Intel 

Overview 

Intel’s processors power everything from small computers to large-scale artificial intelligence applications. Though demand from cloud computing is significant, approximately 50 percent of Intel’s business across 100 countries still comes from client computing— computers that customers buy for personal and business use. For high-tech pioneers like Intel, getting the latest technology which delivers the best in performance, manageability, and security into the hands of end users is a priority. 

To reach business customers, Intel partners with Amazon Business which offers over 38 million IT products from more than 90,000 sellers. Intel’s storefront on Amazon Business features business selection and prices for Intel-powered PCs, laptops, and computer accessories. The company’s 10th-Generation Intel Core, the latest in its family of processors, are embedded in devices from global manufacturers such as Lenovo, Hewlett Packard, Dell, Acer, and Microsoft.

“Amazon Business helps us proliferate Intel technology through a very familiar shopping experience,” said Phil Vokins, Cloud Services Director for Intel Canada. “The impact of Amazon Business is that it’s changing procurement as an activity. Customers have access to hundreds of thousands of suppliers, which makes procurement more efficient, and dynamic pricing and discounts drive real value for businesses.”

Benefits for every business

Beyond finding the right product at the right price, many organizations are bogged down by cumbersome procurement processes that hinder efficient purchasing of IT and other business supplies. While an estimate 75 percent of business-to-business tail spend goods will be purchased online by 2022¹, current unmanaged tail spend represents as much as 20 percent of total procurement spending².

To streamline the process, Amazon Business provides controls and guardrails to govern spending—tools like approval workflows that can be managed by an organization’s purchasing administrator, and guided buying to direct all purchasers to organization-recommended and approved products. As well, purchasing managers gain visibility through advanced spend analytics and insights that make reconciliation and budget forecasting more accurate and proactive.

Vokins is quick to point out that this isn’t just an enterprise challenge. Canadian organizations, who Vokins has been serving for more than 9 years, are predominantly small businesses. 98 percent of businessess in the country have fewer than 100 employees, and the number rises to 99.8 percent factoring in medium-sized business with 100 to 499 employees³.

These businesses generally don’t have a dedicated procurement function, and buying for work is one of many responsibilities of an office administrator or sole proprietor. They want purchasing done as quickly and efficiently as possible, without spending time managing contracts and price lists, which take time away from growing the business.

“If you think about most businesses, by nature of what they’re doing, they want to scale,” said Vokins. “By choosing to manage purchasing on Amazon Business, they’re able to scale more effectively by de-focusing on what used to be a cumbersome activity, making this part of their work so much easier.”

Beyond the U.S. and Canada, Intel’s products are available through the Amazon Business online store in the nine countries it currently operates in, helping to expand the reach to business customers.

“One of the things I really love about my job is the ability to do something for my customers on any given day, and indeed it’s the main question we ask ourselves at Intel,” said Vokins. “What really excites me about our partnership is that Amazon is a customer-obsessed organization and so is Intel, which makes it easy—together—to delight our customers.” 

_{¹Source: Gartner, Inc. November 2017, WBR Insights 3rd Annual CPO Study}

_{²Source: IDC, 2019}

_{³Source: Government of Canada, December 2019}