The Escher Cycle: Creating Self-Reinforcing Business Advantage [Hardcover]

Finn Jackson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1587991942 | ISBN-13: 978-1587991943 | Publication Date: October 22, 2004 | Edition: 1

This book shows how to achieve virtuoso performance in business. Strategic and practical, the author starts by identifying the key minimum activities that make any business successful. He then shows how becoming better than rivals at carrying out those activities is what provides a business with four distinct layers of strategic competitive advantage: The first layer of advantage comes from carrying out the basic activities better than rivals. This is Operations. The second layer comes from balancing and aligning the different parts to optimize the business as a whole. This is Leadership. The third layer comes from fine-tuning the way the activities are carried out to match the particular area of the economy where the business is operating. This is Strategy. And the fourth and ultimate layer of strategic advantage comes when the business connects all its different activities together in a way that generates higher levels of performance at them all. This is the Escher Cycle. The Escher Cycle describes how to create self-reinforcing business advantage, by leveraging the forces of progress that created the successful companies we have today, and which are already forming the successful companies of tomorrow. Virtuoso performance in business, as in any field of human activity, comes from focusing on exactly what is needed-no more and no less-and then co-ordinating those different activities perfectly. This book explains how to achieve that in business.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Escher Cycle is unlike any other business book you have ever read. It shows you how to bridge the gap between strategy and tactics, vision and pragmatism, simplifying and improving your business as you do so. It is essential reading for anyone looking to ignite the core of business advantage and sustain it in the Information Age."

"Seldom does one find a book that brings strategy into the very heartland of business operations...In my judgment this is one of the most thought provoking and practical guides for successful business development produced in recent years. It is a must for directors, senior management and entrepreneurs...I would challenge them to be guided before it is the eleventh hour, or too late, and to enjoy this contribution."

"Thought provoking. A mine of diverse information."

"This is one of the clearest accounts I have read about the principles of successful business strategy and practice. Finn Jackson doesnÂ't waste a word. He describes business as a living system; he understands the many different ideas that motivate business people, and he guides the reader through the maze without over complicating or oversimplifying."

"Finn JacksonÂ's Escher Cycle weaves powerful tools for building competitive advantage into a compelling, holistic framework. It offers a blueprint for winning any game your business chooses to play."

About the Author

Finn Jackson is an original thinker, writer, and consultant with a unique focus on strategic innovation. A self-styled ¿business architect¿, he helps create new businesses and rejuvenate existing ones. His expertise in strategy, process, and organization has helped create sustainable strategic change in numerous organizations, ranging from start-ups to billion-dollar business units in more than a dozen countries worldwide. Born in India, Mr. Jackson earned his undergraduate degree in physics from Oxford University¿where he developed his desire to discover the underlying causes that drive observed behavior¿and his MBA summa cum laude from Imperial College, London. At EDS he worked his way up through the business, ultimately serving on the European Leadership Teams of two of the company's top three global accounts. Over nine years, he created lasting strategic change in almost every functional area of the business and became intimately involved in what drives success at all levels of business. He lives in England, and works internationally.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Texere; 1 edition (October 22, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587991942
• ISBN-13: 978-1587991943
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,313,440 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A way to approach business to create an ongoing cycle of success, April 13, 2008

By 

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Escher Cycle: Creating Self-Reinforcing Business Advantage (Hardcover)

Finn Jackson had a successful career in building businesses and then as a business architect helping other companies. Through this book he can help you see how business advantage (competitive advantage) can be created and maintained by allowing it to evolve and transform as demanded by your competitive markets.

The title refers to those famous drawings by Escher of stairs that seem to ascend or descend forever. His goal is to show you how to create an endless self-perpetuating path of self-reinforcing business advantage. He sees success in four layers. The first layer comes with the lowest level of business success. That is, the least you can do to qualify as a successful business. His phrase is to "make money by using resources to satisfy customer needs". Jackson spends a chapter analyzing what it means to satisfy customer needs, using resources, and finally what it means to make money. That making money thing is a tad more elusive than you might think.

Layer 2 is about leadership, which he sees as balancing the management of activities in the present while setting up the mechanisms for success in the future, which will turn into the present soon enough. He adds the words "now and in the future" to the level 1 statement of success.

Layer 3 talks about the importance of strategy and its true role in your success. For Jackson, success is about making your activities and processes more efficient and executing them better than your competitors. He doesn't give a fig about grand corporate strategies. In fact, he says that strategy is only something you use to measure and adjust the effectiveness of your activities.

Layer 4 is achieving the Escher Cycle. Where you put all that you have learned to do in the previous three layers in order to make it an endless cycle of success.

An interesting book that you might well find useful.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Forest and the Trees!, January 10, 2006

By 

Byron W "Voracious Reader" (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Escher Cycle: Creating Self-Reinforcing Business Advantage (Hardcover)

I read this book about a year ago, and it still sticks with me. This book steps back from each arm of a business to give a holistic view of not only how businesses operate, but how to integrate different functions: strategy, operations, marketing, finance, consumer research, etc.

The Escher Cycle shows how to detect and analyze which aspects of your business need building and/or tuning. It also shows you how to reshape your business according to the winds of the market and the transformations of your own business (from high-cost to low-cost/low-end to high end) and which types of transformations are natural outgrowths of your business!

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth the read., March 19, 2009

By 

billh2222 "billh2222" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Escher Cycle: Creating Self-Reinforcing Business Advantage (Hardcover)

I don't get all the way through many books, but I finished this one.
It actually got better towards the end, with some really original thinking.