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"Needless to say, it’s a big market. One dominated by not 800 pound, but by 800,000 pound gorilla’s. ADP. Paychex. Intuit. Combined, they represent $50 billion
by loganfrederick 14y ago
"Needless to say, it’s a big market. One dominated by not 800 pound, but by 800,000 pound gorilla’s. ADP. Paychex. Intuit. Combined, they represent $50 billion in publicly traded market cap. They also represent slow-moving incumbents, disincentivized to pursue innovation."
The last sentence is why I have not added PandoDaily to my feed subscription list. The fact that they list three companies competing in a market means they are unlikely to be "disincentivized to pursue innovation." In fact, Intuit has regularly been acknowledged by the likes of Forbes[1], Inc and Fast Company and Eric Ries's Lean Startup book as being one of the most innovative public companies. Not only does it show a lack of critical thinking on the subject at hand, but it's passing that lack of knowledge onto the reader.
ZenPayroll is tackling a huge and highly profitable market. They're probably attacking it faster than their public counterparts. But to say a company like Intuit, along with Paychex and ADP, are not innovating because they're "disincentivized" does a disservice to ZenPayroll and its competitors.
I'm just guessing, but I don't think ZenPayroll takes any of its competition lightly and is working as hard as it can to break into this market precisely because it has formidable competitors.
[1]: Why Intuit is More Innovative Than Your Startup: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2012/09/04/intuit-the-30-year-old-startup/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2012/09/04/intuit-the...
- cullenking 14y agoFor what it's worth, I use intuit's payroll (formerly paycycle) and while it's functional, it is neither innovative or progressing. It's very much stagnant, with a UI straight from 2000. I've been with them for two years and nothing has been changed. I can't speak for the others, but there's very much a "it works, lets not mess with it" vibe from Intuit's offering.
- goronbjorn 14y agoIntuit acquired Paycycle in 2009 and the entire company left to do another startup. That might explain why it hasn't changed much.
- yzap 14y agoErrm, that really isn't true. The vast majority of the Paycycle engineering team is still at Intuit and working on Intuit Online Payroll and/or related projects. The amount of people that have left over the past few years feels inline with normal attrition rates (or slightly better than).
- goronbjorn 14y agoWell a lot of the founding team went over to bill.com, I think.
- amorphid 14y agoI use Quickbooks Online's Payroll Service. I like it quite a bit, albeit my company is tiny with uncomplicated payroll. They offer great support, too.
- rwhitman 14y agoI have been part of a team innovating on one of those 800,000 pound gorillas' SMB payroll products. All I can say is that you are correct, that is an untrue statement.