Innovation alone in today’s hyper-competitive SaaS landscape is no longer enough. Many companies build strong products, craft ambitious strategies, and invest heavily in go-to-market (GTM) execution, yet still struggle to outperform faster competitors. The difference is often not the idea, the funding, or even the technology. It is speed. Keith Vere Fenner, Chief Revenue Officer at Morae Global, believes many leadership teams overlook one of the most important indicators of market success, and that is speed to market. “Many companies track revenue, pipeline, and conversion rates,” Fenner explains. “But they overlook the KPI that determines how quickly strategy turns into results, speed.”
Having built high-velocity SaaS organizations across five continents and previously held leadership roles at companies such as Microsoft, Sage Group, and Diligent Corporation, Fenner has seen how execution speed can determine which companies dominate their markets and which fall behind. He argues that speed is no longer just a competitive advantage; it is a survival strategy.
Speed Is a Cultural Capability
Many executives view speed to market as an operational challenge. They invest in new tools, optimize development cycles, or streamline internal processes in hopes of accelerating execution. Fenner believes the real constraint is often deeper. “Speed is not just operational,” he says. “You have to think of it as cultural.”
Organizations move quickly when teams are empowered to make decisions, test ideas, and respond to market signals without unnecessary layers of approval. In slow organizations, insight often exists, but action stalls while teams wait for consensus or direction.
Speed to market is not created during strategic planning sessions alone. It emerges when teams have the clarity and authority to act on information quickly. “The fastest organizations remove friction from decision-making,” Fenner explains. “They shorten the distance between insight and execution.”
That philosophy echoes the leadership approach championed by Jeff Bezos, who famously emphasized rapid decision-making. As Bezos once observed, many business decisions are reversible and do not require extensive analysis. With sound judgment, they can, and should, be made quickly. For Fenner, the same principle applies across modern SaaS organizations. When teams are trusted to move quickly, innovation accelerates and opportunities reach the market sooner.
The Real Bottlenecks in GTM Execution
When companies attempt to accelerate GTM performance, they often focus on product development timelines or sales productivity. But Fenner has found that the most significant delays often occur elsewhere. “Speed is not just about development sprints or sales enablement,” he explains. “It often stalls in the gap between product, marketing, and sales.” This creates friction across the entire GTM engine. Product teams may develop capabilities that marketing has not yet positioned, while sales teams struggle to communicate evolving value propositions to customers. When alignment breaks down, execution slows.
Fenner has seen the opposite dynamic as well, organizations where cross-functional alignment dramatically accelerates time to market. “When you break down those silos and align the GTM engine,” he says, “execution accelerates and time to market drops rapidly.”
At Morae, the platform helps legal leaders transform complex regulatory environments into actionable operational intelligence. The goal is not simply more information; it is faster decision-making. “The advantage doesn’t come from having more technology,” Fenner explains. “It comes from implementing intelligence that allows leaders to move from analysis to action faster than the risk landscape evolves.”
Speed Compounds Competitive Advantage
The most powerful impact of speed to market is not simply reaching customers earlier, but the effect that follows. “Speed compounds value,” Fenner says. “You learn faster, you iterate faster, and you capture market share before competitors even show up.” When Morae optimized its own GTM framework, Fenner observed a direct impact not only on revenue growth but also on organizational learning. Accelerated execution shortened the feedback loop between customers and product development teams. Insights from the market translated faster into improvements, new capabilities, and stronger positioning.
Measuring the Metric That Matters
Despite its impact, speed to market remains one of the least measured metrics in many organizations. GTM teams are often evaluated primarily on revenue outcomes. While revenue is critical, Fenner believes it does not fully capture how effectively a company executes strategy. “If you only measure GTM teams on revenue,” he says, “you miss the real signal.”
A more important leadership question is simpler, and far more revealing. “How quickly can we turn insight into impact?” For boards and executive teams navigating rapidly evolving markets, that question may be the most important KPI of all. In an era shaped by AI, accelerating regulation, and constant technological change, speed is no longer just a tactic used by ambitious companies. It is the strategy that determines who leads and who struggles to keep up.
Connect with Keith Vere Fenner on LinkedIn or visit his website for more insights.
