Remote Intelligence in the 21st Century: A Review of Critical Management Functions

remote intelligence remote intelligence Put Title here Student’s name Name of the Institute Introduction 3 Review of critical management functions 3 Rise of telecommuting and the increase in networked and separated workplaces 4 Remote intelligence 5 Why use of remote intelligence is not telecommuting 6 Nature of remote intelligence and how this has been enabled 7 Its threat to sustainability of work forces in developed western countries 8 Ethics of using remote intelligence 8 Benefits and disadvantages of using remote intelligence 9 Advantages of remote intelligence 9 Disadvantages of remote intelligence 9 Leadership styles and

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Put Title here
Student’s name
Name of the Institute

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................................3
Review of critical management functions........................................................................................3
Rise of telecommuting and the increase in networked and separated workplaces...........4
Remote intelligence..................................................................................................................................5
Why use of remote intelligence is not telecommuting..................................................................6
Nature of remote intelligence and how this has been enabled.................................................7
Its threat to sustainability of work forces in developed western countries..........................8
Ethics of using remote intelligence.....................................................................................................8
Benefits and disadvantages of using remote intelligence..........................................................9
Advantages of remote intelligence.......................................................................................................... 9
Disadvantages of remote intelligence.................................................................................................... 9
Leadership styles and skills required to manage remote intelligence................................10
References.................................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
Today the world has become truly globalized with the use of technology and internet.
There has been a change in the management style due to globalization. Today, the employees of
large companies like Google, Amazon, etc. are spread across the globe. It needs a great deal of
leadership to manage the employee. It would be correct to say that remote intelligence has
shaped the management and leadership functions to be more open and flexible. Today, more and
more organizations would want to focus on remote intelligence due to its cost benefits (Allen,
Golden & Shockley, 2015). The objective of this paper is to discuss various aspects of remote
intelligence and discuss the leadership and management approach required to take maximum
benefits of remote intelligence.
Review of critical management functions
The management functions would also differ if the leaders and managers have to manage
the people across geographical separated locations. The typical management function of control
may not work as it would not be easy to control employees without any direct communication
(Arnott, Lizama & Song, 2017). The key management function that would be required to manage
the employees across geographical separated locations would be motivation, leading, and
collaboration (Larson & Chang, 2016). Another key management function that would demand
much more attention would be planning function. It is important that managers should be able to
plan the work with employees who reside at remote locations. There would be a huge impact on
controlling and directing activities as it would be difficult. It is important that leaders and
managers should be able to motivate others to work.

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Rise of telecommuting and the increase in networked and separated
workplaces
The rise of telecommuting is observed in last 20 years or so. After 1995, there was an
exponential increase in the use of telecommuting. The main concern associated with the use of
telecommuting is cost and trust (Maher, 2014). It can take thousands and millions of dollars to
develop a robot. In the traditional workforce environment, people would come to office and
work. However, with time organizations and people realized that the key aspect of any job is
productivity. Therefore, organizations do not want the employees to work with reduced
productivity. This opened the door of telecommuting for organizations and employees. It was not
easy for organizations to manage telecommuting in the early year of 1995 to 2000 (Ho, Budescu,
Dhami & Mandel, 2015). The main concern with telecommuting at that time was speed of
Internet. People who work from home would need to remain connected with the organization and
for that they would need high speed Internet. In fact, this is one of the reasons that
telecommuting is used more in developed nations as compared to developing nations because the
speed of Internet is better in developed nations as compared to the speed of Internet in
developing nations (Allen, Golden & Shockley, 2015).
However, the use of telecommuting was not able to provide the desired cost benefits to
advantages. The organizations were required to pay the hefty amounts to workers. The only
advantage with telecommuting was the reduction in the operations cost. With telecommuting,
employees were not part of networked workplaces and they used to work in separated
workplaces (Ho, Budescu, Dhami & Mandel, 2015). The use of telecommuting certainly
increased the demand of separated workplaces as individual employees would need a dedicated

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computer and area to work. With this the demand of networking also increased as employees
wanted to remain connected all the time (Maher, 2014).
Remote intelligence
. In simple terms, remote intelligence is an extension of globalisation; it removes the
arbitrage which protects high-skilled workers in western countries. With the use of remote
intelligence, the companies can use the services of workers in the developing nations where the
wage rate is low. A classic example of remote intelligence is in health care industry. There are
various robots that can perform the surgery. With the use of remote intelligence, a doctor in India
can operate a person in Germany (Arnott, Lizama & Song, 2017). There are various use cases
and applications of remote intelligence. It is important to mention that remote intelligence is not
the same as field surveillance or artificial intelligence. In fact, remote intelligence is much wider
terms that would incorporate the use of technology to save costs for organizations.
With the use of remote intelligence, organizations can take the services of skilled
employees in developing countries (Kojo & Nenonen, 2015). The skilled employees would not
always leave the home country. There are personal factors and the political factors that can stop
the people to leave the developing countries for better money and lifestyle (Narayanan, Menon,
Plaisent & Bernard, 2017). However, with remote intelligence, people can actually work from a
remote location and contribute towards the work. One of the key and easy to understand
application of remote intelligence is drone management. Drones would need the support of some
people who may be living anywhere. The continuous monitoring of drone is required, and it can
be done from remote locations also. For example, consider that NASA has to manage a drone
over the Arizona rain forest. Now, NASA can use the services of an American employee who

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would cost some 1000 dollars per hour, or it can use the services of somebody living in India
with close to $300 per hour. In both the cases drone has to be managed at the work station only
(Denkenberger, Way & Pearce, 2015). Therefore, with the use of remote intelligence NASA can
save a lot of operational expenses.
Why use of remote intelligence is not telecommuting
Remote Intelligence is a wider term that is different than telecommuting. With
telecommuting, organization allows employees to work from home or work from remote
locations. However, employees get same wages and salary (Raghuram & Fang, 2014). For
example, the employees of Google would not visit office and work from home. However, at the
end of the month, they would get the same salary as the employee who comes to office. On the
contrary, remote intelligence provides a platform where organizations can actually save the cost
as employees that works from different locations are at faraway places where the wage rate is
less. For example, Google using the services of Indian employees (Denkenberger, Way &
Pearce, 2015).
With the use of telecommuting, organizations provide added flexibility to employees and
it results in high employee retention. However, it does not change any role of responsibility of
employees (Chesley, Siibak & Wajcman, 2013). The maximum cost savings that organization
get is the saving of operational expenses. For example, organizations would not need to procure
a cubical for employees. On the other hand, remote intelligence enables organizations to use the
services of people in different geographic locations to contribute towards organizational goals
and objectives (Narayanan, Menon, Plaisent & Bernard, 2017).

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Nature of remote intelligence and how this has been enabled
The key enabler for remote intelligence is Internet. The success of remote intelligence
can be attributed to good internet speed, networking and world wide web. Otherwise, a person
living in Bangladesh may not be able to work for an American company. It’s true that there are
trusts and credibility issues with remote intelligence. Moreover, there can also be a loss of
productivity with the use of remote intelligence (Li, Mobley & Kelly, 2016). Therefore, strong
leadership skills also act a key enabler for remote intelligence. It is important that leaders should
be visionary in nature (Goodman, 2013). The implementation decision of remote intelligence
would definitely be a big change for organizations and the leaders would certainly face
resistance. It would not be easy to counter the opposition. However, the recommendations should
be made from a long-term perspective. The long-term perspective would help the decision
makers to make their points clear in front of different stakeholders (Narayanan, Menon, Plaisent
& Bernard, 2017). It is also important that the decision makers should also anticipate the positive
and negative consequences of the decision. One of the positive consequences of the
implementation of remote intelligence would be improvement in productivity and cost savings.
In the short term, the negative consequence could be the initial cost associated with the
implementation (Tustin, 2014). In the long term, the cost could be the cost to sustain the
operations. The regular opposition from different stakeholders can also be a roadblock.
Moreover, there could be some amendments required in the use of remote intelligence policy that
can be treated as unseen challenges (Maher, 2014).

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Its threat to sustainability of work forces in developed western countries
In the last decade or so, the increased use of remote intelligence has been a threat for
workforces in developed nations (Okoli, 2016). The large organizations have realized that they
can save a lot of money with the use of remote intelligence. Therefore, it would not make much
sense to pay heft wages to local workers. With remote intelligence, “tele-migrants” will be hired
to control machines from abroad, work on business development or perform administrative tasks,
adding value at an arm’s length (Maher, 2014). Service sector workers should be worried about
the more immediate threat of virtual outsourcing, rather than that of Artificial intelligence. In a
sense, remote intelligence has taken away a lot of jobs from the developed nations and it is
expected that it would continue to do same. The wage difference is the key drivers for
organizations to use remote intelligence (Larson & Chang, 2016).
Ethics of using remote intelligence
It is important that organization and leaders should be aware of the various ethics of
using remote intelligence (Gajendran, Harrison & Delaney‐Klinger, 2015). The two biggest
concerns with the use of remote intelligence is data privacy and data security. With the use of
remote intelligence data is shared over Internet and there are always the chances of data getting
leaked (Maher, 2014). Therefore, it is important that organizations should use heavy encryption
when using remote intelligence. With the use of remote intelligence, the personal information of
users can also get compromised. The ethics concern of privacy is one such concern that has been
a road blocker for few organizations to use remote intelligence. However, these ethical concerns
can be managed with the use of strong policies and guidelines towards remote intelligence (Li,
Mobley & Kelly, 2016).

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Benefits and disadvantages of using remote intelligence
There are various use cases of remote intelligence. However, it is important that
organizations must analyse both pros and cons of remote intelligence before making any final
decision towards the use of remote intelligence (Weinert, Maier, Laumer & Weitzel, 2014). The
advantages and disadvantages of remote intelligence for organizations can be discussed as:
Advantages of remote intelligence
The key advantage of remote intelligence is the cost benefits. With the use of remote
intelligence, organizations can save a large amount of money by taking the benefits of different
in the wages for employees in developed nations and employees in developing nations (Li,
Mobley & Kelly, 2016). With the use of remote intelligence, organizations get access to huge
talent pool across the globe. Today, the organization in UK can hire a data scientist in India who
us not willing to travel to UK (Makarius & Larson, 2017). With remote intelligence,
organizations can have multiple people working on a project along the 24 hours as organizations
can take the advantage of difference in working hours (Narayanan, Menon, Plaisent & Bernard,
2017).
Disadvantages of remote intelligence
The lack of control is one of biggest disadvantage of remote intelligence. With the use of
remote intelligence, employees have to work in an independent manner and this results in lack of
control from management (Kaplan, 2014). The issues associated with data and security is also
one of the biggest disadvantage of remote intelligence (Makarius & Larson, 2017). The entire
process can be cumbersome with the use of remote intelligence as there is no face to face
communication between employees and leaders. Therefore, decision making can take time.

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Moreover, employees may lack the confidence as their work remotely (Narayanan, Menon,
Plaisent & Bernard, 2017).
Leadership styles and skills required to manage remote intelligence
The enactment or the implementation of remote intelligence policy is always a difficult
task. In an organizational setting, the implementation is better or easy when organization has a
motivation attached to it. In the absence of motivation, people have the tendency to take the
things for granted (Dahlstrom, 2013). Therefore, it can be said that organizations and leaders
have a legitimate role in modifying, discouraging, burdening or even prohibiting behaviors that
challenges the use of remote intelligence.
Leaders would need the support of people to manage remote intelligence. Without the
active participation of people, the desired remote intelligence policy may not be able to achieve
its desired objective (Grant, Wallace & Spurgeon, 2013). Off course, there are people who
understand their responsibilities and understand the benefits of remote intelligence. However,
there are certain set of people who would not understand the benefits. It is important that leaders
should act to maintain a system of check and balances for the effective use of remote intelligence
(Kaplan, 2014). Moreover, this system of check and balances has to be created by leaders only as
there is no other stakeholder who can actually create the system of check and balances.
Therefore, any check measures have to be implemented by senior leaders only (Narayanan,
Menon, Plaisent & Bernard, 2017).
Conclusion

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The above paper discusses various aspects of remote intelligence and the key leadership
and management functions required to manage remote intelligence. With the above discussion, it
can be said that it is important that the leaders must also realize their duties. It is important that
every policy should be same for different employees working with remote intelligence in the
organization. If the policies differentiate between populations then people would start to see the
policies as burden. The bottom line is that any policy around remote intelligence should be taken
happily by the employee. In fact, the support of employees and leaders would actually enable the
organizations to implement the law in and effective manner.

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