108 · The Acronym Armory

The whole point of acronyms is to streamline and accelerate the information flow of the thought process. Learn the language of operators and you can read any business at speed. The financial and subscription metrics: ARR, annual recurring revenue — normalised yearly subscription revenue; MRR, its monthly twin. NRR, net revenue retention — revenue kept from existing customers including upgrades and downgrades; GRR, the gross version excluding upgrades. LTV, lifetime value — total revenue from a customer over the whole relationship; CAC, customer acquisition cost; and LTV:CAC, the ratio that measures whether acquisition is profitable at all. ARPU and ARPPU — average revenue per user, and per paying user. GMV, gross merchandise value — total sales volume through a marketplace. NPS, net promoter score. CMGR, compound monthly growth rate. TAM, SAM, SOM — total addressable market, the serviceable slice you can reach, and the obtainable share you can realistically win. ROI and ROAS — return on investment, and on ad spend. EBITDA — earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, the proxy for operating cash flow. COGS, the direct costs of producing the product; OPEX, the operating expenses around it; FCF, free cash flow; DCF, the discounted cash flow valuation method.

Marketing and growth: UGC, user-generated content, versus PGC, the professionally made kind. CTA, the call to action; CTR, clicks over impressions; CPC, CPM, CPA, CPI — cost per click, per thousand impressions, per acquisition, per install. CVR, conversion rate. PPC, pay per click; SEO and SEM, organic and paid search; SERP, the results page itself. KPI, key performance indicator; OKR, objectives and key results. AOV, average order value. MQL, SQL, PQL — leads qualified by marketing, sales, or product usage. BANT — budget, authority, need, timeline — the sales qualification frame. Churn, the percentage of customers lost. DAU, WAU, MAU — daily, weekly, monthly active users; DNU, daily new users; D30 and D90, retention at thirty and ninety days.

Operations and process: SLA, the promised response time; WIP, work in progress; TAT, turnaround time. BPM, business process management; RPA, robotic process automation — software bots for repetitive tasks. ERP, CRM, CMS, OMS, WMS, TMS — the enterprise systems for resources, customers, content, orders, warehouses, transport. EDI, B2B document automation. API, the integration layer. SSO and IAM, single sign-on and identity management. B2B, B2C, D2C, B2G, P2P — who sells to whom. O2C, order to cash; R2R, record to report.

People and org: FTE, full-time equivalent. EOD, COB, EOW — end of day, close of business, end of week. PTO, RTO, WFH. ASAP. TL;DR. TBD and TBC. FYI. IMO and IMHO. AFAIK. EOM, OOO. Strategy and frameworks: SWOT — strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. PESTLE — political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental. SMART goals. PDCA — plan, do, check, act. DMAIC — define, measure, analyse, improve, control. MVP, MSP, MLP — minimum viable, sellable, lovable product. ICP, ideal customer profile. POC, proof of concept. RACI and DACI, the responsibility matrices. Product and tech: UX, UI, CX, DX. SDK, IDE. CI/CD, the automation pipeline. QA and UAT. A/B, the split test. NFR, SLO, SLI — the non-functional requirements and the service-level objectives and indicators beneath the SLA. Compliance and security: GDPR, CCPA, SOC 2, ISO, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, 2FA and MFA.

And the operator's phrasebook for funnels and flow: streamline operations — remove unnecessary steps. Automate repetitive tasks. Standardise procedures. Map end-to-end journeys. Reduce drop-off points; increase throughput; shorten cycle times; boost conversion rates. Address resource constraints; level workloads; eliminate single points of failure; increase system slack. Smooth out variability; balance pull versus push; improve handoffs; reduce latency. Orchestrate cross-functional alignment; instrument feedback loops; reduce friction; increase operational leverage — more output per unit of input. Speak it fluently, and every business becomes legible.