“Businesses are wasting more money than they're making.”

This stark assessment from serial entrepreneur Paul Polizzotto frames a provocative question: what if procurement's greatest untapped opportunity lies not in negotiating better prices, but in redirecting the millions corporations already squander on ineffective sales and marketing spend?

In this episode of "Buy: The Way...To Purposeful Procurement," Paul Polizzotto, founder of Community AI and former CEO of EcoMedia (which was sold to CBS), joins co-hosts Philip Ideson and Rich Ham to explore how procurement can transform transactional moments into powerful engines for social impact - without paying a penny more for goods and services.

Paul's track record speaks for itself: at EcoMedia, he redirected over $600 million of incremental advertising revenues toward community projects, powering solar installations on schools and city halls (including making Miami's City Hall the first major municipal building powered entirely by renewable energy), while making CBS more profitable. The secret? Tapping into the 10-30 percent of gross revenues that Fortune 500 companies routinely waste on ineffective SG&A expenses.

The conversation reveals a fundamental misunderstanding about social impact procurement.

While procurement teams worry about paying extra for "do-good" initiatives, Paul demonstrates how suppliers can fund meaningful community projects from their existing – and often wasteful – advertising, marketing, and event budgets. These are dollars that currently provide zero value, yet can be redirected to create measurable local impact while strengthening supplier relationships.

As Paul notes, 92 percent of CEOs surveyed by BCG believe that embedding social impact in procurement significantly elevates the function's importance and relevance within their organizations. If procurement seeks to demonstrate value beyond traditional cost savings, community impact offers a measurable, strategic pathway to C-suite relevance.

Links:

Paul Polizzotto on LinkedIn
Rich Ham on LinkedIn
Learn more at FineTuneUs.com

“You really have to intimately understand what the organization needs out of you, and that happens through good discourse, good conversation, good communication.”
- Jack Skerry, Vice President of Supply Chain, Moosehead Breweries

Transforming procurement performance demands more than technical expertise.

Senior leaders know that without strong communication skills like active listening, transparency, and empathetic engagement, procurement’s impact is, at best, limited. As organizations adapt at speed, active communication is a non-negotiable difference-maker.

In this Art of Procurement podcast episode, Moosehead Breweries’ Vice President of Supply Chain, Jack Skerry, sits down with Philip Ideson at the Supply Chain Canada National Conference.

Jack’s two decades spanning marketing, HR, sales, and supply chain provide an uncommonly broad background for a procurement leader. He shares practical ways to align teams, build trust with both internal stakeholders and suppliers, and move procurement from cost center to valued business partner.

Jack’s insights on transparency, negotiation, and the power of a ‘T-shaped career’ resonate in a market where supplier relationships and stakeholder engagement define competitive advantage.

In this episode, Jack discusses:

• The value of creating internal credibility through diverse business experience
• How procurement can build trust by sharing all information (not just good news)
• Using active curiosity and conversation to align with the business
• How to balance technical and relational skills when building teams
  

Links:

• Jack Skerry on LinkedIn
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement
• Subscribe to Art of Procurement on YouTube

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time.

Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement.

Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that capture our attention.