Time is Money—and You Can Take That to the Bank
Geoffrey Moore
Author, speaker, advisor, best known for Crossing the Chasm, Zone to Win and The Infinite Staircase. Board Member of nLight, WorkFusion, and Phaidra. Chairman Emeritus Chasm Group & Chasm Institute.
Enterprises have long understood the power of automation to streamline transaction processing, focusing on taking cost out by taking labor out, thereby increasing productivity, which in turn can support higher wages as humans move on to more nuanced work.? The metric of success here is money saved, and management naturally defaults to using cost reductions as its primary ROI calculation for anything that happens in the Productivity Zone .?
In the age of AI, this is a mistake.
AI in general, and Generative AI in particular, are in the vanguard of a global digital transformation that is reengineering human-facing interactions that address questions that have deterministic answers—What is my password?? Where is my order?? Is this on sale?? As consumers, we all know now that AI is actually much better at answering these questions than humans, especially so when we have to reach the latter via an IVR system—who wants to press 2 to speak to an operator and then be placed on hold, with a message every thirty seconds that says the company values our time, which it obviously does not?
AI-enabled experiences are better because they are faster and easier.? Importantly, however, they are also cheaper.? In other words, the cost take-out ROI is there, and it can and does fund the effort, but it is not the point of the effort, and it is not the right metric to use for evaluating success.? The top priority of your enterprise should be to serve your customers, not your shareholders.? Done right, you can do both, but Improving the customer experience, measured in the reduction in friction, and the reduced latency in response, must be the primary metric because, if it is not, you risk taking cost out in a way that makes the experience worse, and that will land you in a potful of trouble.
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More generally, Productivity Zone leaders in the modern era need to make time, not money, their first-order metric.? Our legacy systems of record are not set up to do?so.? They are still cost-centric in their management focus.?? We need to change that.? Money still matters, but as Ben Franklin taught us long ago, time is money.
That’s what I think.? What do you think?
Retired from nursing and traveling. loving it
3 周Interesting and very helpful.
Retired-Working for a specific Industry helpful to humanity
3 周Why wouldn't AI suffer with the same issues that plague human decision making? Garbage in, garbage out. There are multiple steps a decision must take, limited by the specifics of the value chain and the inter-active management components associated with the value chain. A product or service success is measured by consumer satisfaction. I believe that AI can best be utilized in material management. Efficiencies in materials goes a longer ways than reduction of labor. Control sourcing, production and on time deliveries is the key. AI should be able to control variances such as, usage, pricing and substitution. AI is suitable for material management, on-time deliveries, product turns, reduce customer product losses, and a consistent moment of truth. Thanks
Tierra Verde Landscape & Masonry Inc.
3 周Insightful
Chief Cyber Risk Officer at MTI | Advancing Cybersecurity and AI Through Constant Learning
3 周Shifting the focus from cost to time is a critical adjustment, especially as AI continues to redefine customer interactions. By prioritizing reduced friction and faster response times, companies can significantly enhance the customer experience while still achieving cost efficiencies. This balance, as you rightly pointed out, ensures that businesses serve their customers first, which ultimately benefits everyone, including shareholders. ??
SVP, Productivity at Harness | GTM Executive | Investor | Advisor
3 周I love the concept, Geoffrey Moore. Now we need to take it to the next level to make it fully realizable for an enterprise. How do we help those organizations “consume” the time. If it’s employee time, what % goes to the business and what % back to the employee? If it’s time to market, how do we help them understand the revenue to be had in less time? If it’s customer time, how does that come back as revenue? While time is money, simply saving time does nothing if they can’t consume that time and convert it into something truly meaningful to the business ($$).