Product Acceptable Time to Market = Consumer Acceptable Time to Wait

Often you hear the term "time to market." This usually refers to how long it takes a company to get their product from development to customer purchase availability. Of course, companies want their time to market timelines to be as short as possible. The faster someone can buy something, the faster a company can make money from the purchase. Not to mention other competitive factors, like being the first to market with a brand-new amazing feature, and so on.

However, like all equations, there is an opposite side that must balance. In this case, the other side that equals an acceptable time to market is the consumer's acceptable time to wait.

Product Acceptable Time to Market = Consumer Acceptable Time to Wait. Let me explain.

If you (as a consumer) are perfectly fine waiting another year for a new coffee mug, then your time to wait is not putting pressure on the coffee mug industry to accelerate their time to market. Therefore, the coffee mug industry must first alter the perception of the consumer time to wait before accelerating their time to market timeline to no avail. Hint - marketing can help with this.

In contrast, where the current consumer acceptable time to wait for safer vehicles that drastically reduce car accidents is immediate, this does put tremendous pressure on the automotive industry to accelerate their time to market timelines. This is where the consumer market can unbalance the equation and could shine a negative light on a single company while opening a new opportunity for another company due to this time to market = time to wait equation.

So think about it... How long are you willing to wait for a new coffee cup? How long are you will to wait for vehicles to stop polluting the air we breathe? Your answer will impact more than you realize, on both sides of the equation.