Procurement encompasses a range of activities involved in obtaining goods or services. What is the purpose of procurement? In general, procurement teams work to obtain competitively priced supplies that deliver the most value. However, not all companies define procurement in the same way. Many companies consider that procurement encompasses all the stages, from gathering business requirements and sourcing suppliers to tracking the receipt of goods and updating payment terms, while others define procurement as a narrower range of activities, such as issuing purchase orders and making payments.