Developing Intuit’s Sustainability Approach for Small Businesses
Holly Robertson, Marc Weimer, Anna Yeager, Kelliann Blazek
December 6, 2010
Introduction
Intuit is a company that creates computer software critical to small businesses
operations. Their most popular products are Quickbooks and Quicken, which are designed for
financial management. Because of this established consumer base, Intuit feels it is in a unique
position to offer small businesses valuable information that goes beyond finances and into tools
for implementing green business practices. To that end, Intuit has developed a variety of services
for the small business owner that include the following:
Intuit Green Community - http://intuitgreen.com/
Intuit Green Snapshot - http://greensnapshot.homestead.com/
However, these attempts have yet to engage small businesses, as evidenced through limited
participation. Accordingly, the task given to our team was to one, gain an understanding of the
sustainability needs of small businesses, and two, to make a recommendation to Intuit for how to
better serve these needs with software and other means.
Methods
To achieve the first part of our task we conducted a number of visits to small area
businesses. The business visits aimed to mimic Intuit’s own customer driven innovation
methods. Some questions suggested by Rupesh and Nick, our Intuit contacts, to drive discussion
with small businesses included: Do you think about green practices? Do customers ask about
sustainability? If so, how do you answer?
As we brainstormed which businesses we would visit, Rupesh and Nick encouraged us to
visit small businesses that offer products that consumers put on, in or around them and that
would, in theory, be especially attuned to green practices. Nick suggested talking to any small
business and not limiting our discussions to Intuit customers. It was stressed that making money
on these projects was not an immediate goal for Intuit. As Rupesh said, “Let’s find problems
small businesses have in going green, then let’s solve them, then let’s think about how to make
money.” With these directives in mind, we set out to speak to as many businesses as possible.
For the complete business visit summary, please see Appendix I.
Small Business Perspective on Sustainability
After conducting interviews with businesses from around the Madison area and
elsewhere, we felt we began to get an understanding of the problems facing them. In sum, it
seems as though there is the desire from the small business owners to be more sustainable, but
they lack the knowledge and the time needed to make it a reality. Furthermore, while there is a
desire, there is not much outside pressure to make finding the time and information a priority.
Many of the businesses we talked to get by on having a strategic location and therefore do not
need to market themselves to the community in any particular way. Plus, customers are not
asking about the sustainability of the business or the products it sells. From a consumption
standpoint, the pressure is simply not there or sufficient enough, even in a progressive town such
as Madison.
In addition, the types of businesses we talked to varied greatly. Some were businesses
known for being green and as a source for sustainable and local products. Others were more
traditional businesses, in the sense that they fulfilled a market need without any overt attempt to
be sustainable. Among these, there seemed to be a stark contrast in their ideas toward
sustainability and their intent for achieving it. While many businesses look for opportunities to
contribute to a greener and sustainable future, each does it for a different reason—whether it is
because of personal conviction, because it may be profitable or perhaps because it is what
consumers demand. Partially due to this diversity of intent, the needs of each small business are
unique and cannot be addressed with a single marketing mix aimed at small businesses
collectively. Perhaps for Intuit, these varying needs may be part of the reason prior efforts to
facilitate small business sustainability have not taken off.
SOLUTION
Small Business Segmentation
We feel Intuit’s approach is lacking segmentation and faces the challenge of finding
different marketing strategies based on the needs of varying small businesses. There are diverse
businesses with different customer bases, differing intent for being green/sustainable and varying
business models. Thus, our group attempted to put together a set of strategies that would vary
depending on the type of business and how sustainability influences their decisions, and is
summarized below.
Shortsighted
Penny Pinchers Trapped
SEGMENT Granolas Realists (some
(some overlap) Proletariats
overlap)
Well established
Businesses that Businesses that
local businesses
feel sustainability may not sell green Green-minded
known for
Description is important, but products, but businesses stuck
sustainable/green
are pigeon-holed looking to save on without capital
practice in their
by customer base operations costs
community
Values – when
Intent for being Values – it is the possible, should Values, money
To save money
green right thing to do try to promote saving
sustainability
Sustainable Knowledgeable
throughout entire of green
business – products, Traditional practices and
Traditional
building and (maximizing understand
Business Model (maximizing profit
services. profit is most monetary
is most important)
Community focused important) incentive, but
– may required strapped for
membership to shop upfront capital
Customer Actively seek out Price point Varying – price Indifferent,
attitude businesses based on determines sales – point usually sustainable
green reputation. sustainable important – practices are
products that are customers rarely business driven
more expensive ask about
are not worth sustainability
premium
Segment Size
Small Fairly large Large Small
Estimate
Promotion to
Engage and facilitate
Provide increase profits,
their collaboration
information and reduce carbon
on community
reassuring footprint.
website. Use them
examples through Provide
Recommendation as success stories Help find capital
website. Time recommendations
and leaders.
may be an issue, and validate
Promise them
so making it easy through examples
exposure on vendor
is important. on community
list.
website
As shown above, the problems and attitudes vary greatly with each kind of company.
However, we feel that there is great potential to use these differences to make a collaborative and
integrated website that will provide opportunities and benefits to all segments. We feel that Intuit
should continue developing its Green Small Business Community website to serve this purpose,
but should also incorporate the Green Snapshot into the community website. This website
should focus on three sections:
- Improving sustainability aspects of their business operations and building efficiency
whether they lease or own.
- Connecting businesses to share ideas about suppliers and create demand for new
products.
- Finding financial assistance
Each segment will have a role to play in populating each of these sections with information and
creating the community feel, with Intuit supplementing information where necessary.
Maintaining a sense of community will encourage small businesses to share their ideas and
successful implementations as well as give feedback on suppliers they have used. Plus, seeing
that other small businesses are moving forward with sustainability goals may further motivate
them to stay competitive and/or ―ahead of the curve.‖ The following sections explain each
segment and the role we see them playing.
The “Granola” Segment
Intuit should focus its initial marketing efforts on getting the Granolas involved in the
community website because these are the businesses who have the most knowledge and
experience to share. They are sustainable; they are lean, mean and know the ins and outs of
sustainable business practices. They are the innovators who do not need any convincing as to
why they should go green (they already are), nor do they feel like they would benefit from
generic information given to them by a large corporation. What they do need, however, is a
convincing argument to partake in the collaborative website created by Intuit for small
businesses. Think of the Granolas as disciples of sustainability so that you pitch the website as a
medium for them to share their information to less sustainable businesses looking for help. In
addition to providing a medium, Intuit should offer Granolas prominent exposure for being a top
contributor with information on their business, as well as the sustainable suppliers they use. To
that end, the website should feature a section specifically on suppliers with two distinct purposes.
The first would be to generate a list of sustainable suppliers for the variety of small
business categories that exist such as clothing stores, coffee shops, flower shops, hair salons, etc.
Under each small business category there will be a list of national suppliers that operate under
sustainable practices and or provide fair trade products. There will also be a local section where
restaurants and flower shops can find local producers of produce and flowers that they can
purchase, use or sell in their shops. The Granolas themselves could serve as these suppliers,
benefiting from the exposure gained by participating in site. To keep up with the collaborative
aspect, small businesses that have worked with these suppliers can add comments and rate them.
The second purpose for the supplier section would be to create demand for new products.
For example, a children’s clothing store on Monroe Street told us that when they started out they
wanted 100 percent cotton clothing for children and it was hard to find. However, being a small
business, no supplier was willing to develop a line just for them. Over time, more children’s
clothing stores were demanding this type of product and suppliers began producing 100 percent
cotton clothing lines. Thus, this area of the website will be used to speed up the process of
creating demand. Small businesses that have an idea of a product they want to sell can create a
product profile, and others can lend ideas and support for this product.
The result will be a reinforcing cycle of interest generated by Granolas and the other
segments. If small businesses that are new to sustainability see the credibility created on the
community website by Granolas, they will stay loyal and use the information to their benefit.
The next step, however, in order to keep website usage up and the Granolas engaged, is to spark
the interest of the other segments.
“Penny Pinchers” and “Shortsighted Realists”
With the help of creative promotion, and knowledge provided by the Granolas, we
believe the Penny Pinchers and Shortsighted Realists will be inclined to use the website. We
believe the Penny Pinchers would be the most receptive group to Intuit’s green promotions
because they are the least advanced in terms of sustainability. To increase green practices among
this population, we recommend launching a promotion that correlates an increase in profits to a
reduction in their carbon footprint. After all, the penny pinchers and the shortsighted realists are
the ones who focus most on their financial bottom line. Using the data that Intuit has access to
through its other products like Quickbooks, Intuit would calculate a small business’ carbon
footprint through its Green Snapshot tool already in development, and should be accessible via
the community site. Participating small businesses would be encouraged to use the community
website for ideas in reducing their carbon footprint, and therefore their expenditures on energy,
and the company or companies that had the largest percentage decrease in carbon creation would
win a substantial monetary prize. Points could also be given in some sort of scheme
incorporating style and scope in order to increase participation and encourage creativity.
This promotion would also serve as an opportunity to integrate the Intuit Green Small
Business Community on the same website as Green Snapshot. The green recommendations
offered by Green Snapshot would be validated by actual examples from other small
businesses. For example, if a recommendation was made to change the light bulbs of a building,
a company who had already changed their light bulbs would share their story—the cost, the work
involved, the benefit, and so on. The risk for small businesses to attempt these recommendations
is lower when they learn about other businesses that have already made the change and been
successful. Photos, videos and personal testament would illuminate these.
“Trapped Proletariats”
The last segment that needs to be addressed is the Trapped Proletariats. The Trapped
Proletariats are small businesses that really want to make green improvements but just do not
have the resources. They have the values of running a sustainable business similar to the
Granolas and the Short-sighted Realists, but have a hard time gaining leeway without the capital
needed to invest in these initiatives. This group will initially benefit from the website’s ability to
help them find financial assistance. This will give these businesses the opportunity to find a
grant for an innovative sustainable idea, or provide a green checklist to help them gain approval
from creditors by providing factual information on the financial success of similar green
activities. These businesses will also be able to use the success stories from similar businesses
that posted on the website for more data on how sustainable improvements have financially
helped the other small businesses or help them find some improvements that might require a
smaller amount of capital that they can afford.
These businesses want to improve their green initiatives and make their business more
sustainable but do not have the time and especially not the capital resources to do so. In our talks
with Intuit, the project leads seemed extremely interested in some type of certification program
that would motivate small businesses to adopt sustainability measures into their operation.
Through our research we feel that a certification program would be most useful in capturing
Trapped Proletariats by helping them add credibility to their business, and being more attractive
to creditors. Intuit could provide a section of the website with a checklist of items required in
order to become Intuit Certified – a label that would help these small businesses look more credit
worthy for loans needed to make green improvements. Intuit could provide information on
average savings from similar improvements to show creditors that the investment will be repaid
over time. Grants and other opportunities to receive funds through investors or organizations
will also be posted for small businesses to see and apply for as well.
CONCLUSION
Prior green promotions attempted by Intuit lacked integration. Currently, Green
Snapshot and Intuit Green Community are separate and unconnected projects. However, small
businesses interested in quantifying and reducing their carbon footprint are likely interested in
the efforts of other businesses to accomplish the same thing. Furthermore, the two promotions
demonstrate overlap in that both are based on recommendations. The Green Snapshot website
reads, “Get recommendations on how to be green while getting money in your pocket.” The
community-based website, on the other hand, allows users to generate their own list of
recommendations. Fusing these sets of lists would be beneficial for small businesses because
one of the top reasons given for not being more sustainable is that they lacked time. Therefore,
the website should be easily navigable and contain as much relevant information as possible,
maximizing their limited time on the computer.
Appendix
I. Interviews Summary
In order to get a sense of what sustainability means to small business owners and
operators we talked to 25 small businesses in Madison, Lacrosse and Appleton. The nature of
these businesses ranged from sporting goods and clothing boutiques to florists and import shops.
The questions we asked were open ended and varied based on the interviewee’s response, but
generally the questions asked were as follows:
1. What does sustainability mean to you, as an owner or manager of a small
business?
2. Do your customers inquire about the sustainability of your business? Do they ask
where products come from or request specific products?
3. What are some of the obstacles that you have faced, or perceive to face, in
addressing sustainability of your business?
4. What do you think would help you overcome these obstacles?
Question #1. What does sustainability mean to you, as an owner or manager of a small
business?
The answers to these questions varied but when we reviewed the responses some trends
and commonalities became apparent. In regards to question number one, almost all of the
interviewees stated that sustainability was on their radar to some degree. For most this meant that
they had taken the step of changing their light bulbs from incandescent to compact fluorescent,
but unfortunately not much else along the lines of energy efficiency. While most admitted that
they contend with costly energy bills, they do not feel empowered to make more ambitious
modifications to the building because they merely rent the space and do not own it. In one
instance, a business had the door open even though it was a cold day. The owner told us that she
did not feel good about doing that, but often it is too hot and she has no control over the heat in
the building.
The businesses were much more pro-active in terms of sustainability when it came to
their supply chains. For some this was the case because that was the ethic on which they built
their business in the first place. For example, the Wild Child Clothing store in Madison was
started because a mother could not find clothes or fabric made from 100% cotton for her children
to wear. At the time, children’s clothing was all a blend of synthetic materials, and because the
woman desired a more natural alternative, she started her own business. Today the clothing store
is starting to branch out minimally into organic cotton clothing and fair trade products, but above
all else they look for items that are made in the United States. For other stores, keeping
sustainability in mind when selecting product lines is about choosing quality items that will last
the consumer a long time. An example of this would be Madison clothing boutique A Stone’s
Throw. The buyer for the store selects clothing lines based on fashion and function, but also
quality of the material. As a result, many of the pieces currently in the store are made of merino
wool, which are at once warm, luxurious and durable. The buyer keeps an eye out for sustainable
goods like boots with biodegradable soles, but this is not the store’s primary agenda.
Ultimately, the prevailing trend among the businesses was that they ―did the best they
could‖ in terms of sustainable product lines. They would keep an eye out for products, but the
higher cost associated with them was usually too much of an expense.
Question #2. Do your customers inquire about the sustainability of your business? Do they
ask where products come from or request specific products?
The majority of the businesses we spoke to said that consumers generally did not ask
about sustainability. One exception to this was at Orange Tree Imports, an import boutique in
Madison. The manager told us that it was not uncommon for customers to ask where things came
from if it was not labeled, or outright request a certain item with the stipulation being that it not
be made in China. The nature of the store is to sell unique goods from around the world, so
perhaps this is to be expected. Regardless, the owner of the store puts much thought into where
items are being imported from, and also tries to sell as many locally made goods as possible.
Question #3. What are some of the obstacles that you have faced, or perceive to face, in
addressing sustainability of your business?
At every business the answer to question #3 was the same: time. Small business owners
perceive ―time‖ as being the number one obstacle preventing them from being more sustainable.
They do not have the time to stay current on trends and innovations in sustainability or the time
to implement significant changes to their business. Another obstacle that became apparent was
knowledge. Beyond changing their light bulbs and paying more attention to their product lines,
these businesses seem to have run out of ideas. In addition, an obstacle that many of them face is
that of not owning their own building and therefore feeling powerless to implement any
infrastructure changes that would save energy. Finally, an obstacle that they all face is money,
especially when it comes to their supply chains. Fair trade and organic items cost more than
those from China and therefore it is not feasible to always opt for these items while keeping
prices affordable in their store.
Question #4. What do you think would help you overcome these obstacles?
The answer that most had to this question was ―more time.‖ If businesses had the time to
seriously re-think its goals, values and profit margins, perhaps they could implement some
serious changes. However, for most of these small businesses, time is not a luxury. We got the
sense that the Internet could be a valuable source of information, but only if they did not have to
spend time searching for trustworthy and knowledgeable sites. Some businesses seemed open to
using a community forum website where insights could be shared among like-minded
businesses, but were worried about giving away ideas to the local competition. Overall though,
in terms of competition, businesses did not seem worried about competitors gaining a
competitive advantage by being more sustainable or marketing themselves as being more
―green.‖ In fact, some of the businesses we talked to do not do any advertising at all because they
are in a prime location where advertising is not necessary.