What is a business buzzword, and what makes them the worst?

Words become annoying buzzwords when they get overused, frequently misused, or are just plain vague. Terms with a perfectly good plain-English counterpart are especially hated. It’s a classic mark of jargon! If there’s a different word that you would say if you weren’t at work, check yourself: you’re probably using business jargon.

Based on a recent TrustRadius survey of over 700 professionals, here is the ultimate list of the 119 most-hated business buzzwords. These corporate cliches, in order of most-mentioned to least-mentioned, are full of juicy jargon, vague terminology, obscure metaphors, and problematic turns of phrase. 

The 119 Worst Business Buzzwords for 2020

1. Synergy
2. Think outside the box (and other variations, like “step out of the box,” an “out of the box” idea, etc.)
3. Take it offline
4. Circle back
5. Low-hanging fruit
6. At the end of the day
7. Cloud, and cloud-based
8. To not know what you don’t know
9. Big Data
10. Move the needle
11. Leverage
12. Agile
13. Best Practice
14. Digital transformation
15. Deep dive
16. Bandwidth
17. Customer journey
18. Moving forward–and its close cousin “going forward”
19. Next level, up-level, level up
20. Reach out
21. Touch base
22. Wheelhouse
23. Disruptor
24. Alignment / Aligned
25. Right
26. Bottom line
27. Acronyms (FYI, ROI, KPI, etc.)
28. Disruptive
29. Value (as in value-add, driving value, value proposition, corporate values, or value drop)
30. Ping
31. Lean, and lean-in
32. Paradigm (as in paradigm shift or breaking the paradigm)
33. Partner–the verb (“Partner with us”) and the noun (“Business partner”)
34. Ideate / Ideation
35. Ask, used as a noun to mean “request”
36. Learnings
37. Holistic, especially in the phrase “Holistic approach”
38. Culture (as in “company culture,” “corporate culture,” “startup culture,” or “creating a [inset adj. here] culture”)
39. Thought leader / Thought leadership
40. Content (whether “Content is king” or “snackable content”)
41. Growth hacking (which is essentially just marketing)
42. Buy-in
43. Pain point
44. Swimlane, or even just “lane,” particularly when someone is telling you to stay in yours.
45. Best in class / Best of breed
46. Game-changer
47. Teamwork, team-building, and team-players
48. Next-gen
49. Hard stop
50. ROI (“Return on investment”)
51. IoT (“Internet of things”)
52. Innovative
53. Influencer
54. Single pane of glass
55. Customer-centric
56. All hands on deck
57. Net-net
58. Put a pin in it
59. Stakeholders
60. Strategic
61. Metrics
62. Machine Learning
63. Pivot
64. On the same page
65. Advertainment
66. Collaboration
67. Intelligence, whether it’s “artificial intelligence,” “business intelligence,” “emotional intelligence,” “market intelligence,” “competitive intelligence,” or otherwise.
68. Automation
69. Blockchain
70. Intuitive
71. Analytics
72. Platform
73. Open the kimono
74. Unpack
75. Giving 110%
76. Tables of all sorts: table stakes, bringing something to the table, or tabling it for later
77. Quick win
78. Onboarding (and “get everyone on board”)
79. Scrum
80. Boil the ocean
81. Story (in context of “storytelling,” “user stories,” or making a “long story short”)
82. On your plate, or having a “full plate”
83. 30,000 ft. view, 10,000 ft. view, and other escalations of a top-down view
84. Core competency / Core capabilities
85. Rockstar
86. Loops: “looping back,” keeping someone “in the loop,” or the dreaded “feedback loop”
87. Free, and even worse, freemium
88. Blue sky
89. Integration
90. Engagement
91. Actionable
92. Efficiency
93. Socialize
94. Diversity
95. Verticals
96. Bio-break
97. Bleeding edge
98. Optimize
99. Scalable
100. Organic
101. Omni-channel
102. Empower
103. Win-win
104. Optics
105. DevOps
106. Data-driven
107. In the weeds
108. Double click (as in to “double-click” into something)
109. On your radar
110. Ducks in a row
111. Drill down
112. Space (as in “playing in” a particular “space”)
113. Fast in various forms, such as “fast-paced,” “fail fast” or “cheap, fast, and good”
114. Top of mind, mindfulness, and mindshare 
115. KPI (“Key performance indicator”)
116. ASAP (“As soon as possible”)
117. Giving back your time 
118. Per (“per se,” “per my last email,” etc.)
119. FYI (“For your information”)

Whew! That’s a lot of jargon.

Why TrustRadius cares about business buzzwords

You might be asking yourself, “Why does a review site care about how many business buzzwords I hear every day at work?” Well, the words and feelings you have at work are the lifeblood of our business. That’s exactly what a review is, after all. (And ours are some of the longest in the industry–over 400 words on average.)

We’re in a unique position. We connect professionals who buy and use business technology with each other. We also connect them to the vendors that provide the products they use. There’s a lot of communication happening in those relationships. Some of it is on a one-to-one basis, but much of it is on a one-to-many basis. 

The use of buzzwords in the tech industry is especially rampant. The tech marketing lingo vendors project to their prospects and customers is even worse. But this is exactly why people love reviews. They’re relatable, candid, and easy to read. They haven’t been run through a buzzwords marketing machine. Reviews are written by humans who have used the technology products for their own business, and have some advice to share.

We did this survey because words matter. In our business, we’ve seen that the more real, specific, accessible, and personal words are, the better results we (and our customers) get. 

What do you think are the most annoying business buzzwords?

Did you see your (least) favorite term on the list? Or were the worst offenders missing? Take the survey for yourself here. You’ll be able to see how we sourced this list, and make sure your opinion gets heard!