Terms in business

Basic business terms

Let’s start by looking at a few very basic business terms that you might hear or need to use when you gain full-time employment (or even set up a business of your own).

1. Business plan

A business plan is, as the name suggests, a document used to outline plans for a business, setting out growth goals for the next three to five years, and identifying information needed to achieve those goals, such as target market, unique selling points, marketing goals, and so on. It might also outline strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (also known by the abbreviation “SWOT”). Business plans are essential for those setting up or developing a business, and will be needed in order to secure funding from banks, the Government or investors.

2. Balance sheet

A balance sheet details the company accounts at a certain point in time (often the end of the financial year). It lists the values of the company’s assets (things belonging to it), liabilities (what it owes) and ownership equity (what’s left after liabilities). It’s intended to provide a snapshot of how the company is doing financially, which can then be compared with goals outlined in the business plan.

3. Start-up

The term “start-up” is used to describe a brand new business, typically in its first few months or years of trading. The term has connotations of entrepreneurship, and the implication is often that the company will grow significantly in size. It’s often associated with the tech industry, because the term was used extensively during the dot com boom, but it can apply to any new business. Start-ups are typically thought of as forward-thinking, often with a relaxed atmosphere in unconventional offices. Because start-ups are in their infancy, they have a small number of employees and often no strict hierarchy, making them attractive places to work.

4. Forecast

Just as a weather forecast predicts what the weather’s going to be doing, so a business forecast predicts various aspects of a business’s future movement based on its current situation, external factors, new products, plans for marketing and such like. The timeframes are usually somewhat longer than those involved in a weather forecast – three to five year forecasts are common. Types of business forecast include sales, profit and loss, and cashflow; the latter helps business owners predict whether they’re likely to run out of money.

5. Marketing

Marketing refers to the promotion of a product or service. It can take numerous forms, including advertising, emailing customers, sending out leaflets or brochures, engaging with potential customers via social media, and so on.

6. USP

A “USP” is the “Unique Selling Proposition” of a company, product or service – in other words, what makes it different from similar offerings. USPs are considered when a company is set up or a new product or service is launched, and they’re also at the forefront of marketers’ minds, because it’s the unique aspects that enable those charged with marketing to succeed, by highlighting reasons why customers should choose them rather than another company.

7. HR

The abbreviation “HR” stands for “Human Resources”, and it’s the part of a company that deals with matters relating to its employees. The goal of someone who specialises in HR is to ensure that employees are happy and productive, reducing turnover of employees (that is, reducing the frequency with which employees leave and new ones are hired) and maximising the cost-effectiveness of the company’s investment in its workforce. HR oversees employee training and development, enforces company regulations and deals with payroll (everything to do with the payment of employees). HR is also there to handle disciplinary matters, and to deal impartially with problems arising between employees, and between employees and their managers.

8. Recruitment

Recruitment is the process of hiring new employees. Companies exist whose sole purpose is to match employers with potential employees. Companies exist whose sole purpose is to match employers with potential employees; these are known as recruitment agencies.

9. Brand

“Brand” is the term given to a company’s name and the recognisable attributes that go with that company, which define its unique identity. The company’s tone of voice and design of official communications are part of what gives it this “brand identity”.

10. Public Relations

Public Relations, or PR, is the role within a business devoted to communicating with the press, and ensuring favourable media coverage of a company, product or service.

11. Minutes

The “minutes” of a meeting are notes taken during the meeting to record what was said, what was agreed, and to assign actions to individuals whose responsibility it will be to complete them.

12. Cold call

This is a phone call, usually from a sales representative of a company, to a potential customer or client who is not expecting the call and with whom there has been no previous contact, with the aim of trying to sell them something. Cold calls have a bad reputation, and are often referred to by customers as “nuisance” calls.

 

Office jargon

A particular category of business-related vocabulary is known in English as “office jargon”, and it’s a widely derided language all of its own. Also known as “management speak”, these are the self-aggrandising terms that many people in business use in order to make themselves sound clever and important; at least, that’s what they think. In reality, most people loathe office jargon, and those who use it lose the respect of those around them. We introduce you to a few such terms here, so that you know what they mean if you hear them yourself (and so that you know what to avoid saying in a business environment!).

13. Going forward

This is usually used to mean “from now on”. Some may consider it to have connotations of moving on positively from something negative that may have occurred: “we’ll adopt a different approach going forward”.

14. Thinking outside the box

A favourite of ‘quirky’ creative agencies, the phrase “thinking outside the box” means to think creatively, abandoning all preconceptions.

15. Blue sky thinking

The archetypal piece of office jargon, the term “blue sky thinking” is another way of expressing the idea of “thinking outside the box”.

16. Action

You’ll know the word “action” from its normal contexts, such as action movies, or simply describing something being done (“taking action”). However, in the business environment this one of many examples of a noun being turned into a verb. “Can you action that?” might be a request you’d hear in an office, meaning simply “Can you do that?”

17. Stakeholders

This word is used to refer to anyone who’s involved in a particular project. If someone has a say in the outcome of a piece of work, they are a “stakeholder”.

18. Buy-in

This term refers to the idea of gaining acceptance for something. If someone agrees to subscribe to a particular way of doing things, for example, they are “buying in” to the idea. You might see a phrase like “seek buy-in from employees” in an HR document discussing the implementation of a new set of rules, for example.

19. Leverage

Though “leverage” is another word that’s meant to be a noun – meaning the use of a lever to apply force – it’s often heard in a business context being used as a verb, meaning to utilise something to the business’s advantage – “leverage our contacts to spread the word”, for example.

20. Touch base

This is surely one of the most cringe-worthy pieces of office jargon, and it’s filtered its way through from the pitches of American baseball into the offices of the UK. All it means in the office environment is “to make contact”. You might hear “let’s touch base”, meaning “let’s talk”.

21. On the same page

In the world of office jargon, it’s apparently acceptable to take a well-known idiom – in this case “singing from the same hymn sheet” – and dumb it down for use in the boardroom. If you boardroom. If you’re “on the same page” as someone, you’re approaching something from the same point of view as them, with the same agreed assumptions in mind.

22. Feedback

Yet another example of a noun becoming a verb for the purposes of awful office jargon is the word “feedback”, which should be used as a noun to describe constructive comments on something (as in essay feedback). However, in an office environment it’s not unusual to hear it used as a verb – “We’re waiting for him to feed back on the ideas” – or even, horrifically, in the past tense: “He’s fed back to us that he doesn’t like it”.

23. Price point

For some reason, some business types like to talk about “price points” instead of just “prices”. This is one of many examples of using more complicated language in lieu of a simpler word or phrase.

24. End of play

This irritating term refers to the end of the working day. “Close of play” is a variant, as in “Can you get this over to me by close of play today?”

25. Drill down

You might hear this term used to describe something that deserves closer inspection: “we need to drill down to the finer details”.

26. Best practice

You might hear colleagues referring to industry “best practice”, which describes a generally acknowledged ‘best way of doing things’ in order to achieve optimum results.

27. Core competency

This bewildering phrase refers to the strengths of a person or company. The word “competent” doesn’t even refer to strength – it means the ability to do something to a satisfactory standard.

28. Scalable

If something is “scalable”, this means that it’s an idea that will work easily on a larger scale to the one it currently works on. For example, a “scalable” business model is one that’s easy to replicate in order to expand the business.

29. Skill set

This refers to someone’s range of skills. It’s jargon because it’s an unnecessary way of describing what could easily be referred to simply as “skills”.

30. Vertical

You’d have thought that the word “vertical” is simply the opposite to “horizontal”, but not in a business context. In the world of business jargon, it refers to an area of expertise. Rather than saying “we cater for the logistics industry”, some business types might say “we cater for the logistics vertical”.

31. Get the ball rolling

This is simply a way of saying “start”. You might hear it at the beginning of a meeting, when the person organising the meeting might say “let’s get the ball rolling” to mean “let’s begin the meeting”.

32. Annual leave

Many business people now write in their out-of-office emails that they’re on “annual leave”. This simply means that they are on holiday. “Annual leave” is really a term used by the military, and it’s unclear how it became adopted into the world of civilian business.

33. Low-hanging fruit

Imagine picking fruit from a tree: you’d go for the ones hanging low first, as they’re easiest to get. In business, the phrase “low-hanging fruit” is used to describe the tasks or opportunities that are easiest to tackle.

34. Quick wins

This horrible phrase refers to the same sort of thing as “low-hanging fruit” – the things that are easiest to achieve.

35. Helicopter view

Believe it or not, this means “a quick overview”. Why anybody felt that describing it in this way was necessary is anybody’s guess; but the same could be said of any of the examples on this list of office jargon, so you’re best off avoiding these terms if you want to be taken seriously in an office environment.

terms

1. team-player (n)

She has all the qualities of an excellent team-player.

2. collaborate (v) / collaborative (adj) / collaboration (n)

A British company collaborated with a French firm to develop the product.

3. coworking / shared workspace (n)

One of the benefits of coworking / shared workspace is that people don’t have the isolation of working from home or in a noisy café.

4. start-up (n)

Many start-ups fail in their first year because there is little or no market for their product.

5. entrepreneur (n)

These entrepreneurs made their money in technology and media.

6. multinational (n)

Tesco is one of the biggest multinationals in the UK.

7. disruption (n) / disruptive (adj)

Airbnb, Netflix and Uber are examples of disruptive brands that have created new markets.

8. gig economy (n)

In a gig economy, workers are paid for the “gigs” that they do, such as couriers for delivery companies.

9. budget (n/v)

The marketing budget will be announced in the next meeting.

10. diversify (v) diversification (n)

The company has diversified into new product areas.

11. expand (v) / expansion (n)

We’re planning to expand our sales division next year, so we’ll be hiring 100 new staff.

12. freelance (n)

After working at the company for many years, he decided to go freelance.

13. consultant (n) / to consult (v) / consulting (n)

He now works as an IT consultant in various organisations.

14. skill set (n)

We offered her the job as she has the right skills set for it.

15. launch (n/v)

They’re launching their new product tomorrow.

16. revenue (n)

We really need to increase our revenue from ticket sales.

17. sector (n)

Salaries in the public sector have fallen again.

18. invest (v) / investment (n)

It’s important for companies to invest in their staff.

19. leadership (n) / lead (v)

Her leadership style has been described as democratic as she asks for input and considers feedback from her team before making a decision.

20. deadline (n)

He’s met all of his important deadlines this month.

21.core business (n) The company has decided to focus on their core business – affordable fashion.

22. go into administration (v) The company has gone into administration as it is unable to pay back its debts.

23. added value (n) With her experience and contacts, the new Business Development Manager clearly offers added value.

24. emerging markets (n) Emerging markets such as Mexico and Indonesia are popular with traders as they tend to experience fast growth.

25. agenda (n) There are several items on the agenda for today’s meeting.

26. sustainability (n) / sustainable (adj) High-sustainability organisations take into account environmental and social performance of the company, as well as financial performance.

27. outsource (v) / outsourcing (n) / insourcing (n) Companies may choose to outsource their IT support in order to reduce costs.

28. merger (n) / merge (v) The merger between these two companies has created the world’s second biggest carmaker.

29. takeover (n) / take over (v) Employees are often concerned about losing their jobs when a bigger company takes over their firm.

30. crowdfunding (n) They raised money for the film through crowdfunding.

31. board of directors (n) She currently sits on the board of directors.

32. brand awareness (n) Working with influencers on social media is an effective way of increasing brand awareness.

33. staff (n) 10 members of staff are attending the conference.

34. impact (n) Social networks are making a huge impact on sales.

35. capital (n) We need to raise more capital in order to implement our new strategy

36. close a deal (v) After months of negotiations, we finally closed the deal.

37. competitor (n) / compete (v) / competition (n) Our major competitor is able to offer much lower prices.

38. conference call (n) Conference calls have reduced the need for business travel.39. retailer (n) Many high-street retailers are closing stores due to competition from online outlets.

40. creditor (n) We need to pay our creditors by the end of next month.

41. economies of scale (n) Bigger companies that operate globally often benefit from economies of scale.

42. HR / Human Resources (n) / (adj) As an HR professional, I specialise in training and development.

43. network (n/v) Conferences provide a great opportunity to network.

44. project (n) I’m working on an exciting new project.

45. go public (v) Many private companies go public by selling shares on the stock exchange; one example is Manchester United plc.

46. shareholder (n) Shareholders own shares in a company and are usually paid dividends when the company makes a profit.

47. stakeholder (n) Stakeholders of a company include employees, suppliers, customers, shareholders and the local community.

48. digital strategy (n) Digital strategy involves the use of new technologies to maximise a company’s competitive advantage.

49. overheads (n) Overheads, or ongoing business expenses, include rent, utilities and insurance.

50. balance sheet (n) A balance sheet reports a company’s assets, liabilities and shareholders’ equity at a given point in time.

-Sarvesh SJB Rana

PhD in Political Science