From tulip dresses to kitten heels, retail is awash with industry-specific terms, so does it matter if the IT department throws in a few more for good measure?

Research put out last week by fashion software supplier Prologic and Oracle, and conducted by Martec International, has identified that most people working in retail aren’t familiar with the term software-as-a-service (SaaS).

And why should they be, unless the concept of having applications delivered and paid for as an ongoing service is already happening in their business?

However the respondents were generally positive on the potential benefits of SaaS, such as no capital costs and the software being accessible from anywhere.

So perhaps the more interesting question is whether you can use IT terms with non-technical parts of your business, if you expect people to stay interested in what you are saying?

The answer surely must be is that it doesn’t really matter what you call something when you are trying to sell it to someone, as long as you make them understand what it will do for them.

Whether you are trying to market maxi dresses to the masses, or trying to sell a solution to a pressing business problem to your company’s directors, what matters is that they can identify what might seem to be a silly name with an understanding of what it is, or does.

If IT departments can market the benefits and results of the projects they work on well within their organisations, then there is no reason why retailers can’t add a few tech terms to their vocabulary.

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