Scott Cook, co-founder of Intuit, understands the importance of customer-driven innovation and credits it for the success and perpetual growth of his company. Embracing customer-driven innovation is not a new idea or an industry innovation it has, is, and always will be a core ingredient to a healthy and successful business.
Scott Cook recalls the early days of Intuit when the business almost closed its doors before getting started. Quicken was lunched in 1984 with disastrous results because the product they developed did not address the customers' pain points. It was not until they spent more time with the customer, studying the customer first-hand and up-close and building a product to solve the customers' problems that the business started to grow.
This story is not unique to Intuit or even the software industry. Companies like PayPal and Victoria Secrets experienced similar cause and effects once they involved the customer in their value chain.
Even after more than 20 years in the market Intuit is still listening to customers to develop new products and enter new markets. They understand that customer-driven innovation offers new insights and opportunities to solve real customer problems.
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Scott Cook co-founded Intuit Inc. in 1983 and now serves as the chairman of the Executive Committee of the board. He is the driving force behind the Company's strategy to revolutionize financial automation. Since the launch of Quicken, Mr. Cook has been instrumental in guiding Intuit into new businesses, such as small business accounting software, tax preparation software for home PCs, and Internet businesses, including Quicken.com. Before founding Intuit, Mr. Cook managed consulting assignments in banking and technology for Bain & Company, a corporate strategy consulting firm. Prior to Bain, he worked for Procter & Gamble, the household-products giant, in various marketing positions, including brand manager, for four years.
Scott Cook holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and mathematics from the University of Southern California and a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard University. In addition to his responsibilities at Intuit, Mr. Cook is a member of the board of directors of eBay, the world's leading personal trading community; The Asia Foundation; Procter & Gamble and the Intuit Scholarship Foundation. He is also a member of the Young Presidents Organization, a worldwide group of corporate chief executives dedicated to learning.
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This program is from the Software 2005 series.
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