What is a “Business”?

In a meeting this afternoon, the speaker was talking about dealing with entities of different sizes, and made the observation that the larger the organization, the more it functions “like a business”. That comment lead me to ask, (rhetorically - not out loud for God’s sake - I have my career to think of), “Just what is a business?”

For example, a Mom and Pop operation, sells a product, takes in money, even makes a profit - to me they have a “business”. Perhaps Mom “keeps the books”, but they never call her the Chief Financial Officer. Pop always keeps the website up to date (let’s make this a modern example), but he doesn’t go by the title Chief Information Officer. That’s still a business.

As time goes by, Mom and Pop meet success and take on more help to meet the needs of their business and customers. Let’s say they have a dozen employees now. Is that a business?

Yes (to me), No (to the speaker).

OK, I’m making fun of this person, and I know what he meant. As a business grows in size it takes on the attributes of a business one encounters in business school: regular accounting, an organization that resembles a top-down flow chart, employees with titles that mean something to the outside world. But his lack of comfort with small entities was telling. I hope we are not ignoring those folks just because we don’t relate to them on the same terms. Lost opportunity if we do.

Also heard at the meeting: Someone said we had a lot of “synergy”, to which another replied, “Oh yeah, we got tons of synergy with that.” - - At this point I've made my peace with "synergy", but “Tons” of synergy??

Also, “talk to” - as in, “I can talk to that slide”. Does no one else find this phrase ridiculous? At its most literal, we have a man - alone in a room - addressing a PowerPoint slide. That’s very sad and lonely. Even if you know what it means - - Perhaps: During my presentation I will explain the content of that slide in more detail - - it’s just poor English

Comments

Suefunky said…
Oh, don't get me started on made-up business words...

"Incentivize" "Ideation" "Touch-point meeting" it just never ends!
amy said…
wow....it sounds like the business world has been inundated with Bush-isms!
John G. said…
Speaking of touch-points, we use the "touch point model" here. That involves - amongst other things - counting "touches" made with accounts. We also refer to sales leads as either "Hard" or "Soft" leads. Through in a little "market penetration" discussion, and I've seen meetings where we discuss hard and soft leads, touches, and penetration. To our credit, we usually break out laughing at this point.
Suefunky said…
Good to know that the ridiculousness is not lost on many and good old Bevis and Butthead humor still has a place.

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