Intuit: Turbo Tax PersonalPro - A Tale of Two Entrepreneurs

Shikhar  Ghosh; Joseph  Fuller; Michael  Roberts

Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2015 (Revised March 2016)

Intuit: Turbo Tax PersonalPro - A Tale of Two Entrepreneurs

by Shikhar Ghosh, Joseph Fuller and Michael Roberts

Abstract

The case tells the story of a product manager within Intuit who develops an idea for a new product that spans two of the company's existing business units—professional tax software, sold to accountants, and the consumer focused TurboTax product. The new product —TurboTax Personal Pro—connects consumers with professional accountants online, allowing them to have their taxes prepared by a professional. The cycle of product development transpires within the larger, corporate context of Intuit, where founder Scott Cook has been attempting to transform the enterprise into a leaner, more innovative company. The case describes in detail the lean startup methods used by the new product team, and how their attempts bump up against the existing, entrenched systems and processes of the larger enterprise.

Keywords: Business Units; Business or Company Management; Software; Accounting; Product Development; Financial Services Industry;

Language: English

Format: Print

22 pages

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Citation:

Ghosh, Shikhar, Joseph Fuller, and Michael Roberts. "Intuit: Turbo Tax PersonalPro - A Tale of Two Entrepreneurs." Harvard Business School Case 816-048, September 2015. (Revised March 2016.)

Related Work

Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | October 2018

Intuit: Turbo Tax PersonalPro—A Tale of Two Entrepreneurs

Joseph Fuller, Shikhar Ghosh and Monica Baraldi

Teaching Note for HBS No. 816-048. The case tells the story of a product manager within Intuit who develops an idea for a new product that spans two of the company's existing business units—professional tax software, sold to accountants, and the consumer focused TurboTax product. The new product —TurboTax Personal Pro—connects consumers with professional accountants online, allowing them to have their taxes prepared by a professional. The cycle of product development transpires within the larger, corporate context of Intuit, where founder Scott Cook has been attempting to transform the enterprise into a leaner, more innovative company. The case describes in detail the lean startup methods used by the new product team, and how their attempts bump up against the existing, entrenched systems and processes of the larger enterprise.

Keywords: Business Units; Business or Company Management; Software; Accounting; Product Development; Financial Services Industry;

Citation:
Fuller, Joseph, Shikhar Ghosh, and Monica Baraldi. "Intuit: Turbo Tax PersonalPro—A Tale of Two Entrepreneurs." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 319-045, October 2018. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2015 (Revised March 2016)

Intuit: Turbo Tax PersonalPro - A Tale of Two Entrepreneurs

Shikhar Ghosh, Joseph Fuller and Michael Roberts

The case tells the story of a product manager within Intuit who develops an idea for a new product that spans two of the company's existing business units—professional tax software, sold to accountants, and the consumer focused TurboTax product. The new product —TurboTax Personal Pro—connects consumers with professional accountants online, allowing them to have their taxes prepared by a professional. The cycle of product development transpires within the larger, corporate context of Intuit, where founder Scott Cook has been attempting to transform the enterprise into a leaner, more innovative company. The case describes in detail the lean startup methods used by the new product team, and how their attempts bump up against the existing, entrenched systems and processes of the larger enterprise.

Keywords: Business Units; Business or Company Management; Software; Accounting; Product Development; Financial Services Industry;

Citation:
Ghosh, Shikhar, Joseph Fuller, and Michael Roberts. "Intuit: Turbo Tax PersonalPro - A Tale of Two Entrepreneurs." Harvard Business School Case 816-048, September 2015. (Revised March 2016.) View Details

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Supplement | HBS Case Collection | November 2018

Intuit Video Supplement I: Running Better Experiments

Leonard A. Schlesinger and Joseph B. Fuller

Citation:
Schlesinger, Leonard A., and Joseph B. Fuller. "Intuit Video Supplement I: Running Better Experiments." Harvard Business School Multimedia/Video Supplement 319-703, November 2018. View Details

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Supplement | HBS Case Collection | November 2018

Intuit Video Supplement II: Territorial Issues

Leonard A. Schlesinger and Joseph B. Fuller

Citation:
Schlesinger, Leonard A., and Joseph B. Fuller. "Intuit Video Supplement II: Territorial Issues." Harvard Business School Multimedia/Video Supplement 319-704, November 2018. View Details

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Supplement | HBS Case Collection | November 2018

Intuit Video Supplement III: What We Learned

Leonard A. Schlesinger and Joseph B. Fuller

Citation:
Schlesinger, Leonard A., and Joseph B. Fuller. "Intuit Video Supplement III: What We Learned." Harvard Business School Multimedia/Video Supplement 319-705, November 2018. View Details

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Case | HBS Case Collection | December 2018

Corporate Transformation at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

Joseph B. Fuller, Amy C. Edmondson, Daniela Beyersdorfer and Tonia Labruyere

When Stefan Oschmann became CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, in 2016, the company had started its transformation from a mid-tier traditional German industry player to a global modern science and technology player. The restructuring and portfolio overhaul led by Oschmann’s predecessor Karl-Ludwig Kley since 2007 had been approved by the Merck founding family in its 13th generation, which still owned the majority of the shares. Its intermediate results had been encouraging. After three large acquisitions (Serono, Millipore, and Sigma-Aldrich) that broadened its reach from healthcare and pharmaceuticals into life sciences and performance materials and an internal optimization program, revenues and profitability had doubled in the decade leading up to 2016. But more needed to be done. Preparing for the company’s 350-year anniversary in 2018, Oschmann had kept up the pace of change, and announced further divestments and restructurings, sparking reactions from employees who expressed increasing exasperation about the new measures. In the fall of 2017 Oschmann and his Executive Board had to decide on the best strategic option for the company’s consumer health division. Should they divest a division that lacked scale but that with its consumer brands in pain and cold remedies was viewed as a symbol of the company’s origins? Was more change too much change in such a short time?

Keywords: Corporate governance with Family Ownership; Transformation; Change Management; Restructuring; Corporate Governance; Family Ownership;

Citation:

Fuller, Joseph B., Amy C. Edmondson, Daniela Beyersdorfer, and Tonia Labruyere. "Corporate Transformation at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany." Harvard Business School Case 319-072, December 2018. View Details

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Intuit: Turbo Tax PersonalPro - A Tale of Two Entrepreneurs

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