Amazon Business launches new analytics tool aimed at helping procurement leaders. 

 

Amazon Business has launched a new analytics tool aimed at helping procurement leaders demonstrate the wider value their functions deliver.

 

Unveiled at the company’s recent Reshape conference in Nashville, Amazon Business Value Intelligence brings together measures covering cost savings, operational efficiency and purchasing compliance.

 

The new capability addresses a long-standing challenge for procurement departments: quantifying their contribution beyond the relatively straightforward measurement of purchase price savings.

 

Amazon said procurement teams increasingly have responsibility for areas such as enforcing purchasing policies, consolidating organisational spend and streamlining the buying process, but these benefits can be difficult to quantify.

 

Value Intelligence uses an organisation’s own Amazon Business data combined with independent third-party benchmarks. Amazon said the methodology and inputs behind the figures are visible and can be adjusted by users.

 

Cost savings are calculated at line-item level using actual order data against a validated reference price. The tool also puts a monetary value on operational efficiencies generated through Amazon Business activity and measures purchasing compliance.

 

“Procurement has always been about more than price, but price is what gets reported because it’s the easiest thing to measure,” said Amazon Business worldwide VP Shelley Salomon.

 

“Every hour a procurement team spends chasing approvals or manually reconciling invoices is an hour they’re not spending on the work that moves their organisation forward,”  she said.

 

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