Editor's note: The posts in the "When Being Disruptive is a Good Thing" series were originally published as Guest Posts by Mark Beckford, before he joined NextBillion.net's team as Staff Writer.

Someone or something that is disruptive is usually associated in the negative. The sub-prime mortgage crisis has disrupted financial and housing markets. That's bad. My son was being disruptive at dinner while someone else was talking. That's bad too.

But I believe the idea of being deliberately disruptive can be a huge positive when used in the development of strategies, organizations, products, business models and markets.  Specifically, disruption can be useful for companies that are trying to serve low income markets and eradicate poverty, all while building a successful business venture.

Back in early 2005, I read CK Pralahad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid and Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Solution just as I started my new job as co- General Manager of the Emerging Markets Platforms Group at Intel. Our group was responsible for developing and selling new PC and mobile products designed to meet the specific needs of those at the bottom of the pyramid. 

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Every few weeks, members of the Silicon Valley Microfinance Network (SVMN) converge in the San Francisco Bay Area to learn about microfinance, microcredit, and related finance and economic topics. The last session, Fueling the Growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMES), was led and hosted by Google.org members Linda Segre and Swati Mylavarapu, who outlined why SMEs are so important and their plans on stimulating SME growth in developing economies.

In most economies, small and medium enterprises, generally employing between 10 and 250 workers, are the drivers of new job creation, innovation, and overall economic growth.  The World Bank estimates that SMEs contribute an average 51.5 percent of GDP in high income countries-but only 15.6 percent in low income countries. By contrast, the "informal" micro-enterprise sector accounts for an average 47.2 percent of GDP in low income countries, but just 13 percent in high income countries. 

Low-income countries typically have very large numbers of informal micro-enterprises and may also have a handful of larger firms-possibly ventures created by foreign investment, or family-controlled conglomerates built up over generations.

But they typically suffer from a "missing middle," with few SMEs in between, held back by perverse regulatory climates and poor access to inputs.

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