{"id":39756,"date":"2021-08-06T20:01:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-06T20:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/press-room.saatva.com\/?p=39756"},"modified":"2025-11-21T19:30:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T19:30:56","slug":"covid-and-the-speed-of-business-today","status":"publish","type":"leadership_article","link":"https:\/\/press-room.saatva.com\/articles\/covid-and-the-speed-of-business-today\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID and the Speed of Business Today"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Ron Rudzin, CEO & Founder of Saatva<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lately I\u2019ve been thinking about my first car phone. It was around 1987, and I\u2019d just gotten one of these new gadgets\u2014a clunker about the size and shape of Maxwell Smart\u2019s shoe phone<\/a>. Suddenly my commute home wasn\u2019t just 40 minutes crawling in traffic on the Long Island Expressway, it was 40 minutes of productive work time that I didn\u2019t have to spend the next day. I was thrilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel the same way about the transformation that\u2019s happening in business today. The changes forced on us by Covid have propelled some companies, especially e-commerce businesses like mine, into a whole new world of speed. In every area of the business, from finance to operations to creative, we are moving at a pace we\u2019ve never seen before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we head into the fall\u2014and, hopefully, a safer world\u2014a lot of companies are beginning to call employees back to the office. That\u2019s what I thought we\u2019d do at Saatva too, at least on a hybrid model. But the more I looked at what we\u2019ve been able to accomplish during the past year of working remotely, the more I realized that letting people stay at home was the best long-term move for the business. Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our culture is strong.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a digital-first company, we already had the infrastructure in place to successfully pivot to remote work. We also had a large enough core of company veterans to keep things moving smoothly even though we weren\u2019t physically together. New people joining the company get plenty of help and guidance learning the \u201cSaatva way.\u201d  That would not have been possible without a strong company culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can hire the best talent.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the pandemic, all of our employees worked in our locations in New York or Austin, Texas. Once the pandemic forced us out of our offices, we learned how to collaborate and be creative no matter where people sat. That meant I could hire the best person for the job, anywhere in the country or even the world. And hire we did: in the past 16 months, we\u2019ve added 152 people across 18 states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s never been easier to get people together.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the biggest challenges to efficient decision-making in any organization is logistics. Sometimes just getting the right people in the room is the hardest part. With the advent of Zoom and other forms of videoconferencing, a lot of those scheduling challenges disappear. As a result, we are meeting more often, in larger groups, and making decisions faster and more nimbly than we ever have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meetings are more productive.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Video calls force a certain discipline, so when we do get together there\u2019s less wasted time. That doesn\u2019t mean we don\u2019t have fun, but we get down to business pretty quickly. People also come to video meetings more prepared. As a result, everyone learns something, there\u2019s a more productive exchange of ideas, and that leads to more wins for the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Employees are happier.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wouldn\u2019t be <\/strong>doing this if employees were clamoring to come back to the office. But I know that not having to commute and having more personal or family time makes for a happier and more productive workforce. I\u2019ve got the results to prove it: revenue has more than doubled in the past year, we\u2019ve launched 18 new products, developed dozens more, <\/strong>and we\u2019re about to open retail locations in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, and Austin. Our business is stronger than it has ever been. I\u2019m not just letting people stay remote because I\u2019m a nice guy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know that full-time remote work has its challenges. During the shutdown, we remodeled our offices to be beautiful, Covid-safe environments, and we want people to use them, whether it\u2019s to meet with their colleagues or to have a quiet place to work or just to get out of the house. Blurring the lines between work and home, spending hours on Zoom calls, being hyper-productive\u2014all of that can lead to burnout. Our leadership is focusing on that too. I want people to turn off when they are supposed to turn off. In fact, we are in the process of implementing a program that requires people to limit Zoom calls\u2014or not have them at all\u2014on certain days of the month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Running an e-commerce business today is like driving 80 miles an hour on the highway; when everyone around you is also moving so quickly, you don\u2019t realize how fast you\u2019re going. Years from now, academics will write about this time and the accelerating impact Covid had on business. At Saatva, I\u2019m proud that we were a pioneer of the digital commerce revolution<\/a>, we are leading in the retail transformation<\/a>, and now I believe we are in the forefront of a whole new way of working.<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article has been reposted on LinkedIn<\/a><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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