IBM wins SSON’s 2025 Service Provider of the Year Award
IBM was named the 2025 Service Provider of the Year at the SSON Impact Awards in Estoril, Portugal—a recognition of our leadership in advancing shared services and outsourcing excellence.
IBM’s collaboration with Amway, a global direct selling company to streamline its accounts payable operations, is a standout example of our shared services. By leveraging AI-driven workflows and automation, IBM standardized processes, improved data management and minimized manual errors—leading to greater efficiency and enhanced customer satisfaction.
Together, we set out to transform their accounts payable operations. By deploying IBM’s AI-powered intelligent workflows and BPO services, we helped them:
- Standardize and automate processes across 58 countries
- Improve data management and analytics using watsonx‚ generative AI
- Enhance business continuity and compliance
- Reduce manual errors and intervention
- Achieve over 50% touchless invoice processing
The results? A 38% improvement in productivity, a 10-day reduction in invoice cycle time, customer satisfaction rising from 91% to 96% and escalations reducing by 90%.
“The partnership with IBM has enabled Amway to implement a truly global workflow at scale empowered by artificial intelligence,” said Michael van der Ploeg, Vice-President GBS and Corporate Controller of Amway.
The SSON Impact Awards spotlight organizations that lead in innovation, operational excellence, and strategic transformation. Winning this award reinforces IBM’s position as a trusted partner in helping enterprises modernize operations through AI, automation, and deep industry expertise.
“All the IBM Consulting team, myself included, feel so proud and thankful for this big recognition,” said Joan Torres, Vice President/Senior Partner of IBM Consulting.
At IBM, we believe the future of business operations is AI-powered—where technology enhances human expertise rather than replaces it. Our approach to business process transformation is grounded in:
- AI-powered process orchestration with watsonx
- Agentic AI for finance operations
- End-to-end automation across procure-to-pay, record-to-analyze, and lead-to-cash functions
- Sustainable finance services to support long-term goals
“We’re not just optimizing processes,” said Amit Dube’ of IBM Consulting, “we’re partnering and helping organizations build smarter, more resilient operations that can adapt to change and scale with confidence.”
This isn’t about automating yesterday’s processes. It’s about redesigning them from the ground up—with GenAI, predictive insights, and human-machine teaming at the core.
This award inspires us to keep innovating. We’re dedicated to helping clients across industries use AI and automation to achieve real business results.
“This award underscores the differentiated value we deliver by embedding AI assets and agentic workflows at scale,” said Sachin Varma, Global Managing Partner, Business Operations Delivery, IBM Consulting. “For IBM, this isn’t peripheral—it’s central to how we drive transformative outcomes for our clients.”
This award is a testament of the Amway-IBM relationship. Together, we’ve moved beyond outsourcing to right sourcing—building smarter, more resilient businesses that deliver experiential value tailored to client needs.
Looking ahead, our partnership is focused on growth powered by agentic AI—systems that not only assist but act with autonomy, learning and adapting to deliver continuous value. As we deepen our collaboration, IBM and Amway are poised to lead the next wave of intelligent operations, shaping the future of work and customer experience.