You can sum up my most fundamental belief I have learned in decades of strategy, economics, and digital transformation experience with one sentence:
If you reduce the friction in vendor identification and purchase — from discovery, evaluation, and trust, through to decision and commitment — companies can unlock exponential revenue growth.
The big challenge is that, for most of my career, I have wrestled with a core frustration: why does a company take so little action on this simple concept? Is it that it is so overly simple, and we need complexity to want to act on something?
I believe this is one of the most significant missed opportunities.
Where This Idea Comes From — My Strategic DNA
I didn’t learn this in marketing class. In the background of the 5 Levers, I go through my transformation into a global strategist and how my “strategy brain” was forged by:
- A decade in the U.S. Marine Corps, where “Improvise — Adapt — Overcome” shaped my instinct for execution under uncertainty, and taught me to value clarity, mission-first thinking, and systems-level awareness.
- Business school, where I encountered Michael Porter (external competitive forces) and Kenichi Ohmae (internal alignment around customer & differentiation), gave me the dual structure of external pressure + internal capability.
- A radical thesis on using the internet to reach overseas markets, when few had even used it, and how, during a defence of my paper, a professor introduced me to George Stigler and the concept of information cost and asymmetry.
- Real-world validation: I sold to Japanese customers from a modest website — proving that when information asymmetry collapses, small players can reach global buyers.
- Thirty years of global digital transformation consulting: witnessing how misaligned incentives, organizational silos, unclear value propositions, and internal complexity sabotage revenue — even when “best practices” are followed.
This blend of military-grade execution, strategic theory, economic insight, and real-world digital grit forms the foundation of what I call Digital Strategy for the AI Era.
Friction Isn’t a UX Problem — It’s an Economic Drag
Most organizations think of friction as:
- “UX needs improvement.”
- “The funnel leaks.”
- “Conversion is low.”
But that’s putting the cart before the horse.
Friction is not a detail — it’s the core economic variable that determines:
- how easily customers can find you
- how quickly they can understand you
- how confident they are in trusting you
- how fast they make decisions
- how likely they are to buy
When friction is high, conversion is low.
When friction is low — not simply optimized — but minimized, everything else scales.
You don’t just get a better conversion rate but unlock compounding growth:
- shorter decision cycles
- higher lifetime value
- better brand equity
- stronger referrals
- lower acquisition costs
- better margins
This is not magic or hype. It’s economics.
I remember building the “Missed Opportunity Model” after being told by a CMO at a multinational company that I did not need to attend the rest of the day’s meetings since he did not believe in Organic Search. He felt that his sales team and “traditional advertising” were what was driving engagement and sales and this “his prospects had no need to search.” The next morning I showed him how many people were searching for products and services like his and he was not present in page 1 of Google. That 87% of people select from page 1. I asked a few questions:
- What is someone searching for your type of service who was not aware of you? Would they ever become aware if you’re not in the consideration set?
- What if they are aware of you? Would their respect for you change if you were not listed amongst your competitors?
- What if they had a question related to your solution and went to Google to get an answer, and 1. Your competitor could answer the question, or maybe had a counterpoint that helped them shift to them?
- If any of these are valid, are you willing to take the chance?
These questions helped break his brand and traditional marketing arrogance. He realized in his personal life, he often searched for information, products, and services, but did not make the connection to his day job. Within a few months of getting them listed and driving millions of visits and exponentially increasing lead volume, he became a significant advocate for Search and mandated that each department closed any identified information gaps.
Why Most Organizations Fail to Remove Friction (Even When They Try)
Here’s the uncomfortable truth:
Everything about modern organizations is engineered to create friction.
This has become painfully obvious as I have been writing my two new books, The KPI Trap and Maximizing Web Effectiveness, which are essentially diagnoses of this phenomenon.
Despite knowing friction matters, organizations still fail — because:
1. Incentives reward activity, not clarity or simplicity
Teams are measured on output (pages published, features shipped, keywords targeted), not on friction reduction.
No one’s accountable for “ease of decision.”
Nobody is rewarded for:
- reducing cognitive load
- clarifying the purchase path
- eliminating steps
- speeding decision-making
- simplifying the information layer
Friction has no owner → so it grows.
2. KPIs and dashboards ignore friction cost
A team can hit:
- traffic goals
- impression goals
- content volume
- NPS
- “experience” KPIs
- departmental OKRs
…and still be adding friction.
Thus The KPI Trap:
Teams optimize the wrong things.
They actively measure what is visible – revenue, traffic, bounce rate, and time on page.
But the cost of confusion, cognitive friction, decision delay, abandonment from overload — hidden.
If it doesn’t show up in a dashboard, it won’t get fixed.
3. Organizational silos each add their own friction
Marketing adds messaging.
Product adds complexity.
Legal adds compliance.
IT adds forms and gates.
Analytics wants tracking.
The brand wants consistency.
Finance wants control.
Each layer adds friction.
No one removes it.
4. Nobody models the “Economics of Friction.”
Executives understand revenue.
They understand cost.
They understand conversion.
But friction cost?
- cost of confusion
- cost of slower identification
- cost of lost trust
- cost of cognitive overload
- cost of abandonment
- cost of misalignment
- cost of switching away
These hidden costs never make it into dashboards.
So they never get fixed.
5. Companies Mistake Features for Value
Global Business Strategist Kenichi Ohmae reminds us that:
“Most companies present what they want to sell, not what customers need to know.”
More features, more content, more micro-copy, more options — all meant to demonstrate value.
But to a buyer drowning in information, features feel like clutter.
Clarity and alignment — not features — reduce friction.
This creates friction:
- too much content
- vague pages
- unclear segmentation
- no clear differentiation
- long blocks of text
- decision ambiguity
More information ≠ less friction.
Better information = less friction.
6. Digital ecosystems amplify organizational chaos
Global teams, multi-language sites, multiple CMS, SEOs, content, legal, markets.
Every inconsistency introduces friction — often invisible until it’s too late.
This becomes a Web Effectiveness Paradox:
- Every disconnected team creates an isolated solution.
- Every isolated solution creates inconsistencies.
- Every inconsistency increases friction.
- Every friction layer increases abandonment.
Organizations build fragmentation, not clarity.
7. Execution-first thinking is missing
No one is accountable for “Vendor Identification Friction.”
If the buyer can’t identify the best vendor quickly and confidently, the vendor loses.
But no team owns:
- discoverability friction
- comprehension friction
- comparison friction
- trust friction
- decision friction
Friction grows in the shadows of organizational gaps.
Under uncertainty, companies hesitate.
They overthink.
They segment.
They over-optimize.
They never launch.
They never simplify.
That’s the opposite of “Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.”
They build complexity.
They bake friction in.
Why Eliminating Friction Must Be a Team Sport
Reducing friction isn’t a UX task.
It isn’t a marketing tactic.
It isn’t a conversion optimization project.
It isn’t a redesign initiative.
Friction is an organizational outcome.
It is the result of how the company works, not what any one team does.
That’s why on a call today, I told a client something that has been proven true in every transformation I’ve ever led:
“You can only be successful if you make your efforts a team sport.”
Because when we analyze why organizations fail to reduce friction, every reason traces back to misalignment:
- Marketing creates expectations they cannot fulfill
- Product introduces complexity no one can explain
- Content teams write without understanding user context
- Legal introduces ambiguity
- IT adds gates and forms
- Analytics demands more tracking
- Brand adds extra layers of messaging
- Leadership introduces conflicting KPIs
- Regional teams modify the experience
- Customer support undermines what marketing promised
- Sales overrides pricing
- Teams fight for turf
- No one owns the holistic experience
One friction point is noise.
Ten friction points are a signal.
A hundred friction points are culture.
And culture is what kills growth.
The reason organizations fail to remove friction is the same reason they fail at digital transformation:
They are misaligned on fundamentals.
The fundamentals are not frameworks, trends, or tools.
They are the core truths that define every successful digital business:
- Clarity
- Simplicity
- Trust
- Relevance
- Consistency
- Structure
- Speed
- Shared accountability
- Customer-first principles
- Team-first execution
When teams don’t operate from the same fundamentals, they create competing user experiences — each optimizing for a different KPI, priority, or interpretation of the customer.
That fragmentation is the real source of friction.
Not UX flaws.
Not bad content.
Not analytics issues.
Not lack of AI tooling.
Organizational misalignment is the friction source.
Friction is the growth killer.
And alignment is the growth engine.
This is why the simplest idea you identified 30 years ago is still the governing truth of digital strategy:
If you reduce the friction in vendor identification and purchase — from discovery, evaluation, and trust, through to decision and commitment — companies can unlock exponential revenue growth.
Everything else is a footnote.
What an Aligned, Friction-Free Organization Looks Like
A friction-free business isn’t one that has perfect UX or delightful branding.
It’s one where every team shares the same fundamentals, which produces the following characteristics:
A friction-free organization is one where:
- Information is clear — no guesswork, no hunting, no jargon.
- Value is obvious — customers instantly understand what you do and why it matters.
- Trust is earned in minimal steps — through clarity, transparency, and consistent signals.
- Decisions happen quickly — because confidence is high and risk is low.
- Commitment feels safe — the path feels predictable, guided, and supported.
- Switching becomes harder than buying — because the experience is frictionless and the value is reinforced at every step.
In practice, that requires organizational alignment across:
- clear, structured content and messaging
- minimal decision steps
- transparent pricing, terms, and guarantees
- clean user flows
- consistent brand and value signals
- simplified information architecture
- cross-functional alignment
- a shared commitment to clarity and simplicity
- incentives that reward reducing friction, not adding it
When an organization aligns on these fundamentals, friction collapses — and a powerful thing happens:
You don’t just improve conversions.
You create a compounding growth flywheel.
Speed increases.
Trust increases.
Consistency increases.
Customer confidence increases.
Team effectiveness increases.
Revenue accelerates.
AI and search systems reward you.
Market share expands.
Switching decreases.
This is the real formula behind exponential revenue.
Not more content.
Not more features.
Not more frameworks.
Not more dashboards.
Just alignment → clarity → reduced friction → exponential growth.
The Utopian Ideal Isn’t Actually Utopian — It’s the Strategic Goal
Let me further simplify my original thesis and adapt to into today’s language:
If a company can remove friction from “Who are you?” + “What do you do?” + “Why should I trust you?” + “How do I buy?”, revenue doesn’t grow linearly — it grows exponentially.
Why?
Because:
- decisions compress
- confidence increases
- switching decreases
- loyalty increases
- Inclusion in AI answers increases
- visibility expands
- Operational efficiency rises
- referrals grow
- abandonment shrinks
Friction removal creates a compounding advantage.
THIS is the real heart of the Five Strategic Levers.
From Utopian Idea → Strategic Imperative
This is not lofty theory.
This is strategic realpolitik.
If you care about:
- scalability
- global reach
- AI-driven distribution
- digital transformation
- long-term value
- real competitive advantage
You must make friction reduction — not marketing hype — your North Star.
Because:
In a world where information is free and switching is instant, clarity is the new currency.
Friction is the hidden cost no one measures — until it’s too late.
Call to Action for Leaders
If you are reading this, here’s what to do now:
- Conduct a friction audit of your customer lifecycle (discovery → decision → purchase → trust).
- Try to buy from your website,
- Ask a question from your support form,
- Try to call and get an answer,
- Use your chatbot
- Try all forms of engagement you have,
- Identify every point of confusion, delay, ambiguity, risk, cognitive load, duplicate steps, unclear value.
- Assign ownership of friction reduction — not just “digital optimization.”
- Align incentives with simplicity, clarity, trust, speed, and customer experience—not output volume.
- Build governance and systems to prevent friction creep (multiple departments touching content, messaging, UX, forms, compliance, etc.).
- Treat friction reduction as a strategic lever, not a one-off UX fix.
If you do this — consistently — you don’t just optimize.
You transform.
You scale.
You win.
Further Reading and Action
Check out my multi-part article series on the 5 Levers and how you can improve your web ecosystem and increase overall web effectiveness.
I want to clearly state that this idea of reducing friction isn’t mine alone. Behavioral scientists, user-experience researchers, and neuroscientists have known for decades:
- Humans are lazy.
- Humans avoid effort.
- Friction kills desire.
One of the clearest contemporary expositions of this is Friction: The Untapped Force That Can Be Your Most Powerful Advantage, by Roger Dooley.
According to Dooley, small amounts of friction serve a functional gating role — but once friction accumulates, it becomes “the enemy of conversion, trust, and value.”
In today’s world of AI, instant comparison, global reach, and vanishing switching cost — friction doesn’t just matter.
It defines competitive advantage.
It’s not a feature you add once.
It’s a cost structure you manage continuously.
If you cannot move faster, clearer, simpler, you lose before you start.
