In commerce, time to market is the length of time it takes for a product to go from conception to sale. Taking too long to get a product to market leads to a diminished addressable market into which producers can sell their products. It's commonly assumed that time to market matters most for first-of-a-kind products, but in reality it can negatively impact revenues in any industry—from reducing revenue opportunities to making the product obsolete more quickly.
As an organization adapts to a digital world, its ability to ship features faster is dependent on the capabilities and flexibility of its digital stack. One of the key reasons companies decide it's time to replatform or replace some elements of their architecture is that they can't execute on their business and marketing goals. Time to market is not only important for new product releases, but also for every change they make on a daily basis, regardless of how big or small. Slow time to market has a cost, which goes to an extreme when an organization decides to do nothing, deeming any change too risky.
In order to reduce time to market, we often advise our customers to improve their tech stack, as if time to market was only of interest to them. In reality, everyone is affected by time to market, nobody is exempt, and we as developers face the same challenges.
According to AI-everywhere supporters, in the future there will be no difference between a skilled developer with years of experience and a beginner, since they will both have access to the same tools for writing and debugging code. In the end, every technology will become commoditized and the time to market will be flattened. Or maybe not. Even AI has a time to market.
My best wishes for the New Year are for you to keep learning, improve your skills and your craftsmanship. Choose your tools wisely. Take this chance to think outside the box. Try something new. Our best way of supporting customers in improving their time to market is to improve our own.