Elevating the employee experience: The power of efficient procurement

In today’s competitive environment, it’s vital that businesses do all they can to attract and retain talent, and that means offering a compelling employee experience. Much of that relates to the job itself, and whether individuals feel they can fulfil their potential and accomplish their goals at their current employer.

For those working in procurement, this means providing them with the resources they need to do their job effectively. Ultimately, they are likely to be judged on how much money they can save, as well as factors such as how much spend is controlled.

One way of helping them to do this is by ensuring they can apply the same rigor to all types of spend, rather than just the big-ticket items that are central to a company’s operations. Indirect spend refers to typically lower-value items that employees require to do their jobs. This spending may seem insignificant but like all costs, it needs to be managed effectively.

Amazon Business provides an easy means for procurement to target such spending, and in the process provide a better experience to employees. Employees are already familiar with Amazon’s systems through their personal lives as consumers, so they will welcome the chance to use this as a means of ordering work items.

This means more spend under management, and less time spent trying to police maverick spending – Amazon Business’s 2024 State of Procurement Report finds that fewer than half (46%) of procurement decision-makers agree that non-procurement employees follow their policies and procedures.

“Streamlining administrative tasks and making processes more efficient and more equitable for all employees allow those in procurement to focus on more value-added initiatives and activities,” says Brent Heller, head of manufacturing and industrials at Amazon Business. “They can focus on areas of the spend profile that drive intrinsic value.”

Having more spend under management can also help procurement to glean vital information around indirect purchases, which procurement can then use to make strategic decisions. “The aggregation of the data means procurement teams can analyze information and make better decisions,” says Heller. “It can provide a lot of value on spend that typically would not have been managed strategically.”

As well as ensuring more indirect spend goes through authorized routes, it’s also possible to identify any spend that may go through Amazon outside of such channels. “Procurement can potentially identify contract liquid leakage and understand why employees are buying from Amazon versus using that process,” says Heller. “There may be an opportunity to identify existing rules that that aren’t working. Organizations that have adopted Amazon Business and consolidated maverick spend are optimizing it and introducing new areas of the business to it. In time, that may even lead to full category adoption.”

For internal customers, as well as having a familiar platform, Amazon Business brings the other benefits they have come to expect from Amazon. “You could potentially have somebody at your door on the same day, depending on the product,” points out Heller. “We are also continuing to evolve how we ship items, with initiatives such as consolidated packaging or pallet delivery. These are some of the new solutions that we’re introducing which drive frictionless buying at scale, as businesses start to buy in greater quantity.”

For organizations more generally, having control over such spend can help ensure wider goals are met. Amazon Business allows procurement teams to set rules around spend limits and even to mandate the use of particular types of suppliers, such as small businesses from particular backgrounds or those which meet certain sustainability standards.

Underpinning all this is effective human-machine collaboration, with Amazon Business making use of powerful algorithms and artificial intelligence to ensure buyers can easily find the types of products they need while complying with company rules. The ability to easily extract spend information means procurement teams do not need to do this manually. Amazon Business can also integrate with existing technologies to help provide a more rounded perspective on overall spend.

“Amazon Business integrates with over 150 different e-procurement and accounting systems, creating a streamlined purchase-to-pay process,” says Heller. “A lot of our integrations are self-service and can easily be done by a mid-level administrator who has access to an existing e-procurement solution.”

Organizations can choose whether users Punch-in to an enterprise system from Amazon Business, or Punchout from the system to Amazon Business. “You can integrate it into your pre-existing processes, with minimal training and downtime,” he adds.

With employees across the board needing to use their time efficiently, it’s no surprise that the 2024 State of Procurement Report finds that 78% of respondents say it’s very important to streamline purchasing for those outside of procurement.

One business that has used this to its advantage is mining company BHP, which has seen significant benefits from partnering with Amazon Business. “It has been a hit with our stakeholders,” says Phil Schaid, Category Management, Production Chemicals, MRO & Indirect Materials, PET Marketing and Supply, at BHP. “Through our integration with SAP Ariba and Amazon, we have provided users with the Amazon shopping experience that they are familiar with in their personal lives, simplifying the corporate purchasing process. At the same time, we can maintain our standard purchasing process and controls, with full visibility within SAP.”

Another example is fitness franchise Orangetheory Fitness, which has incorporated the ability for users to punch out of its Coupa Open Buy system to access Amazon Business. “It’s a no-brainer for us,” says Bill Hayes, Vice President of Finance and Treasury and Corporate Controller. “Our employees love the improved ease of use, and we get even more spend control capabilities, so everyone wins.”

Originally published on USA Today.