Introduction of Intuit in.: Project Agrinova

1. Intuit Inc.: Project Agrinova

2. PROJECT AGRINOVA
• In 2008, Intuit assigned its Global Business Division the task of exploring
indigenous businesses in India to serve the local customers.
• The agrinova team identified agriculture as a promising market and
conducted a preliminary research in the industry.

3. AGRICULTURAL SECTOR IN INDIA
• Contributes to 25% of GDP
• Accounted for 60%-70% of employment
• Approximately, 150 million farmers growing crops for sale rather than
personal consumption.
• 60% of cultivated area lacking proper irrigation facilities.
• Could not afford HYV seeds.

4. AGRICULTURAL SUPPLY CHAIN
• The supply chain consists of farmers, middlemen and customers.
• Small farmers received only 40% of the retail price of their produce,
middlemen received 35% and retailers & customers received 25%.
• Farmers sold 65% of their produce in mandis,30% at farm gates to
distributors and 5% directly to customers.

5. TRANSACTIONS IN A MANDI
• 6300 mandis in India till 2007, out of which 98% are regulated.
• Average of approximately 50 agents per mandi.
• 5% of sales in a mandi were done through auctions
• Remaining 95% were done through non-auction sales.

6. CONSTRAINTS FACED FARMERS
WHERE TO SELL
WHOM TO SELL TO
WHEN TO SELL

7. CONTINUED
Along with these problems they also had the problem of finding out the fair
prices of their
produce.
Farmers were thus exploited by the agents as they entered into unfair private
agreements with whole sellers.

8. INTUIT’S IDEAS
• Intuit came up with the idea of crop price
information service.
• SMS based services like-
What to grow?
When, Where and Whom to sell?

9. IDEA SELECTION
• The Agrinova team selected to serve the second need of when, where and
whom to sell?
• To increase access to information and price realization two services were
thought of-
Crop exchange
Price Discovery System
• Ultimately, they decided to use the Price Discovery System.

10. NEXT STEPS
• Firstly, need to tackle the big players and competitors in the
segment.
• Secondly, Intuit had to change the behavior of the farmers and make
them believe that they received better prices due to intuit’s services.
• Thirdly, to gather reliable price data from the agents.
• Fourthly, they had to find out whether the agents will partner them
in the long run.

11. • Lastly, and most importantly the serious questions were still
unanswered-
1. Would farmers pay a transaction price?
2. Would Agrinova generate profit through ads?
3. How would agrinova recruit users?
4. How much it would cost to collect data?
5. Will they be able to cover their fixed costs and earn a profit?