List of business terms
The following terms are in everyday use in financial regions, such as commercial business and the management of large organisations such as corporations.
Noun phrases
Verb phrases
| Verb phrase | Definition |
| Action that | Put something into practice |
| Baked in | Something which has been "baked in" is implied to be impossible to remove. Alternatively, "baked in" can refer to a desirable, although non-essential, property of a product being incorporated for the user's convenience. |
| Boil the ocean | Undertake an impossible or impractical task |
| Buck the trend | To follow an action against market tendencies |
| Build capacity | Take actions which increase the amount of work that can be done in the future. |
| Circle back | Discuss later |
| Circle the wagons | Defensive strategy to provide time to plan or produce a better solution |
| Cover all directions of the compass | Ensure the product specification covers everything |
| Create the storyboard | Outline what the solution will look like |
| Deep dive | Get into the detail |
| Drill down | Investigate in depth |
| Flogging a dead horse | Wasting efforts |
| Have the vendor in our pocket | Keep a vendor/contractors paid |
| Ideate | Come up with ideas |
| Land and expand | To sell a small solution and then grow it within the client's environment |
| Make hay | Productive or successful in a short time |
| Moving forward | Making progress on an idea or scheme |
| Move the goal posts | Change the criteria for success |
| Pick the low-hanging fruit | Go for the easiest options |
| Power to the elbow | Get additional backup information to make your case stronger |
| Pull the plug | Close a venture that is losing money or has no prospects of success |
| Punt | Relinquish responsibility |
| Pushing the envelope | Going outside normal boundaries to achieve a target or goal |
| Put this on your radar | Consider this |
| Scrub the numbers | Find errors |
| Sing from the same hymn sheet | Show a united front, or everyone understanding and saying the same thing to clientele. |
| Table the conversation | Reconvene at a later time |
| Test the water | 'Put your toe' into a market to determine its temperature. |
| Touch base | To meet up with a colleague to discuss progress |
| Touch base offline | Meet and talk |
| Tranch up the workload | Divide responsibilities |
| Trim the fat | Cut excess budgets, remove avoidable costs |
| Unscramble that egg | Take care of that mess |