Jobs-to-be-Done Growth Strategy Matrix: 5 Strategies to Fulfill Customers’ Jobs

Mark Bridges
4 min readAug 25, 2023

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This environment of intense competition necessitates unique strategies.

After identifying a customer category, organizations must determine which customers to target and how. There is a need to establish the complete scope of consumer jobs (including their underserved and overserved requirements).

Now is the time for Leadership to contemplate and select the most appropriate strategy required to succeed in a market. It is time to determine whether it is necessary to add a new feature to an existing product, create a less expensive version of an existing product, or pursue an entirely different path.

The Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) Growth Strategy Matrix outlines market strategies to target the appropriate customers and satisfy their requirements. The matrix facilitates the selection of the optimal strategy for a given circumstance. The product should complete a customer’s task more quickly, effectively, and affordably than its competitors.

The JTBD Growth Strategy Framework illustrates the potential for product or service offerings to complete customers’ jobs better, worse, more inexpensively, or more expensively on the 4 quadrants of a matrix. It enables organizations to target various consumer segments with a value proposition by placing them in the appropriate quadrants. The Y axis of the matrix demonstrates the organization’s ability to complete jobs more or less efficiently than its competitors. The X axis, on the other hand, demonstrates its ability to offer more expensive or less expensive products than the competitors.

• The upper left quadrant accommodates consumers with unmet requirements. To attract these consumers, organizations should provide products with superior performance and, in exchange, charge a premium price.

· Customers with limited options occupy the lower left quadrant. Companies can charge this group a premium for their products even if they offer no competitive advantage.

• The right upper quadrant accommodates customers with either underserved or overserved requirements. A product with superior performance and a lower price will attract such customers.

• The right lower quadrant consists of non-customers or customers whose requirements are overserved. Organizations should price their products at a lower level to attract this customer segment.

In order to satisfy the unique requirements of the customers in the four quadrants of the JTBD Growth Strategy Matrix, organizations can employ one of the following 5 strategies, depending on the circumstances:

  1. Differentiated Strategy
  2. Dominant Strategy
  3. Disruptive Strategy
  4. Discrete Strategy
  5. Sustaining Strategy

Let’s delve a bit deeper into the first 3 strategies for now.

Differentiated Strategy

Many of the most profitable and fast-growing companies in the world employ a Differentiated Strategy because, when executed properly, it generates astronomically high profits. This strategy is adopted to serve underserved consumer groups with a new, more expensive product or service that conducts a customer’s task more effectively.

The strategy enables a company to enter a market at the upper end, capture a substantial portion of profits, and then penetrate the market to increase market share. Through operational Innovation and production cost reduction, the company can progressively reduce the price of its older products while simultaneously introducing newer, superior products.

Dominant Strategy

Dominant Strategy is adopted by businesses that target every consumer in a market with a new product or service that performs the same function noticeably more effectively and at a lower price. This strategy drastically reduces existing players’ margins and frequently necessitates investments in a new product platform, competencies, resources, and talent, making it impossible for the vast majority of incumbents to defend themselves.

According to research, organizations adopting a Dominant Strategy can be successful if their value propositions are at least 20% better and cheaper than that of their competitors.

Disruptive Strategy

Organizations employ disruptive strategy to target overserved customers or non-consumers with a new offering that enables them to accomplish a job to be done more cheaply but less effectively than competing offerings.

Interested in learning more about the other Product Strategies? You can download an editable PowerPoint presentation on JTBD Growth Strategy Matrix here on the Flevy documents marketplace.

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Mark Bridges
Mark Bridges

Written by Mark Bridges

I blog about various management frameworks, from Strategic Planning to Digital Transformation to Change Management. https://flevy.com