Business English Vocabulary Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms and definitions from English for Business Studies, ranging from recruitment and workplace management to financial indicators and e-commerce.

Full-time job

A job for the whole of the normal working week.

Permanent job

A job that does not finish after a fixed period.

Flexitime

Being able to work whenever you want, within certain limits.

Commute

To travel regularly between two places, especially between home in the suburbs and work in the city.

Teleworking

Work from home, making use of the Internet, email, and the telephone.

Headhunter

Outside specialists who are used to find people for very important jobs and to persuade them to leave the organisations they already work for.

Shortlist

A list of people who have been judged the most suitable for a job or prize, made from a longer list of people originally considered.

Paper qualifications

An official record or document (such as a degree, certificate, or diploma) which shows that someone is qualified to do something.

In-house training

Training done by employees of an organization or company, rather than by workers outside.

Minimum wage

The smallest amount of money that employers are legally allowed to pay someone who works for them.

Fringe benefits

Something that you get for working, in addition to your pay, that is not in the form of money.

White-collar workers

Relating to people who work in offices, doing work that needs mental rather than physical effort.

Outsource

When a company pays to have part of its work done by another company.

Glass ceiling

The unseen, yet unbreachable barrier that keeps minorities and women from rising to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, regardless of achievements.

Chief executive officer (CEO)

The main person responsible for managing a company, who is sometimes also the company's president or chairman of the board.

Entrepreneur

Someone who makes money by starting their own business, especially when this involves seeing a new opportunity and taking risks.

Small or medium enterprise (SME)

A company, or companies considered as a group, that are neither very small nor very large.

Sole trader

A business owned and operated by a single individual, also known as a sole proprietor.

Limited liability

A situation in which the owners or other shareholders of a company are not responsible for all of its debts if the company fails.

Beta version

First version of software at the second stage of development, where customers use it to find uncorrected problems.

Just-in-time

A philosophy based on preventing waste by producing only the amount of goods needed at a particular time and not storing surplus.

Mass customization

The act of producing large numbers of products, but with each product designed for a particular customer.

Wikinomics

A description of the relationship between businesses and markets involving large numbers of people collaborating on the internet; a combination of 'wiki' and 'economics'.

Market segmentation

The dividing of all possible customers into groups based on their needs, age, education, income, etc.

The $4$ Ps

Product, Price, Place, and Promotion; the components of the marketing mix.

Loss-leader

A product or service that is sold at a loss to attract customers for other products that are more expensive.

E-procurement

Communicating with and ordering from suppliers over the internet.

Fixed costs

Costs that do not change when production goes up or down, such as rent and heating.

Variable costs

Costs that change when production goes up or down, such as materials.

Break-even point

The point where a business has no profit or loss because they make just enough money to pay for their costs.

Intangible assets

Assets such as goodwill and brands that allow an established owner to earn money from an existing reputation.

Window dressing

When company results are presented in a way that makes them look better than they are; also known as creative accounting.

Poison pill

Something that makes a company less attractive to buy to prevent a takeover.

GDP (gross domestic product)

The total value of goods and services produced by a country in a year.

Stagflation

An economic situation in which prices keep rising but economic activity does not increase.

Insider trading

Illegal dealing in company securities on a stock exchange by a person with confidential information to make a profit or avoid a loss.

Chinese walls

An ethical barrier between different divisions of a financial or other institution to avoid conflicts of interest.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR)

A form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model addressing moral, social, and environmental issues.

Gantt chart

A diagram of the stages of a piece of work, showing stages that can be done at the same time and those that must be completed sequentially.

Rat race

A way of life in modern society in which people compete with each other for power and money.

Empowerment

The process of gaining freedom and power to do what you want or to control what happens to you.

Power-distance

The extent to which the lower ranking individuals of a society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally.

Presenteeism

The practice of coming to work despite illness or injury, often resulting in reduced productivity.