The Most Common Business Abbreviations in English

Quante volte vi siete visti recapitare mail con acronimi incomprensibili? Come ASAP, ovvero il prima possibile (“As Soon As Possibile”) o FYI (For Your Information), in collaborazione con Kaplan International English vi spieghiamo qualche comune “business abbreviation”… By Mimouna Mahdaoui

When you study business during an English course or work in an international environment, you often come across abbreviations and specific vocabulary that sometimes only apply to business. This might be called business jargon (also known as business slang).
Here is a guide to the most common business-related acronyms and vocabulary that you are likely to use in a professional environment.

Do you already know what these abbreviations stand for?
Test your knowledge then check your answers below!
→ FYI
→ KPI
→ SWOT
→ TBA/TBC
→ B2B/B2C
→ ROI
→ HQ
→ WOW
→ MOM
→ YOY
→ 24/7
→ 121

1 FYI
For Your Information – You will use this quite often when forwarding some information to a colleague.

2 KPI
Key Performance Indicator – This is a measure created to help evaluate the performance of a team or a business.

3 SWOT
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats – When analysing your business or your market, you’ll go through the SWOT analysis, in order to get a better understanding of the market at the moment and your situation compared to competition.

4 TBA / TBC
To Be Announced / To Be Confirmed – When you are unsure of the day of a meeting or the launch of a new product, one of these two might become useful to inform your co-workers!

5 B2B / B2C
Business to Business / Business to Consumer – our business can be either or both of those, depending who you sell to: is it to the final customer of the product or service, or to a company that will resell or reuse your product before offering it to the final customer?

6 ROI
Return On Investment – Making sure your investment is efficient.

7 HQ
Headquarters – Most of times, international companies have offices in different countries or cities, but have a main central office. Kaplan International’s HQ is based in London.

8 WoW, MoM, YoY
Week on Week, Month on Month, Year on Year – When you analyse your performances, you can choose which time period you compare against.
Another acronym used in business is YTD, Year To Date, when referring to the amount of business generated from the beginning of the year up to today.

9 24/7
A service that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – This does not apply for business communication only of course, but can be a service you seek or offer to your customers.

10 1-2-1 / 1-to-1
Meeting face to face with a manager or a colleague to discuss work – You can also take one-to-one courses sometimes, for personalized tutoring!

Materiale fornito da Kaplan International English