Consulting glossary

How to solve each kind of case, and what every word means.

A

Adjacency Expansion: Growing into a neighbouring product, customer segment, or geography that reuses an existing capability.; See alsoMarket Share Growth Inorganic Growth Portfolio Prioritization Growth (structure)Ansoff Matrix (structure)
ARPU: Average Revenue Per User: revenue divided by customers over the same period. It moves on price, on mix, and on usage, so a fall in it says nothing until it is broken apart.
Attach Rate: The share of primary-product sales that carry a given add-on.

B

Backlog: Orders taken but not yet delivered. A growing backlog is a capacity problem wearing a demand problem's clothes.; See alsoCapacity Utilization Bottleneck Analysis (structure)
Backward Integration: Owning the steps before you in the value chain, as a car maker buying a tyre maker. It wins secure supply and control of input costs.; See alsoVertical Integration Value Chain Value Chain Analysis (structure)Build / Partner / Buy (structure)Cost Breakdown (structure)
Barriers to Entry: Structural factors — capital intensity, regulation, patents, brand, distribution access — that deter or slow new competitors.; See alsoCompetitive Advantage Buyer / Supplier Power Localization Requirement Regulatory Constraint Porter's Five Forces (structure)
Barriers to Exit: What makes leaving a market costly: a plant nobody will buy, long leases, contracts, severance. A market that is cheap to enter but costly to leave needs a bigger margin of safety.; See alsoBarriers to Entry Risk Assessment Porter's Five Forces (structure)Investment Decision (structure)Qualitative / Quantitative (structure)Risk Types (structure)
Basket Size: Average value of a single transaction. Revenue is footfall times conversion times this, so it is one of the three places a retail revenue problem can live.; See alsoUnit Economics Guesstimates (structure)
Benchmarking: Judging whether a metric is good or bad by comparing it to competitors, industry norms, or the client's own history.; See alsoCompetitive Benchmarking Root-Cause Isolation Internal / External (structure)
Beneficiary: The person a programme exists to help. The public-sector equivalent of a customer, except that they are usually not the one paying.; See alsoStakeholder Mapping Outcome Metrics Unconventional Cases (structure)Social Impact (structure)Stakeholders (structure)
Bottleneck: The step with the least capacity. Total output is set by it, so improving any other step changes nothing.; See alsoCapacity Utilization Constraint Identification Bottleneck Analysis (structure)
Bottom-Up Sizing: Estimating a market by building from unit economics (e.g. outlets x throughput x price).
Brand Equity: The premium a customer will pay, or the preference they show, attributable to the brand rather than the product itself.; See alsoWillingness to Pay (WTP)Competitive Advantage 4Ps (structure)
Break-Even: The volume at which total contribution exactly covers fixed costs; profit is zero.; See alsoBreak-Even Analysis
Break-Even Analysis: The point at which total revenue equals total cost.; See alsoContribution Margin Fixed vs. Variable Cost Payback Period Sensitivity Analysis
Brownfield: Entering by taking over an operation that already exists, rather than building one.; See alsoEntry Mode Choice Market Entry (structure)Build / Partner / Buy (structure)
Bundling: Selling several products for a single price, which captures more value when different buyers value the items differently.; See alsoWillingness to Pay (WTP)Segmentation Pricing (structure)4Ps (structure)Split by Segment (structure)3Cs (structure)
Buyer / Supplier Power: The leverage buyers or suppliers hold over price, driven by concentration, switching costs, and availability of alternatives.; See alsoBarriers to Entry Competitive Benchmarking Porter's Five Forces (structure)

C

CAC: Customer Acquisition Cost — total sales and marketing spend divided by customers acquired.
CAGR: Compound Annual Growth Rate — the constant annual rate that connects a starting and ending value.
Cannibalization: A new offering capturing sales from the firm's own existing products; incremental volume must be measured net of it.; See alsoPrice-Volume Tradeoff Segmentation Growth (structure)Ansoff Matrix (structure)
Capacity Utilization: The share of available capacity actually used. Low utilization spreads fixed cost across fewer units, raising unit cost.; See alsoOperational Efficiency Fixed vs. Variable Cost Demand Seasonality Bottleneck Analysis (structure)
Capex: Capital expenditure — spending on long-lived assets such as plant, fleet, or stores.
Capital Allocation: Deciding which businesses get funded and which do not. A portfolio question rather than a business-unit one, and the answer is comparative: money given to one is money withheld from another.; See alsoPortfolio Prioritization Net Present Value (NPV)Opportunity Cost
Cash Conversion Cycle: Days between paying for inventory and collecting from the customer. The longer it is, the more cash the business needs simply to keep running.; See alsoWorking Capital
Cash Cow: A business with high share in a low-growth market. It funds the rest of the portfolio rather than needing funding itself.; See alsoPortfolio Prioritization Capital Allocation BCG Matrix (structure)
Channel Economics: What is left after the cost of reaching a customer through a given route to market. It is what makes one channel viable and another not, at the same price.; See alsoDistribution Strategy Unit Economics 4Ps (structure)
Churn: The rate at which existing customers stop buying or subscribing in a period.
CLV: Customer Lifetime Value — total contribution expected from a customer over the whole relationship.; See alsoCustomer Lifetime Value (CLV)Split by Segment (structure)Before / During / After (structure)
Cohort Analysis: Grouping customers by when they arrived and following each group separately, so a change in behaviour is not hidden by new arrivals.; See alsoCustomer Lifetime Value (CLV)Segmentation Split by Segment (structure)Before / During / After (structure)3Cs (structure)
Commoditization: Loss of differentiation, leaving price as the main basis of competition.
Competitive Advantage: A structural reason a firm can outperform competitors (cost, differentiation, or focus).; See alsoEntry Mode Choice Market Share Growth Barriers to Entry Brand Equity Market Entry (structure)Porter's Five Forces (structure)3Cs (structure)
Competitive Benchmarking: Comparing pricing, cost, or performance against comparable competitors.; See alsoPrice Elasticity of Demand Buyer / Supplier Power Benchmarking Pricing (structure)3Cs (structure)
Constraint Identification: Finding the step or resource that actually limits the outcome before optimising anything else. In an unconventional case, finding it is often the whole answer.; See alsoOperational Efficiency Root-Cause Isolation
Contribution Margin: Revenue minus variable costs, per unit or in aggregate.; See alsoFixed vs. Variable Cost Break-Even Analysis Unit Economics Profitability (structure)Price / Volume / Mix (structure)
Conversion Rate: The share of people at one stage of a funnel who reach the next.; See alsoPenetration Rate
Core vs Non-Core: Whether a business is central to what the firm is for. Usually the first cut when a portfolio is being pruned.; See alsoPortfolio Prioritization BCG Matrix (structure)
Cost per Outcome: Programme cost divided by results actually achieved, rather than by people reached. The two can differ by an order of magnitude.; See alsoOutcome Metrics Social Impact (structure)
Cost to Serve: The full cost of serving one customer, order or channel, including the costs that sit outside the product itself.; See alsoUnit Economics Segmentation Guesstimates (structure)Split by Segment (structure)3Cs (structure)
Cost-Plus Pricing: Setting price by adding a target margin to unit cost; establishes a price floor, not an optimum.
Cross-Sell: Selling an additional, different product to a customer you already have.; See alsoCustomer Lifetime Value (CLV)Split by Segment (structure)Before / During / After (structure)
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): The total net value a business expects from a customer over the relationship.; See alsoSegmentation Split by Segment (structure)Before / During / After (structure)
Customer Mix: The distribution of sales across customer segments; a shift in mix can move average margin with no price change.
Cycle Time: Time to take one unit through a process from start to finish.; See alsoOperational Efficiency Cost Breakdown (structure)Bottleneck Analysis (structure)Before / During / After (structure)Value Chain Analysis (structure)

D

Days Sales Outstanding: Average days taken to collect a receivable after the sale.; See alsoWorking Capital
Demand Seasonality: Predictable variation in demand across a year, week or day. It decides whether capacity is built for the peak or the average, and which of those the unit economics assume.; See alsoCapacity Utilization Market Sizing
Discount Leakage: Revenue lost between list price and the invoice, through discretionary discounts, allowances and credits.; See alsoPrice-Volume Tradeoff Profitability (structure)Price / Volume / Mix (structure)
Distribution Strategy: How the product reaches the customer — owned, third-party, or hybrid — and the margin and control implications of each.; See alsoValue Chain Entry Mode Choice Channel Economics 4Ps (structure)
Divestment: Selling or closing a business so that capital and management attention go somewhere else.; See alsoPortfolio Prioritization Capital Allocation BCG Matrix (structure)
Driver: A variable that materially moves an outcome; the thing you actually want to isolate and quantify.
Due Diligence: The review of a target's numbers, contracts and risks before a deal closes.; See alsoRisk Assessment Investment Decision (structure)Qualitative / Quantitative (structure)Risk Types (structure)PESTEL (structure)

E

EBIT: Earnings before interest and tax: operating profit, before financing and tax effects.
EBITDA: Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization — a proxy for operating cash profitability.
Economies of Scale: Falling average cost per unit as volume rises, because fixed costs spread across more units.
Economies of Scope: Lower costs from making several products with the same plants, brand or sales force, as a biscuit maker adding cakes to the same ovens and trucks.; See alsoAdjacency Expansion Growth (structure)Ansoff Matrix (structure)
Entry Mode Choice: How a firm enters a new market: organic build, acquisition, joint venture, or partnership.; See alsoCompetitive Advantage Inorganic Growth Distribution Strategy Localization Requirement Market Entry (structure)Build / Partner / Buy (structure)
EOQ: Economic Order Quantity — the order size that minimises combined ordering and holding costs.

F

Fermi Estimation: Reaching a defensible number for a quantity nobody has measured, by decomposing it into pieces that can each be approximated.; See alsoMarket Sizing Market Entry (structure)Supply / Demand (structure)
FIFO / LIFO: First-In-First-Out / Last-In-First-Out — the order in which stock is drawn down; FIFO matters for perishables.
First-Mover Advantage: Benefits available to the first entrant, such as brand recognition, scarce inputs, or customer lock-in.
Fixed Cost: A cost that does not vary with output over the relevant range (e.g. rent, salaried staff).; See alsoFixed vs. Variable Cost Profitability (structure)Cost Breakdown (structure)
Fixed vs. Variable Cost: Fixed costs do not change with volume in the short run; variable costs scale with volume.; See alsoContribution Margin Break-Even Analysis Capacity Utilization Profitability (structure)Cost Breakdown (structure)
Footfall: People entering a store or location in a period, before any of them buy anything.; See alsoPenetration Rate
Forward Integration: Owning the steps between you and the customer, as a manufacturer opening its own stores. It wins control of distribution and the margin the middleman took.; See alsoVertical Integration Distribution Strategy Value Chain Analysis (structure)Build / Partner / Buy (structure)4Ps (structure)

G

Greenfield: Entering a market by building from nothing: own site, own operation, own hires.; See alsoEntry Mode Choice Market Entry (structure)Build / Partner / Buy (structure)
Gross Margin: Revenue minus cost of goods sold, as a percentage of revenue.

H

Horizontal Integration: Buying or merging with a business at the same step of the value chain, usually a competitor, for scale and market share. Walmart buying Flipkart is one.; See alsoInorganic Growth Market Share Growth Growth (structure)Build / Partner / Buy (structure)Ansoff Matrix (structure)BCG Matrix (structure)
Household Size: Average people per household, used to turn a population into households when the product is bought per home rather than per person.; See alsoMarket Sizing Market Entry (structure)Supply / Demand (structure)

I

Inorganic Growth: Growth via acquisition, joint venture, or partnership rather than building capability internally.; See alsoEntry Mode Choice Vertical Integration Adjacency Expansion Synergy Realization Growth (structure)Build / Partner / Buy (structure)
Inventory Shrinkage: Stock lost to spoilage, pilferage, damage, or mishandling before sale — a cost that appears without any change in input prices.; See alsoOperational Efficiency Working Capital
Inventory Turnover: How many times inventory is sold and replaced in a period.
IRR: Internal Rate of Return: the discount rate at which an investment's net present value is zero.; See alsoNet Present Value (NPV)Investment Decision (structure)Qualitative / Quantitative (structure)
Issue Tree: A branching decomposition of a problem into sub-problems, each independently testable.

J

Joint Venture: A shared entity with a local or complementary partner, each side contributing something the other lacks.; See alsoEntry Mode Choice Localization Requirement Market Entry (structure)Build / Partner / Buy (structure)

L

Lakh and Crore: Indian numbering. One lakh is 100,000; one crore is 100 lakh, or 10 million. Sizing answers are expected in these units, not in millions.
Last Mile: The final step that actually reaches the individual. Usually the most expensive part of delivery and the first place a programme fails.; See alsoDistribution Strategy 4Ps (structure)
Lead Time: Elapsed time between placing an order and receiving it.
Licensing: Letting another firm make or sell your product for a fee: entry without owning operations, and without controlling them.; See alsoEntry Mode Choice Market Entry (structure)Build / Partner / Buy (structure)
Load Factor: The percentage of available capacity (e.g. airline seats) actually utilized.
Localization Requirement: How far a product, price, or process has to change to work in a new market. Underestimating it is the standard way an entry case goes wrong.; See alsoEntry Mode Choice Barriers to Entry

M

Market Share: The client's sales as a percentage of total market sales.
Market Share Growth: Growing by taking share within an existing market, as distinct from growing with the market or entering a new one.; See alsoCompetitive Advantage Adjacency Expansion Portfolio Prioritization Growth (structure)Ansoff Matrix (structure)BCG Matrix (structure)
Market Sizing: Estimating the total demand for a product, either top-down from a population or bottom-up from unit economics, using explicit and defensible assumptions.; See alsoTAM / SAM / SOM Unit Economics Penetration Rate Replacement Cycle Sensitivity Analysis Demand Seasonality Market Entry (structure)Supply / Demand (structure)
MECE: Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive — a categorization with no overlaps and no gaps.

N

Net Present Value (NPV): Future cash flows discounted to present value, less the initial investment; positive NPV implies value creation.; See alsoPayback Period Risk Assessment Capital Allocation Investment Decision (structure)Qualitative / Quantitative (structure)
Net Profit: What is left of revenue after every cost, where gross profit subtracts only the cost of what was sold. A stall sells 100 glasses of lemonade at ₹10 that cost ₹1 each to make: gross profit ₹900. Take off ₹300 for the stall, the jug and a helper, and net profit is ₹600.; See alsoUnit Economics Guesstimates (structure)
NPV: Net Present Value — the sum of future cash flows discounted to today, minus the initial investment.

O

OEE: Overall Equipment Effectiveness: availability times performance times quality, as a single utilisation number.; See alsoCapacity Utilization Bottleneck Analysis (structure)
Operating Leverage: The degree to which fixed costs amplify profit swings when volume moves.
Operational Efficiency: Output achieved per unit of input; improving it lowers unit cost without changing price or volume.; See alsoCapacity Utilization Value Chain Inventory Shrinkage Working Capital Constraint Identification Cost Breakdown (structure)Bottleneck Analysis (structure)Before / During / After (structure)Value Chain Analysis (structure)
Opex: Operating expenditure — recurring costs of running the business.
Opportunity Cost: The value of the best option given up. A recommendation that ignores what the money and people would otherwise have done is not yet a recommendation.; See alsoCapital Allocation Risk Assessment Investment Decision (structure)Short Term / Long Term (structure)BCG Matrix (structure)
Order of Magnitude: Whether an answer is in the right power of ten. In a sizing case this matters more than the arithmetic being exact.; See alsoMarket Sizing Market Entry (structure)Supply / Demand (structure)
Outcome Metrics: For public-sector or social problems, the measurable result that defines success when profit is not the objective.; See alsoStakeholder Mapping Sensitivity Analysis Social Impact (structure)
Overhead Allocation: How shared cost is charged to products or units. Two defensible allocations can make the same product look profitable or not.; See alsoFixed vs. Variable Cost Profitability (structure)Cost Breakdown (structure)

P

P&L: Profit and Loss statement: revenue at the top, costs subtracted line by line, profit at the bottom. The order of the lines is the order a profitability case usually walks.
Payback Period: The time taken for cumulative cash inflows to recover an initial investment — a liquidity and risk screen, not a profitability measure.; See alsoNet Present Value (NPV)Break-Even Analysis Investment Decision (structure)
Penetration Pricing: Launching low to win share quickly, accepting thin early margins.
Penetration Rate: The share of a target population that already owns or uses the product — the filter that converts a population into a realistic market.; See alsoMarket Sizing Replacement Cycle
Per Capita Consumption: Average units consumed per person per period: the usual bridge from a population to a volume.; See alsoMarket Sizing Market Entry (structure)Supply / Demand (structure)
Portfolio Prioritization: Allocating finite capital and attention across business units or products by growth potential and competitive position.; See alsoMarket Share Growth Adjacency Expansion Capital Allocation BCG Matrix (structure)
Price Elasticity of Demand: The percentage change in quantity demanded for a 1% change in price.; See alsoPrice-Volume Tradeoff Willingness to Pay (WTP)Competitive Benchmarking Pricing (structure)Supply / Demand (structure)
Price Ladder: The set of price points across a range, and the gaps between them that move a customer up or down it.; See alsoSegmentation Willingness to Pay (WTP)Split by Segment (structure)3Cs (structure)Pricing (structure)4Ps (structure)
Price Realization: The price actually collected after discounts, rebates and returns, rather than the price on the list.; See alsoWillingness to Pay (WTP)Pricing (structure)4Ps (structure)
Price Skimming: Launching high to capture high-WTP customers, then lowering price over time.
Price-Volume Tradeoff: Changing price typically changes volume in the opposite direction; net revenue effect depends on elasticity.; See alsoPrice Elasticity of Demand Cannibalization Profitability (structure)Price / Volume / Mix (structure)
Product Mix: The distribution of sales across products; a shift toward lower-margin products lowers blended margin.
Profit Tree: An issue tree that splits profit into revenue and cost, then into their respective drivers.

R

Reference Price: The price a customer already carries in their head, from past purchases or visible alternatives, against which a new price is judged.; See alsoWillingness to Pay (WTP)Pricing (structure)4Ps (structure)
Regulatory Constraint: A rule that removes options before analysis starts: a licence, a price cap, a foreign-ownership limit, a mandated channel.; See alsoBarriers to Entry Risk Assessment Market Entry (structure)Social Impact (structure)Risk Types (structure)PESTEL (structure)
Replacement Cycle: How often a durable good is repurchased. Annual demand from an installed base is roughly the base divided by product life.; See alsoMarket Sizing Unit Economics Penetration Rate
Retention Rate: The share of customers still active at the end of a period. The complement of churn.; See alsoCustomer Lifetime Value (CLV)Split by Segment (structure)Before / During / After (structure)
Revenue Bridge: A walk from last period's revenue to this period's, one driver at a time, so the change is attributed rather than described.; See alsoRoot-Cause Isolation Unconventional Cases (structure)Bottleneck Analysis (structure)Internal / External (structure)
Risk Assessment: Identifying what would have to be true for a recommendation to fail, and how the client would detect and mitigate it.; See alsoNet Present Value (NPV)Sensitivity Analysis Synergy Realization Regulatory Constraint Opportunity Cost Investment Decision (structure)Qualitative / Quantitative (structure)Risk Types (structure)PESTEL (structure)
ROI: Return on Investment — gain relative to the amount invested.
Root-Cause Isolation: Narrowing a problem by successively ruling out branches — by time period, geography, product line, or customer segment — until the driver is localized.; See alsoBenchmarking Segmentation Constraint Identification Unconventional Cases (structure)Bottleneck Analysis (structure)Internal / External (structure)
Run Rate: A current period's figure extrapolated to a full year. Useful for scale, misleading when the business is seasonal.

S

SAM: Serviceable Addressable Market — the portion of TAM the client's model can actually serve.; See alsoTAM / SAM / SOM Guesstimates (structure)
Same-Store Sales: Sales growth measured only across outlets open in both periods, stripping out the effect of new openings.
Sanity Check: A quick cross-check that an estimate is plausible in magnitude before building on it.
Scrap Rate: The share of material or units lost to defects and rework.; See alsoOperational Efficiency Inventory Shrinkage Cost Breakdown (structure)Bottleneck Analysis (structure)Before / During / After (structure)Value Chain Analysis (structure)
Segmentation: Dividing a market or customer base into groups with meaningfully different needs or economics.; See alsoCustomer Lifetime Value (CLV)Willingness to Pay (WTP)Cannibalization Root-Cause Isolation Split by Segment (structure)3Cs (structure)
Sensitivity Analysis: Testing how much the conclusion moves when a key assumption is varied; identifies which assumptions actually matter. In a case, react to every number you calculate: is it big or small, what would you recommend on it alone, and does a 10% change in price or cost flip that recommendation?; See alsoRisk Assessment Market Sizing Break-Even Analysis Outcome Metrics
Shrinkage: Inventory lost to spoilage, pilferage, damage, or mishandling before it can be sold.
SOM: Serviceable Obtainable Market — the portion of SAM the client can realistically capture.; See alsoTAM / SAM / SOM Guesstimates (structure)
Stakeholder Mapping: Identifying who is affected by a decision, what each party optimises for, and where their incentives conflict.; See alsoOutcome Metrics Unconventional Cases (structure)Social Impact (structure)Stakeholders (structure)
Switching Cost: The cost or friction a customer incurs to move to a competitor.
Synergies: Value created by combining two businesses: cost taken out, or revenue neither would have won alone.; See alsoSynergy Realization Inorganic Growth Growth (structure)Build / Partner / Buy (structure)
Synergy Realization: The share of announced synergies that actually arrive, and when. Deals are justified on the announced number and judged on this one.; See alsoInorganic Growth Risk Assessment

T

Takt Time: The rate at which units have to be completed to meet demand. Cycle time above it means demand is not being met.; See alsoOperational Efficiency Demand Seasonality Cost Breakdown (structure)Bottleneck Analysis (structure)Before / During / After (structure)Value Chain Analysis (structure)
TAM: Total Addressable Market — total demand if every potential buyer bought.; See alsoTAM / SAM / SOM Guesstimates (structure)
TAM / SAM / SOM: Total Addressable Market, Serviceable Addressable Market, Serviceable Obtainable Market — nested market-sizing scopes.; See alsoUnit Economics Market Sizing Guesstimates (structure)
Terminal Value: The value placed on every cash flow beyond the period actually forecast. In most valuations it is the majority of the answer.; See alsoNet Present Value (NPV)Investment Decision (structure)Qualitative / Quantitative (structure)
Theory of Change: The stated chain from activity to intended outcome, which forces the assumptions inside a programme into the open.; See alsoOutcome Metrics Social Impact (structure)
Throughput: Units processed per unit of time by a process or facility.
Tier 1 / Tier 2 / Tier 3 Cities: The standard Indian classification of cities by size and income. Penetration, price point and distribution all differ sharply across the tiers, so a national market usually splits along them.; See alsoSegmentation Penetration Rate Split by Segment (structure)3Cs (structure)
Time Value of Money: The principle that a rupee today is worth more than a rupee later, because it can be invested.
Top Line: Revenue, named for its position on the P&L. The bottom line is profit after everything below it.; See alsoUnit Economics Guesstimates (structure)
Top-Down Sizing: Estimating a market from a large aggregate (e.g. population) and narrowing by successive filters.

U

Unit Economics: Revenue and cost analyzed per unit (customer, transaction, product) to assess viability at scale.; See alsoContribution Margin TAM / SAM / SOM Market Sizing Replacement Cycle Channel Economics Guesstimates (structure)
Upsell: Moving an existing customer to a higher-value version of what they already buy.; See alsoCustomer Lifetime Value (CLV)Split by Segment (structure)Before / During / After (structure)
Utilization: The share of available capacity actually used (machine hours, seats, rooms, billable hours).

V

Value Chain: The sequence of activities a business performs to deliver its product, from inputs through to after-sales service; examining them locates where cost is incurred and where value is added.; See alsoOperational Efficiency Vertical Integration Distribution Strategy Cost Breakdown (structure)Value Chain Analysis (structure)
Value-Based Pricing: Setting price from the economic value the product creates for the customer relative to their next-best alternative.
Variable Cost: A cost that scales with each additional unit produced or sold (e.g. materials, packaging).; See alsoFixed vs. Variable Cost Profitability (structure)Cost Breakdown (structure)
Vertical Integration: Owning more of the upstream or downstream value chain, trading capital and flexibility for margin and control.; See alsoValue Chain Inorganic Growth Value Chain Analysis (structure)Build / Partner / Buy (structure)

W

WACC: Weighted Average Cost of Capital: the blended return a firm's debt and equity require, and the usual discount rate.; See alsoNet Present Value (NPV)Investment Decision (structure)Qualitative / Quantitative (structure)
Willingness to Pay (WTP): The maximum price a customer segment is willing to pay for a product or service.; See alsoPrice Elasticity of Demand Segmentation Brand Equity Pricing (structure)4Ps (structure)
Working Capital: Cash tied up in inventory and receivables net of payables; higher stock levels consume cash even when profitable.; See alsoInventory Shrinkage Operational Efficiency
WTP: Willingness to Pay — the maximum a customer would pay before declining to buy.; See alsoWillingness to Pay (WTP)Pricing (structure)4Ps (structure)

Y

Yield: The share of units coming out of a process in saleable condition.; See alsoOperational Efficiency Cost Breakdown (structure)Bottleneck Analysis (structure)Before / During / After (structure)Value Chain Analysis (structure)

Financial concepts in context

For the relationship between sales, variable costs and fixed costs, read OpenStax: contribution margin. Definitions here use those concepts in a case interview setting.

Consulting glossary

A

Adjacency Expansion

ARPU

Attach Rate

B

Backlog

Backward Integration

Barriers to Entry

Barriers to Exit

Basket Size

Benchmarking

Beneficiary

Bottleneck

Bottom-Up Sizing

Brand Equity

Break-Even

Break-Even Analysis

Brownfield

Bundling

Buyer / Supplier Power

C

CAC

CAGR

Cannibalization

Capacity Utilization

Capex

Capital Allocation

Cash Conversion Cycle

Cash Cow

Channel Economics

Churn

CLV

Cohort Analysis

Commoditization

Competitive Advantage

Competitive Benchmarking

Constraint Identification

Contribution Margin

Conversion Rate

Core vs Non-Core

Cost per Outcome

Cost to Serve

Cost-Plus Pricing

Cross-Sell

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Customer Mix

Cycle Time

D

Days Sales Outstanding

Demand Seasonality

Discount Leakage

Distribution Strategy

Divestment

Driver

Due Diligence

E

EBIT

EBITDA

Economies of Scale

Economies of Scope

Entry Mode Choice

EOQ

F

Fermi Estimation

FIFO / LIFO

First-Mover Advantage

Fixed Cost

Fixed vs. Variable Cost

Footfall

Forward Integration

G

Greenfield

Gross Margin

H

Horizontal Integration

Household Size

I

Inorganic Growth

Inventory Shrinkage