Time-based opportunities to add value

There are several ways in which a company can use time to help meet customer needs better and therefore add more value. The most common examples of this are  

We deal with each of these opportunities in turn. 

Increased responsiveness to customer needs is the most common reason for organisations to invest in time-based approaches to performance enhancement. Many elements of customer service are dependent upon time. These include how long it takes to deliver a product or service, achieving on-time delivery and how long it takes to deal with customer queries, estimates and complaints. 

Customers of time-based organisations do not have to carry as much raw material or component stock and therefore benefit from a cost saving. In order to profit from the service they provide, a time-based organisation needs to demonstrate to customers that the total cost of doing business is lower and to recover some of this value. This can be achieved by winning more business and/or by charging more. 

Time-based organisations are more likely to meet customer needs accurately by using short product development times to produce new products that meet customer needs. The shortening of product development lead time means that innovations can be capitalised on to maximum effect. If a company innovates through product design faster than its competitors it will become increasingly 

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