Amazon Business Highlights Key Milestones at ABX 2025

Amazon Business has celebrated its 10th anniversary by sharing key customer milestones and introducing new and innovative tools to support strategic procurement and supply chain leaders. 

Over the last decade, the company has grown into a global platform supporting eight million customers, from small businesses to large enterprises. 

Among them are 66 of the FTSE 100, alongside thousands of organisations working across sectors like education, public services, logistics and retail.

These milestones were marked at its annual Amazon Business Exchange (ABX 2025) event in London on Thursday 5 June. 

The brings together procurement and supply chain leaders from many of the world’s largest companies to connect, explore innovations and share winning strategies.

At ABX, Amazon Businesses reflected on the past decade and looked ahead at how innovation and responsible business can work hand in hand to drive strategic success.

A decade of growth and global reach

ABX 2025 was delivered under the core message of ‘Reimagine Your Procurement’, with key themes focused on digital transformation, AI, sustainability and responsible business, and strategies for effectively managing disruption.

Throughout the day, key speakers from Amazon Business highlighted how it helps businesses to navigate complex environments with tools that improve cost control, deliver efficiencies and enhance visibility. 

It also introduced new integrations to its enterprise solutions, including tools for socially responsible procurement.

Delivering a welcome address, Shelley Salomon, Vice President of Amazon Business Worldwide, celebrated the company’s recent milestones by discussing its customer-first culture.

“Customer obsession is at the core of Amazon’s culture,” she said, highlighting how this approach has powered innovation in procurement solutions. 

Shelley shared how Amazon Business has saved customers $650m globally and introduced innovative solutions like budget management tools, better invoicing systems and improved analytics.
“While we know we still have more to deliver, we’re excited to continue supporting you on your own journeys,” she says.

John Boumphrey, Vice President and UK & Ireland Country Manager, discussed the organisation’s wider responsibilities by reflecting on its current and future impact.

“Success and scale bring broad responsibility, and that big isn’t good unless big does good,” he told those gathered before reflecting, sustainable growth and thoughtful decision-making.

“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.”

John also outlined some of the company’s sustainability commitments, including employability programmes, sustainable practices and a charity partnership known as The Multibank – a collaboration with former Prime Minister Gordon Brown that redistributes surplus goods to families in need.

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

Procurement’s evolving role

A central theme at ABX 2025 was the changing role of procurement from a transactional function to a strategic enabler. 

This was explored in a customer panel discussion titled ‘How Strategic Procurement Drives Growth and Unlocks Efficiency’. 

Ben Schmidtt from Bayer, Rijk van der Merwer from The White Horse Federation and Tim Elliot from Achieve Together examined how procurement leaders address challenges, drive process efficiency and build partnerships.

Other discussions touched on merging employee recognition with procurement, simplifying operations with better data visibility and achieving stronger results through spend optimisation. 

The latter, with participants from Axa, Enel and The Harris Federation, explored supplier consolidation and how visibility supports better decision-making.

New tools for responsible and efficient procurement

Responsible procurement is a major theme across all industries. At ABX 2025 Caroline Heckshcher from King’s College NHS Foundation Trust, Forrester’s Jefffrey Rajami and Amazon’s Melissa Essengue shared best practice in a session called ‘The Hidden ROI of Responsible Procurement’. 

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

Caroline outlined how her NHS team approaches issues like community impact, renewable energy and decarbonisation.

The day closed with a forward-looking series of panels examining digital transformation. 

Doug Gray, Amazon Business VP Technology, was joined by leaders from Coca-Cola Europacific Partners and Siemens Energy to explore how procurement adapts to a digital future.

In a fireside chat, Todd Heimes and Daniel Mendes da Silva focused on the role of artificial intelligence in procurement. Together, they touched on how AI is reshaping how companies including Amazon work, source and buy.

In line with this theme, several new tools were also introduced during the day by Amazon Business, including :

• Invoice by Amazon: Consolidates millions of products under one supplier framework, reducing the complexity of managing multiple vendors and invoices.
   
• Spend Anomaly Monitoring: An automated tool that spots billing issues, removing the need for manual audits and increasing efficiency.
   
• Proactive Budgeting: A feature that automates budget assignments to streamline purchasing and reduce administrative effort.

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