***Our enterprise solutions offer integration with existing procurement systems and enable responsible corporate purchasing, while providing access to a wide product selection and a familiar buying experience for all stakeholders in your organisation.***

The global pandemic and resulting supply chain challenges have impacted every aspect of the business-to-business-to-consumer supply chain. According to the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, 10 years’ worth of e-commerce adoption happened in a span of three months during the pandemic.1 The shift in how consumers shop has in turn forced businesses to rapidly change their strategy to serve their customers through the channels they prefer. On the back end, this shift has meant that companies have had to rethink the way they source the supplies they need to produce goods and services for their customers.  

All of this rapid change has resulted in an unprescedented level of digital transformation in enterprise procurement operations. In a survey conducted by Amazon Business in 2021, 50 percent of the companies surveyed indicated that they have fully digitised their procurement process to adapt to supply chain challenges,2 and 85 percent of companies said they have pushed more of their procurement online due to the pandemic. This shift appears to be a permanent trend, as 96 percent of survey respondents anticipated that they will continue increasing online procurement, even after the pandemic ends.

Customer happiness is our obsession—it’s at the heart of what we do at Amazon Business. To make sure we recognise your evolving needs and adequately address them, we found from the same Amazon Business survey referenced above that the top-five procurement priorities in 2021 are: 1) improving sustainability, 2) supporting local businesses, 3) increasing efficiency, and 4) streamlining the purchasing process for stakeholders outside of procurement.

**1. Improving sustainability**

With increasing evidence of the impact of humans and businesses on climate change, enterprises are becoming more cognizant of sustainability. In a 2019 survey conducted by the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, 72 percent of the companies referenced Sustainable Development Goals in their annual reports.3 As a company that deeply cares about sustainability, Amazon does its part by taking a science-based approach to measuring and reducing carbon emissions as well as innovating in packaging and our supply chain.

Amazon Business has a buying policy that can drive progress on your sustainability goals by simplifying the process of finding and purchasing products with sustainability certifications.  This is an easy way to signal to your buyers that your organisation prefers Climate Pledge Friendly products. 

**2. Supporting local businesses**

In many cities and towns in the UK, large enterprises tend to foster thriving economies in nearby communities. This pandemic has only reinforced the magnitude of interdependency between businesses and their local communities. Many enterprises—especially in times like these—are leaning into their support for local businesses. To that end, you can create buying policies on Amazon Business that emphasise purchasing from local sellers in your country, nation, county or city, within your preset price tolerance, which sends a signal to purchasers in your organisation that these sellers are recommended. Creating such policies also helps promote items manufactured by local sellers in your search results.

**3. Increasing efficiency**

Controlling excessive rogue and tail spending was the most commonly cited procurement challenge among Amazon Business customers in a recent survey4. However, we have also observed that procurement leaders do not evaluate a purchasing solution solely on controlling spending. They want to understand how to drive more efficiencies throughout the process, by improving access, streamlining purchasing and approvals, all while offering multiple payment and delivery options. Here is how Amazon Business can help optimise your procurement process.

Access: Many enterprises already have e-procurement systems through which they purchase supplies. You can still provide purchasers in your organisation with access to a wide selection of items and a personalised shopping experience on Amazon Business through our punchout feature, which also integrates with over one hundred leading procure-to-pay systems. With this integration, you can simplify buying for your purchasers, as they still get to access Amazon Business through a system with which they are familiar. At the same time, you still you get to maintain purchasing control, as the policies that you have set up in your purchasing system apply to Amazon Business purchases. In addition, single sign-on provides purchasers in your organisation with a centralised and secure way to access your Amazon Business account. They can use their existing corporate credentials instead of having to create and manage additional passwords.

**Purchasing: **Instead of dealing with multiple vendors, Amazon Business customers can take advantage of our wide selection of goods to purchase items from a single source, which can save time and money in both purchasing and reconciliation. This process also eliminates the need for your organisation to spend time negotiating with multiple suppliers. We negotiate with vendors on your behalf and provide you with competitive pricing across many suppliers. You can save up to 10% with business-only prices on Amazon Business. 

Another key challenge for enterprises is to balance efficiency with purchasing control. Amazon Business helps you do just that by defining different types of buying policies, such as: identifying preferred products or sellers, blocking restricted sellers or categories, and defining spend limits for buyers by using a feature called Buying Policies. You can assign approvers for each of these policies, so whenever a purchaser seeks an exception to the policy, it will require an authorisation from the assigned approver. This ensures that only necessary orders are escalated, which frees up administrators’ time to focus on high-value activities, as purchasers still get what they need within the guardrails specified by your organisation.

**Payments:** Efficiency is not only about improvements in the purchasing process but also about managing cash flow. Pay by Invoice enables eligible organisations to buy now and pay later with 30-day interest-free payment terms. Business Prime members can get extended payment terms of up to 45 or 60 days depending on the membership tier. Apart from efficient cash flow management, this feature also enables easier reconciliation with corresponding purchase order (PO) numbers through e-invoicing.

 

**Delivery:** Organisations like yours want employees to obtain the essential items they need for work—when, where, and how they need them. With flexible work options likely to be made permanent, your purchasers can customise their delivery preferences by updating the addresses to which they want items shipped and avoid delays by providing the days and times during which they can receive shipments. Your purchasers can also provide customised delivery instructions, such as specific drop-off points for shipments (i.e. loading dock, mail room, front desk), access codes to enter the location, how to find delivery drop-off points, and which entrances to use and what to do if they are not available. With Business Prime, you can also get free same-day delivery on eligible orders, one-day shipping on millions of items, and unlimited two-day shipping on over 100 million items.

**Analytics:** In today’s world, data is king. While information may be paramount, data is useless without analysis. Amazon Business’ purchasing analytics tools help your organisation turn data into insights, so you can turn those insights into actions. Amazon Business Analytics helps identify purchasing trends by tracking purchases made by individuals and groups within your organisation, which allows you to use this information to further optimise spending. If your organisation has Business Prime, you have access to Spend Visibility dashboards, which help identify purchasing patterns in a visually appealing manner to help management use insights to make quick decisions.

**4. Streamline purchasing process for stakeholders outside of procurement**

In a survey conducted by Amazon Business in 2019, we found that “make it easy to buy products our organisation needs” was the top driver of choice for a purchasing solution from a list of 16 benefits we tested.5 Enterprises seek a purchasing solution that makes it easy to use for their purchasers. Amazon Business does just that by combining the familiar shopping experience of Amazon.com with business-specific features. We translate the best practices we’ve developed in serving consumers through Amazon.com, into a frictionless and customised online experience for our customers.

Enterprise operations need digital transformations in every aspect of their operations, including procurement. We are committed to helping your enterprise in this journey, irrespective of where you are in the digital transformation process.  

Enterprise solutions that work at the speed of your organisation

Amazon Business

In the past, the role of procurement and supply management was to acquire goods and services that enabled companies to operate in a profitable manner. Procurement has since evolved from being a subset of the supply chain function, where the focus of CPOs was to drive down costs, to an enterprise-wide capability that helps increase productivity and supports the critical internal and external relationships necessary for innovation.

To read the Procurement Strategy article, please click: [https://procurementmag.com/procurement-strategy/sap-the-evolving-role-of-the-chief-procurement-officer](https://procurementmag.com/procurement-strategy/sap-the-evolving-role-of-the-chief-procurement-officer)


SAP: The evolving role of the Chief Procurement Officer

Each stage of the digital sourcing process requires efficiency, speed and smart decisions. Creating the perfect user journey is like a team navigating their way through a World Cup, and providers that can’t cut it will be knocked out by more powerful systems.

Here’s how Penny would be victorious in each stage of the digital sourcing World Cup tournament:

**Gathering quotes from suppliers**

Penny uses powerful [digital sourcing software](https://penny.co/product), but unlike other providers, we don’t need your suppliers to use it too. We make it much faster and easier for them to respond to an RFQ.

When you need to source a product or service, Penny automatically sends an email to your selected suppliers. Then, all they need to do is follow a link and fill in a short form to submit their quote.

**Logging quotes in the system**

Whoever invented the copy & paste tool helped humanity a lot. But they also introduced people to mindless hours spent copying and pasting data into Excel spreadsheets…

Thanks to Penny, handling data like this is a thing of the past. When your suppliers respond to an RFQ, Penny will automatically gather the quotes and log them in the system, which means less time copying & pasting data and more time cracking on with your purchasing decisions.

**Comparing quotes from vendors**

Penny has [spend management ](https://penny.co/product) at its core, and one of the ways that it helps to keep your procurement costs low is through the Value Basket feature. 

It’s a bit like the travel website Expedia, which helps you to find the best value for your next holiday. Penny lets you easily compare the best prices from vendors with full visibility over each quotation, and so you can handpick the one that suits you. 

Unlike comparing prices with Expedia though, you won’t end up on a beautiful beach somewhere exotic – but we think you’ll love it all the same!

**Negotiating prices**

Imagine if you could negotiate with Expedia over the prices it displays and get money off the quoted prices. You’d be able to bring a whole new meaning to the term ‘budget holiday’. Well, with Penny this is possible. In your Value Basket, you can quickly and easily negotiate prices to try and get yourself a better deal. 

Plus, Penny will colour code your quotes to show you where you’ve managed to negotiate prices down and tell you how much you’ve saved the company – giving you a much-needed ego boost (and showing everyone how much you deserve that pay rise!).

**Making your decision**

When you’re deciding on which supplier to go with, there are many different factors that come into play rather than just the price of the items. This could include delivery times, whether the supplier is local, and whether you’ve had a good experience with them before. With Penny, you can create a questionnaire in which you can add weight to different aspects and give each supplier a score. This will help you to see the bigger picture and make well-informed choices when you’re making purchasing decisions.

To get started with the best digital sourcing tool in the world, [Request a Demo](https://penny.co/demo-request), today!

Go for gold: World-beating digital sourcing

Penny Software

The world faces multiple existential threats: social; political; and to its ecosystem. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the Earth’s temperature is likely to increase by 1.5C in the next 20 years, which will result in many new climate-related threats. 

As temperatures and sea levels rise while governments struggle to agree on a plan for a healthy and prosperous world, businesses have an ethical duty to have a positive effect on the world in which they operate by placing a renewed focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) challenges.

Download *The Big Picture: Beyond the sustainability pledge – transforming promises into progress* to gain insight into the following areas:

- Why sustainability is now mission-critical for organisations.
- The evolving landscape of ESG regulation.
- Actions leaders should take to elevate the importance of sustainability within procurement and, in turn, procurement within the business.

The Big Picture: Beyond the sustainability pledge – transforming promises into progress

Responsible Sourcing Tools & Advisory

Supplier Management and Collaboration Tools

Functional Performance

Although supply chain transparency has been a longstanding challenge for procurement teams, recent supply disruptions stemming from events such as the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have placed the issue firmly in the spotlight.

As supply chains become more widely understood as complex webs that include numerous overlaps and interdependencies, it is security – not savings – that businesses increasingly require their purchasing teams to deliver. Gaining access to supply chain information could prove a vital source of competitive advantage and the businesses that understand this have elevated supply chain transparency to a board-level concern.

Although organisations’ demand greater supply chain visibility, procurement functions are struggling to deliver. To make progress towards their supply chain visibility ambitions, procurement must adopt a holistic approach to data accessibility, quality and governance; and ensure the right blend of technology and a data-literate team are in place to capitalise on the opportunities that transparency will present.

Informed by interviews with leading digital procurement experts, as well as survey responses from procurement professionals, *Data-enabled supply chain transparency*, published in partnership with Ivalua, provides insights into the obstacles that prevent teams from gaining supply chain visibility.

- The areas in which leaders plan to invest over the next 12 months to improve supply chain transparency.
- The data sources procurement teams are currently leveraging – and the opportunities they are missing as a result.
- Case studies from organisations that have delivered significant improvements in supply chain transparency – and the benefits these have yielded.

Report: Data-enabled supply chain transparency

Spend Data Management & Analytics

Sourcing Technology

Risk Management Tools

Ivalua

Amid the disruption caused by geopolitical tensions, a global pandemic and  extreme volatility, procurement teams have battled to manage costs and ensure supply continuity.

The result has been a significant increase in uncontrolled, off-contract spending as buyers battle to keep the lights on. Despite the uncertain and opaque environment in which they operate, one fact is clear to procurement organisations: going about business as usual is not good enough if the function is to deliver on the aims of the business.

However, disruption has encouraged a number of companies to leverage automation and adopt dynamic pricing to cope with the pace at which markets are moving. And these organisations are seeing the returns on their investment.

Download this latest Procurement Leaders whitepaper, published in partnership with Keelvar, to gain insights into:

- The pressures on procurement teams that are pushing many category managers to focus on tactical buying – and the value organisations are leaving on the table as a result.
- The role dynamic sourcing can play in helping companies overcome price and capacity volatility.
- Case studies from companies that have leveraged technology to gain a competitive advantage and deliver resilience at scale.

Getting ahead in volatile markets: How sourcing teams are winning with dynamic market sourcing

Keelvar

Much to the continued frustration of CPOs, a large proportion of procurement activity remains tactical rather than strategic. Procurement processes and technology remain anchored to traditional paradigms, with many tactical transaction activities running on enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems that have changed little over the past 20 years.

There has been progress towards a more strategic role, particularly where procurement has invested in automation, but the challenge is clear – the procurement function needs to plan its IT investments more effectively.

Download this latest *Roadmap* whitepaper, in the partnership with JAGGAER, to gain insights into:

- The skills procurement functions require to help accelerate their transformation to becoming a data-enabled business partner.
- How functions can determine which processes are suited to automation and which will continue to require manual input.
- The opportunities that autonomous commerce promises to deliver across the end-to-end procurement process while bringing buyers and sellers together at scale.


Roadmap - Autonomous Commerce: How technology is powering procurement's new paradigm

B2B Marketplaces

Robotic Process Automation

JAGGAER

The Covid-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions and logistics delays have exposed the fragile and interconnected nature of global supply chains. A single incident can initiate a ripple effect that leaves a trail of disruption that can interfere with the operations of numerous companies – or even entire industries.

In this volatile and rapidly changing environment, it is no longer enough to race to disruption. Companies must develop the capabilities to fully understand their supply chains and develop proactive mitigation activities before any threats can have an impact.

Supply chain mapping is no longer an aspiration – it's an imperative. Although it may seem impossible to the overwhelming majority of companies that have no visibility beyond Tier-1, it is possible – with the right technology. 

Download this Procurement Leaders whitepaper, in partnership with Interos, to gain insights into the following areas:

- Why companies' approaches to risk must change – from managing threats to designing supply chains for resilience.
- How organisations can deploy technology to model risks and map their supply chains to understand weaknesses and dependencies in lower tiers to gain a competitive advantage.
- Best practice guidance to help effectively insulate the organisation from supply chain risks.

Marketplace

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The Big Picture: Beyond the sustainability pledge – transforming promises into progress

Report: Data-enabled supply chain transparency

Getting ahead in volatile markets: How sourcing teams are winning with dynamic market sourcing

Roadmap - Autonomous Commerce: How technology is powering procurement's new paradigm

Proactive resilience: A new source of competitive advantage

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