STRATEGY

Early adopter

Like many companies these days, Intuit is betting big on AI. It’s invested around $20 billion into AI, and during a recent earnings call, CEO Sasan Goodarzi referenced its strategy to be “an AI-driven expert platform” for consumers and small businesses on multiple occasions. Over the long term, the company foresees small-business revenue growth of 15%–20% a year, and AI’s one reason why.

But Intuit’s not one of the many companies that jumped on the AI bandwagon after ChatGPT came out in 2022. It’s been developing its AI infrastructure since 2018, Intuit’s CFO and EVP, Sandeep Aujla, told CFO Brew. That development has enabled the company to roll out an AI assistant, called Intuit Assist, across all of its core products. Aujla spoke with us about how it works, and why it’s a key driver of Intuit’s growth strategy.

An AI assistant for tax, small business, and more: In 2023, Intuit had about 100 million customers and more than 18,000 employees and brought in $14.4 billion in revenue. Though it’s perhaps best known for its QuickBooks and TurboTax software, it also owns personal finance platform Credit Karma, which it acquired in 2020, and email marketing company Mailchimp, acquired in 2021.

Keep reading.—CV

PRESENTED BY PLANFUL

When hiring and goals align

Want to recruit a talented employee base that can push your whole org toward its goals?

Dedicated workforce planning can help—and collaboration with HR colleagues remains the most effective way to harness the power of workforce planning. Unfortunately, only 33% of HR leaders fully embrace data-driven workforce planning, according to Gartner.

Unlock the secrets of workforce planning with Planful’s latest guide. You’ll come away with a better grasp on:

• the foundations of workforce planning: how to use data-driven insights to align with your objectives
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A little planning goes a long way. Start here.

ACCOUNTING

Still uncertain?

If you want to experience more stress in your life, consider the drastically different plans that corporate tax leaders are gaming out based on who wins the presidency and control of Congress this fall.

If President Joe Biden wins reelection and Democrats retake the House, this time next year we might be talking about new tax hikes on corporate income and stock buybacks, and how tax reforms could align US code with the global minimum tax that Biden supported in 2021.

If a second Trump administration is in office with a Republican majority in the Senate, we’ll be looking at that president’s plans for a 10% tariff on imports, and a 60% tariff on imports from China.

Obviously, the election is still months away, but finance and tax professionals should ideally be thinking now about taxes in 2025 and beyond. To help navigate this complicated and uncertain landscape, CFO Brew spoke with two of KPMG’s federal tax policy leaders, John Gimigliano and Danielle Rolfes, after a recent tax roundtable hosted by the firm.

Keep reading.—GD

STRATEGY

Water in the desert

There aren’t many challenges in life with a fail-proof playbook at the ready.

Finding your first job out of school? Raising a child to become a conscientious global citizen? Achieving inner peace and spiritual fulfillment? You’re out of luck.

A rare exception: Corporate growth strategies. For once, there’s a tried-and-true playbook, and the nice thing about tried-and-true playbooks is that they tend to work.

Sure, popular growth strategies aren’t entirely one size fits all. And if you’re selling ice-cold water on a blazing desert island, you might want to stick to your current business model.

But for any exec looking for effective growth strategies, we recommend not looking too hard. The best growth strategies are glaringly obvious—and you’ve probably already used them. Here, we spotlight a (non-exhaustive) sample.

Let’s start with the key ingredient.—NP

TOGETHER WITH UPTEMPO

Pull back the curtain on successful planning. Jaime Garza, Senior Manager of Marketing Operations at SolarWinds, recently sat down to discuss the challenges of building an accurate marketing budget—and how adopting Uptempo was the key to unifying processes and solidifying a plan. Listen to the conversation here.

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