As digital transformation continues to transform the way you do business, modernizing your procurement system should be a key strategy to support your growth and the value you bring to your customers.
Upgrading from legacy procurement technology and processes you can still use to cloud-based digital purchasing makes purchasing for your business every bit as easy as your personal online shopping, offering a similar intuitive user experience (UX). And that’s not all: moving to cloud-based procurement can provide you with a robust set of tools to help you streamline operations, manage spend, and achieve strategic goals.
Risk and Reward
Organizations often spend a lot of time, money, and resources building a network of suppliers to keep their business going. But global threats to the supply chain – pandemics, climate change, war – never stop emerging. And relying entirely on these systems to work without hiccups can put your operations at risk.
Organizations rely on their procurement leaders to drive innovation and make procurement more agile to stay competitive and always ready for disruption. While cost savings remain a key priority, respondents to Deloitte’s 2021 Global Chief Procurement Officer Survey identified operational efficiency (78%), digital transformation (76%), and innovation (73 %) as critical strategic objectives.
Digital procurement offers leaders solutions to their sourcing challenges, including quick and secure onboarding of users, automation of budgets, ordering, delivery, and invoicing. In addition, moving from basic purchasing data served by legacy systems to more sophisticated analytics produced by a digital procurement system can provide managers with insights to track and control spending, drive compliance , monitoring purchasing patterns, and meeting larger, organization-wide goals.
Solving Logistical Challenges
As one of the world’s largest energy companies, Chevron’s procurement needs are complex and varied. In 2018, the company overhauled its procurement systems and turned to Amazon Business for its procurement needs. The one-stop sourcing solution combines the convenience and familiar UX of the consumer shopping experience with robust, real-time analytics, time-saving features, and a suite of controls to expenditure management.
Managing and curating order lists also allows the managers of the 300 gas stations owned by the Chevron company to reduce the time they spend on the purchasing process. “We got the items we needed and put them on the reorder list. It also gives us a competitive price,” said Nicole Cannon, head of operations at Chevron. “Store managers can go to Amazon Business, click on everything they need, and add it to the cart. It’s a five-minute process.”
Additionally, flexible, predictable shipping options help employees get the supplies they need when needed. For employees at Chevron gas stations, where storage space is at a premium, just-in-time delivery from a set of curated lists has been transformational.
“We see a significant cost advantage in most products,” said Kevin Jackson, logistics manager, Mid-Continent Business Unit at Chevron. “But the biggest thing is improving morale for the workers, because they are empowered to get the things they need faster, with less red tape, and with fewer procedures.”
Track Progress Towards Sustainability Goals
In addition to increasing efficiency and reducing costs, the digitization of procurement operations also provides companies with tools to track progress against strategic objectives such as corporate social responsibility (CSR). Features such as Guided Buying, a Business Prime benefit, enable managers to designate certain products of interest, so that companies can guide their spending to support their CSR goals by increasing diversity. -different supplier, buy locally, or buy more sustainable supplies.
Volvo Car USA (Volvo Cars) uses guided purchasing to measure and source its purchases in line with the company’s commitment to sustainability.
“We encourage our retailers to remove all single-use plastics, and it’s important for us to have a single process across all retailers,” said Alex Penning, senior buyer expert at Volvo Cars. “We help the dealers by subsidizing a part of the products that we encourage them to use, and we can track and make sure that they receive it. This eliminates a lot of manual effort for the Volvo network development team .
Future-Proof Your Business
Organizations must view their procurement systems as a strategic business function to outperform the competition, and cloud-based digital procurement is integral to that strategy. Finding a partner to help streamline operations and balance cost and efficiency is no longer a tactical addition to a growth strategy; today’s business landscape makes it necessary.
By optimizing procurement and moving to a cloud-based procurement system, your organization can be as agile as it needs to be, responding in real time to changing procurement needs to strengthen your entire business performance. The transition to digital procurement enables your organization and employees to focus on your biggest priorities: developing products and services, achieving your strategic goals, and growing your business.
Customers already using or interested in using AWS for cloud services can benefit from complementary Amazon Business procurement services to help you make faster and more informed supply decisions – chain. For example, AWS Supply Chain is an AWS cloud-based application that offers real-time visibility into operations to help you predict and mitigate inventory risks. And as a centralized ordering solution, Amazon Business helps you streamline B2B purchasing and integrate your organization’s procurement tools and systems with a ready-made business. Amazon.com experience.
Learn how to do Amazon Business help your organization improve its purchasing power and growth.
