Glossary of business and management terms

The following special terms are used in commercial business and the management of large organisations such as corporations.

Abbreviations

• 24x7
• CAO - Chief Accounting Officer
• CEO - Chief Executive Officer
• CFO - Chief Financial Officer
• CIO - Chief Information Officer, Chief Investment Officer and Chief Innovation Officer
• CISO - Chief Information Security Officer
• CMO - Chief Marketing Officer
• COB - Close Of Business
• COO - Chief Operating Officer
• CPO - Chief People Officer also Chief Procurement Officer
• CSA - Customer Service Advisor
• CTO - Chief Technical Officer
• CLO - Chief Legal Officer
• CSW - Completed Staff Work
• CxO - Any of the above, x being a placeholder. Chief [Placeholder] Officer.
• FTE - full-time equivalent
• FY - fiscal year
• HIBBIS - Heads in Beds, Butts in Seats (Used in the hotel industry)
• HR - human resources
• KPI - Key performance indicators
• NDA - Non-disclosure agreement
• PCP - Previous corresponding period (Used when comparing sales over corresponding periods)
• POS - point of sale
• R&D - Research and Development
• RIF - Reduction in Force
• ROI - return on investment
• SBU - Strategic Business Unit
• SME - Subject Matter Expert / also Small to Medium Enterprise
• TCO - total cost of ownership
• USP - Unique Selling Proposition/Point
• VP - Vice president
• WC - Week Commencing
• WE - Week Ending
• YTD - Year to date
• EOD - End Of Day

Nouns

• 50,000 foot view: Highest management overview

• 30,000 foot view: Program management view

• Assessment -

• Bandwidth -

• Benchmarking/Benchmark: Measuring against

• Best practice: Tried and tested methology/process

• Best practice methodology -

• Bottleneck: Where a process is held up

• Blue sky thinking: Idealistic or visionary ideas - not always with practical application (source: BBC)

• Cascade: Array of possible actions to take in response to a problem: protocol

• Change -

• Check in the box - complete the task

• Chit -

• Coach/Couch the idea -

• Compensation actions -

• Competitive advantage -

• Conflict resolution -

• Constraints -

• Core competencies -

• Core values -

• Cost avoidance -

• Cost reduction -
• Cost transformation -

• Cracker jack -

• Critical thinker -

• Cutting edge practices - "up to date", new methods

• Dashboard -

• Deliverable/s - end product

• Diagnosis -

• Downsize - reduce the number of employees through a layoff

• End-user perspective: What a customer thinks of a product or service or how they feel having to or after using a product service. What is thought about one of your items or services sold by a third party

• Enterprise -

• Excellence -

• Flavor of the month - the current popular activity/person as directed by the company/client/management.

• Fire fighter -

• Game changer -

• Game theory -

• Gatekeeper -

• Golden handshake -

• Golden parachute -

• Governance -

• Headhunter -

• Hub: an idea which other ideas are linked to

• Income pressures -

• Joined-up thinking: Discussing the viewpoints of each organization and coming to an agreement or compromise

• Individual contributor -

• Leadership -

• Lean forward and Lean back media

• Learning experience -

• Line of sight -

• Low-hanging fruit: Tasks that have the greatest positive effect for the least effort, used when promoting new projects to show the advantages.

• Mad as a hornet -

• Mastery -

• Matrix organization -

• Metrics Milestones -

• Momentum -

• Moving target -

• Nesting (process)|Nesting -

• Not invented here -

• Initiative -

• Individual contributor -

• One belly button to push: Reduced number of suppliers

• Operational excellence

• Outcomes -

• Paradigm shift -

• Partnership -

• Positive Momentum -

• Practical application -

• Process -

• Process management -

• Product / service environment -

• Raft of measures: A collection of proposals or schemes

• Recommendation -

• Requirements -

• Revenue growth -

• Revenue mix -

• Rightsize -

• Seat at the table -

• Showcase -

• Show stopper -

• Tent pole: the task or item most likely to delay a project or consume the most resources

• Six Sigma -

• Silo (Vertical and Horizontal) -

• Silver bullet: One solution for everything

• Stakeholders: every group or individual affected by the outcome of a decision

• Standards -

• State of the art -

• Superior advantage/performance -

• Supply chain -

• Synergy -

• System -

• Teamwork -

• Thought leader -

• Touchpoints -

• Under-pinning: The foundations of an idea, which helps another related scheme or proposal

• Unique selling proposition (USP)

• Value added -

• Womb to tomb: An idea or program that is killed before it has a chance to grow or flourish

• Win-win solution: Providing a product or service which makes everyone happy

Verbs

• Action -
• Attract -
• Baked In: Same as "included," in principle. Something which has been "baked in" is implied to be impossible to remove.
• Boil the Ocean: An effort or task which is perceived by the speaker to be impossible or impractical.
• Build Capacity: Take actions which produce no useful output immediately, but increase the amount of useful work which can be done in the future.
• Call out -
• Capture -
• Champion -
• Circle Back -
• Circle the wagons
• Collaborative -
• Connect the dots -
• Cover all directions of the compass: Try to make things acceptable for all stakeholders
• Create the storyboard: Outline what the solution will look like
• Deep dive: Get into the detail
• Deliver -
• Dialogue -
• Differentiate -
• Drill Down –
• Eating one's own dog food: Use the same product that is sold to your customers, especially if it's a bad product
• Drink the Kool Aid - (from the Jonestown Massacre)
• Emerge/Emerging -
• Enhance -
• Escalate -
• Evolve -
• Execute -
• Exploit -
• Facilitate -
• Forge -
• Foster -
• Generate -
• Grow -
• Have the vendor in our pocket: Keep a vendor / contractors paid
• Highlight -
• Ideate -
• Impact -
• Implement -
• Incentivize -
• Inspire -
• Integrate -
• Intervene -
• Land and expand: To sell a small solution and then grow it within the client's environment
• Leverage -
• Manage -
• Mature
• Monetize
• Moving forward: Making progress on an idea or scheme
• Onboarding -
• Partner -
• Pick the low-hanging fruit: Go for the easiest option
• Ping -
• Power to the elbow: Get additional backup information to make your case stronger
• Pushing the envelope: Going outside normal boundaries to achieve a target or goal (such as exceeding specifications)
• Reach out -
• Re-engineer -
• Re-use -
• Scale up -
• Simplify -
• Sing from the same hymn sheet: Show a united front or everyone understanding and saying the same thing to customers or service users
• Spearhead -
• Strategic plan -
• Strategize -
• Stratic -
• Sugarcoating -
• Synergize -
• Table that -
• Tackle -
• Think outside the box -
• Throw a curve -
• Touch base -
• Touch base: To meet up with a colleague to discuss progress (from baseball)
• Transform -
• Tread Lightly-
• Unify -
• Utilize -
• Vet -

Adjectives

• Actionable -
• Authored -
• Cross-Functional - resume jargon, music to management's ears
• Customer-centric -
• Dynamic-
• In the loop - knowing what's going on and being kept informed
• Innovative -
• Geographically dispersed -
• Granular -
• High-level -
• Holistic -
• Nimble -
• Off the shelf - buying in a product or service already completed
• Results-driven -
• Revolutionary -
• Robust -
• Scalable -
• Seamless -
• Superior -
• Sustainable -
• Thoughtful -
• User-centric -
• Win-win -

Adverbs

• Impactfully -
• In the weeds - view by staff who actually do the work
• Synergistically -

See also

• Bullshit
• Corporate communication
• Corporate jargon
• Doublespeak
• Euphemism
• Obfuscation

References

• "A glossary of business terms", Business English, 2004, ISBN 9780764124440