"But the real focus should be on people who are buying today because the base is so big it will take a long time for any change materialize on an overall basis"
About this Quote
A corporate truism dressed up as urgency, Sanjay Kumar’s line is really a play for attention: stop romanticizing the “future customer” and obsess over the buyer already reaching for their wallet. The intent is tactical, almost defensive. “People who are buying today” isn’t just about revenue; it’s about measurable reality in a landscape where forecasts, pilots, and “transformation” decks can substitute for traction. He’s signaling to investors, teams, or partners: judge us by what’s converting now, not by what might.
The subtext lives in the phrase “the base is so big.” Big installed bases are both moat and anchor. They create stability, but they also slow everything down: behavior, migration, adoption, even reputation. If you’re selling into a massive market, the seductive story is “change is coming fast.” Kumar punctures that. At scale, even genuine change arrives like weather, not like a switch flip. “It will take a long time” reads like an inoculation against impatience: a request for runway, tolerance, maybe forgiveness for lagging indicators.
The wording also quietly shifts responsibility. If change doesn’t “materialize,” it’s not because strategy failed; it’s because the overall system is inertial. That’s a classic operator’s move: narrow the scoreboard to what you can control today while reframing macro outcomes as slow, structural, and therefore not immediately disprovable. In a business culture addicted to disruption narratives, this is an argument for compounding: win the present customer, and let the “overall basis” catch up later.
The subtext lives in the phrase “the base is so big.” Big installed bases are both moat and anchor. They create stability, but they also slow everything down: behavior, migration, adoption, even reputation. If you’re selling into a massive market, the seductive story is “change is coming fast.” Kumar punctures that. At scale, even genuine change arrives like weather, not like a switch flip. “It will take a long time” reads like an inoculation against impatience: a request for runway, tolerance, maybe forgiveness for lagging indicators.
The wording also quietly shifts responsibility. If change doesn’t “materialize,” it’s not because strategy failed; it’s because the overall system is inertial. That’s a classic operator’s move: narrow the scoreboard to what you can control today while reframing macro outcomes as slow, structural, and therefore not immediately disprovable. In a business culture addicted to disruption narratives, this is an argument for compounding: win the present customer, and let the “overall basis” catch up later.
Quote Details
| Topic | Marketing |
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