The skills of managing and motivating people toward goals."One of the key leadership skills is the ability to state clear objectives."Labor In business, employee work which represents part of the cost of goods sold. “If we have to tune each crystal individually, it’s going to up our Labor costs tremendously.”Lend Providing an item of value to someone else, with the assurance they will give it back to us later."Why did you lend him the money again, when he never pays it back?”Leverage To use one resource of recognized value as the collateral basis for obtaining other resources. “We’ll leverage this valuable piece of land by using it as collateral for a loan to make a shopping center on it.”Liabilities Obligations agreed to, usually financial (opposite of Assets). “Because we have more assets than liabilities, we appear to be wealthy.”Loss When we spend more money creating a product than we receive from selling it. "We took a loss last year while we were developing the new product for market."Lucrative Having the possibility of making a great amount of gold. "The contract is so lucrative because for each sale we get extra for installation!"Maintain Keep in good condition, as with a machine or a business. "If you maintain this airplane, it will keep you up in the air."Management The practice of administering a segment of a business or a whole business, leading people, channeling resources, and making decisions as events require. "If I study management, perhaps I will be better at running a business."Materials Part of the unit cost of a product (materials, labor, and overhead). “A dedicated purchasing department could really bring down the cost of our materials.”Margin An amount of money existing between two figures; commonly a profit margin that is that amount of profit remaining from income after all expenses and taxes. “Putting the product in designer boxes is going to shrink our margin to nada.”Marketing Ascertaining what product to produce for what a segment of consumers demands, how to inform them it is available, and how to deliver it. “Actually, Sales is only a small part of Marketing, although many people think they are same thing.”Market Share Your product’s percentage of the total sales in a market with many products. “We can always increase our market share by lowering our prices, but that doesn’t mean we’ll make more profit.”Market Positioning The planning of a business for its product line. “We’re changing our market positioning now from the quality leader to the price leader.”Mark-up Usually, the amount a retail store adds to its wholesale costs to offer a price to the customer. “Pizza has a humongous mark-up when it’s cooked for the customer in a retail store.”Memo A fairly short document with a message, sent to other people in the same company. "There’s a memo out telling who gets the new parking spaces."Merchandising The process of packaging and displaying retail products for sale. “Our merchandising people say customers will buy more of any product if it is located across the end of the aisles in the store.”Monopoly When one company has the only products within a whole market. “If our competitors get a monopoly, they won’t have any competitors like us.”
N-O | Top | P-QNegotiate Attempt to change the price or agreements to make a better arrangement. "We negotiated a different deal. When we said we’d pay in cash so they gave us a 10% discount."Net The amount of money received from sales, after expenses are subtracted. "Our expenses always make our net turn out to be much less than our gross sales."Niche A market that is specialized and may not be served by products in the more general market. “Tennis shoes can be a profitable niche market if your community has tennis courts available to all.”Network (noun) Usually within a business structure, the linking together of information equipment and software to achieve efficiency for each participant. (verb) To communicate with others in a structure or a loosely organized group with some common interest. “I network daily with professionals on my company’s network.”Online Connected electronically by computer for the purposes of passing and obtaining information. Or playing games. “He spends every waking hour online.”Organization Chart The visual representation of positions and reporting relationships within a business. “I’m not very prominent on the organization chart.”Outsourcing Obtaining services or labor from persons or companies who are not officially employed by your company. “We’re outsourcing all of our web site maintenance because we don’t want it to be part of our employee head-count.”Out of Pocket Extra business expenses not usually included in major categories for reimbursement. “The delivery guy didn’t give you a receipt for his tip, but you can add that to your travel voucher as an out-of-pocket expense.”Overhead One of the classic components of Unit Cost (with Materials and Labor), Overhead includes a variety of miscellaneous items as travel, equipment, warehouses, and all items other than Labor and Materials.“I guess we’ll include the cost of the company party as Overhead.”Ownership The legal right, usually by virtue of some amount of investment, to determine purposes and activities in a company, and the accompanying responsibility to honor all company obligations. “The majority ownership has determined we must cut all jobs not directly related to bringing in profits.”
P-Q | Top | N-OPay amount of money or other items of value given to an employee for an agreed upon performance. Sometimes called Compensation. “Harold would like to go out and work for himself, but he likes the regular pay he gets here.”Parameters In business, guidelines that constrain planning and resultant activities. “The market parameters we see indicate that people over 65 won’t buy boxing gloves, so we won’t plan an advertising budget for them.”Paradigm A philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind, in business a fundamental way of thinking about products and markets. “The coming of the Internet to business created a huge paradigm shift that we are realizing the fruits of today.”Payroll The total of money owed employees at a given pay period. “Even though the company struggles, they’ve never missed a payroll.”Percentage Points A method of payment or account recording that allows the amount of money involved to be dependent upon a large whole, such as a sales price or a loan amount. “The star actor didn’t ask for money, he asked for percentage points on the gross of the movie.”Pricing The planned statement of a standard amount offered to customers, in printed literature and in advertising. “By pricing the television set very high, it leaves a lot of room for individual stores to offer discounts.”Principal The amount of a loan before interest is added. "On our mortgage, we pay mostly interest for 3 years, and only then do they start reducing what we owe on the principal as well."Process (verb) - Get something ready. (noun) The act of getting something ready. "We have to process every applications in our hiring process."Profit The aspiration of most businesses, to clear enough after expenses and taxes to have money left over. "This year it looks like we’ll grow past break even and make some profit."Prototype An earlier version of a physical product or information system, for the purpose of demonstrating usefulness and learning what to design into the final product. “Even though it is just a prototype, the new airplane does have to get off the ground and fly.”Project Management Management of a time-limited activity with specific budget and staff, and specific end results anticipated. “John wasn’t a great department administrator, but he’s outstanding as a project manager.”Pro-rated Adjusted in amount for the actual value given in a shorter period of time. “I bought my cell phone plan mid-month, so they pro-rated the my days service until the next billing period, and I paid only a fraction of the monthly amount for each day.”Purchasing As a department within a business, this group searches quality and pricing histories of suppliers, and secures the best arrangement for the company. “A good purchasing group can save us more money than sales brings in.”Quarter A three month period, often used for planning and reporting financial status. "The first quarter of the year was incredible, and this next quarter will probably look just as good."
A-C | D-K | R-Z | BizEng
Copyright 2007 BizEngTM