Amazon streamlines procurement for business customers
A new feature on the Amazon Business app is designed to help ensure purchase payments are received, accurate, and complete.
Amazon Business is now offering a capability called “3-Way Match” on the Amazon Business mobile app in the U.S. 3-Way Match enables account administrators and approved buyers to use a mobile device to scan the barcode of a package when it arrives and automatically mark the item as received.
Users can also match and verify the purchase order, the invoice, and the receipt before a payment is made, based on scan results. There is no additional cost to use the 3-Way Match feature in the app.
According to Amazon, 3-Way Match can help accounts payable and procurement departments protect their organization from paying for incorrect invoices, items not yet received, or fraudulent purchases, while automating the process to save a significant amount of time. As a result, Amazon says users improve efficiency and reporting capabilities, while also reducing time spent on manual data entry and avoiding payment for damaged or incorrect packages.
“Manual processes cannot be scaled efficiently, especially for large organizations,” said Doug Gray, VP of technology at Amazon Business. “Integrating our 3-Way Match capability on the Amazon Business mobile app simplifies the process so customers can reconcile their purchases in seconds. At Amazon, we’re driven to find better ways for our customers to work, and our 3-Way Match mobile scan does just that.”
Amazon targets business users with 5G services
In another recent move to become more of a business solutions and services provider, Amazon attempted to establish itself in the network automation, orchestration and hosting space with two new offerings: a collaboration with T-Mobile and its own deployment/management platform for telco networks.
Amazon’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) hosted cloud services division is teaming up with T-Mobile to offer 5G connectivity paired with AWS cloud-based computing solutions via T-Mobile’s 5G Advanced Network Solutions portfolio. The two companies will also collaboratively develop customizable, use case-specific offerings via the Amazon Integrated Private Wireless program. These will be designed to deliver network capabilities needed for specific client use cases, such as monitoring worker activity in remote locations.
AWS is also launching AWS Telco Network Builder, a fully managed service that enables users to deploy, run, and scale telco networks on AWS. Communications service providers (CSPs) can use telecom industry-standard language to describe the details of their network (e.g., connection points, networking requirements, compute needs, and geographical distribution) in a template uploaded to the service.