Critical Issues Affecting Virtual Teams in Marketing

To: Virtual team members
From: Marketing Associate
Date: 16/4/2018
Subject: Critical issues affecting virtual teams
Recently, the marketing department has embarked on using virtual teams to conduct marketing
activities of the company. Such a move has many advantages, but as always, everything has
some disadvantages no matter how perfect it is. The challenges affecting virtual teams include
language barriers, cultural differences, and different time zones, lack of support and morale and
poor communication. This memo is written to address some of the critical areas that affect virtual
teams.
Poor communication and cultural differences.
Poor communication may lead to isolation and loss of focus among the team members. Poor
communication also will hinder innovation that can make projects successful (Pangil and Moi
Chan, 2014, p.98). To avoid the challenge of poor communication, the company will invest in
online resources that enable members to interact with each other. The online resources will
support the use of Skype and video teleconferencing that will help to avoid isolation among the
team members. The online resources will also enable the team members to ideas and funny jokes
that will help to inspire the team members and foster collaboration.
Team members from various regions around the world will have different cultures that can affect
the operations of the team (Hoch and Kozlowski, 2014, p.390). Some of the aspects of cultural
differences include communication styles, use of different languages, different perceptions

concerning teamwork and deadlines and even decision-making processes. To solve this issue, the
team leader together with the team members will have to agree on the work ethics that will help
in avoiding infringement of team members' cultures.
Different time zones and poor team morale
Different regions of the world have different time zones, and this will affect the operations of the
virtual teams. The time overlaps will make the communication poor, and this may cause isolation
among the virtual team members (Saafein and Shaykhian, 2014, p.460). To address this
challenge, the virtual team will reduce the virtual meetings that can inconvenience the activities
of the team members such as personal time with families. This will also be addressed by
breaking down the work into modules or bits that will be assembled after each team completes
the assigned tasks. This will help to avoid inconveniences to the team that may be caused by time
overlap.
Poor communication and physical distance can cause the team to lose morale and team spirit
which are important aspects of virtual teams (Hoch and Kozlowski, 2014, p.390). This problem
will be addressed by setting a clear vision of what needs to be achieved by the team. Clear
articulation of instructions by the team leader will help the team to have a clear goal and this will
motivate the team members.
Lack of physical interaction will in most cases lead to loss of trust among the team members
because there is no informal communication that enables team members to open up to each other
and build trust (Pinjani and Palvia, 2013, p.147). To address the issue of lack of trust, the team
leader will ensure that the roles and achievements of each team member are communicated to the
rest of the team using the set channels of communication such as Skype. This will help in

acknowledging the efforts of the team members and create assurance that the team members can
deliver the targets on time. Delegating duties to the team members will also help in building the
needed trust.
Lack of support and right personnel
Teamwork in most cases is used to enhance the support system in the team, but as for virtual
teams, support may be missing. This is due to poor communication and physical distance (Pazos,
2012, p.410). The team members feel isolated and this will affect the performance of the team
leading to unsuccessful project of the team. The virtual team members also lack expertise of
some team members due to physical distance and this will lead to unaccomplished goals of the
team.
Hiring the right people for the virtual team may be very difficult because it is hard to recruit the
right person from among the world's population (Daim et al.2012, p.205). Due to a large number
of applications for selection, the company may find itself selecting the wrong person. Choosing
wrong people for the team will cause incompetence in the team which will affect the
performance of the team and lead to poor marketing projects in the company.
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that embracing virtual teams in marketing
activities of the company will be very effective and this will enable the company to position its
products so as to compete favorably with its competitors. This will result in acquisition and
retention of customers. For any queries, please contact my office through the relevant
communication channels.