Where Does Growth Come From

About this video

Clayton Christensen needs no introduction, but he was the Harvard Business School professor and pioneering thinker who coined disruptive innovation and shaped how the world understands growth, competition, and market change.

Most companies don’t fail because of bad strategy — they fail because they optimize for the wrong things.
If you focus on customers instead of “jobs to be done,” and on short-term financial metrics instead of long-term growth, you will unintentionally kill your own future.

The real decision: Are you building for immediate efficiency, or for future growth — and do your metrics reflect that?

Full Video at the end of page

Core Insight (Plain English)

You’re probably solving the wrong problem.

Customers don’t buy products because of who they are — they “hire” products to get specific jobs done. If you don’t understand that job, your product improvements won’t matter.

At the same time, most companies quietly shift toward efficiency and short-term gains because their metrics push them there. That makes them look successful — while slowly removing their ability to grow.

7 Practical Lessons

• Stop segmenting by customer profile — start segmenting by “job”
  Demographics don’t cause purchases. Situations do. A commuter hires a milkshake for convenience and boredom — not because of age or income.
  In SEA: This matters in fragmented markets where behaviour varies more than demographics.

• Define your real competition correctly
  Your competitors are not always direct substitutes. They are anything solving the same job (e.g., banana vs milkshake).
  This changes pricing, positioning, and product design decisions immediately.

• Don’t assume product improvement = growth
  Improving your product (sustaining innovation) helps margins but doesn’t create new demand.
  Growth comes from making something accessible to new users.

• If you go head-on against incumbents, expect to lose
  Competing with better products for the same customers triggers strong defensive responses — incumbents will win.
  Instead, target non-consumption or under-served segments.

• Disruption is about business model, not technology
  The same tech can be disruptive or not depending on how you deploy it.
  Example: Asset-light vs asset-heavy models (like Uber vs taxis).

• Your metrics are shaping your strategy (whether you like it or not)
  Ratios like IRR and RONA push you toward short-term, low-risk projects.
  You may think you’re being “disciplined,” but you’re actually avoiding growth.

• Efficiency creates cash — but can kill growth if misused
  Efficiency innovations free up capital but don’t create new markets.
  If reinvested wrongly, you end up with cash but no future.

Summary & Reflections

This framework is powerful, but not absolute.

• Not every business can pursue disruption — some industries are constrained by regulation, capital, or scale.

• “Jobs to be done” is useful, but hard to operationalize without strong customer observation and research capability.

• Ignoring efficiency is not an option — the issue is balance, not replacement.

Regional Consideration (Southeast Asia):

• Many markets are still in “non-consumption” stages — strong opportunity for disruption.

• However, fragmented infrastructure and trust gaps mean execution is harder than theory suggests.

• Cash flow pressure in SMEs may force short-term decisions despite long-term awareness.

Who should watch the full video

• Founders deciding growth vs profitability trade-offs

• Product and strategy leads

• Operators in scaling SMEs

• Investors evaluating long-term viability

Decision Rating

Decision Usefulness: ★★★★★
Highly actionable. Forces operators to rethink core assumptions about customers, growth, and metrics — all directly tied to decision-making.

Strategic Value: ★★★★★
Provides a foundational lens (jobs-to-be-done + innovation types) that reshapes how to approach markets, competition, and long-term positioning.

Practical Applicability: ★★★★☆
Concepts are powerful but require effort to implement (customer observation, metric redesign). Not plug-and-play for all SMEs, but highly usable with discipline.

Until next time,
The SME Signal editorial Team

Contact

Questions? Reach out anytime.

Email

hello@smesignal.com

© 2026. All rights reserved.