Business Meaning and Definition

Business Meaning and Definition

The simplest definition of business is you solve a customer's problem and create sustainable profits over time. Anyone with vision should understand the problem they're solving. The problem with business today is that people think the meaning is about building a monument to yourself. The meaning of business is having an impact on people's lives.


A business' purpose is to attract and keep customers. Its one basic function is to reliably solve customer problems...

Economic system in which goods and services are exchanged for one another or money, on the basis of their perceived worth. Every business requires some form of investment and a sufficient number of customers to whom its output can be sold at profit on a consistent basis.


A commercial activities in as a means of livelihood or profit, or and entity which engages in such activities.

1. That which busies one, or that which engages the time, attention, or labor of any one, as his principal concern or interest, whether for a longer or shorter time; constant employment; regular occupation; as, the business of life; business before pleasure.
2. Financial dealings; buying and selling; traffic in general; mercantile transactions.
3. Care; anxiety; diligence.
4. That which one has to do or should do; special service, duty, or mission.
5. The position, distribution, and order of persons and properties on the stage of a theater, as determined by the stage manager in rehearsal.
6. Any particular occupation or employment engaged in for livelihood or gain, as agriculture, trade, art, or a profession.
7. Affair; concern; matter; -- used in an indefinite sense, and modified by the connected words.

Historically, the term business referred to activities or interests. By extension the word became (as recently as the 18th century) synonymous with an individual commercial enterprise. It has also taken on the more general meaning of a nexus of commercial activities.

People establish businesses in order to perform economic activities. With some exceptions (such as cooperatives, corporate bodies, non-profit organizations and institutions of government), businesses exist to produce profit. In other words, the owners and operators of a business have as one of their main objectives to receive or generate a financial return for their time, effort and capital.

One can classify businesses in many different ways. Service businesses offer intangible products and typically have different, usually smaller, capital requirements than manufacturers. Distributors will have different inventory control needs than a retailer or manufacturer.

Most legal jurisdictions specify the forms that a business can take, and a body of commercial law has developed for each type. Some common types include partnerships, corporations (also called limited liability companies), and sole proprietorships.

The study of the efficient and effective operation of a business is called management. The main branches of management are financial management, marketing management, human resource management, strategic management, production management, service management, and information technology management.

An industry can consist of a group of related businesses, such as the entertainment industry or the dairy industry. This definition resembles one of the more general meanings of "business", and the terms business and industry sometimes appear interchangeable. Thus a fisherman might say either (more colloquially) that he is in the "fishing business" or (somewhat grandiosely) that he works in the "fishing industry". Similarly, the word "trade" may serve as an equivalent of both "business" and "industry": Victorians might despise those "in trade", and one can still refer to working "in the rag trade", for example.