There are two currencies in our life. One is money, which we know so well, and the other is time. Today’s generation in particular dabbles with both, whereas generations gone by devoted their lives to the primary quest of money and money alone. That one currency that brings it all in. The idea was simple. Money can buy it all, so go after it. Money is comfort candy.
What’s different now? We live in the midst of a generation that worships two gods in the currency market. This is a generation that believes in the value of time as well. And this generation seems to have got it right. There is a fallacy in the chase of one currency, primarily money. Money can be earned and topped up, whereas time (the new precious currency to chase) cannot. Time can only be spent, whereas money can be earned and spent as well.
The future looks even more interesting. While today’s consumer values both time and money with some degree of yin and yang equity, tomorrow’s consumer is likely to value one more than the other. And the balance seems to be tilted towards time.
Take a piece of research I have just emerged from. This is not a research exercise that has involved pure and overt consumers alone. It has explored the soft consumer as well. The non-consumer, even. This exercise covers a total of 18,450 people all across India, parts of Southeast Asia, the UK, Turkey and a whole new constituency in my research that I call the “Virtuaworld”. Virtuaworld is all about the new consumer who is on digital platforms. This is a consumer who can live anywhere in the world, but behaves just like any other on this medium. The Utopian consumer. I treat the Virtuaworld consumer as a virtual geography of its own.
This study covers homemakers, tech workers, gig workers, permanent job holders, students, and seven other categories of interest, including a very small sample size of sex workers.
The key point we tried to eke out of this research exercise was how important time is to them all as opposed to money in 2021. And the key answer that we got was one that must jolt many a home, many a business and many a government agency that takes care of the welfare of its people. In 2021, people all across these geographies value time more than money. When pushed to think, the value of time is rated 61% important as opposed to the obvious currency of money at a less-robust 39%.
All of us really know it. There is obvious currency in our lives, issued by the central banks of countries, and then there is the unobvious currency that is issued out by our lifespans. While both currencies remain rather unpredictable to acquire, hoard and manage, I do believe the role of the unobvious currency of time is set to rise. The era ahead of us, if not the one we live in today, is all about time, its utility, saving, harvesting and worship.
The one big consumer movement I see ahead is the movement that will want to hoard time as opposed to money. The homemaker will want to assess and plan how she will use her time just as much as the overt consumer will want all businesses he or she interacts with to do so for her. Time is the super-currency of our lives.
If we do accept this, money loses its pre-eminent status on our corporate balance sheets all of a sudden. Yes, it is a good and common metric to measure success or failure with, but there is a more important god to worship at our doorstep: the god of time.
Businesses of every kind whether you are a milk vendor, beauty parlour, gym, restaurant, telecom service provider or financial services player need to rejig their offerings keeping the currency of time in mind. Most businesses you and I interact with are all based on the obvious currency of money. You go to a shop and there is a discount on the pack of coffee you are about to buy. Businesses of the future need to releverage their marketing and sales promotion efforts to worship the second god. Saving time is emerging to be more important than saving money.
Technology, then, and businesses that leverage technology are on the right and fast track in the future. Technology is a time-saving friend. Technology and every piece of software as a service (SaaS) and app you use is doing just this. The tech business of every kind is therefore on track to be in clover. Time clover.
Are there threats to some businesses? What about those of entertainment and sport that just gobble up every bit of time there is? Watching an IPL match at a stadium or within the confines of your home or restaurant is possibly gobbling up three hours of your time (and let’s not speak of cricket of the one-day and five-day kind). If you are watching it in the stadium, you might be spending Rs 900, and in-home it looks like you are spending next to nothing. But think. You are actually spending Rs 900 and three hours at the stadium and possibly the same number of hours and next to nothing within home.
Is the sports and entertainment industry in for a bit of stress as people start valuing their time more than money? This seems far away, but then, is it really?
Every business thus needs to releverage its offerings keeping the god of time in mind as opposed to the god of money alone as in the good old days. In the bad new days, every business needs to put on its balance sheet, and indeed in its DNA, a whole new currency called time.
Harish Bijoor
(harishbijoor@hotmail.com)
Brand Guru & Founder, Harish Bijoor Consults