Waiting: The Costliest Business Decision

Who would have thought that “wait” as a business decision would become as archaic as a typewriter, rolodex, or other tools that used to be part of everyday business? Back in the day, and that means about 15 years ago, companies could get away with charting out a new strategic direction, product, or service, and then take their sweet time implementing it. Maybe they wanted to test the market more or create redundancy in their supply chain… whatever it was, they would wait and wait some more. Back then, your only real threat was that the competition would possibly beat you, but they were also taking their time and the threat wasn’t nearly as pressing.

What happens when we try to wait in today’s supercharged world?

• Existing competition hot on your heels: If you’re realizing that waiting is killing your business, assume your competitors are twice as aware. They are not waiting and are in an aggressive execution mode. We see this often with larger companies that move like molasses. They think they are about to take the lead in their industry with a move they waited forever to make, only to find out that a competitor has beaten them to it. Oh!
• corporate espionage: spy vs. Spy had some funny cartoons, but the reality is about as funny as getting hit over the head with a wrench. More and more companies are spying on each other to gain an advantage and they are succeeding. Do you want to give away your advantage to your competition? Wait until they implement a great idea and give them the window they need to steal it and come up with their own solution/discovery/product.
• chinese hacking: This one makes corporate espionage look like a picnic on a sunny day. According to Mike McConnel, former US Director of National Intelligence, China has hacked into every major US corporation. China has shown that they can sometimes copy something faster than many companies can distribute the original. This is a real example of what can happen when you wait. You are simply giving them extra time to get their copy of your product to market.
• new contest: Faster, quicker, easier and more agile is how the new competition is coming to market. Digital accelerates their entry and the business decision to wait gives new competition the time they need to overcome their baby teeth and develop some serious fangs to take a bite out of their market share. If you’re already a market player and you let this happen because you expected it, well, you deserved it.

Decisions that feel solid and make you want to rush are researched, tested, and analyzed. Sometimes the wait happens because you don’t have a business decision process. That makes you wait because you’re scared, confused, or just plain lazy, but whatever it is, you need to know how to beat the wait because the list above has only four possibilities and there are endless more.

Accelerate your business decision: stop waiting

• Be Brave: Fear of a bad business decision causes waiting, also known as paralysis, and paralysis is the #1 tactic predators use to prepare their prey to kill and devour. Think about it… but not for long.

• Research It: Sure, we said to be brave, but that doesn’t mean to be a complete cowboy. Towards a new strategic direction? Do you want to launch a new offer or just want to try a new tactic to get leads? Investigate what you are doing with empirical data and market research to back up your conceptual idea. Strive.

• Pilot It: OK, you’ve researched it and you feel good. Now is the time to validate your business decision. No more waiting, no more nothing. Push yourself and the organization to act. For those of you who have to redo a facility and spend millions to pilot, this may not be an easy option, so being thorough with your research is your only option before moving to a pilot.

• Test and Analyze: If you went to all the trouble to research and test, you better be testing and analyzing. The tests tell us more than whether the pilot works or not. It tells us if our business conceptualization, research, piloting, and decision-making process is sound. If so, we can start to pick up speed. If not, he tells us that we need to tweak a bit or maybe the entire process. Constantly analyzing the results is not a nice thing with pretty graphics and pictures, it’s cold cash in your pocket or burned in a fire.

Once you’ve implemented this process, you’ll find that you don’t want to wait any longer because you actually have a path. No methodology? Waiting will become your business decision over and over again until one day, you won’t have a business. Do you really want to wait for that?