Book excerpt: A Business Partner is a professional who supports and advises strategic and operational decision-making through insights that drive better business performance. Often as a result of external changes, business partners must respond quickly to map out the future strategic development, keep the firm competitive and ensure all objectives and legal requirements are met. In this book, business partnering expert Steven Swientozielskyj introduces a framework that provides a set of practical tools and techniques via a simple six stage model that, when replicated, will take the practitioner from start to finish through strategic change; from the formation and agreement of the strategy to its delivery and sustainability. Business Partnering is a one-stop shop for understanding this important phenomenon and as such will be vital reading for practitioners and academics in the business arena.