Business acumen is a concept pertaining to a person’s knowledge and ability to make profitable business decisions.
The dictionary defines acumen as Quickness, accuracy, and keenness of judgment or insight. It comes from the latin word acuere which means to sharpen. Acuere is also the root of the word acute.
We find that business acumen is often a missing link in leadership and management training today. While many aspects of business are taught in business schools (i.e. accounting, legal, marketing, advertising), these skills are specialized and segmented. This practice produces an excellent understanding of the profession, or skills, but creates distance from the whole of running or impacting a business.
We believe that every employee needs to understand how his or her role fits into the big picture and how he or she impacts the business.These are the 16 ot of 50 Fortune companies who took steps and tried to equip their employees with Business Acumen.
| #1 | Walmart | #22 | Proctor & Gamble |
| #3 | Chevron | #28 | Boeing |
| #4 | GE | #29 | The Home Depot |
| #7 | AT&T | #31 | WellPoint |
| #13 | Verizon | #32 | Walgreens |
| #19 | Wells Fargo | #34 | State Farm |
| #20 | IBM | #38 | Dell |
| #21 | United Health | #44 | Lockheed Martin |
