Time to Market Is Not the Finish Line

Perry D. Wiggins recently wrote something in CFO.com that product leaders should pay attention to.

Product investments run on more than one clock.

I think there are three:

Cost to Market → Time to Market → Time to Profit

Time to Market matters. Every month of delay can mean lost revenue, missed buying cycles, more engineering expense, and more time for competitors to respond.

But launch is not the reason the company invested.

The company invested to create an economic return.

That is why Cost to Market and Time to Profit belong in the same management conversation.

A product can launch early and still be a poor investment if the company bought speed with excessive engineering expense, tooling, inventory, or supplier concessions.

A product can launch on time and still disappoint if adoption, pricing, channel readiness, or customer switching assumptions were wrong.

The business case should not disappear after project approval. It should stay alive as evidence changes.

Launch closes one clock.

The Time-to-Profit clock is still running.

Product leadership is not only about getting products to market faster. It is about making better product investments.