Remote work is a fashionable feature of modern business. If employees can work from home, why shouldn't the owner run the company from afar, too? For example, relaxing on the beach or at the golf club. The main thing is to establish remote control.

Text: Yulia Fukolova

“My registration is on an Aeroflot plane, seat 1D,” jokes the owner of the Sava group of companies, Vladimir Sablin. Indeed, it is almost impossible to catch him in the office, and when he answers the phone, the interlocutor usually has no idea where the entrepreneur is at that moment. Sava has operations in Eastern Siberia, Moscow, Kyiv, China and Mexico. Over the past year and a half, Sablin has visited more than 20 foreign countries, not to mention Russia and the CIS. However, the absence of an owner does not worsen the situation in the business. On the contrary, over the past year the company’s turnover has grown by a third, approaching 2 billion rubles.

“The time has passed when a businessman was in the role of a watchdog, guarding the business and sitting in the office from morning to evening,” says Vladimir Moryzhenkov, scientific director of the International Business School Executive MBA LWB of the State University of Management (SUM). Project management programs help managers keep their finger on the pulse—there are several dozen similar products. Sablin drew attention to the Green Line 52 (GL52) remote control program, which was developed at the International Business School Executive MBA LWB for “internal use.” And he implemented the system in his company.

From love to hate

“Sava” is the first letters of the owner’s last name, first name and patronymic (Vladimir Aleksandrovich Sablin). This is how, without false modesty, the entrepreneur named his company 19 years ago. It is engaged in the wholesale and retail sale of motor equipment (boats, snowmobiles, ATVs), as well as agricultural machines (walk-behind tractors, cultivators, lawn mowers, etc.). The company owns ten stores in the Irkutsk region. In addition, it produces modular houses for gas and oil workers.

Two years ago, Sablin registered the SWATT brand and began producing mini-tractors for farmsteads in China under this brand. “I am for the revival of the kulaks,” the entrepreneur likes to repeat. One tractor costs 150-200 thousand rubles, about 1 thousand cars have already been sold. Under the SWATT brand, the company also produces electric generators, snow removal equipment, etc.

Even though Sablin had good department heads and a hired general director, he still had to spend a lot of time in the office. Until a few years ago he met Professor Moryzhenkov. The businessman studied at the EMBA program at the Institute of Business and Business Administration of RANEPA, and Vladimir Moryzhenkov taught a financial management course there. Sablin heard about the Green Line from a teacher.

At one time, Moryzhenkov, together with his graduate student Pavel Burkov (manager of the auditing company PwC in London) and graduate of the Moscow State University Computing and Mathematics and Mathematics Ilya Pyatigorsky (now working at Google in Zurich), developed a computer program to monitor business school students. We tested it on State University students working on the project “Risk Management in Commodity Markets.” Students opened virtual positions and had to demonstrate their activity and write a plan for the week. To prevent anyone from snooping, they were required to post a weekly written report on the work done to GL52. The listeners were terribly indignant, but in the end they had to come to terms.

Later, Vladimir Moryzhenkov introduced the product in businesses where he is a co-owner - in the Hermes-Planet development company and the Investment Resources Agency. “People will hate you at first,” says the professor. “So the success of the project depends on the persistence of the owner and a critical mass of involved employees.” On the other hand, Moryzhenkov appears in the office once every three months and has the opportunity to deal with strategy rather than routine. In September 2010, Sablin also decided to introduce GL52.

1.3 billion employees, according to IDC estimates, will be working remotely by 2015. Russia is already preparing amendments to the Labor Code regarding remote work

On a long leash

The iPad screen is full of colorful rectangles. “Green means that the person sent a report,” says Sablin. “Blue means the manager checked the report of this employee and accepted it. Red means the report has been sent for revision. Three red marks in a row can result in dismissal.”

The Sava company employs about 500 people, of which 150 (managers and sales people) are required to write a short report on the work done and a plan for the next week every seven days. For example, a sales manager for one of the divisions processed 22 applications and earned 3,533 thousand rubles, and next week plans to work with 15 applications, which will bring in 4 million rubles. There are 52 working weeks in a year, that is, an employee “uploads” 52 reports into the system (hence the number 52 in the name of the program).

It is clear that the owner is not able to study everything. Therefore, managers check the reports of their subordinates (about ten), and Sablin checks the reports of department heads. In addition, he randomly selects and reviews ten reports from ordinary employees. “What angers managers the most is that the owner can look over their heads at what their “soldiers” are doing,” says Moryzhenkov. But questions about salary increases have become easier to resolve: just open the employee’s reports and draw conclusions.

Are people lying in their reports? There is a temptation, because the size of the bonus depends on the results. But, according to the developers, inconsistencies can be identified in the readings. So, at one time Moryzhenkov provided the GL52 for six months as a test to his friend, the mayor of the city of Serpukhov. The officials were incredibly “happy” about the innovation and tried to sabotage it. One of them wrote that he handed the keys to the apartment to the veteran. The mayor decided to congratulate the hero personally, but heard unprintable expressions on the phone: the veteran had no idea about any apartment.

However, the reports are only part of the GL52 project. For a business to develop, everyone must think about the future, not just the owner. Therefore, employees of the Sava Group of Companies are obliged to offer weekly ideas for improving the results of work, their own or their colleagues. The developers of the GL52 called this process benchmarking. “If a person is not able to come up with an idea himself, he can look at other companies, on the Internet, in books. But everyone should do benchmarking,” says Moryzhenkov. If there are no offers within a month, the issue of dismissal is decided.

At first, employees offered banal ideas like buying a microwave for the office. Then they began to think more creatively. For example, organize a club for ATV enthusiasts in Bratsk. Proposals are submitted to a summary report, and from there, after ranking and evaluation by experts, to the calendar for the implementation of strategic initiatives. The author of an idea recommended for implementation is paid several thousand rubles, and at the end of the year - 10% of the economic effect. Sablin noted that previously employees were afraid to take risks and rarely proposed initiatives that required serious investment. Now there are more such offers. Even those who are not obliged to do so began to offer ideas. So, the warehouse workers asked that they also be given access to the Green Line, because they have something to share. And one manager came up with two dozen ideas in two months and asked for a bonus - to free him from filling out reports for at least a month. True, the GL52 does not give concessions.

As a result, Sava received engaged employees, and Sablin received a more complete understanding of its business. Now an entrepreneur can no longer sit in the office, but think about the future. For example, look for new niches while traveling around the world.

Business around the world

In early May, Vladimir Sablin returned to Russia after almost two months of absence. Last year he was gone for about six months. All this time he was on round-the-world economic expeditions conducted by the International Business School Executive MBA LWB. “We negotiate with embassies and universities, they organize visits to companies for us,” says Vladimir Moryzhenkov. “In addition, we are fond of golf, and through local golf coaches we can get direct access to interesting entrepreneurs.”

The number of countries visited by business travelers is already in the dozens. They studied English at Oxford, visited McDonald's Hamburger University in China, and saw how asparagus is grown in the deserts of Peru. In New Zealand, Sablin learned that it was getting colder here and houses needed insulation. This means that it is quite possible to enter the local market with modular houses from Bratsk. In Brazil, the niche of mini-tractors has not yet been occupied - why not supply your products there? “It’s impossible to find out about such things by surfing the Internet,” says Sablin. And now he’s figuring out how to use new opportunities.

Vladimir Moryzhenkov, in turn, thought about promoting Green Line to the market. He estimates the product at 3 million rubles, which is quite expensive: there are project management programs where a license for one workplace costs several hundred rubles per month. You can even find free ones.

The professor admits that the GL52 software shell is not unique. But the fact is that the introduction of the product, according to Moryzhenkov, is preceded by six months of work by consultants to build 12 main business processes (strategy, production, marketing, logistics, etc.). Such services are not needed by small businesses, but they can be useful for medium-sized businesses (turnover from 500 million rubles per year) that want to become large.

In addition, Green Line, according to Moryzhenkov, will be useful to entrepreneurs who have entered the second half of their lives. Thus, Vladimir Sablin discovered golf at the age of 62. It will take him several years to learn to play. Then he'll probably come up with something else. After all, a businessman with money has a lot of interesting things to do outside the office walls.

Vacation at someone else's expense