SCIKIQ · Data Academy · Reference
Data & Business Glossary
Every term used across the Academy in one place — 142 entries covering business metrics, modelling, governance and AI. Start typing to filter. Where a term has a full page, the link takes you to the formula, the source system and the ways it gets misread.
A–Z Glossary
142 terms
- Absence
- Absence rate — The share of scheduled working time lost to absence. Full definition →
- Absence rate
- The share of scheduled working time lost to absence. Full definition →
- AC
- Active customers — How many customers actually bought from you in a defined window. Full definition →
- Active customers
- How many customers actually bought from you in a defined window. Full definition →
- Agentic AI
- AI that plans, uses tools and takes actions rather than only answering.
- ANP
- Average net price — What you actually received per unit, after every discount, rebate and allowance. Full definition →
- AOV
- Average order value — What a typical order is worth, after discounts and returns. Full definition →
- Attach
- Attach rate — How often a service, warranty, accessory or add-on is sold alongside the product it belongs to. Full definition →
- Attach rate
- How often a service, warranty, accessory or add-on is sold alongside the product it belongs to. Full definition →
- Attrition
- Attrition rate — The share of your people who leave in a year. Full definition →
- Attrition rate
- The share of your people who leave in a year. Full definition →
- Average net price
- What you actually received per unit, after every discount, rebate and allowance. Full definition →
- Average order value
- What a typical order is worth, after discounts and returns. Full definition →
- Budget variance
- How far actual performance has drifted from plan, and in which direction. Full definition →
- CAC
- Customer acquisition cost — What it costs, all in, to win one new customer. Full definition →
- Capacity utilisation
- How much of the capacity you already own is being used. Full definition →
- Capex intensity
- How much you must invest in assets for every euro of revenue. Full definition →
- Capex%
- Capex intensity — How much you must invest in assets for every euro of revenue. Full definition →
- Cash conversion cycle
- The number of days between paying for something and being paid for it. Full definition →
- Cash conversion ratio
- How much of the profit you reported actually turned into cash. Full definition →
- CCC
- Cash conversion cycle — The number of days between paying for something and being paid for it. Full definition →
- CCR
- Cash conversion ratio — How much of the profit you reported actually turned into cash. Full definition →
- CDC
- Change data capture — streaming only what changed, rather than reloading everything.
- CM
- Contribution margin — What one extra sale leaves behind after the costs that only exist because you made that sale. Full definition →
- Contribution margin
- What one extra sale leaves behind after the costs that only exist because you made that sale. Full definition →
- Cost per hire
- Everything it costs to fill a role, from advertising to the recruiter's time. Full definition →
- Cost per lead
- What you pay to get one qualified lead. Full definition →
- Cost to serve
- Everything it costs to look after a customer after the sale is agreed. Full definition →
- Cover
- Stock cover — How many days of demand your current stock would satisfy. Full definition →
- CPH
- Cost per hire — Everything it costs to fill a role, from advertising to the recruiter's time. Full definition →
- CPL
- Cost per lead — What you pay to get one qualified lead. Full definition →
- Critical data element
- A field that causes a bad decision or a breach if it is wrong.
- CRR
- Customer retention rate — The share of the customers you had at the start of a period who were still buying at the end. Full definition →
- CTS
- Cost to serve — Everything it costs to look after a customer after the sale is agreed. Full definition →
- Customer acquisition cost
- What it costs, all in, to win one new customer. Full definition →
- Customer retention rate
- The share of the customers you had at the start of a period who were still buying at the end. Full definition →
- Data contract
- An agreement on the shape, quality and service level of a dataset, expressed as code.
- Data product
- A dataset managed like a product: owned, documented, versioned and supported.
- Data quality score
- How much of your data passes the rules you have agreed it must meet. Full definition →
- Data steward
- The named person accountable for a data element being correct.
- Data Vault
- An integration modelling style of hubs, links and satellites, built for change and history.
- Days inventory outstanding
- How long stock sits before it is sold, on average. Full definition →
- Days payables outstanding
- How long you take to pay your suppliers. Full definition →
- Days sales outstanding
- How long, on average, customers take to pay you after you invoice them. Full definition →
- DIO
- Days inventory outstanding — How long stock sits before it is sold, on average. Full definition →
- DPO
- Days payables outstanding — How long you take to pay your suppliers. Full definition →
- DQ
- Data quality score — How much of your data passes the rules you have agreed it must meet. Full definition →
- DSO
- Days sales outstanding — How long, on average, customers take to pay you after you invoice them. Full definition →
- EBITDA margin
- Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, as a share of revenue. Full definition →
- EBITDA%
- EBITDA margin — Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, as a share of revenue. Full definition →
- Energy per unit
- How much energy it takes to make one unit of output. Full definition →
- FA
- Forecast accuracy — How close the forecast was to what actually happened, measured as absolute error against actuals. Full definition →
- FCF
- Free cash flow — The cash left after running the business and keeping its assets in shape — the money genuinely available for debt, dividends or investment. Full definition →
- FCU
- Freight cost per unit — What it costs to move one unit to the customer. Full definition →
- Fill rate
- How much of what was ordered you were able to ship. Full definition →
- Forecast accuracy
- How close the forecast was to what actually happened, measured as absolute error against actuals. Full definition →
- FR
- Fill rate — How much of what was ordered you were able to ship. Full definition →
- Free cash flow
- The cash left after running the business and keeping its assets in shape — the money genuinely available for debt, dividends or investment. Full definition →
- Freight cost per unit
- What it costs to move one unit to the customer. Full definition →
- GM%
- Gross margin % — The share of every sales euro left after the direct cost of making or buying what you sold. Full definition →
- Golden record
- The single resolved version of a customer, supplier or product.
- Governed metric
- A number with one agreed formula, grain, source and owner.
- Governed metric coverage
- How much of what your business actually reports on has one agreed, documented definition. Full definition →
- Grain
- The level of detail one row of a dataset represents.
- GraphRAG
- Retrieval grounded in a knowledge graph, so answers can follow relationships.
- Gross margin %
- The share of every sales euro left after the direct cost of making or buying what you sold. Full definition →
- Gross-to-net
- Price realisation — How much of your list price survives all the way to the invoice. Full definition →
- Guardrails
- The controls that stop an AI system acting outside what it is permitted to do.
- Idempotent pipeline
- A pipeline you can safely re-run: twice gives the same result as once.
- Inventory turns
- How many times you sell and replace your stock in a year. Full definition →
- Knowledge graph
- Entities and the relationships between them, stored so they can be traversed.
- kWh/unit
- Energy per unit — How much energy it takes to make one unit of output. Full definition →
- LC
- Lineage coverage — How much of your important data can be traced from the report it appears in back to the system it came from. Full definition →
- Lead to opportunity conversion
- The share of marketing-qualified leads that sales accepts and works. Full definition →
- Leverage
- Net debt to EBITDA — How many years of current earnings it would take to repay what you owe. Full definition →
- Lifetime value to CAC
- How much gross profit a customer produces over their life, compared with what it cost to win them. Full definition →
- Lineage
- The traceable path a figure took from source system to the report it appears in.
- Lineage coverage
- How much of your important data can be traced from the report it appears in back to the system it came from. Full definition →
- LTV:CAC
- Lifetime value to CAC — How much gross profit a customer produces over their life, compared with what it cost to win them. Full definition →
- Market share
- Your slice of a defined market, in units or in value. Full definition →
- Master data
- The shared reference data every system depends on: customers, products, suppliers.
- MC
- Governed metric coverage — How much of what your business actually reports on has one agreed, documented definition. Full definition →
- MCP
- Model Context Protocol — a standard way to expose tools and data to AI agents.
- Mean time to repair
- How long, on average, it takes to get a failed asset running again. Full definition →
- MECE
- No overlaps and no gaps — the test for a clean split.
- Medallion architecture
- Bronze, silver and gold layers — raw, integrated and consumption-ready.
- MQL→SQL
- Lead to opportunity conversion — The share of marketing-qualified leads that sales accepts and works. Full definition →
- MS
- Market share — Your slice of a defined market, in units or in value. Full definition →
- MTTR
- Mean time to repair — How long, on average, it takes to get a failed asset running again. Full definition →
- Net debt to EBITDA
- How many years of current earnings it would take to repay what you owe. Full definition →
- Net revenue retention
- What last year's customers are worth this year, before any new customers are counted. Full definition →
- NRR
- Net revenue retention — What last year's customers are worth this year, before any new customers are counted. Full definition →
- OCT
- Order cycle time — How long a customer waits between placing an order and receiving it. Full definition →
- OEE
- Overall equipment effectiveness — How much good output a line produced compared with what it could have produced running perfectly. Full definition →
- OL
- Operating leverage — How much profit moves for a given move in revenue. Full definition →
- OM
- Operating margin — Profit from running the business, before interest and tax, as a share of revenue. Full definition →
- On time in full
- The share of orders that arrived when promised, with everything the customer asked for. Full definition →
- On-shelf availability
- Whether the product was actually there for the shopper to buy. Full definition →
- Ontology
- A formal model of classes, properties and rules for a domain.
- Operating leverage
- How much profit moves for a given move in revenue. Full definition →
- Operating margin
- Profit from running the business, before interest and tax, as a share of revenue. Full definition →
- Order cycle time
- How long a customer waits between placing an order and receiving it. Full definition →
- OSA
- On-shelf availability — Whether the product was actually there for the shopper to buy. Full definition →
- OTIF
- On time in full — The share of orders that arrived when promised, with everything the customer asked for. Full definition →
- Overall equipment effectiveness
- How much good output a line produced compared with what it could have produced running perfectly. Full definition →
- PC
- Pipeline coverage — How many times your target is currently sitting in open, qualified pipeline. Full definition →
- Perfect order rate
- The share of orders that went through without a single failure — right items, right time, undamaged, invoiced correctly. Full definition →
- PF
- Purchase frequency — How often the average active customer buys. Full definition →
- Pipeline coverage
- How many times your target is currently sitting in open, qualified pipeline. Full definition →
- POR
- Perfect order rate — The share of orders that went through without a single failure — right items, right time, undamaged, invoiced correctly. Full definition →
- Price / volume / mix bridge
- A walk that splits a revenue change into its causes.
- Price realisation
- How much of your list price survives all the way to the invoice. Full definition →
- Purchase frequency
- How often the average active customer buys. Full definition →
- RAG
- Retrieval-augmented generation — grounding a model on retrieved documents or data.
- Return on capital employed
- The profit a business earns for every unit of capital tied up in it. Full definition →
- Returns
- Returns rate — The share of what you sold that came back. Full definition →
- Returns rate
- The share of what you sold that came back. Full definition →
- Revenue per employee
- How much revenue the business produces for each full-time equivalent employee. Full definition →
- ROCE
- Return on capital employed — The profit a business earns for every unit of capital tied up in it. Full definition →
- RPE
- Revenue per employee — How much revenue the business produces for each full-time equivalent employee. Full definition →
- SA
- Schedule adherence — How much of what you planned to make you actually made, in the order you planned it. Full definition →
- Sales cycle length
- How long a deal takes from first qualified contact to signature. Full definition →
- Schedule adherence
- How much of what you planned to make you actually made, in the order you planned it. Full definition →
- SCL
- Sales cycle length — How long a deal takes from first qualified contact to signature. Full definition →
- Scrap and yield
- The proportion of what you made that could not be sold. Full definition →
- Scrap%
- Scrap and yield — The proportion of what you made that could not be sold. Full definition →
- Semantic layer
- A business-meaning map over physical data, so people query concepts not tables.
- Share of wallet
- How much of a customer's spending in your category you actually hold. Full definition →
- Slowly changing dimension
- A pattern for keeping history when a descriptive attribute changes.
- SLT
- Supplier lead time — How long a supplier actually takes, and how much that varies. Full definition →
- SOW
- Share of wallet — How much of a customer's spending in your category you actually hold. Full definition →
- Star schema
- A dimensional model: one fact table surrounded by denormalised dimensions.
- Stock cover
- How many days of demand your current stock would satisfy. Full definition →
- Supplier lead time
- How long a supplier actually takes, and how much that varies. Full definition →
- Time to insight
- How long it takes to go from someone asking a question to an answer people are willing to act on. Full definition →
- TTI
- Time to insight — How long it takes to go from someone asking a question to an answer people are willing to act on. Full definition →
- Turns
- Inventory turns — How many times you sell and replace your stock in a year. Full definition →
- Util
- Capacity utilisation — How much of the capacity you already own is being used. Full definition →
- Value tree
- A breakdown of value into the smaller numbers that drive it.
- Variance
- Budget variance — How far actual performance has drifted from plan, and in which direction. Full definition →
- Win rate
- The share of decided opportunities that you won. Full definition →
- WR
- Win rate — The share of decided opportunities that you won. Full definition →
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