How effective procurement technology can improve employee retention
With many organisations facing a battle to attract and retain talented staff, it’s important that they are not frustrated in their ability to do their jobs by cumbersome procurement technology.
Unemployment in the UK remains low, standing at 4.4 per cent in the three months to February 2025, according to government data. But this only tells part of the story; many sectors and job roles are suffering from significant skills shortages, with employers struggling to find – and retain – the people they need. Examples of skills that are in short supply include digital and technical, accounting and manufacturing, while sectors that struggle to recruit include teaching, healthcare and retail/hospitality.
With new talent hard to find, businesses need to do all they can to keep hold of the people they do have. Salary is important to employees, but is not the only motivator. Staff also value feeling appreciated, having a sense of fulfilment and being able to develop their skills and future career prospects.
But there are also more practical elements that can keep people in jobs. Many people leave roles because they are frustrated with the way things work, feeling they are unable to do the job to the best of their ability. This might be due to a company not having sufficient resources, or having inefficient processes that mean customers aren’t happy.
In the modern world, effective technology can be critical in terms of how well individuals are able to do their jobs, and whether they look elsewhere, and effective procurement systems have an important role to play here.
For those in positions where they need to access items quickly – for instance, office essentials such as IT equipment, furniture or stationery – having to go through long procurement processes or to source items themselves can cause issues. At best, this will add time and effort to any buying process; at worst, it could result in a business being unable to function effectively or missing out on important orders.
At a time when many organisations are under pressure to do more with fewer resources, giving people time back can be invaluable. International School of London, for example, turned to Amazon Business to help its teaching staff find resources themselves, giving them a single resource through which to purchase items.
“We had two key priorities in adopting Amazon Business: using technology to streamline the purchasing of learning materials, and giving time back to our educators,” says Joris Deckers, IT and Operations Officer, ISL Group.
“It’s ultimately all been about supporting the teaching and learning. That’s why we’re here!
With Amazon Business, we’ve approximately halved the steps that we need to take to make a purchase, so from an educator’s point of view it’s a much easier process.”
Having a more efficient process can also benefit other functions, such as those in accounts teams, who otherwise may have to wrestle with purchase orders from procurement or individuals buying items on purchasing cards or out of their own funds and claiming costs back through expenses.
Unity School Partnership uses Amazon Business to consolidate its purchasing. The platform integrates with its existing financial software, meaning information is automatically fed into the system.
“We use Amazon all the time,” says Michelle Curtis, senior finance officer at Unity School Partnership. “Whether it’s stationery, cleaning equipment, safety equipment – you name it, if we can buy it from Amazon we will.
“We previously had lots of purchase orders to load into IRIS Financials each week, which, across the Trust, could take several hours. When IRIS contacted us about trialling the pilot, it seemed like an easy decision for us. It’s an obvious time-saver and has simplified the process completely.”
Effective procurement technology affects the ability of almost everyone in a business to do their job more efficiently by ensuring they have access to the products and services they require when they need it. But it can also have an impact for those working in the procurement team itself.
According to Amazon Business’s 2025 State of Procurement Report, retaining or developing existing talent is a priority for 65 per cent of procurement decision-makers and 66 per cent of senior leaders over the next two years. Procurement is a sector that has traditionally suffered from talent shortages and often struggles to attract graduates who have the choice of other disciplines.
Providing internal customers with access to effective technology not only helps those working in procurement deliver a better service, but can result in getting more spend under management. In turn, this means having better access to real-time information on spending.
Armed with insights into previous buying patterns, and using predictive analytics to help predict future demand, procurement professionals can make better buying decisions, identifying opportunities where spend can be consolidated or even eliminated altogether. This means they have more chance of meeting savings targets and a greater sense of job satisfaction.
Many organisations already use technology to help improve procurement processes. According to the State of Procurement Report, 65 per cent use analytics or tools to help understand performance, and this has increased by 3 per cent in the past year. And more than half (56 per cent) use technology to automate previously manual procurement processes.
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is less well established, but 42 per cent currently use this
to make better purchasing decisions, and 38 per cent plan to roll it out in the next three years in areas such as demand forecasting, spend analysis and automating the procurement process.
All this will free up time for procurement to focus on other, more strategic areas such as risk management. For procurement teams, it can help them to do their jobs better, making it more likely they will choose to stay with that organisation. In the current jobs market, that could be priceless.
To find out more about how Amazon Business can help you deliver a better service to staff and allow procurement teams to fulfil their potential, visit business.amazon.co.uk