Procurement Governance and Reporting Insights in AWS Marketplace

Introduction

• The speaker is Kik Raha, an AWS Marketplace Customer Advisor, and this is his second re:Invent conference and first time as a speaker.
• The session will cover the challenges that buyers and procurement users face when using AWS Marketplace, and the tools and features available to address these challenges.

Challenges Faced by Procurement Users

• Procurement users often struggle with questions like: what did I buy, when did I buy it, and how much did I pay for it.
• A Forrester study found that on average, 60% of data products and 45% of cloud software purchases tend to go outside of traditional procurement channels, increasing the risk profile of the organization.
• Procurement teams are responsible for driving cost optimization, value realization, and balancing speed and agility, which can sometimes conflict with the needs of application owners.

Importance of Procurement Governance in Cloud Marketplaces

• More than 80% of respondents in the Forrester study believe that their organizations are investing in capabilities on cloud marketplaces to drive speed and agility while balancing the risk perception.
• Cloud marketplaces are here to stay, and they are becoming a significant means of procurement for most teams.

Tools for Effective Procurement Governance in AWS Marketplace

1. Dashboards:

   • Procurement Insights Dashboard: Provides a holistic view of all agreements procured through AWS Marketplace, including spend analysis.
   • Single Pane of Glass Dashboard: A standalone business intelligence dashboard that can be accessed by stakeholders without needing to log into the AWS console.

2. Purchase Order Support:

   • Enables Finance teams to tag their purchase orders and invoices for payment processing.

3. Standardized Contracts:

   • Allows legal and procurement teams to significantly reduce the cycle time for contract redlining and approval.

4. Private Marketplace:

   • Enables procurement teams to build a private catalog of approved products from the AWS Marketplace.

Dashboards and Reporting

• The Procurement Insights Dashboard and Single Pane of Glass Dashboard provide visibility into various aspects of your AWS Marketplace activity, such as:
  • Trailing 12-month spend across different products and vendors
  • Month-on-month spend analysis
  • Complete footprint of your license subscriptions and deployments

Private Marketplace

• Allows procurement teams to create a custom catalog of approved products for specific business units and teams.
• Ensures that products are added to the catalog only after the required procurement workflow processes have been completed.
• Enables procurement to implement guard rails and ensure compliance with organizational policies.

Key Takeaways

1. Be intentional about using AWS Marketplace and understand the value it provides.
2. Reach out to your AWS account team to learn how to effectively adopt and scale the use of AWS Marketplace.
3. Explore the available resources, such as the AWS Marketplace website, case studies, and customer testimonials.
4. As a procurement team, you have the responsibility to innovate and bring the best solutions to your organization, leveraging the capabilities of AWS Marketplace.

Resources

• Scan the QR code to access the demo of the Single Pane of Glass dashboard.
• Scan the QR codes to learn how to deploy the Procurement Insights and Single Pane of Glass dashboards.
• Visit the AWS Marketplace booth to get a demo and learn more about these features.