Supply
The meaning of the word supply depends on the context in which it is used. Broadly speaking, it means to provide something.
In business terms, the thing supplied is a good or service with the recipient being a customer, business, or market.
Supply, in economic terms, describes the total amount of a specific good or service that is available to all its consumers in a market. It is closely related to and gains meaning from the term Demand, the need or want for a product or service. Supply assumes there is demand i.e. without the desire for a product there is no economic justification for its supply.
The interaction between supply and demand can determine the price of a product or service in a market. When there is adequate supply i.e. equal to or more than demand then the price may remain stable. However, if there is inadequate supply i.e. less than demand then the price may rise. Please note that pricing is a very complex mechanism, used by businesses, that depends on many factors that may have little or nothing to do with the demand-supply gap for a product/service.
Supply also has meaning in strategic planning for information technology. IT Organization supplies IT Products and Services to the other functions in the business. In a way, the goal of IT Strategy is to balance the supply and demand for IT products and services in an organization, and the objective of IT Governance is to ensure this happens.
See Also