Why B2B marketplaces are changing the face of procurement

In 2020, E&Y surveyed close to 3000 executives from 46 countries across different industries as part of their Global Capital Confidence Barometer and asked how COVID-19 had affected their global supply chain decision-making processes . The survey cited the pandemic as trigger event for companies to re-evaluate their supply chain and come up with new ways to better source and manage their suppliers.

This trend has been increasing dramatically over the past 4 years and in a recent post by Microsoft themselves have shared the latest IT spending prediction research and the effect that B2B Marketplaces will have on that.

Traditional offline purchasing and procurement is changing and being replaced by B2B marketplaces, allowing companies to view different offers, compare product quality and find the best price all in one place

Modern procurement is made easier when businesses are able to easily buy what they need online, opening up a pool of products and solutions for those buying and providing access to a wide pool of potential customers for those selling.

B2B marketplace benefits unpacked

Other advantages include a far shorter procurement cycle, which enables procurement teams to spend their time elsewhere. Below are a few procurement components that are being transformed by the rise of B2B marketplaces.

• Billing and invoicing is automated, which ups overall procurement efficiency.
• Improved brand credibility as being included in a B2B marketplace is associated with being forward-thinking and at the forefront of the industry.
• Pre-vetting by the marketplace offers greater credibility and often includes reviews from other customers. This makes the procurement department’s job easier as they are assured that they solutions they’re using are high quality.
• Decision making and approval processes are streamlined because there is less need for backing-and-forthing between different parties.
• Greater transparency makes it far simpler to evaluate the different solutions on offer.
• Automated trials can take place with little intervention from either party; this saves time and makes it possible to instantly experience the solution and decide if it fits your needs.
• Pricing is provided upfront so there are no hidden costs or grey areas that may prove costly going forward.
• We recently launched 1Nebula’s OneView Cloud Expense Management on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.