Intuit is the world's largest maker of financial management and tax software. Intuit is best known for the household software brands Quicken, QuickBooks and TurboTax created for small businesses, consumers and accountants. The company's mission is to "create new ways to manage personal finances for small businesses that are so profound and simple, customers cannot imagine going back to the old way," driven by "Right for My Business" strategy.
"Inside Intuit" authors Suzanne Taylor and Kathy Schroeder elaborate on how Intuit created Innovations in the Software Industry, warded off Microsoft, and achieved sustaining market leadership.
Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world
Here are the top five Innovations that Intuit created to achieve software market leadership:
1. Customer Evangelist Culture
Intuit ensured that the new hires understood the company's Holy Grail: A Happy Customer. Customer focus, wherein Intuit makes a difference in the customers' lives, is the everyday Mantra practiced by everyone at Intuit. Practices such as interviewing and hiring the right employees who believe in customer first, postage-paid "Customer suggestions" included with every copy of software (and follow through on the suggestions), answering service and technical support calls for at least four hours each month, "Follow Me Home" research wherein marketing and engineering staff literally follow a customer home and watch them install and use the software, database to track continuous customer feedback, customer advisory panel consisting of loyal customers providing feedback on new products, features and quality, and focus groups to conduct market research on how customers buy and use software (to manage money and finances).
These are just few of the Innovative mechanisms that Intuit installed to create an Industry first Customer Evangelist Culture that resulted in tremendous customer loyalty and market share growth.
2. Customer-Intuitive Design
By talking directly to prospective and ultimately current customers, Intuit founders and product managers built a deep understanding of exactly what the customer needs and pain points were. This led to defining software products to solve these fundamental customer needs. Whereas most software makers before Intuit were focused on creating "complex" software with an elaborate set of features that customers hardly ever used (and were confused), Intuit created new innovations in software design by creating software that a customer really cared for, and can benefit from on an everyday basis. Intuit engineers and product managers will go at lengths to understand the customer's mindset - from buying, to installing to using software, and becoming a loyal customer.
3. Customer-driven Marketing and Product Management
Most of the Software Industry before Intuit saw Marketing's role as marketing communications and brand marketing. However, Intuit realized early on that the marketing department must contribute as the company develops new products. And the role of Product managers was born wherein the Product Managers act as product business managers, oversaw income statements and all aspects of building the business. According to Scott Cook, the co-founder of Intuit, product managers must act as "champions of their products, embodying the voice of the customer not just for product development and marketing communications, but also for technical support, and overseeing the critical feedback loop between technical support and product development." Marketing also assisted the "Product Launch", wherein besides managing advertising, public relations and upgrade mailings, Marketing also created internal launch readiness, trained technical support and customer service, and created financial forecasts for the sales volumes for operations and planning.
4. Direct Marketing and Retailing
Although other software makers had tried direct marketing before, Intuit placed a big bet in their early days and want all out on their Direct Marketing campaign: "End Financial Hassles. $49.95" The Direct Marketing campaign targeted ads in three major magazines, slashed the price of Quicken in half, provided no copy protection, and was tied to wholesale distribution - all firsts for a software company. This resulted in huge sales and sustained the growth of Intuit. Intuit introduced "National Sales Tour" wherein employees visit the retailers and retailers' customers. This mitigated channel conflicts, brought employees closer to retailers and the customers, and created greater awareness of customer's buying habits - or as Cook put it, an all important "sense of the merchant." Intuit would expand Direct Marketing into Radio and then Television, and managed its two-pronged sales strategy of retail distribution and direct to expand the market share and leadership.
5. The Process driving Innovation
Intuit that went through several ups and downs from late nineties through early 2000, eventually began focusing on the "process and culture together to drive results" under the leadership of new CEO Steve Bennett (who came from GE). According to Bennett, "Bringing some of the big company process to small company customer innovation is our biggest challenge. Innovation isn't just about ideas, because ideas without operational rigor just fall apart." Bennett established rigor throughout the company, focusing the company on the "critical few" drivers and issues. Bennett also established Six Sigma mechanisms to achieve "Process Excellence" in various company processes. For example, the customer service team reduced customer wait times by 40%, and another product team reported 70% reduction in bugs due to Six Sigma processes.
Today Intuit does over $2 Billion in annual software sales, is profitable, has a market cap of over $11 billion, and annual double-digit sales growth.
1. Customer Evangelist Culture
Intuit ensured that the new hires understood the company's Holy Grail: A Happy Customer. Customer focus, wherein Intuit makes a difference in the customers' lives, is the everyday Mantra practiced by everyone at Intuit. Practices such as interviewing and hiring the right employees who believe in customer first, postage-paid "Customer suggestions" included with every copy of software (and follow through on the suggestions), answering service and technical support calls for at least four hours each month, "Follow Me Home" research wherein marketing and engineering staff literally follow a customer home and watch them install and use the software, database to track continuous customer feedback, customer advisory panel consisting of loyal customers providing feedback on new products, features and quality, and focus groups to conduct market research on how customers buy and use software (to manage money and finances).
These are just few of the Innovative mechanisms that Intuit installed to create an Industry first Customer Evangelist Culture that resulted in tremendous customer loyalty and market share growth.
2. Customer-Intuitive Design
By talking directly to prospective and ultimately current customers, Intuit founders and product managers built a deep understanding of exactly what the customer needs and pain points were. This led to defining software products to solve these fundamental customer needs. Whereas most software makers before Intuit were focused on creating "complex" software with an elaborate set of features that customers hardly ever used (and were confused), Intuit created new innovations in software design by creating software that a customer really cared for, and can benefit from on an everyday basis. Intuit engineers and product managers will go at lengths to understand the customer's mindset - from buying, to installing to using software, and becoming a loyal customer.
3. Customer-driven Marketing and Product Management
Most of the Software Industry before Intuit saw Marketing's role as marketing communications and brand marketing. However, Intuit realized early on that the marketing department must contribute as the company develops new products. And the role of Product managers was born wherein the Product Managers act as product business managers, oversaw income statements and all aspects of building the business. According to Scott Cook, the co-founder of Intuit, product managers must act as "champions of their products, embodying the voice of the customer not just for product development and marketing communications, but also for technical support, and overseeing the critical feedback loop between technical support and product development." Marketing also assisted the "Product Launch", wherein besides managing advertising, public relations and upgrade mailings, Marketing also created internal launch readiness, trained technical support and customer service, and created financial forecasts for the sales volumes for operations and planning.
4. Direct Marketing and Retailing
Although other software makers had tried direct marketing before, Intuit placed a big bet in their early days and want all out on their Direct Marketing campaign: "End Financial Hassles. $49.95" The Direct Marketing campaign targeted ads in three major magazines, slashed the price of Quicken in half, provided no copy protection, and was tied to wholesale distribution - all firsts for a software company. This resulted in huge sales and sustained the growth of Intuit. Intuit introduced "National Sales Tour" wherein employees visit the retailers and retailers' customers. This mitigated channel conflicts, brought employees closer to retailers and the customers, and created greater awareness of customer's buying habits - or as Cook put it, an all important "sense of the merchant." Intuit would expand Direct Marketing into Radio and then Television, and managed its two-pronged sales strategy of retail distribution and direct to expand the market share and leadership.
5. The Process driving Innovation
Intuit that went through several ups and downs from late nineties through early 2000, eventually began focusing on the "process and culture together to drive results" under the leadership of new CEO Steve Bennett (who came from GE). According to Bennett, "Bringing some of the big company process to small company customer innovation is our biggest challenge. Innovation isn't just about ideas, because ideas without operational rigor just fall apart." Bennett established rigor throughout the company, focusing the company on the "critical few" drivers and issues. Bennett also established Six Sigma mechanisms to achieve "Process Excellence" in various company processes. For example, the customer service team reduced customer wait times by 40%, and another product team reported 70% reduction in bugs due to Six Sigma processes.
Today Intuit does over $2 Billion in annual software sales, is profitable, has a market cap of over $11 billion, and annual double-digit sales growth.
Selected references:
Leading eBook on Creativity and Innovation in Business
Creativity and Innovation Best Practices
Creativity and Innovation Case Studies
The Innovation Index
Top 50 innovative companies in the world
Acknowledgements:
Suzanne Taylor and Kathy Schroeder - "Inside Intuit" - Harvard Business School Press
No comments:
Post a Comment