Procurement has always been complex, but the current economic climate makes it a more critical and nuanced aspect of overall business performance. Businesses face various challenges, from inflation and tariff shifts to increasing demands for sustainability and compliance.

Yet many organizations still rely on decentralized processes and disconnected systems, making oversight difficult. Without the proper visibility and control, issues like tail spending, missed savings and policy violations quietly erode budgets and introduce risk.

That’s why more leaders are rethinking procurement—not just to reduce costs, but to implement a strategic approach. E-procurement is becoming a key part of the tech stack, helping organizations modernize purchasing and drive smarter decisions at scale. In fact, according to a global survey by Economist Impact, 38% of procurement leaders rate digital transformation as a top priority today—a number expected to rise to 54% in five years.

Empowering team buyers is a critical first step

Buyers who purchase for departments or teams play a significant role in company spending. But without the right tools, they’re vulnerable to inefficiencies and off-policy purchases.

CIOs and procurement leaders are working to empower these users while retaining critical oversight. A modern e-procurement system, like Amazon Business, makes that possible with intuitive tools that guide users to preferred vendors and items, along with built-in policy guardrails that support compliance and more socially responsible purchasing.

When appropriately supported, these buyers become change agents—driving adoption, surfacing savings and helping procurement function more strategically across the organization.

Fabiola Duenas, CEO and realtor at Forza Real Estate Group–Keller Williams Houston, shares the impact of Amazon Business on empowering their network of independent agents:

“We’ve seen a steady increase in adoption of Amazon Business through the Associated Accounts program. Our agents are reporting a high level of satisfaction, and they’re spending far less time chasing down items they need and organizing expenses. It has allowed one place to order everything, making it seamless for all. The tools not only provide more time for agents, but also offer more ways to deliver service for their clients, whether in commercial or residential markets.”

Strategies evolve to support modern procurement

Empowering team buyers is just the beginning. Leaders are turning to strategies rooted in centralization, automation and insights to build a truly modern procurement function.

1. Begin by unifying procurement across the enterprise

Centralizing procurement on a shared system allows leaders to standardize processes, consolidate vendors and reduce tail spend.

Organizations also gain the ability to enforce policies more effectively, ensuring that purchases follow established guidelines and preferred vendor relationships. Tools like Guided Buying, available exclusively to Amazon Business customers with a Business Prime membership, support this by enabling teams to create workflows that manage budget thresholds, approval steps and product restrictions. 

Joseph Strumolo, head of global source to pay at Vacasa, describes how Amazon Business supports their purchasing control, noting, “We began improving visibility by streamlining processes and centralizing accounts—channeling BU spend through a single Amazon Business account and eliminating the use of personal credit cards. By establishing policies that give us better visibility into purchases, we’re also able to take advantage of discounts and consolidate spending so that we can hit our targets.”

Strumolo also shares how Vacasa curbed unauthorized spend, resulting in a 7.7% reduction in costs, saying, “We took decisive action—turning off the ability for any users to leverage a company credit card at all. Instead, we force those purchases through Punchout so that we can take advantage of discounts, Pay by Invoice net terms, and get credit toward our Amazon Business rebates.”

2. Prioritize process automation

Manual tasks, such as chasing approvals and tracking reorders, often bog down procurement teams. Automation clears the clutter, giving buyers more time to focus on strategic, value-driven work.

At Jabil, integrating Amazon Business with its Coupa platform helped the team streamline purchasing and reduce tactical workload. Procurement teams can curate the vast Amazon Business catalog, set purchasing parameters and highlight preferred vendors—all within Coupa. Employees, meanwhile, move through purchasing processes quickly, without sacrificing choice or having to exit the system.

“It was a really big efficiency gain,” says Heidi Banks, senior director and engagement partner for source-to-pay services at Jabil. “The end users love it, because it takes less clicks to get what they need, which is always helpful. The procurement team loves it because the open transparency keeps partners competitive. With Amazon Business’ vast selection, Business Prime membership and business-only pricing, Open Buy enabled them to win more and strengthen the partnership.”

The before-and-after value is evident in tail spend, where small, one-off purchases had previously been difficult to manage. 

“Once requests to purchase are approved, 95% of our purchase orders are automatically routed, without the need for a buyer to manually intervene,” Banks says. “The invoices are also automatically integrated without human interaction, generating efficiency gains for both parties. Those things all happen in an automated way, reducing tactical work and enabling procurement to focus on strategic activities, such as sourcing and negotiating.”

3. Make smarter, faster decisions with real-time analytics

Dashboards that track spending trends, supplier performance and usage patterns give teams the insight they need for stronger decision making. 

These tools also support stronger compliance by flagging policy gaps, surfacing anomalies and making it easier to enforce procurement guidelines across departments. Analytics can help track performance against cost goals and support initiatives around preferred vendors and socially responsible purchasing.

Jabil, for example, felt the ability to use its digital stack to influence purchasing decisions was apparent almost immediately. 

Banks noted, “Once we started using Amazon Business’ integration and Guided Buying, we saw a 4% uptick in purchasing transactions moving to preferred catalogs rather than freeform or nonstrategic suppliers. Since then, we’ve driven more than 40% improvement in our spend to catalog and to strategic partners.”

She added, “If we see something in the spend data from Amazon Business, or spend outside Amazon Business that shouldn’t be happening, we can correct those processes either through change management or Guided Buying.”

Procurement belongs at the center of digital transformation

Procurement has long been seen as a back-office function. But in a more volatile and value-driven business environment, that’s changing. CIOs, CPOs and other decision-makers increasingly recognize procurement as a strategic lever for reducing risk, improving governance and driving growth.

By structuring distributed buying and enabling smarter decisions with data and automation, companies can build more flexible supply chains, improve collaboration and align procurement with broader enterprise goals.

Learn more at Amazon Business.