| Odd pricing | A pricing method that uses values below (but near) a round number. For instance, many firms select $19.95 rather than $20.00. Likewise, many in the housing market select prices like $199,000 instead of $200,000. |
| Off-line | An offline database is kept on magnetic tape or cartridge. You cannot call up a record instantly from an off-line database. |
| Offer | What you are offering in your direct mail: 10 for only $19.95. |
| Offshore account | Funds which are managed outside of the UK. |
| Offshoring | The relocation of part of a firm’s activities outside of the national boundaries in which it operates. It can take place within a multinational company or may involve outsourcing production to other firms. |
| Okun’s law | The empirical regularity that growth of GDP is negatively correlated with the rate of unemployment. See also: Okun’s coefficient. |
| Oligopoly | A market where only a few firms control the percentage of total sales. |
| Oligopsony | A market characterized by many sellers but only a handful of buyers. |
| On-line | An on-line database is one in which all the customer records can be called up on your screen instantly when you want them. On-line databases are kept on disk. The opposite of on-line is off-line (or Batch) which usually means that the database is kept on magnetic tape. |
| On-Pack Offers | Communications with customers by making an offer on the package that they purchase. |
| Open-mindedness | Open-minded team members learn things they wouldn’t on their own and participate in greater solutions than they could come up with alone. Being open-minded helps you work through interpersonal or intra-team conflicts that arise when people work in close quarters. |
| Operating expenditure (opex) | On-going costs for running a business, service or system that includes day-to-day expenditure such as sales and administration. Compare with capital expenditure, which is money spent on fixed assets or extensions to already-owned fixed assets. A photocopier, for example, would involve capital expenditure whereas toner and paper for the photocopier would be operating expenditure. |
| Operating profit/loss | The profit or loss a company makes. These figures reflect how the business is performing. |
| Opportunity cost | When taking an action implies forgoing the next best alternative action, this is the net benefit of the foregone alternative. |
| Opportunity cost of capital | |
| Optimism | Optimism is formally defined as an individual’s expectancy of positive outcomes. The importance of optimism in the workplace is having the mindset of seeing the glass as half full — and it’s one of the keys to boosting well-being and engagement. |
| Order book | A record of limit orders placed by buyers and sellers, but not yet fulfilled. |
| Order qualifier | An aspect of an offering that is necessary to compete in a marketplace. |
| Order winner | An aspect of an offering that allows a product to dominate a marketplace. |
| Ordinary share | Also known as common shares, this is one unit of a businesses share capital. |
| Osborne effect | Named after an infamous misstep by the Osborne Computer Corporation. The firm announced a revolutionary model of computer prior to actual availability. As a result, sales of existing models collapsed, and the company went bankrupt due to lack of revenue. |
| Out of pocket | Money that has been spent from the account of a given party. |
| Outbound marketing | A sales technique that involves active effort by vendors to contact potential buyers. An example of this is cold calling. |
| Outsourcing | The process of having various database functions handled by external service bureaus. Typically, functions are outsourced to direct response agencies, computer service bureaus, data entry houses, mailshops, fulfillment houses, telemarketing companies. |
| Outsourcing | The process of subcontracting work to outside vendors. |
| Overheads | Costs that do not vary regardless of the level of production and are not usually directly involved with the cost of production, such as rent. |
| Overlayed Data | A process whereby a customer file has data appended to it (such as age, income, home value) from some external data file. See Enhancement. |
| Overspending | It’s understandable that any new business owner would be excited to get their company up and running as soon as possible and make it the absolute best it can be. However, many small business owners go overboard by purchasing goods and services they don’t need or can’t afford yet. |
| Owner’s draw | The business owner takes funds out of the business for personal use. Draws can happen at regular intervals, or when needed. |
| Owner’s equity | Once you form a business, you’ll contribute cash, equipment, and other assets to the business. When you contribute assets, you are given equity (ownership) in the entity, and you may also take money out of the business each year. |
| Ownership | The right to use and exclude others from the use of something, and the right to sell the thing that is owned. |
