Business Planning - you'll never take a business plan seriously again, once you have read this!
September 23, 2013| Business Plan Speak | Plain English True Meaning |
| Acquisition strategy | The current products have no market |
| Broadly on plan | 20% below plan |
| Complex architecture | Unworkable design |
| Core business | Only activity |
| Currently revising the budget | Financial plan is in total chaos |
| Cyclical industry | Made a huge loss last year |
| Entrepreneurial MD | Slightly mad, totally uncontrollable and definitely irresponsible |
| Extrapolation | Sheer guesswork |
| Illustrative projections | Don't blink |
| Investing heavily in R&D | Trying desperately to catch the opposition |
| Leading edge technology | Doesn't work |
| Life sciences application | You won't live to see it work |
| Limited downside | It can't get much worse |
| Long lead time | We haven't made one that works yet |
| Major opportunity | Last chance |
| Marketing-driven | One salesman: with a Ford Mondeo |
| Niche strategy | A small time player |
| People business | The only assets have two legs, one interest and no loyalty |
| Performance ratchet | Heads we win; tails they lose |
| Pro-active stance | Quick to latch on to other people's ideas |
| Proven technology | It nearly worked once before |
| Repositioning the business | We're lost |
| Revised budget | Downgrade to actual |
| Salaries are not competitive | CEO wants a rise |
| Shorter project life cycles | We've just finished copying market leader when he brought out a new model |
| Strategic alliance | Know their phone number |
| Synergistic acquisition | Two minuses make a plus |
| Temporary cash flow problem | About to go bust |
| Under-capitalised | Negative net assets |
| Unique | No more than ten direct competitors |
| Uniquely positioned | No-one else mad enough to be in this position |
| Upside potential | It's stopped breathing. An investment could be the kiss of life |
| Vertically integrated | Series of rotten business piled one on top of the other |
| Volume sensitive | Massive fixed overheads |
| Window of opportunity | Without more money, the company is dead |
November 27, 2023 at 03:42 PM
