English is the official language of many global industries. It’s the official language of science, technology, aviation, and finance. It’s also the official language of the internet!
What language would a Brazilian trader use to communicate with a Japanese client? Most likely English. So is it safe to say that English is the official language of international business too? I’d say so.
This is why you're going to learn some of the most common business English vocabulary you might hear if you’re working in an English-speaking environment.
Let’s get learning!
Table of Contents
Business English Vocabulary For Meetings
1. Agenda (noun)
An agenda is a list of items you discuss at a meeting. Trust me: nobody would want to go to a work meeting that doesn’t have an agenda. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that many workers go through that painful experience every week!
Example: “The first item on the agenda is the quarterly financial report.”
2. Action points
In theory, after you attend a work meeting you go away with some action points. These are specific tasks assigned to you. Coming away with action points is a signal that the meeting was a productive and useful one.
If no one is asked to take action after a long meeting, here’s a question to ask whoever organised it: “Why did we meet?”
Example: “Today we’re going to discuss our collaboration with a new client and assign relevant action points to all of us.”
3. Minutes (noun)
Minutes are a summary or record of what people said or decided at a formal meeting. The word is always plural.
Example: “Who took the minutes at the last meeting with the shareholders?
4. Brainstorming (noun)
When you’re asked to have a brainstorming session (a type of meeting essentially), you’re asked to spontaneously generate ideas that could solve a problem.
Usually there are no right or wrong ideas during a brainstorming session and no one judges the quality of the ideas you come up with.
But I discourage you from suggesting firing your boss as a valid solution to solve whatever problem your company is facing right now – especially if it’s your boss who invited you to brainstorm solutions.
Example: “We’re going to have a brainstorming session to come up with new marketing strategies.”
Business English Abbreviations
5. ASAP (As Soon As Possible)
This is often found in emails and it’s an acronym used to indicate urgency. It’s also a polite way to put pressure on whoever you’re using it with.
Instead of writing “I asked you to send me the documents one month ago. Can you send them in the next couple of minutes?” you could write “This has become urgent now. Please send me the documents ASAP.”
6. EOD (End of Day)
No, this is not used to refer to the time of the day when you can finally go home and chill on your couch. EOD refers to the end of the business day, and it’s usually used to set a deadline that might freak you out (see the example below).
Example: “Please send me the update by EOD.”
You can also use days of the week after it to give your victim more time. So that would be “EOD next Monday/Tuesday etc.”
7. EOW (End of Week)
Same as above, except it switches to “week.”
Example: “Please send me the update by EOW.”
8. ROI (Return on Investment)
Let’s say your company has invested $10,000 in a new marketing campaign to sell more products. The goal is to sell at least 100 products by next month and make at least $20,000.
After one month, the company has made only $1,000 dollars. Bad ROI! Did the campaign bring $20,000? $30,000? Great ROI!
In other (non-technical) words, ROI refers to a measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment.
Example: “We recommend an ROI analysis before making a commitment.”
9. CEO
CEO stands for Chief Executive Officer and refers to the person with the highest rank in a business company.
Quick trivia question: Who’s the former CEO of Microsoft?
- Bill Gates
- Jeff Bezos
- Mark Zuckeberg
That’s right, Bill Gates.
Example: “Everyone has an equal chance of becoming CEO.”
Business English Vocabulary About Finance
10. Budget (noun)
The money that your company has available and a plan of how this money will be spent over a period of time. If your company doesn’t have a budget for after-work drinks and refreshments, you may want to look for a better company to work for.
Example: “We need to stick to our budget to avoid overspending.”
11. Cash flow
This is the movement of money into and out of a business as goods are bought and sold. Which company wouldn’t want a healthy cash flow?
Example: “We’re having some cash flow problems at the moment.”
12. Revenue (noun)
This is the total income that a company receives from its business. Usually, the bigger the revenue, the happier the CEO of the company is.
Example: “The revenue reflects three-quarters of commercial production.”
13. Profit (noun)
The money that a company makes by selling things (products, services, etc.). Is “profit” the same as “revenue”? Not really. Revenue is the total income, while profit describes income after paying the costs (usually tax) involved.
Example: “Small business owners fight hard for every dollar of profit earned.”
Business English Vocabulary About People
14. Staff (noun)
The staff are all the people who work for a particular company.
Example: “They had to close the business due to a shortage of staff.”
15. Employee (noun)
A person who is paid to work for a company.
Example: “The employees are demanding a pay increase.”
16. Employer (noun)
A person or company/organisation who pays people to work for them.
Example: “One of the largest employers in the area is planning to close.”
17. Client (noun)
A person or organisation using the services of a professional person or company.
Example: “We’re losing all our clients!”
18. Competitor (noun)
A competitor is a person or an organisation/company that competes with you in business. For example, Apple is one of Microsoft’s competitors.
Example: “The company has slipped further behind its competitors.”
19. Stakeholder (noun)
A stakeholder is a person or company that is involved in a business, especially because they have invested money in it.
Example: “The meetings were attended by many stakeholders.”
20. Management (noun)
The people who run and control a business. The CEO, for example, is part of the management of a company.
Example: “We need a mediator between employees and management.”
21. Shareholder (noun)
A shareholder is the owner of shares in a company or business. (Shares are units of equal value into which a company is divided and sold to raise money.)
Example: “The corporation currently has approximately 1,000 shareholders.”
Business English Vocabulary To Do With Communication
22. Conference call (noun)
A call (usually a video call) where three or more people take part.
Example: “Interviews are done by telephone conference call.”
23. Wrap up (phrasal verb)
“Wrap up” is an informal term that means to finish or complete a task, project, meeting, or discussion.
When you wrap up a meeting, for example, you bring everything to a close by summarising the key points. You also make sure that all necessary actions are completed or documented.
Example: “Let's start wrapping up by completing the final deliverables, preparing the project report, and scheduling a meeting with the stakeholders for the final presentation.”
24. Memo (noun)
A memo is an official note from one person to another in the same organization. “Memorandum” is the formal term.
Example: “Can you please prepare meeting minutes in the official memo format?”
25. Break the ice
You’re in an online work meeting. Ten people have joined the call. You know none of them and none of them knows you. They don’t know each other either. How would you feel?
If you’re anything like me, you’d say embarrassed, awkward, tense. Someone needs to break the ice, an English idiom which means they need to say or do something that makes people feel more relaxed.
Hopefully the organiser of the meeting has an icebreaker such as a game or an activity that can make everyone feel more comfortable. If not, well, good luck!
Example: “Before we make a start, let’s do a quick round of introductions to break the ice. Carlos, would you like to start?”
26. Networking
Some believe that the best professional opportunities come from people. And that’s why networking is really important for these people.
Networking is an uncountable noun that refers to interaction with other professionals (colleagues, partners, clients, customers, employers, and so on) who may be useful to you in your work.
LinkedIn is a great online platform for networking.
Example: “Attending conferences is a great way to do some networking.”
27. Follow-up (noun/adjective)
The dictionary definition of “follow-up” is an action or a thing that continues something that has already started or comes after something similar that was done earlier.
In the context of business, this term is often used to describe emails. So a follow-up email is one you send to remind someone of something.
For example, you had a job interview with your dream company and your potential employer has disappeared? Send them a follow-up email reminding them that you exist!
Example: “I need to send a follow-up email to them asap. They seem to have disappeared!”
Other Useful Business English Vocabulary
28. Deadline (noun)
The latest time or date by which something should be completed. To never forget this term, consider thinking about it in this way: if you don’t complete the task by that date/time, you will … die. Never mess up with deadlines!
Example: “The deadline for submitting the report is tomorrow evening.”
29. Deliverable
A deliverable is a product that a company promises to have ready for a customer.
Example: “The programme is divided into a number of key deliverables.”
30. Onboarding
Here’s another hypothetical situation. Let’s say you’ve bought a subscription to an online community. Wouldn’t you want to know how to use the software you’ll have to use for group chat? Wouldn’t you want to know where you should post your questions?
If the person who sold you the subscription has an onboarding process in place, you’ll get to know these things.
You may have guessed what onboarding is. It’s a business word referring to the process of ensuring a new customer (or employee) becomes familiar with an organisation or its products or services.
Example: “Consider the costs of recruiting, interviewing, travel and onboarding.”
31. Bottleneck
Anything that delays development or progress. Eliminating bottlenecks is one of the many things that make companies successful!
Example: “What are the organizational bottlenecks to efficient business processing?”
32. Affiliate marketing
Let’s say you have a website where you sell cakes and I have a website where I sell biscuits.
If you’d like to do affiliate marketing, you’ll need to give me an affiliate link to your website that I can put on mine. When one of my website visitors clicks on the affiliate link and buys one of your cakes, you’ll pay me a commission.
This is what affiliate marketing means. It’s an arrangement by which a company pays a commission when a sale is made after a customer has followed a link from another company’s website.
Example: “I support the site through advertising and affiliate marketing.”
33. Headquarters (noun)
The headquarters is the place where a company is operated and controlled.
Headquarters is always plural (even if the company has only one). People may also use the abbreviation for headquarters: HQ
Example: “Several tech companies have their headquarters in Silicon Valley.”
Top Tips On How To Learn Business English Vocabulary
How can you expand your business English vocabulary? Here are some of my favourite suggested strategies.
- Read business magazines, articles, and newspapers. You’ll find some great ones in my blog post titled The 25 Best English Magazines To Improve Your English And Have Fun
- Listen to business podcasts like How I Built This.
- Follow business YouTube channels. What business areas are you interested in? Finance? Do some research and see what you can find.
- Start your own company (okay, maybe this isn’t for everyone).
- Use English business vocabulary books. One of my favourites is Business Vocabulary in Use. There’s an intermediate and advanced version too.
The most important tip of all: learn business English vocabulary by doing what makes you excited! Have a lot of fun – both at work and in your English study room!
Olly Richards
Creator of the StoryLearning® Method
Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.
Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.
When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.
