In an interview with SME Times, Nikhil Arora, Vice President and Managing Director, Intuit India said that Indian small businesses face immense difficulty in managing their financial accounts, to address this challenge Intuit have developed QuickBooks Online, a business and financial management software exclusively to help small businesses manage their finances efficiently.

                                                                                                  Excerpts of the interview . . .

Intuit works closely with the small business community by addressing their problems and creating end-to-end solutions that give them the competitive edge. Could you highlight on the services you provide to the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector?

Nikhil Arora: Just to give you the context; Intuit Inc, is a leading provider of business and financial management solutions for small and mid-sized businesses; financial institutions, including banks and credit unions; consumers and accounting professionals. In India, we are here to help small businesses win. We have 'QuickBooks Online' which is essentially part of our global products and which today has over 400,000 customers outside India. We have brought that product here basically helping people to manage their finances better. And if you are small business you can subscribe for this product on a yearly basis. It is a cloud product, and what it does is it helps you manage your cash flow better, do your invoicing and manage your accounts, and also gives you dashboards. Basically from end-to-end point of view, it is your financial management engine. It helps you to manage your business, whether you are financially doing well or not. In addition to this, we have a couple of other products, which are not exclusive to small businesses. We have a product called 'Fasal', which is a mobile-based product. We look at small businesses not only from an urban perspective but also on a rural perspective. So, if you are a farmer and you go to the 'mandi' where you need to sell your produce, every time the farmer goes there, he doesn't know how much the going rate is. We have developed an SMS based application where in the morning when he is going to the 'mandi', he can look at what the prevailing 'mandi' price is. For instance, 'mandi' A is buying it at Rs. 20 and 'mandi' B is buying at Rs. 30. Observing that, he can actually go to the right 'mandi' and also negotiate. Today, we have a million farmers using that application on the mobile phone. Thirdly, we have a service called 'txtWeb'. It allows you to access the Internet even if you don't have a data plan on your phone. For example, you are going to find out the number of malaria patients in a particular area, you SMS that and it will go to the Internet and download the information. Now you can get information on your mobile phone in an SMS format. The beauty of it is that you can keep clicking on it and almost use it as Internet. So, if there is information that comes and you want to go deeper into it, it will come underlined and you can press it, and it will again go back to the Internet, and so on. So, essentially it is giving you all the information with the absence of a data plan. Again, it is a mobile application that we have developed, and is very innovative.

How much are SMEs aware of QuickBooks Online?
Nikhil Arora: At Intuit everything starts with the customer, we have a process called as 'follow-me-homes'. We have done over 5000 follow-me-homes in India. What we found is that there are no clear solutions for businesses which want to manage their finances anywhere they are. For example, in QuickBooks Online scenario if your customer is in Pune or in Mumbai and if you are traveling you can log on and access it. So, what we are finding is that there is a huge need for solutions that there can be anywhere and anytime access. You can get your balances, get your dashboards, and know how your business is performing. Also, we have seen very early adoption results. We have a couple of thousand users and there is active usage. Active usage is a good benchmark that somebody is taking the product without even using it. I think there are no equivalent products in my view, which do this. You have the old desktops products, the desktops have a lot of legacy and issues around. This (QuickBooks Online) is purely a SaaS product and gets you access anywhere.

How many SMEs are actually using this product?
Nikhil Arora: We have this product at the beta stage. We will have our official launch soon. The product is in beta stage and we have a few thousand small businesses using it. It is in the market for some time now, and our approach is that we want to go and test the product. We will take customers' feedback and keep further enhancing it. We are making small businesses aware by using the viral social route. We are spreading the message around through different small business channels and secondly, our distributors go around and talk to small businesses. Thirdly, we have also taken up YouTube campaigns to ensure small businesses are aware of what the product does and how it functions. We are using a combination of direct channels (the web) and indirect channel like distributors or channel partners.

Could you highlight on the features of the SME product and how efficiently they are using it?
Nikhil Arora: The biggest feature is what we call anytime-anywhere access. These products, no matter in whichever city you are, allow you to access your financial information. For example, if you are a business owner and doing business in one city and want to know what your balance is, you can access it. Suppose, I have to write a check or sign the deal and see what is going on, I can access it. Actually, anywhere accessibility is huge, and small business entrepreneurs can get that. Second thing around is the data security. The data security on our product is the same inscription that the bank uses. So, it is highly secured.  Third, it gives you a very specific kind of thing -- invoicing. Lot of our products have different features. Our products have specific invoice features because it is one of the very simple way to do it. Especially businesses, which need to generate twenty or twenty-five invoices a week can use it. It gives you details on how is your business doing, dashboard, working capital and who wants your money and whom you need to pay the money, and so on . . .  but in a very user-friendly way. You don't need to be an accountant to use the products which makes life easy.

How much importance do you give to innovation?
Nikhil Arora:  Innovation is in Intuit's DNA. As an example, all employees at Intuit are given 10 percent unstructured time this allows them to actually go and work on any product or idea they want to. It creates an innovation platform. They come up with their prototype and then they have an opportunity to present to senior leadership. We have internal gallery works and brainstorming sessions where people come up with an idea, make the presentation and if the idea has potential, we fund it.

What are the challenges SMEs are facing in today's time?
Nikhil Arora:  I think as some of the white paper findings, one is the awareness of solutions and how do you know which one is the right one. Secondly they need trainers to train their employees in using the solutions and last is who will use it. Third is -- how would I get the after sales service.

Our go-to-market-strategy is around three pillars. First, we want to create awareness through case studies. Second, giving them the right access and provide right training to ensure they get right support during their initial days. Third, affordability; the price is attractive enough. So, our strategy is creating awareness, access and affordability, and this is our go-to-market approach.

We constantly do our "Follow me Homes" where we go out to the customer, talk to them and show how it has worked in other parts of the world as well as how it has worked among existing customers and so on. I think it is more psychological and there is the functional need and psychological need which makes them understand what works for them and what doesn't. So, I say that I spend 30 percent of our time meeting customers whether it is current customers and potential customers.

Data protection and security is an issue among SMEs. You said that your products are quite secured. Could you the highlight on awareness among SMEs about data protection?
Nikhil Arora: I will speak from a business point of view, because from a technology point of view there will be a lot of depth. From business point of view, small businesses should be aware about who is the vendor or supplier of technology. They need to do some due diligence, looking at the history and track-record of how they have been in the business. It is also important to look if something has gone wrong then how they have reacted. In business, things go wrong but what has been their approach to the customers, have they been honest enough to tell them that something has gone wrong and say that they are going to fix it. This is the first thing small businesses should look in terms of actual data storage, I think we use the highest standard which is the same as used by any bank. So, our data is really secure, but I think what I will recommend SMEs to do is to adopt things in a phased manner. So when they buy a product they start slow and try with some data then slowly escalate to the more confidential data, this will build trust.

What is the message for the SME sector?
Nikhil Arora: Our message is that as a technology provider we really want to be a part of the journey of success for small businesses. We want to make them profitable and to do that we look at it, not as one time transaction, but at the entire journey. Small Businesses should start looking at technology as a way to leapfrog their business cycle. It eases out the investment level and their fears around it, because it is not as difficult as it looks. Third is affordability and we are providing that. Solutions are not that expensive as they perceptibly might seem to be because in the past that was the case. We are not finding the price as a barrier. The broad message is that we are working in partnership with the Ministry of MSME, NSIC, etc. to help overcome all these barriers whether they are around costs, skills development, awareness, data storage, structure or the eco-system.

(Namrata Kath Hazarika can be contacted at namratakh@tradeindia.com)