Glossary
Sales intelligence glossary.
Plain-English definitions of the terms used across Ridge documentation and BD operating models.
15 Terms
- Sales Intelligence
- Sales intelligence is the structured collection, resolution, and surfacing of information about counterparties — firms, people, and events — that drives decisions about who to engage, when, and how.
- Coverage Universe
- A coverage universe is the explicit, structured set of counterparties a team commits to engaging with on a defined cadence. It is the foundational object of any coverage-driven BD model.
- Relationship Intelligence
- Relationship intelligence is the practice of treating a firm's collective network — calendar, email, and prior conversations — as a structured, queryable graph rather than as private knowledge held by individuals.
- Origination
- Origination is the structured activity of generating new mandates, deals, or relationships. It is distinct from execution, which closes work that has already originated.
- BD Cadence
- A BD cadence is the rhythm at which a team engages its coverage universe — typically expressed as touches per quarter per coverage owner.
- Signal
- A signal is a discrete, machine-readable event that suggests a specific action against a specific counterparty. Signals only have value when tied to a decision a team is already making.
- Entity Resolution
- Entity resolution is the process of mapping multiple references — different names, identifiers, and aliases — to a single canonical entity, typically a firm, fund, person, or deal.
- Account Intelligence
- Account intelligence is the continuous structured view of a single account — its stakeholders, signals, and relationship history — maintained as part of an operating cadence.
- Funnel Instrumentation
- Funnel instrumentation is the deliberate measurement of progression through a BD funnel: coverage to conversation, conversation to qualified opportunity, qualified opportunity to closed activity.
- Intent Data
- Intent data is third-party signal data suggesting that a counterparty is researching or evaluating a category. It is one input among many to a coverage-driven model — not a substitute for coverage discipline.
- Coverage Meeting
- A coverage meeting is a recurring team review driven by changed signals against the coverage universe. It is the operating cadence of a coverage-driven BD model.
- Briefing Pack
- A briefing pack is a structured pre-meeting document generated from system-of-record data, replacing freeform pre-meeting research with a repeatable artifact.
- Thesis-Encoded Search
- Thesis-encoded search is the practice of representing investment or coverage theses in a structured form that a system can use to surface candidate counterparties continuously.
- Network Graph
- A network graph is the structured representation of relationships across a firm's people, prior conversations, and external counterparties.
- Mandate Pipeline
- A mandate pipeline is the structured, stage-gated view of mandate-pursuit activity, from origination through engagement.