Etymology of the word Business
by Jean LW Lequeux in http://www.weltram.eu
Business comes from the adjective "busy". Basically, the term Business should apply to any activity that keeps a person busy… So, Business means action. Action generally ends with transactions…
Back in the ancestral times of Humanity, the primitive form of transaction was barter. Actually, bartering was a nice way to acquire easily new foods and goods. It was easier than hunting, fishing or seeking for food. It took much less time than carving tools or objects. This primary form of exchange also meant peace between tribes.
It took thousand years before men could conceptualize money as a support to their transactions. And it took again some thousand years before replacing solid money (coins or paper) by electronic currency.
With the evolution of societies and technologies, Business is getting always more and more complex.
With the industrial era, Business became more and more dependant on the evolutions of the societies, which are continuously accelerating since the Hi-Tech Times, (i.e. after WW2). Progressively, appeared the notion of Business Model.
With the maturity of the Web and the rise of the electronic economy, building a Business Model becomes necessity for modern company. There are thousand ways to elaborate a Business, but all of them are using the same pieces of a giant puzzle of Business Components.
Photo credit: http://www.weltram.eu
Warning:
The list of terms on the left side column is neither a glossary nor a dictiionary. Its purpose is to list Business activities, which could be useful when conceiving a Business Model.
Of course, there are much more than expressions using the word Business...