One part of what I do at the Business Times is awards programs. It’s something I’ve always enjoyed because we get the opportunity to honor really interesting people and companies who are doing great things.
Our most recent program was our Fast 50, a listing of the 50 fastest-growing companies in the region as ranked by revenue growth between 2017 and 2019.
That’s right – in this case, it was for revenue growth before Covid hit. When I first started working on this project, I was concerned about how things had changed for these companies.
Turns out, many have managed to turn lemons into lemonade. While there’s been plenty of challenges, these are the Fast 50 – to grow so fast, they’ve already honed valuable skills like adaptability, fast thinking and understanding the importance of pivoting to meet what customers need today. These skills are now serving them well in the midst of the pandemic, where adopting new ways of doing business is imperative to, well, staying in business.
I wrote about all of this in my column, but really it’s their own stories that are the most interesting (you can read those in the attached slide show and here – you also can read about how this year’s No. 1 grew so fast). One of my favorites is COE Distributing, a wholesale office furniture distributor that switched to making new products for a Covid office environment and had its best revenue month in August.
As another sign of how companies are adapting, the PBT has been doing these awards programs as virtual programs, including the Women of Influence program that was cancelled at the last minute in March. Updates on these winners and the video can be viewed on the PBT website.