What are supply chain and procurement?

The supply chain constitutes a network of entities and resources involved in the creation and sale of a product.

It includes the entire sequence of activities and the participating entities that begin with procuring raw materials and end at product distribution. The whole network of a company’s suppliers is a part of the supply chain.

Procurement involves the process that begins as an organization identifies a need and ends when the good or service is paid for. It includes strategic sourcing, PR raising, PO generation, vendor management, approval processes, receipt, invoices, and three-way matching. It is essentially the entire set of activities involved in obtaining a good or service for an organization.

Both these processes are now increasingly being streamlined through automation as it facilitates deals with suppliers and hastens related workflows and data entries. Procurement software can digitalize these processes majorly to save cost and time.