Success Quote by Arthur C. Nielsen

Speed is usually sold as a perk; Arthur C. Nielsen treats it as a discipline, almost a moral obligation. "Give your clients the earliest delivery consistent with quality" sounds like a simple operational guideline, but the clause that follows is the real tell: "whatever the inconvenience to us". He’s not bargaining with the customer or romanticizing hustle. He’s drawing a line inside the company: client time is the scarce resource, and your comfort is not an acceptable counterweight.

The phrasing does two things at once. First, it inoculates against the classic corporate failure mode where "quality" becomes a respectable excuse for delay. By pairing speed with "consistent with quality", Nielsen turns quality into a floor, not a shield. Second, it reframes inconvenience as a cost of doing business rather than a crisis. That subtext matters because most organizations instinctively optimize for internal ease: fewer handoffs, fewer late nights, fewer uncomfortable decisions. Nielsen is telling managers to absorb friction internally so the client experiences smoothness externally.

Contextually, this fits a measurement-and-service economy Nielsen helped shape: trust is built not by grand promises but by repeatable performance. Deliver early, but don’t break the product; keep the standard, but don’t hide behind it. The quote is less about kindness to clients than about institutional self-control. It’s a warning that the quickest way to lose credibility is to make your workflow the customer’s problem.