| 1. | ABC | (Activity-Based Costing) A method of allocating costs to products and services. It is generally used as a tool for planning and control. Instead of using broad percentages to allocate costs, ABC allows managers to attribute costs firstly to activities. Once costs of the activities has been identified, the cost of each activity is attributed to each product to the extent that the product uses the activity. In this way ABC often identifies areas of high overhead costs per unit and so directs |
| 2. | ASP | (Application Service Provider) A business that provides access to a particular application program over a network using a standard protocol such as HTTP. The need for ASPs has evolved from the increasing costs of specialized software that have far exceeded the price range of small to medium sized businesses. As well, the growing complexities of software have led to huge costs in distributing the software to end-users. Through ASPs, the complexities and costs of such software can be cut |
| 3. | BI | (Business Intelligence) The use of application software and other technologies to gather, store, analyze, and provide access to data. Some observers regard BI as the process of enhancing data into information and then into knowledge. The software aims to help people make "better" business decisions by making accurate, current, and relevant information available to them when they need it. Tools have been developed to ease business intelligence work, especially when the intelligence task |
| 4. | BPM | (Business Performance Management) A set of processes that help organizations optimize business performance. Business performance management focuses on business processes such as planning, forecasting and human resource management. It helps businesses discover efficient use of their business units, financial, human, and material resources. Business performance management often uses key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess the present state of business, to prescribe a course of action and |
| 5. | BPO | (Business Process Outsourcing) The leveraging of technology or specialist process vendors to provide and manage an organisation's critical and/or non-critical enterprise processes and applications. The most common examples of BPO are call centres, accounting and payroll outsourcing. Business process outsourcing may involve the use of off-shore resources. Use of a BPO as opposed to an application service provider (ASP) usually also means that a certain amount of risk is transferred to the |
| 6. | BSC | (Balanced ScoreCard) A concept for measuring a company's activities in terms of its vision and strategies. Balanced Scorecard forces managers to focus on the important performance metrics that drive success. It balances a financial perspective with customer, internal process, and learning growth perspectives. The BSC system consists of four processes: 1. Translating the vision into operational goals; 2. Communicate the vision and link it to individual performance; 3. Business planning; 4. |
| 7. | CRM | (Customer Relationship Management) A manaagement process purports to enable organizations to better serve their customers through the introduction of reliable processes and procedures for interacting with those customers. In today's competitive business environment, a successful CRM strategy cannot be implemented by only installing and integrating a software package designed to support CRM processes. A holistic approach to CRM is vital for an effective and efficient CRM policy. This |
| 8. | ERP | (Enterprise Resource Planning) A software system designed to support and automate the business processes of medium and large businesses. ERP can aid in the control of many business activities, like sales, delivery, billing, production, inventory management, and human resources management. ERPs are cross-functional and enterprise wide. All functional departments that are involved in operations or production are integrated in one system. In addition to manufacturing, warehousing, and |
| 9. | KM | (Knowledge Management) KM seeks to make the best use of the knowledge that is available to an organization, creating new knowledge, increasing awareness and understanding in the process. Knowledge Management can also be defined as: Capturing, organizing, and storing knowledge and experiences of individual workers and groups within an organization and making this information available to others in the organization. |
| 10. | KPI | (Key Performance Indicators; Key Success Indicator (KSI)) Financial or non-financial metrics used to reflect the critical success factors of an organization. KPIs are used in business intelligence to assess the present state of business and to prescribe the course of action. The KPIs differ depending on the nature of the organization. They help an organization to measure progress towards their organizational goals. KPIs are sometimes used to "value" difficult to measure activities such as |
| 11. | OLAP | (On Line Analytical Processing) An approach to quickly provide the answer to complex analytical queries. It is part of the broader category business intelligence, which also includes ETL, relational reporting and data mining. The typical applications of OLAP are in business reporting for sales, marketing, management reporting, business performance management (BPM), budgeting and forecasting, financial reporting and similar areas. See also: BPM |
| 12. | SCM | (Supply Chain Management) The process of planning, implementing, and controlling the operations of the supply chain with the purpose to satisfy customer requirements as efficiently as possible. Supply chain management spans all movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from point-of-origin to point-of-consumption. A supply chain essentially has three main parts: supply, manufacturing and distribution. The supply side concentrates on how, where from |
| 13. | SKU | (Stock Keeping Unit) An identifier that is used by merchants to permit the systematic tracking of products and services offered to customers. Usage of the SKU system is rooted in the drill down method, pertaining to data management. SKUs are assigned and serialized at the merchant level. Each SKU is attached to an item, variant, product line, bundle, service, fee or attachment. SKUs are not always associated with actual physical items, but more appropriately billable entities. Each |
