The advice that businesses want most from their accountants
- Article
- 16 Apr 2026
Small businesses, like Bhangra Blends, are looking for more support and guidance from their accountants, to not only understand the financial landscape but also gain tailored insights that help them navigate uncertainty and plan for future growth. Find out more about the key areas where businesses want advice.
Scaling up: how to build flexibility into your strategy
- Article
- 14 Jul 2025
How to grow: scaling a business isn’t just about growth, it’s about growth with resilience – especially during these times of greater uncertainty.
Finance for the Future Awards spotlights green finance trailblazers
- Article
- 04 Jun 2025
Finance professionals and teams at the forefront of embedding sustainability into business strategy were honoured at the 2025 Finance for the Future Awards.
How to integrate sustainability into strategic management
- Article
- 01 May 2025
By incorporating natural, social and human capital into strategic management, financial professionals can focus on the ‘triple bottom-line’ in which profit, people and planet share equal billing.
How much is your non-financial capital worth?
- Article
- 25 Apr 2025
Measuring and reporting natural capital may seem an insurmountable task, but many critical frameworks and processes are available to help finance professionals structure their approach.
Finance business partnering: five skills you need
- Article
- 27 Feb 2025
Learn from two ICAEW experts how to master the skill of finance business partnering, which is rooted in relationships, influence, strategic thinking and commercial acumen.
Does your board need a sustainability committee?
- Article
- 10 Jan 2025
Organisations wanting to ensure they’ve got sustainability governance at the top might be considering the creation of a sustainability committee. ICAEW examines research into whether such committees are a useful addition to the board.
Company culture: setting the right tone
- Article
- 13 Mar 2023
Meet four experienced board members who all understand the power of a strong culture for any organisation to achieve its long-term goals.
Reports
How boards of accounting and finance firms can benefit from shadow boards
- Helpsheets and support
- 2024
Shadow boards can be considered as a tool for navigating a turbulent and ever-changing business landscape. Find out how accountancy businesses can see the same benefits from setting up a shadow board that other sectors are already experiencing.
Exclusive
Platform businesses: A Guide
- Helpsheets and support
- 2021
This guide explores the characteristics of platform businesses and the importance of different aspects of trust in making them work. It concludes with five actions that will help you consider the opportunities they provide.
Exclusive
Business Ecosystems: A Guide
- Report
- 2021
The term ecosystem is regularly bandied about in business conversations. But what does it mean and is it a useful metaphor for improving business performance?
Exclusive
The CFO and Strategy
- Report
- 2020
Our first report explores the nature of strategy, particularly how CFOs balance planning and opportunism. We then consider the various aspects of the CFO's role in strategy.
Exclusive
Special Report 68: Commercial Insight
- Report
- 2020
- PDF (1,761kb)
This special report explores how to be more commercial to add value and generate profit for your firm.
Exclusive
Special Report 63: Innovation
- Report
- 2018
- PDF (1,674kb)
Innovation is key to improving productivity and efficiency. This report covers the subject with practical and interesting articles.
Exclusive
Special Report 58: Courageous Leadership
- Report
- 2017
- PDF (1,654kb)
Courage is one of the skills that great leaders are deemed to need and perhaps the most important. This report covers the key areas that leaders might want to focus on.
Exclusive
Special report - Pricing
- Report
- 2016
This report deals with the practical aspects of pricing strategy for products throughout their life cycle.
Strategy tools
PESTEL - what is it and how to apply it to your business strategy
- Article
Ensure your strategy takes into account the political, economic, societal, technological, environmental and legal context.
Exclusive
Porter’s Five Forces
- Article
Explore the competitive landscape of your industry sector by using Michael Porters Five Forces framework. Find out what the five forces are and read through practical examples.
Exclusive
Resource Based View of the Firm
- Article
Do your internal resources give you a competitive advantage? Undertaking a Resource Based View could help to understand your organisation's competences and resources. Here we outline what the approach entails.
Exclusive
Strategy Maps
- Article
Strategy Maps offer a useful way to analyse the strategic drivers of financial performance. Here we outline what they are and examples of how they work in practice.
Exclusive
Success Mapping
- Article
Systematically discuss how you will achieve your strategic objectives by implementing Success Mapping. Here we outline what it involves, potential benefits and pitfalls to be avoided.
Exclusive
SWOT
- Article
Make the most of analysing your organisation’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Webinars
Exclusive
Five generations at work: how we win together, for good
- Webinar
- 23 Sep 2024
This webinar explores how organisations can harness the power of intergenerational collaboration to drive innovation, productivity, and long-term success.
Exclusive
Strategic thinking for senior professionals
- Webinar
- 29 Sep 2020
Find out what the three core questions of strategy are and the common pitfalls to avoid in addressing them.
Training courses
CPD courses: strategy and risk
Explore ICAEW CPD courses covering strategy and risk, across virtual, in-person and elearning options.
Browse courses 
The ICAEW Library & Information Service provides full text access to a selection of key business and reference eBooks from leading publishers. eBooks are available to logged-in ICAEW members, ACA students and other entitled users. If you are unable to access an eBook, please see our Help and support advice or contact library@icaew.com.
Exclusive
Anyone can do it: building Coffee Republic from our kitchen table
- eBook
- 2004
- Sahar Hashemi, Bobby Hashemi
- Capstone
Takes the reader step by step through every aspect of starting and growing a business.
Exclusive
Building a resilient organisation
- eBook
- 2014
- James Crask, Charley Newnham, Jack Armstrong, Paul Robertson
- ICSA Publishing
How to build a prosperous and sustainable business.
Exclusive
Competing in tough times: business lessons from L.L.Bean, Trader Joe's, Costco, and other world-class retailers
- eBook
- 2010
- Barry Berman
- Pearson
A guide to winning business strategies for retailers.
Exclusive
Corporate life cycle: business, investment and management implications, The
- eBook
- 2024
- Aswath Damodaran
- Portfolio/Penguin
Explains markers that tell where a company falls on its corporate lifecycle, and contains insights for managers as they navigate the different stages.
Exclusive
Corporate strategy
- eBook
- 2006
- Richard Lynch
- Financial Times Prentice Hall
A wide-ranging and critical approach to strategic management.
Exclusive
Developing new products and services: learning, differentiation, and innovation
- eBook
- 2012
- G. Lawrence Sanders
- Business Expert Press
A guide to producing competitive products by differentiation.
Terms of use
You are permitted to access, download, copy, or print out content from eBooks for your own research or study only, subject to the terms of use set by our suppliers and any restrictions imposed by individual publishers. Please see individual supplier pages for full terms of use.
The Library provides access to leading business, finance and management journals. These journals are available to logged-in ICAEW members, ACA students and other entitled users subject to suppliers' terms of use.
Exclusive
Strategic transformation at Microsoft under Satya Nadella: a platform-oriented model of dynamic renewal
- Article
- 30 Dec 2025
- Narendra Sharma
This article shows how Microsoft achieved strategic renewal through “integrative ambidexterity,” using cultural transformation and platform orchestration to balance exploration and exploitation without structural separation.
Exclusive
Strategic pivoting: how organisations can shift attention whatever their size
- Article
- 26 Jan 2024
- Mark N. Wexler, Judy Oberlander
This article considers how strategic pivoting, traditionally associated with early-stage organisations, can be applied by corporations of various sizes and types. It explores challenges relating to organisational complexity, path dependency, and stakeholder management.
Exclusive
Digital transformation: strategy comes first to lay the groundwork
- Article
- 18 Jan 2024
- Louise B. Kringelum, et al.
Drawing on data from over 1,000 Danish organisations, this study identifies five key strategic actions that are essential to successful digitalisation.
Exclusive
The mysterious world of airline pricing: innovative practices and strategies for profit
- Article
- 04 Feb 2022
- Mohammad Reza Habibi, Chiranjeev S. Kohli
Business success and pricing are very closely intertwined. Using the airline industry as an example, this study aims to explain how businesses can improve their profitability through creative pricing strategies.
Exclusive
The power of impossible
- Article
- 18 Jun 2021
- Alexandre Asselineau
This paper aims to propose practical insights to harness the power of “impossible” thinking such as considering impossibility as a current and temporary state, adopting an unconventional mindset and redirecting the reflection on what is needed to make the idea possible.
Exclusive
Strategy maps: the middle management perspective
- Article
- 06 Nov 2020
- James C. Goldstein
The second major step in the development of the balanced scorecard was the introduction of strategy maps. The purpose of this study is to examine the implementation of strategy maps in a real-world setting.
Online magazines
Some online journal titles are available only to logged-in ICAEW members, ACA students and other entitled users. To view the full range of titles available to you, please log in.
Strategic Risk
- Website
- Newsquest Media Group
Risk management journal focused on Europe. Includes breaking news, comment and analysis.
Disclaimer
ICAEW accepts no responsibility for the content on any site to which a hypertext link from this site exists. The links are provided 'as is' with no warranty, express or implied, for the information provided within them. Please see the full copyright and disclaimer notice.
Articles and books in the ICAEW Library collection
The collection of the ICAEW Library & Information Service includes a range of articles, books and reports on corporate strategy and planning. Use the links below to see what we have available to request in our Library catalogue.
Directors' duties, ESG and sustainable strategies: a fresh perspective
- Library book
- 2026
- V. Dennis
- Law Society Publishing
A practical guide to how ESG considerations intersect with directors’ legal duties, highlighting the risks of non-compliance and the role of sustainable strategy, good governance and corporate culture in supporting long-term business success.
Business model innovation: a blueprint for strategic change
- Library book
- 2024
- C. Velu
- Cambridge University Press
This book identifies new business models capable of creating sustainable competitive advantage, and guides readers through their implementation. The author sets out numerous real-world examples which illustrate key issues.
The good governance guide to strategy
- Library book
- 2021
- M.Wearden
- CGI Publishing
This book looks in detail at strategic planning and management. It also zooms out to highlight the importance of environment, organisational culture and governance structures to a successful strategy. Includes a section on managing change.
Strategy: an international perspective
- Library book
- 2020
- B. De Wit
- Cengage Learning EMEA
This book covers the many perspectives in the field of corporate strategy, navigating readers through contrasting viewpoints to encourage discussion and debate.
Directors' checklists
- Library book
- 2020
- M.Wearden
- ICSA Publishing
An easy-to-use A-Z guide to the key tasks and responsibilities of a director. It is designed for quick reference, with each entry including an introduction and explanation, a checklist of points to consider, procedures to follow and cross-references to relevant legislation and regulation.
The pioneering practice: The 9 key strategies for your accounting practice to stand out and build lucrative relationships
- Library book
- 2018
- A.C.Watts
- CreateSpace
A step-by-step guide to the nine key marketing strategies your practice needs for success.
To find out how you can borrow books from the Library please see our guide to borrowing books.
You can obtain copies of articles or extracts of books and reports through our document supply service.
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