AI
Practical AI automation for small Indian businesses: where to start
Skip the hype. Five jobs where AI already earns its keep in small businesses, what each costs to run, and where you should keep a person in charge.
Knowledge centre
Software terms explained in plain business language
Decision-makers should be able to follow every conversation about their own systems. These are the terms that arise most often, defined clearly.
Glossary
Common terms
AMC (annual maintenance contract)
A yearly agreement covering upkeep of software after launch: fixes, security updates, monitoring and usually a set number of hours for small changes.
API
A defined way for one piece of software to ask another for data or to do something. When two systems “integrate”, they usually talk through APIs.
CMS (content management system)
The admin area where your team edits website pages, posts and images without a developer.
Domain and DNS
Your domain is your web address. DNS is the address book that tells the internet which server your domain points to and where your email goes.
Hosting
The servers your website or application runs on. Usually rented monthly or yearly from a cloud or hosting provider.
SSL certificate
What puts the padlock and “https” in the browser. It encrypts traffic between visitors and your site. Free certificates are standard now.
Staging
A private copy of your website or app where changes are tested before they reach real users.
MVP (minimum viable product)
The smallest version of a product that real users can get value from. It exists to learn quickly, not to impress.
UAT (user acceptance testing)
The stage where your own team tries the system with real scenarios and confirms it does what was agreed.
SLA (service level agreement)
The part of a support contract that defines response and resolution times, and what happens if they are missed.
Webhook
An automatic message one system sends to another when something happens, such as “payment received”. It lets systems react instantly.
Integration
A connection that moves data between two systems automatically, so nobody has to retype it.
PWA (progressive web app)
A website that can be installed on a phone’s home screen and work partly offline. Sometimes a cheaper alternative to a native app.
LLM (large language model)
The type of AI model behind tools like ChatGPT and Claude. It predicts text, which lets it draft, summarise, classify and answer questions.
RAG (retrieval-augmented generation)
A way of making an AI assistant answer from your own documents: relevant passages are found first, then the model writes an answer based on them.
CI/CD
Automated testing and deployment. Every code change is tested and can be released safely without manual steps.
Data fiduciary
Under India’s DPDP Act 2023, the organisation that decides why and how personal data is processed. If your system collects customer data, that is usually you.
Go deeper
Planning
Website, web app or mobile app? How to choose without wasting a budget
The three get confused all the time, and picking the wrong one is expensive. Five questions that usually settle it.
Support
What a software AMC should actually cover (and the clauses to question)
An annual maintenance contract can be excellent value or money for nothing. The difference is in eight things the contract should spell out.
Planning
How to scope a software project before you ask anyone for a quote
Why three vendors quote ₹2 lakh, ₹6 lakh and ₹15 lakh for “the same” project, and the one-afternoon exercise that makes quotes comparable.
Heard a term that is not here?
Ask us. If it confused you, it probably confuses others, and we will add it.