Reshape Recap: Tech Premiere, an exclusive look under the hood of Amazon Business

During the first in-person Amazon Business Reshape event Amazon Business Chief Technology Officer, Doug Gray, took the stage recently to outline some recent key technology developments.

“Nowhere is the impact of technology more evident than with purchasing: Today, more businesses are making more of their purchases online than ever before,” explained Gray. His live session highlighted some of the recent data from an Amazon Business procurement study, which found that 91% of B2B buyers state a preference for online purchasing.

During Tech Premiere: An Exclusive Look Under the Hood of Amazon Business, Doug Gray explained the need for ongoing innovation in the procurement industry by citing four of buyers’ most important procurement improvements this year:

1. Increasing efficiency within the procurement department
2. Reducing costs in purchasing practices
3. Streamlining the purchase process for stakeholders outside of procurement
4. Consolidating tail spend for increased efficiency

The session explained recent technology innovations and the progress Amazon Business has made in three key areas: efficiency, integrations, and sustainability.

“Efficient buying makes a difference across the entire organization. Now, the question is: how we can optimize costs and reduce spending without sacrificing the products that our employees and organizations need most? “ says Gray. Recent Amazon Business technology launches include:

• Your Interactions, which provides a one-stop spot to track the progress of open support issues. This tool allows all of your users and administrators to monitor progress and re-open cases on their accounts without requiring follow-up with contacts. Your Interactions decrease the time your administrators spend following up on orders and returns by an estimated 18%.
• Custom Quote now allows you to request a discounted price on high-volume purchases and receive custom offers tailored toward your business needs—providing greater savings on bulk orders and taking out the back-and-forth negotiation we all experience with suppliers.
• 3-Way Match simplifies and streamlines the post-purchasing process for Amazon Business customers. With Three-Way Match, you can automatically coordinate your purchase order against product information from receiving and confirmation, along with invoice details, such as price and quantity.
• By using Budget Management to facilitate holiday gifting, organizations can control holiday spend, manage gifting budgets, and find the perfect gift to give thanks to employees, customers, and clients. In just a few clicks, administrators can create a new group for holiday gifting and select a holiday shopping list that aligns with your holiday budget. Then, it’s easy to share this list with your buyers and create a policy to prefer the holiday gift list within your desired price range from $30, $50, $75, and $100.

Another big area of growth for Amazon Business is expanding integration capabilities. “Today, Amazon Business integrates with more than 100 e-procurement systems around the globe. Our team has developed innovative integrations to simplify the buying process and help increase compliance with purchasing policies,” says Gray. Key integration capabilities include:

• Enabling Single-Sign-On on your Amazon Business account. Single-Sign-On is an integral part of most organizations' identity management strategy today, and you can use your existing corporate credentials to purchase from Amazon Business, all without creating a new password. Single-Sign-On enables you to automatically block access when buyers leave your organization, and makes it easier for you to onboard new buyers.
• With Punch-in, a new offering from Amazon Business, customers start their purchasing journey directly on Amazon Business, taking advantage of the familiar shopping experience. Then they checkout in their eProcurement system, which can reduce clicks, save time, and ensure buyers stick to your organization’s purchasing policies. Amazon Business partners like Compleat, Onventis, and Precoro have launched Punch-in, and more are on the way.
• Integrated Search allows you to search and select millions of products offered on Amazon Business without leaving your spend management or eProcurement system. And it comes with business-only pricing. Partners like SAP Ariba and, more recently, Jaggaer have launched Integrated Search, so customers can search products within these systems.

Finally covering the topic of Sustainability, Doug Gray explained “Buyers care a great deal about efficient shipping options, more sustainable products, and the sustainability commitment of the brands they do business with. Those preferences aren’t a passing fad, they’re a core focus of modern procurement.”

The 2022 State of Business Procurement Report stated that where two-thirds of business buyers ranked sustainability as a top goal for their purchasing practices. However, more than half of organizations also shared that they struggle to connect with suppliers that prioritize sustainability. Doug detailed a few ways Amazon is scaling sustainability:

• Expanded Climate Pledge-friendly program, providing easy-to-find certifications and badges for all our business customers, now offering more than 300,000 Climate Pledge-friendly products.
• Guided Buying tool, which allows our Amazon Business members to prioritize products with sustainability certifications, an easy way to show buyers that your organization values sustainability.
• Spend Visibility dashboards, that make it easy to set metrics and track progress on your sustainability goals.