ColivingDAO Insights: The Web3 Path for Regen Living

Unlocking Sustainable Growth Through Procurement with Petya Angelova

• Daniel Aprea & Gareth Thompson • Season 2 • Episode 37

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Unlock the secrets of sustainable growth as we sit down with Petya Angelova, global supply chain and procurement expert, to explore how procurement can be a catalyst for both business success and environmental stewardship. Imagine managing your company's resources like a family budget, considering financial limits and fostering community ties. Petya brings a fresh perspective on how procurement decisions extend far beyond buying goods, influencing a company’s path toward sustainable practices and ethical goals.

We also tackle the always-evolving landscape of corporate social responsibility, focusing on the skepticism companies face when balancing profit with environmental duties. With increasing government regulations and transparency initiatives often led by agile startups, the pressure to adopt sustainable practices is mounting. From employee engagement to models of cooperative ownership, we delve into how companies can navigate financial, social, and environmental complexities to create a more ethical and holistic business environment.

Finally, we shift gears to discuss the exciting move from competition to cooperation within industries. With insights into ColivingDAO’s innovative approach, where employees, residents, and suppliers become shareholders, we paint a picture of a future where collaboration doesn’t just coexist with competition but enhances it. This cooperative philosophy commits to creating non-zero-sum solutions for the planet, people, and profit. Join us as we share our passion for sustainable living and invite you to subscribe, share, and engage with more transformative discussions in our upcoming episodes.

Daniel:

Welcome everyone to yet another episode of Co-Living DAO Insights. This is your co-host, daniel, and I'm joined today by my co-host, gareth, as well as our special guest of the day, petja Angulova. Petja is a 10-year experienced in global supply chain and procurement management in the technology sector. She's managed an annual budget of 61 million euros. She's also a strategic sourcing lead at Endurasa, top five global small satellite startup. She's also a member of Global Women in VC and a VP at Blue Impact Supply Chain Ventures. Thank you so much for being here today with us, petia.

Petya:

Thank you. Thank you, Daniel. Thank you for the invitation. I'm very excited about the podcast and yeah.

Daniel:

Awesome, great to have you here and great to have you here as well, gareth.

Gareth:

Hi, Dan, Really good to be back. So I'll kick us off Petia, with the first question. So you're a procurement professional. Now, not many people may know what procurement is or what it involves. So first of all, can you tell us what procurement means and what gets you excited about procurement?

Petya:

Okay, garrett, thank you about the question. So yeah, the procurement is part of the global operations. Usually, in the companies, procurement specialists are responsible for making decisions for the company regarding the sourcing strategy. We are literally responsible for leveraging microeconomical impact on the company and finding good partnerships and and finding good partnerships and delivering good services and items based on the company's KPIs. Procurement is basically covering the whole process, the whole procurement to pay process, which is including the category management, vendor selection, contractual agreements and negotiations, purchasing, order management, invoicing, payments. So all this is covered by the procurement and that's why it's so important to choose wisely our business partners because, based on this, the quality of the company products are depending on productivity and efficiency.

Petya:

Sustainability is also a very important factor and the savings are really depending on all this. And I would say that the procurement is not about money saving, but it's also about growing and enabling the business to develop in the right direction, protecting the business from any disruptions, and we have to think about the procurement in a more holistic way, to move to a more holistic strategy into the procurement in order to make the things right and to make more sustainable business growth. So the procurement is not the basic understanding of the procurement activities. We cover the all value drivers which are helping the business to grow basically, and that's really exciting. And I believe that everybody that are within the business to grow basically, and that's that's really exciting and I believe that everybody that are within the procurement should be really excited and really involved into this, into the business of the company thanks, petty, that's super interesting.

Gareth:

I really love your use of the word holistic there and the 360 degree view of why it's important for the company. And if I could just paraphrase what you said, you know, I think people think that procurement means how you buy stuff right. In a very simple sense, the company just buys what it needs. But actually what you described is it's part of the company strategy and a part of the company itself. From that 360 degree view, these two things are not separate. And and how those relationships are managed and who you buy stuff from really has a big impact on the company and how successful the company is. Um, and and that holistic part is the bit that gets you excited is that right getting those?

Daniel:

exactly, yeah that's a great point, because we like to look at things in a systemic way, so we really enjoy seeing when problems are not solved in a one-dimensional way, but it's actually a multi-dimensional problem where finance and budgeting is definitely a factor, not just a constraint, but something to definitely take into account and maximize the benefit of the output of, while at the same time, there's many other important things, just like the long-term growth is a big one that you mentioned as well. I like to think of the analogy of a family buying stuff for the family or the household and having not just to decide, okay, how much money we have to spend and what we buy with this money, but also, okay, who am I buying from? Is there the local grocer? Is there, uh, some other suppliers here and there? Can I build relationships with vendors or merchants that can later on get me access to some goods that otherwise I wouldn't normally get access to, and so on, and building community in doing so as well. So that's uh.

Petya:

The analogy I have in mind is uh, is it something that makes sense in this context, patria yeah, exactly, let's um, let's think about this like we are one big family and we want to help each other to make it um, to make it work, work out. So, yeah, in this way, let's um to work out not only for us as a family, but like a whole community, like the environment and um, yeah, not to think only about us, but to think like a bunch of of matters that we have to touch with the procurement let's jump into that aspect of it, petia, because I've preempted dan there.

Gareth:

but this is my like and our main interest, or one of our main interests in setting up Co-Living DAO, is the sustainability part, and you mentioned sustainability a couple of times there when you were talking about the holistic value of what procurement brings for a company and getting those good supplier relationships. Can you tell us a bit about how you see procurement and building those supplier relationships can help enable environmental sustainability, fight climate change, reduce waste all these good real world impacts?

Petya:

Yeah, as we know, the sustainability is really a hot topic in all aspects of our life and we all are thinking in a way how we can help and contribute to this as consumers. I would say that we are all thinking and we are motivated by our values, and our purchasing decisions are impacted by this. We want to know more about the goods, how they were produced, even from an ethical point of view, what labor I mean. If there was human rights abuse, for instance because this is another topic that is also part of the sustainability, in my opinion If the goods were produced and are also environmentally friendly, if they were ethically sourced, and the whole supply chain, the whole production, the whole operation. The consumers want to know this and also the procurement specialist wants to know this, because it's really with all the things happening economically and we really want to know the whole supply chain of the items that we are procuring.

Petya:

From other side, the government is also pushing in this direction. They're implementing different policies and making implementing legally legal requirements to the companies to move net zero the companies. From their side, they're implementing different innovative solutions like services, goods. We have a lot of companies that are innovating and start doing some environmentally friendly businesses. In order to contribute to this, the companies are really streamlining their operations and production in order to tackle the environmental boundaries. They're also trying to engage their employees in a way that we all are engaged, because if you're all aware about the problem, if the company is having a good strategy ESG strategy then the things will happen easier. I would say. The company is organizing trainings for the employees. So this is the way how they're trying to make the KPIs and the company strategy more transparent to the employees and the company strategy more transparent to the employees. From our side, I would say, the procurement team is also pushing for visibility of the entire supply chain. Yeah, we are really ESG-conscious society. I mean, we are implementing supplier engagement strategy with our suppliers in order to cooperate easier in this direction. We want to know something really important, to know the origin of the goods. Um, and yeah, uh, something really interesting that is really getting popular, but it's a necessity, in my opinion uh, the digital product passports. So it's really raising the issue how we are really over-consuming and this over-consumption is leading again to deepening of the ESG issues that we are facing.

Petya:

I saw that in some statistics that 90% of what we are purchasing, we are disposing it within six months, which is really a waste of resources, waste of everything. They can be implemented for absolutely everything for electronics, for plastics, for domestic, some things at our house. They can be implemented basically for all the items that we are procuring at home and in the office. So this is a good way how the companies can manage the sustainability, how we can track the materials, where from the items came from, how fast they are repaired and how fast they are used, and in this way, we can promote also the, we can measure the impact and we can promote different activities to improve this overconsumption. And with this monitoring, we are maximizing the lifecycle of the items that we are procuring, we are making more responsible decisions, we are using the goods more efficiently, minimizing the waste, extending the lifespan of the items and also we are encouraging the recycling initiatives in this way. So yeah, in order to have all this possible, we need data transparency and this is really important for implementing also the more ethical procurement strategies and practices. So this is the connection between both the digital passports and procurement, the connection between both the digital passports and procurement. This will really help us make more ethical decisions from this point of view and more sustainability-oriented decisions, and with tracking the supply chain, we will contribute tackling the environmental issues that we are facing.

Petya:

The big manufacturers are really working in this direction. I would say they're implementing different strategies. For instance, they're working on energy and water usage. A lot of companies are using renewable sources. They're working on energy and water usage. A lot of companies are using renewable sources. Waste reduction actually, is another area in which the companies are developing, so they're implementing different strategies and also they're donating the items that they are not using, so donation is also part of the strategy. Something really important is the packaging. I was really I'm really deep into this matter because I'm part of a climate change organization, and the smart packaging is really another hot topic on which the companies are concentrated and there are many solutions that were implemented in the past two years, helping making a way for more sustainable packaging for the shipments and supply chain solutions that we are having. More green initiatives are implemented and part of the of the annual activities of the of the companies and, yeah, lovely.

Gareth:

Yeah, it's actually really great to hear that there's so much action being taken by you know, your company, to address the over consumption problems. We've got climate change. You know these are really serious problems. We say them sometimes like it's a trivial thing that we can just fix by with some simple changes, and so it's really good to hear that your company is really looking at this. And there was lots of details there that you gave, like digital passports, and you mentioned the social side of it as well, like there's a social impact side to all the environmental sustainability actions. So I've got a couple of questions for you, little follow-up questions there. First of all, can you explain what ESG means and you did mention slavery, which people don't automatically associate with sustainability, but I think ESG ties that together. Can you explain what ESG means?

Petya:

ESG is the policy that companies are following. Esg is the policy that companies are following basically in order to contribute for the environmental issues that we are having at this moment. So, in general, this is how it's explained.

Gareth:

Yeah, so ESG is the environmental, social and the governance metrics that a company is measured by, just for the benefit of our listeners. And the second question is do you think people are a little bit skeptical that companies are going to really seriously step up, because people assume that companies only care about profit and revenue and are they going to take these environmental challenges seriously?

Petya:

Well, good question. Thank you about this. Well good question. Thank you about this. Yeah, I also believe that a lot of people are skeptical, but, based on my observations and with the partners that I have worked with and all the organizations that we have formed around environmental issues, and also looking at how government is pointing out this issue, and, yeah, it's really pushing towards this direction. And if people don't believe that the companies will do that themselves, then not themselves, but how to say it in a way like they will do that not only because of the profit.

Petya:

The government really cares and the government is really pushing the sector, all companies in the sector, to move in this direction. And a lot of companies we see that they stated and they're measuring their impact on this on their websites. And there are different startups that I don't know if I can talk with names of the startups, but there is a startup that pop up on my mind that is offering to the bigger companies and they're using this tool, how, on their website, you can see how the company is impacting the environment. So it's they really show what they're doing on their websites. So, yeah, that's good proof that they want to do that, they want to push in this direction as well.

Daniel:

Yeah, it's great to see the more and more social responsibility is taken, and we like to challenge a little bit this perception that companies are not stepping up. Definitely some are, and we see this happening more and more as well. So it's very encouraging in many ways. And, yes, we definitely like to see how some startups are improving transparency and spreading the word about this, and sometimes even startups, by simple things, can encourage bigger companies to really take more and more responsibility. So that's great.

Daniel:

Now, from a decision-making perspective, I love seeing this, let's say, from a global point of view, and understand exactly how the decision is made. It is a multivariable problem. So we've got, on one hand, we got the budgets, financials, then we have regulations, and then we have other non-financial goals. We like to talk about natural capital or environmental capital. We like to talk about social capital alongside financial capital when we talk about the triple win the people, planet, profit. So how is the decision made? At the end of the day, Once everything is tracked, once the impact is tracked, once the strategy is clear, how is the decision made? Is it more a matter of having some constraints on some way and say, okay, we need something that is minimum, this ethical, this sustainable, and so on, and then we choose based on something else. Or is there a system to make this multivariable decision optimized in the best possible way?

Petya:

Decision, for what Can you clarify with the question?

Daniel:

Yeah, so any procurement decision really. So, once we know the impact on different levels social impact, environmental impact, the financial cost of something and so on how do we solve this multivariable problem and decide what options to go for, so, what suppliers or what goods, what we're buying at the end of the day?

Petya:

Basically, this decision is based on the KPIs of the company and what is the company strategy. And if the company is a sustainability oriented one uh, and they want really to cover all the aspects, then the procurement follows this uh, this policy as well. And the procurement is is the point where we choose what sources to use, and we choose it wisely, because this has impacted the whole image of the company. It's from corporate point of view, from environmental point of view, it's impacting the environment, so we are directly responsible for this, and I really believe that the procurement role in the company is really being responsible, and the responsibility is really a big part of our role, really important, and this is, in my opinion, the core values that are needed for one procurement specialist in order to make good decisions and to push the business in the right direction.

Daniel:

Awesome and, yeah, we're very happy that you repeat ethical and holistic, because it definitely resonates. It resonates with us you recall the Vendai resonates with our audience as well, and it's great to see that more and more companies are adopting these standards. So, by all means, you're welcome to repeat that as much as you fit, because it is great to hear it over and over. And there's one thing that you mentioned as well that I'm interested in, which is employee engagement. Here at Call of Endow, we fully believe in engagement. In fact, we designed a system where employees become part owners of the company as well and they have a direct involvement in decisions, including governance. So something going beyond the standard, traditional concept of engagement. We really like the idea of taking engagement to the next level. So I'd love to hear how engagement is taking place in the situations you've experienced and how you can actually measure or track the benefits of that engagement in terms of the quality of the decisions and therefore, the impact these decisions are having.

Petya:

So, yeah, I really like this network-powered community within the company. I will start a bit like why it's needed. Over the past 10 years, we went through a lot of challenges, which were from different aspects geopolitical, economic uncertainty, health crisis that was blocking us, and we had also raw material shortage, and now we have inflation, military activities and different supply chain disruptions. We have security risks cyber security risks which are really concerning us. Now we have a new technology revolution with AI implementation and all this that happened over the years accumulated. This packed us with a lot of knowledge, a lot of resources in order to know how to proceed in future, and it's pushing us in a direction to more centralized and more cooperative approach. To move to the supply chain and the procurement topic, it's moving us to more cooperative approach and this model is bringing us. It's moving us to more cooperative approach, um, and this model is bringing us. It's increasing the trust and communication uh, it's building more long-term focus and long-term relationship with uh, with the employees, with the business partners, with the suppliers, with yeah, with everybody that we are communicating. From supply chain point of view, from procurement point of view, having your supplier as a shareholder is bringing on the table not only this that I mentioned, but also better terms and conditions and the whole communication and the relationship with the suppliers is moving to another, higher level compared to the typical one that we are used to work during the past years, for instance, I can give an example shareholder at their supplier and they were receiving really good price, lead time, preferential conditions during their sourcing. So this is something really beneficial and helping us to solve the supply chain disruptions that we are facing due to different factors that we are facing due to different factors. We are also monitoring all the processes. In this way, the transparency is also better.

Petya:

Another point is the co-procurement. A lot of companies are moving to this one. What is co-procurement? We are pooling our procurement with other businesses. We are pooling our procurement with other businesses. We are pooling the resources and standardizing the requirements. We are strategizing the buying power in this way and receiving higher quality products and better conditions with faster lead times and, yeah, we are really improving the conditions that we are receiving and, yeah, that's really beneficial, in my opinion, for the performance and the efficiency of our work. I would say. Another example I would say is how the companies are sharing also the technology, the available technology at their site in order to build, to help their partners to build better products. They're sharing not only the technology but their network of experts and in this way they're helping their partners and their partners, from their side, are helping them to improve their products or to use their products at better conditions. So this cooperative way of making the business is really moving us to another level, I would say I can just focus on the word cooperative.

Gareth:

Petia. That really stands out for me, like holistic stood out when you spoke before and when you say that you know businesses and supply chains are working in a more cooperative way. That sounds like the opposite of what regular business was in the past. Right, because business was competitive before.

Gareth:

Everyone assumes that business is very dog-eat eat dog and every company is out for itself and that is the way to do business. That was the way that um, the world really saw business right as this sort of aggressive I'm going to get my. I'm going to get what I need. It's my business, my company. Will we get what we need?

Gareth:

doesn't matter what anyone else gets right and it's really interesting to hear that to solve these big problems that your company is facing, it's not competition, it's cooperation, and pooling of resources is a really big cooperative move as well to pool those resources together between different companies and different supply chains.

Gareth:

You know, before I would imagine there'd be a lot of competition in that area. So it's really great to see and it really ties into our ethical code and what we do at CoLivingDAO. And so just to explore that a bit more, what we're looking at is okay, how do we turbocharge the collaborative, the cooperative aspects of what we are doing at CoLivingDAO to incentivize all the different players in our ecosystem to cooperate even more? And so one of the big innovations that we're doing is and you mentioned it is that not only our employees shareholders in CoLivingDAO, our residents in the co-living communities are shareholders but also the suppliers in our procurement supply chain will become shareholders in our company or the local co-living communities that they supply to. How do you think that would change the relationship with suppliers and for procurement if the supply companies are actually shareholders and co-owners in a co-living community?

Petya:

companies are actually shareholders and co-owners in a co-living community.

Petya:

It will deepen the the relationship and it will make it stronger, in my opinion, and in this way, more wise decision will be made and more different viewpoints will be taken into account while making decisions. And this is, as you mentioned, with competitiveness. Okay, it's good for the development and the competitiveness. We should not remove the competitiveness from the picture, because it's bringing new innovations and it's pushing us to be out of the box, to think out of the box, to think in a different way, but it's indeed not the same competitive environment as it was before. We should really work in the direction how we are cooperating with our partners, because this is the key to improve and because we alone won't reach more than when we work in a cooperation with our business partners. And this is the the key. The key is the balance in, in my opinion, to have a balance in all aspects of our lives. The balance is the key, so, and the cooperation. So this is really important and this will be the new strategy in future, in my opinion, in the business world.

Daniel:

Absolutely, and for the listeners as well. For the ones that have been here for a while, you might remember the episode we had with Graham Boyd. In fact, for the ones that haven't listened to, it definitely worth going back into our archives and check it out. Competition and corporations are not mutually exclusive, and it's possible to have some elements of competition even in a highly cooperative environment. So I like when you describe balance and how to create an environment that really relies on cooperation while having some healthy competitive elements in it as well, in order to really maximize the benefits for everyone.

Daniel:

So it's great to hear how people have realized that this is a way forward. That's exactly what we are implementing here at Colivinda as well, and envisioning for a project where everyone can have a strong sense of belonging and level of involvement, whether they're suppliers, whether they're employees or workers, whether they're partners as well in the extended community or extended network of federation as we speak. So, yeah, that's uh, that's great to hear. So, patia, this has been extremely insightful so far. Really happy to hear this. Just before we start wrapping things up, do you have any final thoughts that you'd like to share? Anything in particular you'd like to leave the audience with?

Petya:

yeah, in general, I would, uh, I would say that, indeed, um, I really liked how you mentioned healthy way. So when we do everything in a balanced and healthy way, uh, the things will be, uh in will be going in good direction. So, yeah, this is the the main message that I would leave to the audience that we really need to find a balance and to help each other in order to build better relationships.

Gareth:

Thanks, Petia. That really resonates because it's something that we're looking to do and we describe it in a technical way in non-zero-sum solutions. You know, just because one player wins doesn't mean that the other player has to be harmed, right? So we're looking for these unique solutions that enable that healthy balance that you speak about, and it's so good to hear other people looking at this and companies looking at this in a serious way and actually doing it for real, because business doesn't need to damage the natural world. Business doesn't need to damage human relationships and take from other people. We believe that business can create a win-win-win for people, for planet and for profit, and we say that in a really serious way. We're in an optimistic but a very serious way. Not just a throwaway triple win, but a real triple win for everything that a business touches. So thank you so much much. It's really inspiring to hear thank you.

Petya:

Thank you, garrett, thank you, daniel, for the invitation. It was pleasure to meet you and, yeah, I'm really excited about your work awesome.

Daniel:

That's uh great to hear. What's uh really, really great to have you here as well. And yes, thank you so much for letting us know that more and more companies are really seeing the things in this light and understanding what drives long term benefits as well, and we're very happy to be part of this movement in a way here at Kolde Vendau, creating new systems to make sure that benefits are not limited to one specific domain, like, like financial domain or even one other domain, but we can really achieve this non-zero-sum solution, this triple win, and making sure everyone is better off as a result. So this is what motivates us, so we are so happy to have found someone who is passionate about this as well. We love to share this passion and, for all the listeners, I hope you enjoyed the episode today as well.

Daniel:

If you know anyone else who's interested in these topics we discussed here at Code Living Down Inside, by all means make sure you share this podcast, share the love, let them know. And if you haven't subscribed yet, I don't know what you're waiting for. Make sure you subscribe as well, because we will be back with more content here at Code Living Down Inside. And thanks everyone for listening today. Thank you, garth and patia, for this very insightful discussion. We will be back for more. Thank you so much and see you in the next episode. You.