ERP procurement: How to modernize and scale buying

Procurement leaders today are expected to control costs, reduce risk, and enforce compliance, all while enabling speed, flexibility, and responsible purchasing across increasingly complex organizations. Global operations, distributed teams, and rising expectations around sustainability and supplier diversity have raised the bar for what effective procurement looks like.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems sit at the center of this challenge.

For decades, ERP procurement modules have been the backbone of organizational buying—standardizing processes, centralizing data, and connecting purchasing to finance. But as organizations scale, many procurement managers find that traditional ERP tools often struggle to keep pace with real-world buying behavior.

As a modern leader, you can no longer look at ERP systems in isolation. You need connected tools that extend ERP capabilities with greater visibility, automation, and responsible purchasing—without sacrificing governance or control. The goal isn't adding even more tools to your tech stack, but getting more from the ones you already have.

What is ERP procurement?

ERP procurement refers to the set of purchasing processes and tools built into an enterprise resource planning system. Its primary purpose is to manage how teams request, approve, purchase, receive, and pay for goods and services while ensuring alignment with financial controls and organizational policies.

Most ERP procurement modules include several core components:

• Vendor management: Maintaining approved supplier records, contracts, and pricing

• Purchase order automation: Creating, routing, and approving POs to enforce policy and budget controls

• Inventory integration: Linking purchasing decisions to stock levels, demand planning, and replenishment

• Spend analysis: Reporting on purchasing activity to support budgeting, forecasting, and supplier negotiations
  
  

Historically, ERP procurement tools were designed as back-office systems focused on transactional efficiency and financial accuracy. Over time, they've evolved to serve a more strategic function, providing data and structure to support smarter decision-making, compliance, and cost management. Today, ERP procurement does more than process purchases. It enables faster, more informed, and more responsible buying across organizations.

The benefits of ERP procurement

When implemented well, ERP procurement software can deliver significant value to your organization, including:

• Streamlined purchasing workflows: Standardized processes reduce manual effort, errors, and cycle times from purchase requisition to payment.

• Unified supplier and spend data: Centralized records make it easier to understand who you’re buying from and how money you're spending.

• Better compliance tracking: Built-in controls help enforce self-service purchasing policies, approval hierarchies, and audit requirements.

• Integration across finance and operations: Close links between procurement, accounts payable, inventory management, and budgeting improve your financial visibility and control.
  
  

These benefits show why ERP procurement remains foundational. At the same time, they highlight a growing reality: As the procurement processes become more complex and decentralized, many organizations find that native ERP tools alone aren’t enough to support modern buying and business needs.

Why traditional ERP tools fall short

Even with their strengths, traditional ERP procurement modules often struggle to meet the demands of modern procurement operations. Common challenges include:

• Fragmented data and limited visibility: Spend data may be trapped in rigid reports or lagging indicators, making it hard to get real-time insights, especially across multiple entities or regions. According to research by Globality, more than 90% of procurement leaders view their sourcing technology as unintuitive, unimpactful, and siloed across teams and suppliers.

• Slow or rigid approval workflows: Highly customized approval chains can become bottlenecks, delaying purchases and frustrating stakeholders.

• Limited supplier networks and sustainability tracking: Many ERPs rely heavily on pre-loaded supplier lists and provide minimal visibility into supplier certifications, diversity, or sustainability attributes.

• Poor user experience for non-technical buyers: Complex interfaces and unfamiliar processes sometimes drive employees to bypass systems, resulting in maverick spend.

  
  
  

An article in Supply Chain Brain states that poorly managed indirect spend can represent 20–40% of a company’s total revenue. This spending often falls outside preferred channels due to the issues above. 

To address these gaps, you need to look beyond native ERP modules toward connected solutions like Amazon Business that extend and optimize ERP functionality, improve usability, and preserve governance.

How to build a modern procurement foundation

Modern procurement is shifting from a purely transactional model to a data-driven, user-centric approach. While ERP systems remain the system of record, today’s procurement teams expect flexible tools that deliver visibility, compliance, and agility without adding complexity.

A modern procurement foundation builds on ERP strengths while addressing gaps through integration and intelligent buying solutions.

Key capabilities every ERP procurement system needs

To support scalable, modern procurement, ensure your organization’s ecosystem includes the following capabilities:

• Unified spend dashboards: Holistic dashboards aggregate spend across categories, departments, and entities, enabling more informed category management and forecasting.

• Multi-entity controls and approvals: Configurable workflows enforce governance while accommodating regional, legal, and organizational differences.

• Seamless integration: Interoperability with finance, sourcing, expense, and analytics systems reduces manual work and data silos.

• Access to trusted suppliers: Broad supplier access supports compliance, competitive pricing, onboarding, and responsible purchasing goals.

• Actionable analytics: Insights that go beyond reporting help inform category strategies, monitor supplier performance, and identify cost-reduction opportunities.
  
  

These capabilities rarely come from a single tool. Instead, they emerge from a connected procurement ecosystem anchored by ERP.

Modern procurement readiness checklist

You can use the following checklist to assess how well your current ERP setup supports modern buying:

• Can your team see near real-time spend by user, department, and supplier?

• Do you have centralized visibility into policy compliance and off-contract spend?

• Is your ERP integrated with strategic sourcing, buying, and procurement analytics tools?

• Can you onboard and manage certified, diverse, or local suppliers easily?

• Are you tracking and reporting on sustainability or diversity metrics?

• Do end users find the buying experience intuitive enough to drive adoption?
  
  

Gaps in these areas often signal opportunities to extend ERP procurement with complementary solutions.

Modern ERP procurement outcomes and ROI

Organizations that modernize their procurement ecosystems consistently report measurable benefits, including:

• Shorter purchasing cycle times through procurement automation and intuitive buying experiences

• Reduced tail spend by channeling more purchases through compliant, guided buying tools

• Improved compliance rates with policies, contracts, and approval structures

• Enhanced supplier relationship management driven by better data, transparency, and performance insights

   

Research from Deloitte shows that digitally mature procurement organizations often achieve two to three times greater returns than peer organizations, along with improved resilience, efficiency, and growth.

Modernize ERP with Amazon Business

Amazon Business is a smart business buying solution designed to work alongside your existing ERP software and procurement systems. It integrates with more than 300 ERP, e-procurement, CRM, and expense management solutions, helping you extend your procurement capabilities without replacing core systems.

Through these integrations, our solution can help:

• Provide Guided Buying experiences aligned to organizational policies

• Increase visibility into indirect and tail spend categories

• Simplify purchasing for end users while maintaining control for procurement and finance

• Support responsible purchasing initiatives, including supplier diversity and sustainability
  
  

Amazon Business doesn’t replace ERP supplier management or sourcing platforms. Instead, it complements ERP procurement by addressing common gaps in usability, visibility, and scale, particularly for indirect spend.

ERP implementation and change management tips

Like most digital transformations, modernizing ERP procurement isn’t just a technology project—it’s an organizational change. Successful adoption typically unfolds over several months (depending on complexity) and benefits from a phased approach. 

The following roadmap is broken into smaller time frames—such as by month, quarter, and half-year—to help you manage risk and build momentum.

Month 1: Assess current ERP workflows and spend categories

Start by mapping existing procurement workflows and identifying high-friction areas. Analyze spend data to pinpoint indirect or tail spend categories that generate low value but require high administrative effort.

Quarter 1: Engage stakeholders for integration planning

Bring together procurement, finance, IT, and key business functions to align on goals, requirements, and success metrics. Early stakeholder engagement reduces resistance, ensures alignment, and accelerates integration.

Quarter 2: Pilot indirect or tail spend categories

Launch a controlled pilot in select categories or departments. This allows teams to test integrations, refine policies, and demonstrate quick wins without disrupting core business processes.

Quarter 2–3: Establish and track KPIs 

Define and track metrics such as cycle time, compliance rate, spend under management, and supplier diversity participation. Clear KPIs create accountability, focus improvement efforts, and track progress objectively.

Ongoing: Train teams and communicate early wins

Invest in training and change communications. Highlight early successes, such as reduced cycle times or improved compliance, to build confidence and drive broader adoption.

Driving smarter ERP procurement together

Cloud ERP solutions remain essential to procurement, but they’re no longer enough on their own. As your organization scales, your procurement team must balance control with flexibility and governance with user experience. Modernizing ERP procurement means connecting people, processes, and data through an integrated ecosystem of tools.

Amazon Business can help you extend your ERP investments by supporting smarter buying and greater visibility. By combining the structure of ERP with the agility of modern purchasing platforms, you can build a foundation that scales as your business grows.

Contact sales to explore how Amazon Business can extend your ERP’s capabilities to help you streamline purchasing, improve compliance, and advance responsible procurement goals.