With the practices and strictures of even a single country’s tax code offering dizzying complexities, the move by Intuit Inc. to deploy its QuickBooks accounting software and services internationally may seem like a massive undertaking. But as those in charge of strategy for the company see it, that’s the natural progression for their business.

At this year’s QuickBooks Connect conference, Vinay Pai, VP of the Intuit development platform at Intuit, spoked to John Walls (@JohnWalls21) and Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), co-hosts of theCUBE*, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, to discuss some of Intuit’s strategies, the nuances of international networking and why brand identity may be losing its importance to customers.

Global expansion

Pai was enthusiastic about the turnout and level of energy at the conference, noting that Intuit’s app development had continued even while the event was taking place. “We’re seeing a lot of innovation from our developers. The buzz is great around here. … Just from this conference alone, we’ve crossed over 433 apps.”

He also shared some insights into the perspective Intuit is taking with the distribution of its QuickBooks products to numerous countries. “We’re working to build an ecosystem around QuickBooks. … We live in a global society today. In fact, QuickBooks itself is a global offering,” Pai stated.

Pai later expanded on some of the issues the team had encountered upon moving into Europe at large, following their initial expansion into the comparatively similar Commonwealth countries. Despite these hurdles, he noted, “When we took QuickBooks global five years ago … what we found [is that] accounting jobs are very similar worldwide.”

On the whole, Pai saw the situation as one with small problems and vast opportunities. “It is a great time to be an engineer, and it is a great time to be a developer. … What we have today is really the platform of choice… for small businesses,” he said.

Advancing tech

In Pai’s estimation, for small companies developing financing solutions, QuickBooks “is the best platform to publish your app and draw the most customers.”

And as time passes, those customers are becoming more open to the technological changes taking place in both the interactive and infrastructural levels. “Over the last seven years, I’ve seen a massive shift in demographics. … Even in the last year, there’s been a massive shift towards the cloud,” Pai shared. “What we’ve seen is that… [small business users] are already connected to the cloud, so [cloud SaaS delivery] is a natural move for them.”

And that shift in perceptions and engagement, while opening up new opportunities, is also the reason for Intuit to stay on its toes in offering competitive services. “Customers don’t actually care who develops it; they want high-quality apps, consistent [quality] and an end-to-end solution,” Pai stated.

Watch the complete video interview, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of QuickBooks Connect.

*Disclosure: Intuit and other companies sponsor some Quickbooks Connect segments on SiliconANGLE Media’s theCUBE. Neither Intuit nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.

Photo by SiliconANGLE