BACKGROUND of INTUIT

Founded in the year 1983 by Scott Cook by

launching Quicken
Headquartered in Mountain View, California
Leading provider of financial management
solutions for small and medium sized
business.
Started operations in India in 2005 as a
development center to create software.
 PROJECT AGRINOVA
In 2008, Intuit assigned its Global Business
Division the task of exploring indigenous
businesses in India to serve the local
customers.
The agrinova team identified agriculture as a
promising market and conducted a
preliminary research in the industry.
 AGRICULTURAL SECTOR IN INDIA
Contributes to 25% of GDP
Accounted for 60%-70% of employment
Approximately, 150 million farmers growing
crops for sale rather than personal
consumption.
60% of cultivated area lacking proper
irrigation facilities.
Could not afford HYV seeds.
 AGRICULTURAL SUPPLY CHAIN
The supply chain consists of farmers,
middlemen and customers.
Small farmers received only 40% of the retail
price of their produce, middlemen received
35% and retailers & customers received 25%.
Farmers sold 65% of their produce in mandis,
30% at farm gates to distributors and 5%
directly to customers.
 TRANSACTIONS IN A MANDI
6300 mandis in India till 2007, out of which
98% are regulated.
Average of approximately 50 agents per
mandi.
5% of sales in a mandi were done through
auctions
Remaining 95% were done through non-
auction sales.
CONSTRAINTS FACED FARMERS

WHEN TO SELL

WHERE TO SELL

WHOM TO SELL TO
 CONTINUED
Along with these problems they also had the
problem of finding out the fair prices of their
produce.
Farmers were thus exploited by the agents as
they entered into unfair private agreements
with whole sellers.
 INTUITS IDEAS
Intuit came up with the idea of crop price
information service.
SMS based services like-
What to grow?
When, Where and Whom to sell?
 IDEA SELECTION
The Agrinova team selected to serve the
second need of when, where and whom to
sell?
To increase access to information and price
realization two services were thought of-
Crop exchange
Price Discovery System
Ultimately, they decided to use the Price
Discovery System.
 NEXT STEPS
Firstly, need to tackle the big players and
competitors in the segment.
Secondly, Intuit had to change the behavior of
the farmers and make them believe that they
received better prices due to intuits services.
Thirdly, to gather reliable price data from the
agents.
Fourthly, they had to find out whether the
agents will partner them in the long run.
 Lastly, and most importantly the serious
questions were still unanswered-
1. Would farmers pay a transaction price?
2. Would Agrinova generate profit through ads?
3. How would agrinova recruit users?
4. How much it would cost to collect data?
5. Will they be able to cover their fixed costs
and earn a profit?