Business Administration Vocabulary: 20 Useful Words
Do your responsibilities include organizing, managing or operating a business or company?
Or are you hoping to work in the business world?
Then you’re going to need some essential vocabulary to do your job!
In this post, you’ll learn 20 key vocabulary terms related to business administration.
Even if you’re not a business administrator, these words will still help you understand and talk about business in general.
Contents
- Business Administration Vocabulary
- English for Business Administration Resources
- And One More Thing...
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Business Administration Vocabulary
1. Facilitate
To facilitate means to make things easier and help them run more smoothly. A facilitator is the person whose job is to facilitate.
2. Coordinate
The verb to coordinate means to arrange for two or more parties (people or groups) to work together. The person who coordinates tasks or activities is known as a coordinator .
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We need someone to coordinate the conference call with our business partners in Europe and Asia.
3. Prioritize
To prioritize means to deal with things in their order of importance or urgency. Things that are more important are given a higher priority so they get done before the less important things.
I have eight emails waiting in my inbox. Let me prioritize which ones I should answer first.
4. Schedule
The verb to schedule means to plan for an event (such as meetings, conference calls and deliveries) to take place at a certain time and place.
5. Process
The verb to process means to put something through a series of actions to achieve a certain result. The noun processing describes the series of actions and steps needed to produce a certain result.
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6. Motivate
The verb to motivate means to provide a good reason for doing something, or to encourage someone to work harder.
7. Collaborate
The verb to collaborate means to work together with another person or group to achieve a common goal.
Higher management wants us to collaborate with our partners in Britain to develop a better product.
8. Supervise
The verb to supervise means to direct and be in charge of someone or something. The adjective supervisory is used to describe the quality of someone who’s in charge.
The contractor will be in later to supervise the office remodeling.
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9. Document
You might already know that the noun document refers to a paper or computer file. The noun documentation refers to the creation of records or files.
I think you should read the document carefully before signing it.
10. Budget
The verb to budget means to make a plan for the amount of money to spend on something. The word budget can also be used as a noun to mean the amount of money that’s made available for spending.
If you’re organizing a year-end office party, you’ll have to work out a budget for it.
11. Negotiate
The verb to negotiate means to formally discuss something and come to an agreement. The noun negotiation refers to the formal discussion to arrive at a decision that all parties agree to.
After a week of negotiation, we still can’t agree on the terms of the contract.
12. Implement
The verb to implement means to effectively start using or enforcing an action or plan. You might implement a set of measures or rules, for instance.
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13. Communicate
You’ve probably heard of the verb to communicate, which means to pass on information to someone. The noun communication refers to the act of expressing or exchanging information.
Due to the lack of communication, we don’t have all the facts we need.
14. Recruit
The verb to recruit means to find suitable people to work for your company.
After securing this deal, we had to recruit more managers to head the projects.
15. Authorize
The verb to authorize means to give approval or permission to someone to do something. Authorization , or the act of giving approval, is commonly given in the form of a signature.
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I’ll have to get my supervisor to authorize this check before I send it to you.
16. Merchandise
The noun merchandise simply refers to the products or goods that are bought and sold by your company.
There has been a recent increase in our imports of foreign merchandise.
17. Inventory
The noun inventory refers to the items or products you have in stock.
At the end of the year we check our stock and update our inventory lists.
18. Turnover
The noun turnover may refer to the amount of money your company receives in sales, or the rate at which your company’s merchandise is sold and replaced by new stock. It could also mean the rate at which staff leave your company and are then replaced by new people.
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19. Distribution
The noun distribution refers to the delivery of products or merchandise to your store or business.
20. Profitability
The noun profitability refers to the profit or amount of money gained from your sales or business.
Management would like you to conduct a study of the profitability of expanding our market overseas.
English for Business Administration Resources
If you’re considering a career in business administration, you can start by checking out these resources:
- “Speak Business English Like an American” by Amy Gillett is an excellent book for anyone seeking to improve their English language skills specifically in an American work setting. It can help you navigate the nuances of language to foster better comprehension and effective communication.
- Business English Pod offers an extensive collection of more than 600 audio lessons covering a wide range of topics related to the business world. Each lesson focuses on a specific aspect of workplace communication and comes with interactive quizzes and downloadable PDF transcripts.
- “English for Career Development” is a course taught by the University of Pennsylvania and offered on the website Coursera. It will equip you with the necessary skills to navigate the job market with confidence, such as creating an impressive resume and succeeding in job interviews.
Check out our post on business English resources for more.
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On this platform, you can find plenty of authentic English videos that include business vocabulary and workplace scenarios that can teach you much more than just the correct words and phrases to use.
Review these business administration words a few times and then start putting them to use in your daily work.
With some consistent practice and effort, you’ll soon be ready to add even more new words to your business vocabulary!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
And One More Thing...
If you like learning English through movies and online media, you should also check out FluentU. FluentU lets you learn English from popular talk shows, catchy music videos and funny commercials, as you can see here:
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The FluentU app and website makes it really easy to watch English videos. There are captions that are interactive. That means you can tap on any word to see an image, definition, and useful examples.
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