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Do you work with English speakers? Learn 10 common business abbreviations used by native speakers in the workplace. Find out the difference between HR and PR, your USP, and your ROI. Such short forms are used every day in business. You need to understand and use them to be successful in your career. There are many aspects to the English language, in this lesson you'll learn to communicate effectively using business English abbreviations. Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid. In this lesson, you'll learn 10 common abbreviations that you should know if you work or want to work in the business world. Okay? It's possible you have heard many of these, and possibly not. So, let's make sure that you know all of them. Okay. So, first I'm just going to read them to you, and you can see if you've heard them before or if you know what they are. Okay? “CEO“, “PR“, “HR“, “ISO“, “ROI“, “MBA“, “VAT“ or “V-A-T“, “USP“, “Ltd.“, and “Inc.“ Okay? So, possibly you've heard some of these before. Let's go into them in more detail. So, what is a “CEO“, or better still: Who is a CEO? So, a “CEO“ stands for “Chief Executive Officer“. Okay? And the Chief Executive Officer is the most senior executive in a corporation, in a for-profit corporation. Okay? So he's the topmost executive. All right? That's the CEO. “PR“. Okay? What does “PR“ stand for? “PR“ stands for public relations. So, this term could define the field or it could def-... Describe a department in a particular company or corporation. And what is the job of this department? Their job or their responsibility is to spread information to the public about the organization, about the corporation, maybe in the form of new developments, in the form of press releases. Okay? If there's a crisis... Or even if something negative happens, it's the job of the public relations department to communicate that in a positive way. Sometimes they have a different section, crisis communications, but basically, “PR“ stands for “public relations“. Good. “HR“. Okay? So, “HR“ is something that you probably have heard before, especially if you've ever been for a job interview, you might have met an HR representative. So, “HR“ stands for “human resources“. Now, the term “human resources“ can, again, refer to the entire field of managing people, it can refer to a particular department in a company that is responsible for all of the personnel that work in that organization or that company. All right? It's responsible for hiring them, for training them, and for all the administration that has to do with the staff or the personnel that work in that company. Okay? But HR, as in human resources, can also just refer to the people themselves-okay?-who work in a particular place. All right. Next is “ISO“. All right? Now, this stands for “International Organization for Standardization“. Okay? It's a long name for a very important organization, and it's a group that basically confers or gives quality certification to different companies for their products, for their materials, for their processes. They set quality benchmarks or quality standards. Okay? So you might see in a particular company that they are ISO 9,000 certified or something like that, and that's very important because it indicates that they have a certain degree of quality in that organization regarding that area. Okay? So it's basically an organization that sets quality benchmarks, ISO. Okay? Next is “ROI“. Okay? So “ROI“ has to do with finance. And it's basically... Stands for, first of all, “return on investment“. “ROI“, “return on investment“. So, ROI is a profitability ratio that helps finance people to determine if a particular investment is going to give them profit or give them savings. All right? So that's what the “ROI“ stands for, “return on investment“, and it's a profitability ratio. Okay. Next: “MBA“. That, you probably have heard of. Okay? We might hear somebody saying: “He has an MBA.“ Okay? Now, you noticed that I said “an MBA“. Why did I say “an MBA“? Do you know? Usually, we say “an“ before a vowel. Right? But, it's not only before a vowel. It's actually before anything that has a vowel sound. So the... The letter “m“ is like “e-m“, “em“, so therefore, we cannot say: “He has a MBA“, we say: “He has an MBA.“ All right? Or: “He is an MBA.“ We also say that. And an “MBA“ stands for “Master of Business Administration“. So, it's a graduate business degree. Okay? It's a very popular graduate degree in business. All right? Next is “VAT“ or “value-added tax“. So, value-added tax is a very common tax on goods and services, usually in Europe-okay?-you'll hear this a lot. “Is the VAT included in the price?“ The value-added tax. Okay? There are different taxes, of course, in every country and every part... Or part of the world, but a VAT... VAT is a very popular common tax in Europe especially.
