Buzzwords that make boardrooms spin and PowerPoints sing.
Short for Besloten Vennootschap, the Dutch version of a private limited liability company that's basically the Netherlands' answer to Germany's GmbH. You'll see "BV" tagged onto company names throughout the Low Countries, signaling that shareholders' personal assets are protected from corporate debts—because the Dutch love their legal structures almost as much as their bicycles.
Someone who acts on behalf of another person or entity, wielding their principal's authority like a borrowed credit card. In business, this is your talent scout, real estate broker, or literary representative. The term spans everything from insurance agents to secret agents, though only one of those gets the cool gadgets.
The dark art of slapping dollar signs on products in a way that maximizes profit while making customers feel like they're getting a deal. It involves complex strategies like psychological pricing ($9.99 instead of $10), competitive analysis, and occasionally just throwing darts at a board. Get it wrong and you're either leaving money on the table or watching customers flee to your competitors.
Decisions imposed from executives downward without input from people who actually do the work, ensuring maximum misunderstanding and resentment.
To increase or accelerate something, whether it's production, hiring, or the pace of bad decisions. Implies a smooth upward trajectory that rarely manifests in reality.
To approve a project or initiative to proceed, borrowed from traffic signals. The moment before everyone realizes they should have asked more questions.
To discontinue or phase out a product, service, or project, using beautiful imagery to describe something dying. The corporate equivalent of taking your pet to 'a farm upstate.'
A workflow requiring someone to manually transfer data between incompatible systems by literally swiveling between computers. A monument to IT departments that couldn't be bothered to build proper integrations.
A metric supposedly measuring what matters, inevitably gaming behavior as people optimize for the KPI rather than actual success. Commonly abbreviated to KPI by people who measure many things and understand few.
A sophisticated guess dressed up in professional language, typically provided by contractors who will later explain why the actual cost is double. In business, it's that document specifying what a job 'should' cost before reality, scope creep, and unforeseen complications enter the chat. The more detailed the estimate, the more creative the eventual excuses.
The obvious-in-retrospect trap that everyone falls into despite numerous warnings and past victims. It's the business equivalent of a concealed hole in the ground, except it's usually labeled 'Best Practice' or 'Industry Standard.' Pitfalls are most dangerous because they look like reasonable decisions until you're already stuck at the bottom wondering how you missed all the red flags.
The rate at which someone acquires new skills or knowledge over time, typically depicted as a graph. Often used to excuse poor performance or justify why that new software implementation is a disaster.
That precious, easily-destroyed quality of being believed and trusted—built slowly through consistency and destroyed instantly through one scandal or mishap.
The act of modifying a product or service to meet specific individual preferences, or in corporate speak, charging customers extra to get exactly what they want. It's why your new car costs $10K more than the base model and why every SaaS platform has seventeen pricing tiers. The beautiful illusion that you're getting something unique when really you're just checking boxes on a dropdown menu.
A group discussion focused on identifying who's responsible for a failure rather than solving the actual problem. Brainstorming's evil twin where everyone points fingers instead of generating ideas.
The corporate equivalent of a ruler that everyone uses to measure their inadequacy or superiority. It's either a standard against which everything else is evaluated, or a computer test that proves your new laptop is 0.3% faster than last year's model. Companies love benchmarks because they provide objective data to confirm subjective decisions they've already made.
A critical moment when things could go several different ways, often invoked dramatically in business meetings right before someone suggests a 'bold new direction.' It's the point where paths diverge, decisions matter, and everyone suddenly pretends they knew this crisis was coming. Also the linguistics term for how sounds connect, but that's significantly less dramatic for PowerPoint presentations.
Your work partner or colleague—basically someone you share an office with and pretend to like. It's a professional relationship that may or may not involve actual camaraderie.
A control mechanism requiring two people to approve a decision or action, reducing errors and fraud. It's the corporate trust fall where you literally can't do anything alone.
The logistics industry's fancy term for dragging stuff from Point A to Point B, typically involving large trucks, trains, or ships doing the heavy lifting. It's both the action of hauling things and the business of charging people money for said hauling. Essentially, it's the fee you pay someone else to move your heavy things so you don't have to.
The legal separation between a corporation and its owners that protects personal assets from business liabilities. That thin fabric preventing your CEO's yacht from being seized when the company tanks.
The corporate-approved term for aggressively chasing down people who don't know they need your help yet. This noble practice involves organizations extending their services beyond their usual boundaries, typically to underserved populations or reluctant customers. It's basically showing up where you weren't invited, but with good intentions and a mission statement.
The corporate verb for bribing people with rewards to do what you want, because "motivate" sounded too human and "bribe" too honest. It's the art of dangling carrots—usually cash, equity, or pizza parties—to make employees enthusiastic about objectives they'd otherwise ignore. Management loves this word because it makes manipulation sound like science.
A sales strategy where you start with a small contract to get your foot in the door, then gradually sell more services and products until you've infiltrated the entire organization. The corporate equivalent of 'give them a taste.'