Amazon Business Celebrates a Decade of Success at ABX 2025

Amazon Business knows how to celebrate a milestone. 

The company, which helps millions of customers worldwide reshape their procurement with cost and time savings, innovative technologies, greater productivity and crucial purchasing analytics, has turned 10 this year. 

It has also announced that it is now used by eight million global customers, including 66 of the FTSE 100 and hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized organisations in education, public services, retail, logistics and more. 

On the day of these announcements, Thursday 5 June, the company celebrated with customers and global procurement leaders at Amazon Business Exchange 2025 (ABX 2025), its annual event for procurement and supply chain professionals. 

The event, which helps leaders explore innovations and exchange insights with key decision makers, highlighted how Amazon Business is future-proofing procurement and strategic success for businesses of all sizes. 

Key themes of the day, delivered under the tagline ‘Reimagine Your Procurement’, included digital transformation and the huge potential of AI for procurement teams, responsible business and Amazon’s unique role including its commitment to people and planet, and dealing with risk and disruption.

The company also introduced new integrations to its enterprise solutions, including socially responsible procurement tools. 

Success, customer obsession and sustainability

Over its 10-year history, Amazon Business has helped customers unlock real power and drive strategic value across their organisations. 

In a welcome speech that kickstarted the day, Shelley Salomon, VP of Amazon Business Worldwide, reflected on this success. 

“Customer obsession is at the core of Amazon’s culture,” Shelley told those gathered at The Brewery in London, explaining how the company is dedicated to providing customers with the same buying experience they trust and love in their personal lives. 

She explained how the company’s customer-first culture had seen it save customers US$650m worldwide, improved the delivery experience, and driven innovations including budget management tools, invoicing solutions and better analytics and reporting. 

“While we know we still have more to deliver, we’re excited to continue supporting you on your own journeys,” Shelley said. 

Reflecting on the Amazon Business’ impact today and into the future, VP, UK & Ireland Country Manager John Boumphrey discussed Amazon’s approach to responsible growth. 

He reflected on the company’s history and standing, noting that “success and scale bring broad responsibility, and that big isn’t good unless big does good.”

“We started in a garage, but we’re not there anymore. Our impact on the world is significant.” said John. “We are far from perfect. We must be humble and thoughtful about the secondary effects of our actions. Our local communities, planet and future generations need us to be better every day.”

He outlined how the business is delivering on this ambition, including through a commitment to sustainable practices, unique employability programmes that create opportunities for those who may otherwise be left behind, and an innovative charity partnership. 

Known as The Multibank, this community initiative – co-founded by ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Amazon – redistributes surplus goods from businesses to families in need. 

“This isn’t just about Amazon,” John explained. “Every business, large or small, can align growth with purpose. And when we do, we all win.”

Strategic procurement in focus

To deliver on its responsibility, procurement needs to embrace its evolution, typified over the last years by a shift from transactional business function to strategic enabler and driver of innovation. 

Ben Schmidtt, Procurement Infrastructure Innovation Manager at Bayer, Rijk van der Merwer, Commercial Director at The White Horse Federation and Tim Elliot, Head of Procurement at Achieve Together, discussed this in a customer panel.

Titled ‘How Strategic Procurement Drives Growth and Unlocks Efficiency’ it examined the evolving role of procurement, pointing to how those in the function can be more strategic. This includes by addressing unique challenges, driving process efficiencies across the organisation and developing partnerships that empower growth.

Other key sessions included discussions on topics as diverse as how leaders can combine procurement strategies and employee recognition, how to reduce complexity through data visibility and transforming procurement with spend optimisation.

The last, featuring procurement leaders from Axa, Enel and The Harris Federation,  discussed how effective spend optimisation strategies can empower procurement in an increasingly dynamic business environment.

Key themes included how increased visibility is a key driver for procurement professionals and how a growing number of businesses are consolidating suppliers to enhance their value proposition. 

Innovation, new integrations and responsible procurement

In an increasingly complex operating environment it’s essential for procurement professionals to balance delivering a positive impact for their business, local communities and broader society while still enabling strategic success. 

Caroline Heckshcher, who heads procurement at King’s College NHS Foundation Trust, Forrester’s Jefffrey Rajami and Amazon’s Melissa Essengue discussed best practices for achieving this in a session on 'The Hidden ROI of Responsible Procurement'.

The session explained how companies typically progress through five stages on their sustainability journey. 

Caroline discussed the challenges and opportunities of responsible procurement at an organisation like the NHS, setting out concrete steps her and her team have taken including around community impact, renewable energy and decarbonisation.

The day closed with a series of future-facing panels on the role of technology and digital transformation in procurement’s evolution, including how Amazon Business is driving innovations that are making business easier for customers.

Key sessions included Digital Transformation in Procurement with Amazon Business VP Technology Doug Gray, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners' Anthony Breach and Siemens Energy's Matt Scaum, as well a future-facing fireside chat that saw Todd Heimes, VP Small Business, Prime & Marketing at Amazon Business and Amazon's Director of Global procurement Sustainability Daniel Mendes da Silva discuss the potential of AI. 

During the course of the day the company introduced several new innovations, including: 

• Invoice by Amazon, which consolidates millions of products under a single supplier framework, eliminating the complexity of managing multiple vendors and invoices. 
• Spend Anomaly Monitoring, an intelligent system that reduces the need for manual audits by proactively identifying errors, saving time and boosting efficiency.
• Proactive Budgeting, which eliminates the need to manually assign budgets, reduces administrative work and streamlines purchasing processes.

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