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Amazon Business has its eye on increased sales to government agencies, and it’s turning to a top federal procurement official to make that happen.
Anne Rung, the United States Chief Acquisition Officer in the White House Office of Management and Budget, is leaving the federal government to join Amazon Business on Nov. 1 as global leader of public sector sales, Amazon says.
The Office of Management and Budget confirmed that Rung is leaving her federal position, in which she heads up the OMB’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy. Rung wasn’t available for comment.
At Amazon Business, Rung’s “strong leadership and deep knowledge of public sector procurement will help her build upon the progress Amazon Business has made in better serving public sector customers,” Prentis Wilson, vice president of Amazon Business, said in a prepared statement. “We are thrilled to have Anne Rung be joining Amazon Business.”
Amazon Business, which launched in April 2015 and surpassed $1 billion in sales during its first full year, doesn’t break out figures on sales to government agencies or other distinct markets. But Wilson has said that Amazon Business plans to continue expanding its product lines and the types of customers it sells to. Amazon Web Services, Amazon’s division that sells cloud-based computing and data storage services, also includes government agencies among its targeted customer categories. Amazon Business is ranked No. 37 as a seller in the B2B E-Commerce 300, where it is also listed as a provider of technology services to 38 e-commerce companies.
Amazon’s move into government sales isn’t surprising, says Scot Wingo, founder and executive chairman of ChannelAdvisor Corp., which helps companies sell through the Amazon marketplace. “Reading the tea leaves, I would say that this new role indicates that Amazon is looking to expand Amazon Business from the private sector to the public sector which is a logical progression for what they have built,” he says.
With Rung at the head of its government sales at Amazon Business, Amazon appears to be in a position to win government purchasing contracts by helping government buyers purchase goods and services more efficiently—a specialty of Rung’s.
The OMB has cited Rung for her extensive experience in procurement and the impact she has had in helping the federal government improve its procurement methods. “In her two years at OMB, and before that at the Department of Commerce and at the General Services Administration, Anne has been a driving force in implementing the President’s vision for a modern, more efficient, and more effective government,” an OMB spokesman says.
Among her accomplishments the OMB cites:
- Strengthened the procurement workforce by launching the Digital IT Acquisition Professional Training program to teach government contracting officers how to more efficiently purchase information technology products;
- Brought greater innovation and efficiency to federal contracting through the development of such tools as the TechFAR Hub, which provides resources designed to help government procurement personnel improve their uses of digital buying services;
- Implemented category management policies to increase the efficiency of purchasing more than $275 billion in goods and services;
- Saved taxpayers more than $2.1 billion in procurement spending by reducing duplication in purchasing.
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