Small businesses have their own unique set of problems. Most of those revolve around being small; not only must everyone wear a lot of hats, the company can only afford so many hats to go around. One way to lift some of these burdens is with automation so business functions just happen in the background. As networking and computing grows more powerful, automation is taking over more processes.

To gain an understanding for how Intuit Inc., makers of QuickBooks, is automating its products, John Walls (@JohnWalls21) and Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), co-hosts of theCUBE*, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, visited the QuickBooks Connect event in San Jose, CA. There, they spoke to Sasan Goodarzi, EVP of the Small Business Group at Intuit.

Time, money and growth

The conversation started with Goodarzi relating a lesson customers have taught him. Customers valued three things: time, money and growing their business. He stated that everything Intuit does is centered around these three things.

Goodarzi mentioned that most small businesses have a cash flow issue, with invoices that are overdue. These companies live and die over getting paid on time. New products are allowing them to automate this process and cut down the waiting time for invoices. Likewise, small businesses have problems managing their money through periods of growth. Intuit is trying to act like an extended board of directors who can help steer the company through these times.

An open platform for partnerships

Partnerships are also a part of Intuit’s small business strategy. Goodarzi described a vision of an open platform where innovation comes together from many sources. The goal was to digitize and automate everything. From there, the customer can run their business over any device as Intuit is doing everything in the background.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning is part of this vision. Machine learning has the power to help automate this work for the customers. Goodarzi mentioned that once Intuit creates something, a network effect kicks in. People use the product and then tell their friends. The more people involved, the faster it spreads. And the company guides its releases to maximize this effect.

Watch the complete video interview below, 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