Published on the 13/02/2014 | Written by Newsdesk
The big guns are out in the accounting software world with Xero, MYOB and Intuit this week ramping up their efforts to build or shore up market share…
Earlier in the week MYOB announced plans to introduce a mobile payments app, a new mobile interface to MYOB data, along with a new cashbook and accounting solutions. Xero meanwhile is running a round-Australia roadshow spruiking its merits and this week beefed up its board and executive with heavy hitters from the global technology sector, including a former Intuit executive.
Intuit – arguably the sleeping giant of the sector in Australia at least – has just unleashed its own marketing effort to encourage local businesses to embrace its QuickBooks Online cloud based solution.
Until the arrival of Xero in Australia in 2009 the small and medium enterprise market was dominated by MYOB and Reckon, which until March 2012 had a licensing agreement with Intuit to sell Quicken and QuickBooks in Australia. That relationship comes to an end this month and Reckon has since developed its own range of solutions including cloud based systems.
In the intervening two years however MYOB has stepped up efforts to break into the cloud, Xero has pushed ahead strongly thanks in part to agreements with organisations such as Deloitte to recommend its products, while Saasu, JCurve and iBizz have all made their mark.
Intuit’s regional vice president and acting country manager for Australia, Brad Paterson, this week acknowledged that since 2012 Intuit had dropped the ball as far as marketing efforts in Australia were concerned. Intuit only hired its first Australian employee last year, although it now has 15 with plans to double that during the year according to Patterson.
Although he said “we do have a stigma in Australia” Paterson claimed that since the relaunch of the company’s cloud solution in late 2013 which had a mobile-first approach, the company was picking up new business at a rate of 500 customers a week. (Xero by comparison this month claimed it was signing up 300 new users per day).
Margaret Carey who runs accounting software specialists businessEez and blogs about accounting solutions said yesterday that the earlier version of QuickBooks had “a pretty ugly interface” and that Intuit had been “behind the eight ball” in Australia.
“They were not able to challenge Xero a year ago. Xero did get the edge but Intuit is now ready,” she said.
The challenge for Intuit will be to encourage churn from other cloud platforms. Paterson said that Intuit was offering very aggressive pricing for book-keepers and that if any customer wanted to convert from MYOB or Xero Intuit would handle the conversion for free.
