Business Acronyms

There are hundreds of abbreviations to describe specific business tools or terms that can aid decision making, creativity and problem solving in the workplace. In this section, we’ll cover some of the most popular:

20. POSDCORB: An early management model to help you cover every admin angle. It stands for Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, Coordinating, Reporting, and Budgeting.

21. CRAAP: No, I’m not just being rude, CRAAP is a well-known and well-used way to help people to critically evaluate information. It stands for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose.

22. SMART: A goal-setting tool which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time bound – or a few variations of that!

23. SCAMPER: You might like to use this tool next time you host a brainstorming session. SCAMPER helps you to generate ideas for new products by asking questions about existing products focusing on seven key areas – Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse.

24. DILO: If you’re concerned about how well you or your team are using your time, why not try DILO (Day In the Life Of) analysis to track and note down what’s actually being done each day.

25. GROW: The GROW Model can help you to structure coaching sessions according to Goal, current Reality, Options (or Obstacles), and Will (or Way forward).

26. OSKAR: Another popular coaching model, OSKAR is a solutions-focused framework designed to address performance or behavioral problems. It stands for Outcome, Scale, Know-how, Affirm + Action, and Review.

27. MBO: Management by Objectives aims to align employees’ objectives with the organization’s wider strategic goals.

28. VUCA: First coined by the U.S. Army College, this term describes the unfamiliar global environment post-9/11. It is used in the business world to reflect the turbulent forces of change since the global financial collapse of 2008. VUCA stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous.

29. SWOT: This ever-popular tool assesses business or personal Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

30. SOAR: This is a strategic planning tool that combines hard data with a wide consultation of people’s ideas and dreams. It stands for Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results.

31. PEST: Another popular analytical tool. PEST helps you to identify the “big picture” opportunities and threats affecting your organization by assessing the Political, Economic, Socio-cultural, and Technological changes in your environment.

32. VRIO: Evaluate the potential and effectiveness of your organization’s underlying resources by questioning each one’s Value, Rarity, Inimitability, and Organization.

33. OGSM: Organize and deliver your vision according to your Objective, Goal, Strategies, and Measures.

34. VAK: A model that classifies people’s preferred method of learning into three main categories – Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic.

35. MBWA: This popular tool helps managers to be available to their teams, out on the “shop floor.” It stands for Management by Wandering Around.

Finance Acronyms

Your CFO (chief financial officer) keeps asking for the P&L statement and wants to know what the ROI was for your organization’s latest acquisition. Don’t know what he’s on about? Worry no more. These handy financial acronyms will help you to make “cents” (sorry) of it all:

36. ACCT: Account.

37. BS: I know what you’re thinking. But, no, in accounting this, very innocently, refers to Balance Sheet. So, beware the context in which you use it!

38. CR: Credit.

39. DR: Debit. (Be aware that in other areas of business this term can also stand for Disaster Recovery.)

40. EPS: Earnings per share. This refers to the amount of earnings allocated to each outstanding share of an organization’s common stock.

41. FIFO: First in, first out. This is a term used for managing inventory, and means that the cost of the oldest inventory items is counted as sold first, even if this is not physically the case.

42. LIFO: Last in, first out. Another term used in inventory management. LIFO assumes that the most recent inventory items are the ones sold first.

43. IPO: Initial public offering.

44. EBIT: Earnings before interest and tax. This is often used as an indicator of a company’s profitability, and may also be referred as “operating earnings,” “operating profit,” “profit before interest and taxes (PBIT),” or “operating income.”

45. ROA: Return on assets. This measure is often used to analyze profitability relative to assets.

46. ROCE: Return on capital employed. ROCE is a financial ratio that tells you what profits or returns a business has made on the capital available to it (in other words, how efficiently it uses its capital).

47. ROE: Return on equity. ROE measures a company’s profitability from the money that shareholders have invested in it.>

48. ROI: Return on investment – the gains you’ve made relative to what you’ve put in.

49. ROC/ROIC: Return on capital/Return on invested capital. This is a ratio used to assess the profitability of a company after taking into account the initial amount of capital that will need to be invested in it. It is often used by companies to assess the attractiveness of an investment or acquisition opportunity.

50. P&L: Profit and loss. A P&L statement (also known as an income statement) is the financial balance sheet used by companies to summarize their revenues, costs and expenses during a specific period of time.

51. CAPEX: Capital expenditure. CAPEX refers to the funds used by an organization to acquire or upgrade physical assets, such as buildings or equipment.

52. CAGR: Compound annual growth rate. This measures return on investment over a certain period of time (usually years) and provides a constant rate of return for that period.