Definition
The time required from concept to market launch.
In detail
Time to Market (TTM) refers to the time from product concept formation to official market launch. It measures the speed of the product development process and is a key indicator of market competitiveness. TTM is closely related to Product Lifecycle Management (PLCM), but TTM focuses more on the development cycle, while PLCM covers the entire lifecycle. Shortening TTM requires cross-functional collaboration and concurrent engineering. The output of TTM is typically a time period, which can be broken down into phase durations to identify bottlenecks.
Example in practice
A consumer electronics company found that competitors frequently launched new products, and its own long product launch cycles led to market share loss. The company analyzed the components of TTM and found that the concept validation and testing phases took the most time. By introducing cross-functional teams, parallel development, and early user testing, they reduced TTM from 18 months to 12 months. The new process enabled the company to respond faster to market changes and improved product competitiveness.