Competitive companies stay that way for a reason — they strive for international expansion. It may only take months to allocate costs, recruit staff and install infrastructure to get the global ball rolling. However, mindsets move much more slowly.
That’s when people like Lindsey Argalas step in. As vice president of international expansion, Argalas moved to Brazil to manage Intuit’s most recent acquisition, ZeroPaper. The “little, scrappy startup” has a small, capable team and 6,000 paid users and Argalas will spent the next year focused on growth. Intuit also acquired its first company in France and has access to more than 40 million small businesses in its total addressable market. Leaders are striving to expand within G20’s large, healthy economies — which are cloud ready and compliance oriented — and Argalas is at the forefront.
Argalas didn’t start out a world traveler. She grew up in rural Nebraska but has since visited 70 and lived in eight countries. She studied international affairs, travel and languages and spent semesters abroad before enrolling in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, where she earned her masters to become a diplomat. However, after an assignment at the U.S. Embassy-Bangkok, she decided to leave government and spent the next decade working in strategy consulting. She soon discovered a passion for managing her own business, so she found the best of both worlds and began leading Intuit’s global journey.
“Intuit is the perfect combination; letting me work on a very strategic initiative for the company, engage in an area I’m passionate about (global) and manage it day-to-day to drive real impact,” Argalas said. “And exploring the world has always been a big part of who I am. I get to merge my personal passion with my career. It doesn’t get much better than that.”
Pushing a global agenda isn’t always easy but experimenting with the rest of the world is essential in noticing foreign opportunity. Argalas keeps experimentation alive and the company on board with emails, presentations, in-person connections and video conferences, which connect employees from different time zones.
“Increasing exposure and awareness in relevant teams will help increase a global mindset,” she said. “Working with global teams also enforces that mindset quickly.”
She urges working teams to build solid relationships by meeting in person as often as once a quarter. She also focuses on customer engagement, and is part of a small group that meets with customers from all over the world to draw parallels and differences across markets.
Along Argalas’ professional journey she’s learned many valuable insights about global growth. For global tips please read her insights below.
7 Tips for Going Global:
Take your time. Going global presents a huge opportunity but it takes a long time. Wait for signals that your company is on a good trajectory and research a handful of markets but do not spread yourself too thin. On the product side, figure out how compliant you are in countries of interest. It doesn’t happen overnight, so be patient!
Approach every market with a clean slate. Go in willing to learn about your customers, the market and competitive dynamics. Conduct in-market visits to countries of interest and meet customers. Overlooking local customer needs and force-fitting a product, which was developed elsewhere, will lead to failure. Then, determine how the company’s existing assets, experience and learnings can best be applied.
Strive for the best of both worlds. Strike the right balance between hiring, growing and empowering local talent. Bring in skilled existing employees with the local market and team. It’s a huge mistake to not sufficiently hire local leadership, native to that market. Also, empower the local team in decision making. Never think HQ knows best. Do not underestimate how important building the company culture is in each market — maintain some consistency.
Manage a global portfolio. This can be used to share learnings across markets and investment funds can be reallocated on a quarterly basis. It also allows you to see your traction and know if more funds are needed.
Invest in product and supporting infrastructure. Make this your first priority because it will ultimately make or break success.
Do your research. Study competitors and get regular feedback. At Intuit, CEO Brad Smith participates in a round-table with other CEOs in Silicon Valley.
Analyze internal data. Intuit does a fair amount of analysis of internal QuickBooks Online data to better understand where there’s demand and how well-suited our product is for a new market.
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