A–D

    Accountability

• In leadership roles, accountability is the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions, and policies. It also includes the administration, governance and implementation within the scope of the role or employment position and encompassing the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for resulting consequences.

    Architecture

• The structures, systems and practices that shape information flow into and out of the organisation, and the way the decisions are taken (or avoided) on that basis of that information.

     ATL – Above the Line

• An advertising technique using mass media including TVC, cinema, radio, print and search engines to promote brands. This type of communication is conventional in nature and is considered impersonal to customers it can however help establish brand identity. It can be described as everything done prior to a customer’s actual entry into a retail outlet.

     Augmented Product

• A component of the Total Product offered by the marketer, this represents goods and services that surround the Actual Product in order to provide additional value to the customer’s purchase and include guarantees, warranties and training services.

    B2B - Business to business

• A term that describes businesses that sell direct to other businesses.

    Bargaining power

• The strength of one person or group when discussing prices.

    Benchmarking

• A continuous, systematic process for evaluating and comparing an organization’s activities, products, services, and work processes with those of organizations that are recognized as representing best practices for the purposes of performance improvement. A secondary purpose is to reveal useful practices or ideas that may be adopted or adapted with advantage.

    BI - Business Intelligence

• Computer-based techniques used in spotting, digging-out, and analyzing 'hard' business data, such as sales revenue by products or departments or associated costs and incomes. Objectives of a BI exercise include (1) understanding of a firm's internal and external strengths and weaknesses, (2) understanding of the relationship between different data for better decision making, (3) detection of opportunities for innovation and (4) cost reduction and optimal deployment of resources.

    Brand equity

• Brand's power derived from the goodwill(link) and name recognition it has earned over time, and which translates into higher sales volume and higher profit margins against competing brands.

    Breakeven Analysis

• A forecasting tool used by marketers that considers product price, fixed cost and variable costs in order to determine the minimum sales volume required before a company realizes a profit.

    BRIC - Brazil, Russia, India, China.

• This increasingly visible acronym emphasizes the growing significance of the emerging markets, and the fact that the world is changing, whether the traditionally dominant nations like it or not.

    BTL – Below the Line

• The terms "below the line" promotion or communications, refers to forms of non-media communication, using nonconventional brand-building. This often includes short term incentives such as sales promotions, which helps ultimately lead to sales. Below the line promotions are becoming increasingly important within the communications mix of many companies, not only those involved in FMCG(link) products, but also industrial goods.

    Calculated risks

• A chance of failure, the probability of which is estimated before some action is undertaken.

    Category

• A category is a section of FMCG (link) goods that meet a particular consumer need.

    Category Review

• The re-ranging and simplification of ranges to ensure the best choice of products available for the customer. During a category review, category performance is analyzed, category strategy is explained, NPD(link) is presented, layout modifications are discussed and current low-performing products are defended against deletion.

    CEO - Chief Executive Officer

• The highest ranking executive in a company whose main responsibilities include developing and implementing high-level strategies, making major corporate decisions, managing the overall operations and resources of a company, and acting as the main point of communication between the board of directors and the corporate operations. The CEO will often have a position on the board, and in some cases is even the chair.

    CFO - Chief Financial Officer    

• The senior manager who is responsible for overseeing the financial activities of an entire company. This includes signing checks, monitoring cash flow, and financial planning.

    CI - Consumer Insight

• o    A flash of understanding on the part of a marketer regarding an unidentified or unmet need in the marketplace, or a new/better way to satisfy an existing need.

    Co-Branding

• A branding strategy where a marketer with its own brand seeks to partner with an established brand owned by another organization in hopes the synergy of the two brands is even more powerful than a single brand alone.

    COGS - Cost of Goods Sold

• The expense a company incurred in order to manufacture, create, or sell a product. It includes the purchase price of the raw material as well as the expenses of turning it into a product. Cost of goods sold is also known as cost of revenue or cost of sales.

    Consumer centric

• Refers to a focus on the interests of consumers, far ahead of the interests of vendors and other organizations.

    Competitive advantage

• Is gained by exploiting the unique blend of activities, assets, attributes, market conditions, and relationships that differentiates an organization from its competitors.  These may include: access to natural resources, specific location, or skilled workforce.

    Competitive intelligence

• Is a systematic and ethical programme for gathering, analyzing, and managing any combination of Data, Information, and Knowledge concerning the Business environment in which a company operates that, when acted upon, will confer a significant competitive advantage or enable sound decisions to be made.  Its primary role is strategic early warning.

    Core competencies

• Are the activities or processes that critically underpin an organisations competitive advantage. They are difficult to imitate or replicate and provide a unique identity for the entity.

    Corporate governance

• The framework of rules, relationships, systems, and processes within and by which authority is exercised and controlled in corporations.

    Cost optimization

• Aims to reduce the baseline costs of the business, while maintaining acceptable service levels thus ensuring gross margin is maximized. Cost optimization must be done in such a way that it does not undermine the organization's efforts to capitalize on future growth opportunities.

    CPA - Cost-Per-Action

• Metric for assessing advertising expenditure determined by dividing the total cost for a certain advertisement by how many people actually responded (e.g., purchase activity, phone inquiries, website traffic, etc.) within a specified time after the promotion was delivered.

?    CPI - Cost-Per-Impression

• Metric for assessing advertising expenditure determined by dividing the total cost for a certain advertisement by how many times an advertisement is experienced.

    CPTI - Cost-Per-Targeted-Impression

• Metric for assessing advertising expenditure determined by dividing the total cost for a certain advertisement by the percentage of an audience who experience the advertisement who are actually within the marketer’s target market.

    CPR - Cost Per Rating  

• The cost of delivering a message to 1% of a pre-determined target group.

   CRM – Customer Relationship Management

• Is a strategic approach whose goal is to get everyone in an organization, not just the marketer, to recognize the importance of customers. It is the processes a company uses to target, acquire, transact, service, retain and build long-term relationships with its current and prospective customers. CRM software is used to support these processes; information about customers and customer interactions can be entered, stored and accessed by employees in different company departments. Typical CRM goals are to improve services provided to customers, and to use customer contact information for targeted marketing.

---

    DM - Developing Markets         

• A foreign economy that is developing in response to the spread of capitalism and has created its own stock market. Analogous to small growth companies, such markets have high potential as well as high risk.

    DRP - Disaster Recovery Plan

• A comprehensive set of measures and procedures put into place within an organization to ensure that essential, mission critical resources and infrastructures are maintained or backed up by alternatives during various stages of a disaster.

---