Pyramid Global Hospitality

As a leading hotel management company, operating in the US, Caribbean, and Western Europe, Pyramid Global Hospitality has a portfolio that includes more than 220 hotels, resorts, and conference centers — with revenues exceeding $3 billion. Offering investment, asset management, and operations support to properties across the globe, Pyramid’s partnership with Amazon Business is helping them provide their properties and managers with best-in-class purchasing that offers immediate savings and efficiencies. And by taking advantage of Pay by Invoice, an invoicing program available for eligible Amazon Business customers in select locations, Pyramid has simplified approvals and increased purchasing process efficiencies across many locations.

Using digital invoicing to support multiple sites

In early 2023, Pyramid buyers were using credit cards and filling out expense reports, making purchasing and approvals across their properties complex and manual. In collaboration with Amazon Business support and their customer advisor, Pyramid Vice President of Procurement Molly Preston and her team implemented Pay by Invoice — giving various properties a flat purchasing line that they could adjust based on unique buying needs.

“Because we have so many properties, we worked with our Amazon Business customer advisor to identify a base purchasing line for our organization,” says Preston. "In order to simplify our lines and make it as easy as possible for our teams, we set up a flat amount across the entire organization for each location. Once that purchasing line is established, we request line increases where necessary. We have some properties that have larger purchasing lines to meet their buying needs, whereas the base line is adequate for other properties."

In addition to providing each property with a purchasing line that meets their unique needs, leveraging Pay by Invoice has helped drive significant cost and time savings. “There are efficiencies gained by having purchases made in this environment go through an approved vendor and invoicing source vs. using expense reports,” says Preston. “And we’ve been able to reduce losses associated with unapproved purchases by establishing approval workflows.” 

Using analytics to understand purchasing trends and cost savings opportunities

Pyramid is also taking advantage of their relationship with Amazon Business to support unique buying needs across their organization — from meeting shipping timelines to identifying competitive pricing and achieving purchasing sustainability goals.

“By diving into our Amazon Business Analytics, we’ve found that our properties are sourcing items from Amazon Business to meet their delivery timeline needs and access competitive pricing,” says Preston.

Additionally, the organization is exploring leveraging Guided Buying to help their buyers prioritize purchasing goods from minority and women-owned suppliers in support of sustainability goals.

Flexible approval processes across a multi-location entity

With varying needs and established procedures, Pyramid aims to offer purchasing flexibility for each property while maintaining controls and establishing approval flows. Using their purchasing system with Punchout, which gives their buyers easy access to Amazon Business while complying with their procurement policies and controls, the hospitality organization empowers buyers to purchase what they need and sends them back to the purchasing system to checkout, which triggers an approval workflow based on how their property is set up in the system.

“Since approval workflows and processes differ across properties, our setup allows flexibility for oversight that is unique to each location,” Preston notes. “Once the purchase is approved, the order is submitted and we’re off to the races. And once the shipment arrives, each property goes into our purchasing system to receive their orders.”

Empowering smart business buying with improved efficiencies

While improved efficiencies have helped Pyramid team members team save time, simplifying processes has also helped them make purchases that enhance the property experiences for their customers and local communities.

One of Pyramid’s properties, Garden of the Gods Resort and Club in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is taking advantage of simplified purchasing and approvals resulting from their adoption of Pay by Invoice to improve the resort experience for their own customers and support their community. Over the holiday season, the resort filled trees with bears of varying sizes — purchased on Amazon Business. Tagged with donation details, the bears were made available for purchase by guests and benefitted a local children’s hospital.

“With Pay by Invoice, this particular property was able to quickly purchase necessary supplies and simplify approvals so that this effort could be launched easily, which helped make an impact on the Colorado Springs community,” says Preston. “They wouldn’t have been able to launch this initiative so quickly if they were still using expense reports.”

Improved purchasing visibility and oversight

Saving time and money is a priority for most enterprise organizations. And purchasing data can be key to uncovering opportunities for automation and cost savings that can prove powerful when multiplied across locations. By leveraging analytics and reporting, Preston is able to dive into what types of items properties are purchasing and gather data-driven insights that help her uncover opportunities for cost savings. On the third day of each month, she dives into a recap of the total spend from the previous month and is able to see a clear breakdown that helps her arm Pyramid properties and managers with important purchasing insights.

Expanding Amazon Business benefits across a global presence

What’s next for this global travel and hospitality powerhouse? As they continue to identify new efficiencies and opportunities for cost savings, Preston is exploring a potential expansion of their Amazon Business relationship into Pyramid’s European properties. “We are able to make Amazon Business available to our European locations through our purchasing system. We’d love to see how we can extend the benefits we’ve seen in North America to more of our properties globally.”