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Inside Intuit reveals in
full detail the critical success factors that have made Intuit an enduring
company. Readers can learn and apply the principles that have steered Intuit to
market success:
Customer Driven Innovation
Paradigm Shifts
Operating Values
Beating Microsoft
Business Discipline
Driving High Profit Growth in a
Slow Growth Environment
Marketing Breakthroughs
Evolving Leadership
Tyranny of the Typical
Entrepreneurship
Customer Driven Innovation:
The foundation of any company that wants to change its customers’ lives is
deep, one-on-one listening and insight into customers’ needs.
Intuit has consistently and cleverly used customer insight to
build its breakthrough products, customer service, and marketing
communications. Intuit pioneered customer research in the software
industry with methods borrowed from Scott Cook’s alma mater Procter &
Gamble including: follow me home studies, usability research, and customer
advisory panels.
Paradigm Shifts: Scott
Cook notes that the biggest insights often come in surprising and
unexpected ways. These insights can lead to a completely new way of
seeing problems. For instance, when Quicken was introduced, its main
competition wasn’t the 46 other finance software programs out there, but
the pen and checkbook. QuickBooks worked under the assumption that small
businesspeople didn’t understand or want to do accounting. TurboTax
enabled customers to tackle an overwhelmingly tedious task in small,
manageable steps. The Internet radically changed how customers managed
their finances.
Operating Values: Company achievements must
be rooted in and derive from an explicit embrace of company values.
Achievements do not preclude values; instead, closely-held corporate values integrated through a company’s culture drive its success. Read
Intuit’s operating values statement and learn how those values have guided
decisions and actions, especially the values of integrity, do right by
customers, and it’s the people.
Beating Microsoft: Learn how Intuit has fended off no less than the
most powerful software competitor in the world. Intuit competed head-on
against Microsoft and won in all its three main businesses—Quicken beat
Microsoft Money, QuickBooks beat Microsoft Profit, and TurboTax beat
Microsoft TaxSaver. Intuit’s remarkable success story against the
behemoth shows how formidable competition can inspire a company to be its
best.
Business Discipline: Intuit has used consistent business
rigor—data-driven decision making, appropriate metrics and relentless
process excellence, to build its business. Intuit instills business
discipline to foster creativity, not squelch it, as the company grows.
See how constant experimentation and learning from failures form an
important part of Intuit’s business approach.
Driving High Profit Growth in a Slow Growth Environment: Even when
market conditions slump, Intuit drives impressive profit and revenue
growth. Developing products and services for targeted markets willing to
pay more, improving productivity and lowering costs through Six Sigma, and
focusing on the critical few metrics that drive results are just some of
the ways Intuit has improved its bottom line despite harsh economic
conditions.
Marketing Breakthroughs: Intuit’s marketing innovations include the
first television advertising and first rebate coupon in the consumer
software industry. Borrowing marketing techniques from the consumer
packaged goods industry, Intuit also developed line extensions, priced
aggressively, used trial programs, and created effective retail store
merchandising strategies. Mimicking the ‘razor blade’ business approach
to razors, Intuit cleverly developed profitable paper checks to print out
with Quicken.
Evolving Leadership: Intuit’s leaders have evolved as the company’s
customers, competitors, markets, technologies, and culture changed. When
top managers didn’t think they had what it took to bring the company to the
next level, they rationally and methodically sought out complementary new leaders, redefining their own roles and contributions in the
process.
Tyranny of the Typical: See how focusing on the average customer in a
target market can blindside you to the many other customers that you may
serve. By reframing the small business market, Intuit has embarked on a
new strategy of more targeted ‘right for my business’ products and
services, instead of a one-size-fits-all approach.
Entrepreneurship: Intuit’s co-founders—a former Crisco marketer and a
Stanford engineering student—formed an unlikely but highly effective
entrepreneurial team. Small teams still lead the company forward to new
breakthroughs. Learn how Intuit nurtures and fosters individual and small
team creativity within the larger organization. See how new ideas gain
traction and become real, and how Intuit decides where to place its
development bets.
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