Business Acumen
Gross profit margin
Ratio of gross profit to net sales.
Net profit margin
Ratio of net income (gross sales minus expenses and taxes) to net sales.
Value
The benefit created when an organization meets its strategic goals; measure of usefulness, worth, or importance.
Value chain
The process by which an organization creates the product or service it offers to the customer.
Analytical processing
Applications that can analyze data faster and in more ways than traditional relational databases, offering a multidimensional analysis of business data.
Business intelligence
Ability to use information to gain a deeper understanding of an organization and make sound business decisions.
Equity
Amount of owners' or shareholders' portion of a business.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
Business management software, usually a suite of integrated applications, that a company can use to collect, store, manage, and interpret data from many business activities.
Service-level agreement
Document that defines the output customers can expect.
Assets
Financial, physical, and sometimes intangible properties an organization owns.
Accounts payable
Money an organization owes its vendors and suppliers.
Accounts receivable
Money an organization's customers owe the organization.
Liabilities
Organization's debts and other financial obligations.
Balanced scorecard
Performance management tool that depicts an organization's overall performance, as measured against goals, lagging indicators, and leading indicators.
Business case
Presentation to management that establishes that a specific problem exists and argues for a proposed solution.
Cash flow statement
Statement of an organization's ability to meet its current and short-term obligations, showing incoming and outgoing cash and cash reserves in operations, investments, and financing.
Balance sheet
Statement of an organization's financial position at a specific point in time, showing assets, liabilities, and shareholder equity.
Income statement
Statement that reports revenues, expenses, and profits for a specified period of time, for example, quarterly or annually.