Intuit And Quicken Com example essay topic

A CASE STUDY ANALYSIS for ITSM 670 Section 9042: Information Technology Capstone QuickenInsurance Case Study Summary QuickenInsurance had to deal with many of the same struggles as the other surviving "dot-coms" did in order to realize their own share of profit in the online arena against formidable competitors. The following list summarizes the key ideas / findings regarding this case with QuickenInsurance: 1. QuickenInsurance needs to penetrate and grow the automobile insurance business, and make online purchasing of auto insurance less complex for consumers, while offering a greater choice of quoting carriers. The web sites need to be very user-friendly otherwise consumers will not utilize it. 2. QuickenInsurance needs to create a competition strategy against companies like InsWeb, GEICO, and Citigroup.

As part of this, QuickenInsurance should decide one way or the other if they want to wait for firms to fail or snatch up those assets before they fall into the hands of a competitor. 3. They also need to determine a strategy for creating tighter product and brand linkages among all of Intuit's online and offline businesses without spreading the company resources too thin and losing focus. Introduction Quicken. com, the "dot-com" of QuickenInsurance was sold to Intuit in 1996, partially as an attempt to incorporate Intuit's respected brand name credibility into Quicken. com.

Today Quicken. com has 50 of the largest, name-brand insurance carriers linked to their service. The other large, name-brand insurance carriers are linked to QuickInsurance's large ts competitor, InsWeb. QuickenInsurance has also gained access to other top financial service portals and became "the" exclusive insurance broker for AOL Finance, Excite, Prodigy, CBS, Auto Trader, The Wedding Channel, AutoWeb, and many more portals. Quicken. com pays AOL a large sum of money to be their exclusive broker, but AOL gives Quicken. com a large portion of their traffic in return. In a five-year agreement, Quicken. com partnered with AOL to be the exclusive provider of integrated bill presentment and payment services for AOL. Of course this service can easily used as a product to sell to other companies.

Restrictions in the AOL partnership restricted Quicken. com customers from using the My Profile personalized information portal of Quicken. com because it conflicted with AOL's personalization portal, however this restriction was accepted due to the stature of AOL in the Internet realm and its ability to enhance Quicken. com's future success. Discussion In 2000, Intuit noted that penetration and growth of the automobile insurance business had been much slower than expected. This was troublesome because online auto insurance sales were estimated to grow to $11 billion by 2004 (Applegate, 2003). This means that Quicken. com will need to offer a greater choice of quoting carriers in each state, while providing online call center, purchase, and fulfillment capabilities in more states to capitalize on this growth. Regulation and complexity was hampering the entry of independent online marketplaces while competition (in the form of InsWeb) was also beginning to cultivate. Established insurance carriers such as GEICO, All-State, and State Farm were drawing more traffic to their web sites than Quicken. com.

Quicken. com, though trailing in traffic, was rated number two in customer satisfaction, behind 4 free quotes. com. A mounting competitor for Quicken. com was InsWeb, who had signed agreements already with over 200 online sites to include the most well known like Yahoo! Finance, MSN, and E Trade; and was a licensed insurance agent in 39 states, with licensed resident agents in the other 11 (Applegate, 2003). One of InsWeb's biggest signers, State Farm, however, decided to stop utilizing the InsWeb online marketplace, thus creating additional opportunity for Quicken. com to snatch them up. Other established players like Citigroup and American Express are positioning themselves to become "the" financial services superstores of the new century and Quicken. com needs to find a way to stay competitive with so many players within the industry.

In fact, consolidations have already begun to take place. In addition to offering online insurance, Quicken. com's consumer portal provides access to other financial service offerings: Quicken Loan, Quicken Banking, Quicken Investment, Quicken Retirement, and Quicken TurboTax. Marketing has so far come exclusively from Intuit and Quicken. com, but aggressive marketing these brands, or just focusing attention and resources on marketing Quicken. com as an umbrella brand, has been topics on the table at QuickenInsurance as of late. Deciding where to invest will no doubt determine how successful this "dot-com" will be. Quicken's intention is to create tighter product and brand linkages among all of Intuit's online and offline consumer businesses into a seamless financial services vertical portal, but strategic, operational, and organizational hurdles still need to be addressed.

Critique QuickenInsurance isn't facing dissimilar problems than other survivors of the recent downfall of the "dot-com" industry. Problems are inherent, such as how to penetrate their online market more effectively, where and how to expand, and when or if to invest in a dying smaller competitor before the big competition gets there first. Competition strategies are paramount for online companies like QuickenInsurance and continuous improvement to the online experience they offer their customers are what keep them on top. Deciding whether to drop other, less profitable web offerings, or to link them to their growing golden egg and expand their place in the online industry (or create a new online industry for that matter) dwell in the minds of their executives. Conclusion In conclusion it can be noted that QuickenInsurance, not unlike many other online service provider, must make headway through three key areas as illustrated by the QuickenInsurance case thus studied: 1. Online service providers must to penetrate and grow their respective industry's business by making online purchasing of their services less complex for consumers, while offering greater choice.

Web sites must be extremely user-friendly otherwise consumers will not utilize them. 2. Competition strategies should be put in place against companies that share the same industry, in addition to the upstarts waiting in the wings for your online service provider to falter. As part of this, the online service provider should decide one way or the other if they want to wait for competitors to fail or snatch up those assets before they fall into the hands of another competitor.

If a current partner grows market share in their industry and the company can capitalize on that, then it should investigate how to use the partnership more to the company's advantage. 3. They also need to determine a strategy for creating tighter product and brand linkages among any of their online or offline businesses without spreading company resources too thin and losing focus. Companies must discern what they are good at, stick to it, and become the leaders in that industry.

Forming alliances with competitors who already have a market share of the customers that use these products would be a good strategy to explore.

Bibliography

Applegate, L.M., Austin, R.D., & Mcfarland, F.W. (2003). Corporate Information Strategy and Management. In L.M. Applegate's QuickenInsurance: The Race to Click and Close (pp. 79-102). Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin..