We will cover the concepts of procurement in this chapter. Procurement is the process of acquiring goods and services from external parties at the most effective price and possibly over a period of time. This concept obviously excludes one-time purchases that may be made with disregard for the process of negotiation and pricing agreements.
Procurement includes the following processes:
Information gathering
Supplier contact and review of offering
Negotiation and pricing agreement including period wise pricing
Purchase Order – contract to provide materials/services
Fulfilment
Receipt of goods and/or services
Renewal, as applicable
The first two tasks in the list are manual processes. We will cover the next set of processes that can be managed within the E-Business Suite in this chapter.