Procurement Intake and Orchestration Glossary

Intake management is how procurement teams receive, route, and respond to business requests from employees.

Procurement orchestration is how enterprises coordinate procurement, supplier, and risk workflows across a complicated web of teams, systems, and processes.

Intake management and procurement orchestration solve distinct problems. An intake management solution is the employee-facing “front desk” for procurement. Procurement orchestration software is the “showrunner” that directs workflows across multiple teams, systems, and processes. Intake management is just one of many use cases for procurement orchestration, especially in large enterprises.

Supplier onboarding is the process of bringing suppliers into an organization's procurement system and supplier database. Key steps include supplier evaluation, verification, approval, and gathering of tactical information such as banking details.

Third Party Risk Management (TPRM) is the practice of identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks associated with engaging external suppliers or service providers. Supplier risk management encompasses a broad range of risks, including supply chain, financial, regulatory, cybersecurity, geo-political, and environmental, social and governance (ESG).

Invoice intake is a set of processes for receiving incoming invoices from suppliers. These processes include invoice capture, validation, and approval. Procurement orchestration helps coordinate a variety of supplier workflows, including invoice intake.

A no-code platform allows users to create applications, workflows, and automation without the need for traditional programming skills. Procurement teams are turning to no-code platforms to build and run their own customized workflows for supplier onboarding, intake management, procure-to-pay, and more.

Generative AI (GenAI) uses advanced deep learning to create contextually relevant outputs, automating complex tasks and enhancing decision-making. In procurement, for example, GenAI can be used to humanize intake management by detecting the user’s intent and responding in kind with, say, supplier recommendations, guidance on next steps, and proposal reviews.

Composable processes are no-code building blocks for creating workflows. In procurement, for example, that can mean being able to easily create intake forms with conditional logic that triggers approval workflows based on the company’s spend thresholds and policies.

Conditional logic is a decision-making framework in which predefined conditions or criteria trigger specific actions or outcomes. In procurement orchestration, it enables procurement workflows to respond dynamically to different inputs, ensuring that approvals, escalations, or compliance steps are automatically applied based on data inputs.

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) is a cloud-based solution that connects different applications, data sources, and systems across an organization. Key to procurement orchestration, iPaaS streamlines data exchange between a complex web of technologies spanning sourcing, procure-to-pay, spend management, contracting, supplier management, risk management, and ERP.

Large Language Models (LLMs) are advanced AI systems that understand and generate human language. LLMs can be trained on procurement data and apply it to workflows. This approach allows AI to understand how users naturally phrase their requests and respond with tailored responses–recommending a supplier, for example, or providing information about past transactions.

Bring Your Own LLM is the integration of a custom or third-party Large Language Model into an organization’s systems. Some Gen-AI procurement solutions offer customers the option to bring their own pre-approved, IT-vetted LLM, use the vendor’s LLM, or a combination of both.

ISO 42001 (AI) is a new international standard for ethical and secure use of AI systems, and can help guide procurement to deploy AI responsibly.