tax complexities
  • Automatic synching for bank and credit card transactions in QuickBooks Online
  • Easier ways to create reports, such as P&L and balance sheets in QuickBooks Online
  • Ability to accept credit card payments in QuickBooks Online in under a minute
  • A new payments offering that enables invoicing, accepting payments and updating books
  • A new QuickBooks Self-Employed solution to help freelancers, contractors and home-based business to separate personal and business finances

Accountants: 

The big news here was the new QuickBooks Online Accountant edition, which gives accountants the ability to work on their clients’ books anywhere, anytime and provides:

  • Customizable dashboards that provides snapshots of action items and deliverables.
  • Toolbox for one-click access to any client, from anywhere within QuickBooks Online.
  • Books-to-tax integration, so users can automatically push bookkeeping data to Intuit Tax Online.
  • Integration with Box, to give accountants a better, easier way to share content and collaborate with their clients.

Developers:

Intuit is striving to create a “drop dead simple environment” for developers to build and sell their apps. To that end, Intuit introduced:

  • New developer experience, featuring seamless cloud integration, new SDKs, and simpler documentation to make it easier to call on QuickBooks Online APIs.
  • New payments API to allow deep integrations with QuickBooks Online.
  • New Apps.com marketplace to enable developers to reach more QuickBooks customers with their solutions. Over 400 apps are already integrated with QuickBooks Online and available on Apps.com.

Inspiration On Tap

qbconnect speakersUnbelievably (this from someone who attends many events and co-manages a small business!) all the speakers featured at QuickBooks Connect were inspiring and informative. The speaker line-up was very diverse, but one commonality is that all are successful entrepreneurs. You can watch them on demand at www.qbconnectlive.com. Pearls of wisdom were flowing like water, but here are some of my favorites, which I hope will inspire you too! 

  • Arianna Huffington, chair, president and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post: Stop wearing “busy” like a badge of honor! It’s not! Success is more than the metrics of money and power. We need health and well-being to be truly successful and happy.
  • Debbie Blox, CEO of Goldieblox, and winner of Intuit’s 2014 Super Bowl ad contest: You need to put yourself out there, and ask for what you need, because it takes a village to create a successful, sustainable small business! Be specific about what you want, and get advisors.
  • Tristan Walker, CEO of Bevel: You don’t get what you don’t ask for, and trials are really blessings in disguise.
  • Martha Stewart, founder and Chief Creative Officer of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, reminded us that we need to work really hard to be successful but must be compensated fairly for our hard work, and that once you’re through changing–you’re through!
  • Clif Bar CEO Kevin Cleary: Find people who share your passion and empower them to break things. The future of business is to upend the unacceptable.
  • Marc Andreessen, cofounder and partner of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz: There’s a pivot happening with web, cloud and mobile enabling small businesses to use tech more aggressively.
  • Earvin “Magic” Johnson, chairman and CEO of Magic Johnson Enterprises and NBA legend: Have the courage to say I don’t know everything and to get help! Also, know your customer, serve them well they’ll keep coming back
  • Scott Cook, Intuit Founder and Chairman of the Executive Committee: Every one of Intuit’s successful businesses takes off via word of mouth.
  • Brad Smith, CEO of Intuit: We strive to be the operating system behind small business success.

Perspective

Intuit may have been born in the era of green screens and DOS, but it is now all in with solutions for today’s cloud, mobile, social and analytics technologies. However, one thing that hasn’t changed at Intuit is its commitment to helping small businesses thrive. This combination of strengths bodes well for fueling the next era of innovation for Intuit and for small businesses.

Disclosure: Intuit paid for most of my travel expenses to attend QuickBooks Connect.

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Big Data for the Little Guy

Posted on November 18, 2013 by lauriemccabe

Originally published on November, 2013 on QBSBDC.com as the third of four blog posts in a series designed to help small businesses, and those that serve them, be successful.

Big data is a big buzzword–and for a good reason. We’ve already created 2.5 quintillion bytes of data – 90% in the last two years. 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. 160 million emails are sent every 60 seconds and 58 million tweets are sent each day.

Stock Market Background

Of course, most small businesses don’t need to understand and manage these boggling amounts of data. But small businesses do need to effectively find, measure and take action on the data that is important for running their businesses.

In other words, the “big” in Big Data is relative. If you’re having problems finding the data you need, when you need it, you have a big data problem! Lack of vision into what’s going on in the business can lead to missed opportunities and the inability to spot problems.

In the 2012 SMB Routes to Market Study, the SMB Group found small business use of analytics is low, but early adopters gain big advantages. Key benefits cited in the study were better answers to critical business questions, deeper understanding of customers and market trends, and the ability to identify and capitalize on opportunities while avoiding risk, just to name a few.

“I am always looking to improve my business based on what is going on in the industry, and the Trends feature in QuickBooks Online helps me do that,” said Michael Brewington, president of Arion Systems, Inc. “I can get a better understanding of my accounts receivables and payables versus other companies. That makes my business more competitive.”

analytics stat from smb group

Top Tips for Getting Smart About Your Data

What options exist for small business owners who want big business analytics capabilities? The SMB Group recommends small business owners ask themselves three questions before getting started:

  1. What information do you need to understand and measure?
  2. Where is the data and how much do you need to analyze?
  3. Who needs to use the data?

In addition to understanding what needs to be measured, small businesses should assess capabilities required to make data actionable for users. For example, do you require a solution with an easy to use interface or customized reporting? Starting with a focus on making data actionable will help ensure you maximize effectiveness once the solution is in place.

Something Old, Something New

There’s a chance your current solutions already include some form of analytics. Look into how well these tools support your needs, and integrate new analytics solutions to add more horsepower.

For example, the Trends tool included with Intuit’s QuickBooks Online product displays average sales growth, cash flow, income and expenses of small businesses within a specific industry or location to allow small business owners to compare themselves to similar businesses and make informed decisions. Trends figures are compiled from anonymized data submitted by 1.3 million QuickBooks users.

“I’ve been using the Trends feature in QuickBooks Online to see how my Oracle PeopleSoft consulting firm’s expenses compare to others in the industry,” Mr. Brewington said. “I can easily recognize if I need to continue to increase my profit margins and reduce costs to stay competitive. Trends makes it easy to stay aware of what is going on in the industry.”

Once you identify your analytics needs and any gaps in coverage, you can determine if you can implement a do-it-yourself analytics program or whether you need external resources to get the reporting you need.

Blog written by Laurie McCabe, who brings more than 20 years of experience in the IT industry to her role as co-founder and partner at SMB Group. Laurie has built widespread recognition for her capabilities and insights in the small and medium business (SMB) market in several areas, including cloud computing, mobile solutions, business solutions, social networking and collaboration, and managed services.

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Social Media 101: A Guide for Small Businesses

Posted on October 8, 2013 by lauriemccabe
Originally published on October 1, 2013 on QBSBDC.com as the second of four blog posts in a series designed to help small businesses, and those that serve them, be successful.

Nearly 80% of active U.S. internet users visit social networks and blogs, according to the SMB Group’s 2012 SMB Social Business Study. This explains why social media marketing is commonplace and effective for most large companies.  At the same time, only 28% of small businesses using social tools identify themselves as applying social in a ‘planned, strategic way.’

Small businesses that use social media in a strategic way are more likely to be satisfied with results than those using it in an ad hoc way. Social media can give a small business the boost it needs to advance to the next level. In fact, 42% of small businesses using social media reported an increase in leads or traffic to their website.

What does it mean to be a strategic user of social media? Here are five best practices worth exploring: 

Step 1: Scope out the competition

Spend a little time on the most popular social media networks and check out how your competitors use those sites. Where do they post? What do they write about? How often do they post? Next, set up your own accounts and start experimenting.

Step 2: Explore customers’ use of social media

Discover how often your customers visit social media sites, what information and experiences they seek, what tools they prefer and what kinds of information they share. 

Step 3: Research what people are saying about you

As you become more familiar with social media, look at how people engage with your company online, including positioning, credibility and following on social networks.

Step 4: Ramp up gradually

Start slowly and then maintain a steady pace. If you begin by posting frequently and then peter out to nothing, your fans could lose interest.  

Step 5: Have a game plan and chart progress

Create a series of posts to cover at least three months of social media activity. Think in terms of upcoming holidays, seasonality, your own promotional calendar, and other time-linked events. This will help keep the content fresh and relevant to your audience.

Of course, you should update your scheduled posts if there is a newsworthy event, showing you are in tune with what is going on. Always respond promptly to social media messages about your business to demonstrate that you are listening to customers and engaged.

 

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Save Time by Streamlining Business Applications with Integration

Posted on January 2, 2013 by lauriemccabe

Originally published on December 17, 2013 on QBSBDC.com as the last of four blog posts in a series designed to help small businesses, and those that serve them, be successful.

men with puzzle piecesAt one point or another, most small business owners have had to work with applications that don’t talk to each other. It might be a payroll system that doesn’t integrate with financial accounting or a payments acceptance tool that doesn’t sync with inventory management. The experience leaves beleaguered small business owners thinking, “there has got to be a better way.”

Research from Scribe Software found that although 75% of SMBs say integration is important, integration among business applications has been low. Using disparate applications drains productivity, wastes time and leads to errors and poor decision-making. But what is a small business owner to do?

Fortunately, technology vendors of all stripes are emphasizing the importance of a unified, reliable data store as the foundation for solid analytics and reporting. This includes offering pre-integrated solutions, creating marketplaces to make it easier to find integrated partner apps and opening up their application programming interfaces (APIs).

Intuit is one such vendor. The company recently launched Apps.com, an app store where small businesses can find apps that work with QuickBooks. It made its QuickBooks Online API free to encourage more third-party developers to create applications that integrate with QuickBooks.

Intuit also announced the first of many new partnerships designed to enhance the capabilities of the QuickBooks platform. The first was with mobile payments company Square to feed transaction data into QuickBooks. The second deal was with American Express Open where small businesses using the Open cards can have data from receipts integrated into QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online accounts.

In the coming year, we expect integration will be a higher priority even among small businesses. After all, it doesn’t take too many disconnected applications to feel the pain of productivity drains, errors, and a lack of solid data to support decision-making. Integration still isn’t sexy, but the improved productivity, time savings, error reduction and decision-making benefits that it enables are.

Laurie McCabe brings more than 20 years of experience in the IT industry to her role as co-founder and partner at SMB Group. Laurie has built widespread recognition for her capabilities and insights in the small and medium business (SMB) market in several areas, including cloud computing, mobile solutions, business solutions, social networking and collaboration, and managed services.

Follow Laurie on Twitter at @LaurieMcCabe and @SMBGroup.

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Tech Tidbits for SMBs: Xactly Express Integration with Intuit QuickBooks

Posted on July 12, 2012 by lauriemccabe

If you’re one of the four million small and medium businesses (SMBs) that uses Intuit QuickBooks and are wrestling with a clunky sales compensation process, I’m serving up this next tech tidbit for you.

Last week, I was briefed on Xactly’s new Express integration with QuickBooks. This sparked my interest because SMB Group survey respondents always cite “attracting new customers” and “growing revenues” among their top three business challenges in almost every study the SMB Group conducts. But, it can be very difficult for small and medium businesses (SMBs) to execute well in this area. Sales and finance are typically coming at this from different vantage points, and its unlikely that the SMB has a dedicated sales comp expert–or the time and money to set up an enterprise-grade comp system.

So, if you’re like the vast majority of SMBs, you probably manage compensation with a concoction of Excel spreadsheets, emails, paper documents and manual processing. Besides giving everyone a headache, it can de-motivate sales people or head them in a direction that doesn’t sync well with your company’s goals.

Xactly (which also has an enterprise solution, Xactly Incent), introduced Xactly Express in 2010 to give companies with fewer than 100 sales reps–and without dedicated sales compensation staff–a cloud-based, self-service solution to “Incent right = pay commissions accurately, on time, reward behavior.” Xactly built Express on Salesforce.com’s Force.com platform, but as it grew the business, Xactly realized that a good 35% to 45% of its Express customers were also Intuit QuickBooks users. For them, QuickBooks is often the primary system of record. So Xactly decided to create new out-of-the-box connectors between Express and QuickBooks. The solution, which was introduced this week, will be available from the Intuit App Center later this summer.

This built-in integration provides an automated data feed from QuickBooks to Xactly Express, as well as single sign-on. Users can access Xactly through their QuickBooks logon to plan and manage sales commissions, bonuses and SPIFFs. Likewise, when you enter a transaction into QuickBooks, commissions automatically get calculated and credited to the right members of your sales team. If you’re doing business outside of the U.S. Xactly’s solutions support over 150 currencies and it provides customer support worldwide, 24/7. Currently, however, English is the only language that Xactly officially supports.

On the sales side, reps and managers can track their performance real-time on Express dashboards via the Web or with a mobile device. They can see where they are in terms of quota or what their commission will be when they’re working on a quote, or figure out which deals will deliver the best commission returns.

Xactly provides a library of customizable sales compensation templates (prospector, hunter, farmer, specialist and captain) to help small businesses get started.  Xactly says that it takes about 6 to 10 hours to get up and running with the integrated Express and QuickBooks solution. Most of this time goes to verify that the data is feeding correctly between the two programs.

According to Xactly, even very small businesses can get value from the solution. Some of its 200 current customers start out with only one sales rep, but have plans to grow their sales teams, and want to get things automated from the get-go.

Pricing for Express is $30 per user/ month, and there is a onetime set up fee that ranges from $1500 to 5000, depending on the complexity of the implementation and set-up–perhaps a bit pricey for the lower end of the SMB market.But Xactly does offer a free 30-day trial so you can see if it will give you what you’re looking for.

The net-net is that if sales compensation is giving you a headache, Xactly Express and its new QuickBooks integration can provide  relief–with the added bonus of helping align and empower your sales team to meet the ever-present challenge of growing your business.

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Making Small Business a Bigger Business: Intuit’s Acquisition of Demandforce

Posted on May 8, 2012 by lauriemccabe

Intuit announced last week that it was acquiring Demandforce, which provides an integrated suite of Web-based social media and marketing tools for small businesses, for $423.5 million in cash. Demandforce automates many of the internet and social media marketing tasks that small businesses increasingly need to do, giving Intuit a proven front office play: Demandforce already has about 15,000 customers, books about $50 million annually in revenue, and is growing at about 80% annually.

This is Intuit’s second biggest acquisition (Digital Insight, which Intuit acquired in 2006, was the largest). What makes Demandforce so attractive to Intuit? Let’s count the ways!

1. Broaden Intuit’s Front-Office Presence

Intuit has a very strong footprint in small business “back-office” applications, such as accounting, payroll and payments solutions. As important as these solutions are to running a businesses, they do little to address small companies’ top challenges–which according to SMB Group studies, are to  attract new customers and grow revenue.

Intuit has made some acquisitions over the past few years to provide customer-facing application to small businesses. The most notable is Homestead, which helps small businesses build web sites and create an online presence.

Demandforce builds on this acquisition, and can help Intuit capitalize on the broader shift to digital marketing that’s being fueled to a large degree by the adoption of social media and mobile solutions. Now, Intuit can provide it’s five million QuickBooks desktop users, and over 400,000 QuickBooks Online customers with Demandforce, which is designed to help services-based businesses grow revenue, retain clients and strengthen their online reputation. Demandforce has already done the integration with QuickBooks and now they can mine the Intuit installed base for service businesses that would benefit most from Demandforce.

And, at roughly $300 per company per month, Demandforce figures to be one of Intuit’s most profitable offerings over time.

2. Gain Industry Solutions and Go-to-Market Expertise

Demandforce’s customers span the true small business service universe–veterinary, pet services, dental care, automotive repair, medical spas, salons, chiropractors, and fitness centers, to name a few.  (The company recently added a solution tailored for accountants–which should turn into a doubly nice move as about 250,000 accountants use QuickBooks).

Demandforce gives these small businesses affordable, easy to use tools similar to those that large enterprises use–and tailored to their industry-specific needs. It’s model is to select an industry, study it, and identify the top industry solutions in that area, such as Henry Schein for dental. Then Demandforce engineering does the integration work, and looks for partners that sell into the relevant industry. The vendor markets through industry trade shows and conventions, and closes sales through telesales and partner feet on the street.

Many vendors say they’re going to target small business vertical markets. But I’m hard-pressed to think of another vendor that has done this type of holistic, industry-by-industry block and tackling. This has paid off for Demandforce, and should reap even bigger rewards with the added muscle and money of Intuit behind it.

3. Flying Higher Into the Cloud

Intuit has been steadily progressing from being a traditional desktop company to an online cloud services provider. This is also where small businesses are moving, as shown in Figure X. The Demandforce acquisition adds to Intuit’s cloud credentials in the very hot marketing automation area.

Figure 1: Small Business Purchase and Plans for Cloud-based Solutions

4. Serving Up SoLoMo to Main Street Businesses

Three big tech trends are reshaping businesses today: social, mobile and local. Demandforce hits all three of these bases for Intuit. On the social front, It brings together many of the social media tools into a unified service, making social media more manageable for small business to manage their interactions across social networks. In terms of mobile, Demandforce makes it easy for small businesses to engage with their customers using mobile devices. So for instance, your salon can send you a text message to remind you about your next appointment, Finally, there’s the local element. With Demandforce, small businesses can invite and collect user reviews and feedback, building up their local reputation. To date, Demandforce has helped its small business customers gather about 1.5 million reviews, which can also be syndicated out to Google, Yelp and other review sites.

Adding it Up

As I discussed in an earlier post, Intuit: From Products to Services, Applications to Platform, Intuit has already made great strides in transforming from a products to a services company. Demandforce gives Intuit the fuel it needs to more fully tap into small businesses’ hunger for solutions that can help them grow their businesses–and in doing so, accelerate its own transformation.

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Intuit: From Products to Services, Applications to Platform

Posted on April 2, 2012 by lauriemccabe

Last week I had the opportunity to attend Intuit’s Innovation Gallery Walk in NYC. Intuit uses the Gallery Walk to showcase new solutions that it is bringing to market as well as ones that are still in R&D.

This year’s Gallery Walk featured simulated storefronts and back offices to help demonstrate how Intuit’s solutions work for consumers and small businesses in the “real world.” It also provided some great insight into Intuit’s strategic direction in the areas of services and partner programs.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to visit every demo at this interesting event! But here are my thoughts on a couple of things I was able to see and learn about–and how they are underscore Intuit’s ongoing transformation from a products to a services company, and from an application vendor to a platform provider.

From Products to Services

My first stop was to see Intuit’s new 401k Plan and Intuit Health Debit Cards. These two services have been in soft-launch mode for the past year or so. Each zeros in on a big pain point for small businesses with 2 to 10 employees–how do I provide benefits for my workers?

The average U.S. worker has less than $10,000 in savings–putting both individuals and the U.S. economy in potentially dire straits. Although small businesses may want to offer 401k plans for their workers, many simply don’t have the time, money or resources to research, set up and administer a 401K for their employees. Intuit’s 401k plan is priced at $75 a month (which is tax-deductible) for businesses and $3 per quarter for employees. The plan gives small businesses a simple, affordable way to offer 401ks to employees. It integrates with Intuit’s Online Payroll solution–and will integrate with QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online soon. I was told that tens of thousands of small businesses have already signed up for this plan.

Given ever-rising healthcare and health insurance costs and all the politics surrounding these issues, Intuit’s Health Debit Card is arguably tackling an even more daunting challenge. Many small businesses simply can’t afford to provide their employees with traditional health insurance plans. Using this program gives, small business employers can set aside pretax dollars in Health Reimbursement Account accounts for their employees. Employees can draw on these funds with a debit card to cover medical costs–doctor visits, prescriptions, glasses, etc. About 1,000 small businesses are currently using this service.

These programs can provide small businesses with options to do more for their employees, helping them to attract and retain the kinds of employees they’ll need to help their businesses grow.

In addition to a broader market launch, more integration to other Intuit solutions, new functionality and options, Intuit is also examining how it might take on a bigger change-agent role in these areas. For instance, the vendor is testing an employee-funded Health Savings Account (HSA) offering, and starting to explore options to offer pooled health insurance small businesses.

These are just two of the areas that highlight how Intuit is transforming into a services vendor in the small business market.

From Applications to Platform

The other area in which I gained a lot of insight into is the ongoing growth of Intuit’s App Center and Intuit Partner platform. I’ve been following this since it launched, and blogged about it in these earlier posts (Intuit Partner Platform: Changing the Rules of Cloud Platforms with Federated Applications and Intuit and Salesforce Partner Up: Who’s the Big Winner?).

Basically, Intuit App Center and Partner Platform help small businesses extend the power of QuickBooks through third-party solutions. At the event, Intuit took the wraps off Intuit Anywhere, which gives developers the ability to reach millions of QuickBooks customers and build data integration directly into their mobile and Web apps. This gives developers the ability to connect their users directly to QuickBooks via a button on their page as easily as connecting to Facebook.

Over the last couple of years, Intuit’s App Center has really taken shape. Over 250 applications are now in the App Center, from big name providers such as Salesforce.com and eBay to a wide range of smaller vendors, including some that might be categorized as Intuit competitors, such as FreshBooks. Through the Intuit Partner Platform, developers get a sales channel, platform services, and a direct route to Intuit’s large installed base.

Data is at the heart of this ecosystem. This means that developer partners not only get access to the two million registered App Center users– they also get a more seamless way to get discovered by potential users. For instance, QuickBooks customers that process a certain number of invoices each month are automatically introduced to partner Bill.com’s billing app. This type of in-context discovery coupled is helping Intuit’s partners convert trials into purchases at a considerably higher rate than standalone free trials.

By connecting more partners and customers into this platform and to each other, Intuit reaps the benefits of the network effect.

Quick Take

As Intuit’s CEO Brad Smith noted in his remarks at the event, Intuit’s mission is to “improve the financial lives of people.” As Smith also remarked, Intuit’s approach to solving for this is to “Get managers out of the way and let people work their magic.”

Judging from the Innovation Gallery Walk, Intuit’s 8,000 employees are working their magic to help Intuit execute on its mission–transforming from a products to a services company, and from an application vendor to a platform provider in the process.


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