Kaushik Raha, an AWS Marketplace customer advisor, introduces the session and the speakers - Mazen El-Haidari, the global procurement leader for McAfee, and Arun Saksena, who leads the worldwide strategy for AWS Marketplace.
Kaushik starts by discussing some common questions procurement users have around AWS Marketplace purchases, such as what was bought, when, and how much was paid.
Kaushik presents statistics from a Forrester study, indicating that a significant portion of data and cloud software purchases are happening outside traditional procurement channels, which is a concern for procurement officers.
He explains the challenges procurement teams face, such as balancing cost optimization, value realization, speed and agility, software asset utilization, and ensuring controls and approved vendors.
Kaushik highlights how AWS Marketplace can help procurement teams by providing access to relevant governance and reporting tools.
Kaushik introduces the various governance and reporting tools available on AWS Marketplace, including:
He explains how these tools can provide visibility into marketplace spend, usage, subscriptions, and licensing, enabling procurement teams to have a holistic view of their organization's AWS Marketplace activities.
Kaushik demonstrates the features and capabilities of the procurement insights and single pane of glass dashboards, showcasing how they can be used for spend analysis, subscription management, and ensuring compliance.
Mazen El-Haidari, from McAfee, shares the company's experience in leveraging AWS Marketplace to streamline and scale their procurement operations.
Mazen discusses the challenges they faced, such as getting business users to adopt AWS Marketplace and ensuring appropriate approvals and controls were in place.
He explains how McAfee addressed these challenges by implementing a self-serve model for technical teams and a private offer model for application owners, with varying levels of controls and governance.
Mazen emphasizes the importance of focusing on customer journeys and getting to proof of value faster, while maintaining cost optimization, compliance, and governance.
Arun Saksena presents five key best practices for using AWS Marketplace effectively:
Arun provides additional details and examples for each of the best practices, highlighting the importance of balancing speed and agility with governance and controls.
He encourages the audience to explore the AWS Marketplace website, try out proof of concepts and pilots, and leverage the available resources and tools to build their marketplace capabilities.