ECOM 201 Project: Jarir Bookstore Virtual Team Management Strategy

This project analyzes Jarir Bookstore's strategy for establishing virtual teams in the USA and UK. It begins with an overview of virtual teams, followed by an introduction to Jarir Bookstore, a Saudi Arabian company. The project details the virtual management characteristics to be implemented, emphasizing communication, attentiveness, and trust. It outlines how the virtual teams will collaborate, focusing on communication tools like Skype and Wrike for task management. The project addresses managing teams across different locations, considering language, cultural, time zone, political, and economic differences. It explores techniques for building a strong, cohesive team and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of virtual team management, including potential conflicts and their resolution. The project also covers managing outsourced projects and techniques for motivating and encouraging virtual team members, concluding with key takeaways and references.

Intro to e management

Abstract
Jarir is Bookstore Company located in Saudi Arabia. By opening a chain in new
country, virtual team will be built who will ensure the success of Jarir. Virtual team will work
together by communicating through video conferencing or other instant messaging tools.
Under this, Skype will be the first tool with the help of whom communication between these
members will be done. After deciding the goal for virtual team, time-to-time checking will be
done regarding their achievement. The team will be motivated by providing time to time
recognition to those members who have worked beyond expectations.

Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Jarir bookstore: virtual teams.....................................................................................................3
Virtual management characteristics that will be implemented..................................................3
How virtual team will work together.........................................................................................4
Communication tool that can be used during the virtual team interaction................................5
Ways to manage the teams in both locations.............................................................................5
Advantages and disadvantages of virtual team..........................................................................6
Techniques to build a strong virtual team..................................................................................7
Conflicts that might occur between the virtual team and how to overcome them.....................7
Ways to manage the outsourced team........................................................................................8
Techniques that will be applied to motivate and encourage the virtual teams...........................9
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................10

Introduction
In today’s fast changing business world, businesses are moving to the new pattern of
working through virtual team leading in different countries of the world. Virtual team are
those groups of individual that is spread across different cultures, time zone, ethnicities and
languages that is united by one goal or objective. Due to the increasing competition,
organisations are demanding agility and flexibility in the delivery of services and products. In
this regard, virtual teams play a significant role in the organisation for ensuring success of its
services across world. The most significant component of the virtual team is the
communication. Excellent communication between the team members is quite necessary for
achieving the same objective. In the paper, discussion has been carried on the different
elements such as Jarir bookstore, virtual team characteristic that will be implemented.
Afterwards, discussion has extended by explaining how virtual team will work together,
communication tool that will be used, techniques that will be used for creating the strong
virtual team, conflicts that can occur and ways to overcome, ways of managing the
outsourcing projects as well as techniques that will be applied to motivate and encourage the
teams
Jarir bookstore: virtual teams
Jarir has it’s headquarter in Riyadh Saudi Arabia. It operates under the two divisions.
The first one is wholesale division and the other one is retailing that includes online sales.
The activities of company includes the school and office supplies, educational aids and
children’s toys, English and Arabic books, computer peripherals, craft and art materials,
accessories and mobile phones, photography tools, audio visual instruments, as well as
maintenance of electronic and computer items. Jarir is found to be the market leader in the

Middle East for IT products, consumer electronics, office supplies, and books. It is also
recognised as the top 7 valuable brand in retailing in the Saudi Arabia. Not only this, it also
seen in the “Top 100 Listed” companies across the Arab world. It proves itself in selling the
best books in Saudi Arabia as well as in the countries where it has expanded its business.
Virtual management characteristics that will be implemented
Communication, attentiveness, and trust will be the three characteristics will be
implemented in the virtual team. However, trust is the substance of any relationship. Without
getting the advantage of facial contact, virtual team is required to give more emphasis on
building enough trust through integrity, competence, dependability, and care. At the same
time, virtual teams are also required to work effectively through their electronic and verbal
communication. Leaders of virtual team is also required to be attentive about dealing with
conflict, encouraging enough participation as well as properly recognising as well as
recognising team members. Due to lack of “body language advantage”, virtual team can
develop the characteristic of working diligently though their tone of communication and are
required to be know the emotional content while communication. In this way, Leaders of
virtual team is also required to be attentive in order to effective deal with conflict, and trust.
Leaders will effectively help the members in working effectively by setting their own goals
too.
How virtual team will work together
Virtual team will work together through several means. Firstly, they will be taught the
work system by setting the standards for which their result will be measured. By setting the
standards, team members will not raise more questions. Regular meetings will also be held by
deciding the particular time on a weekday. Video conferencing will help in working together
of the virtual teams. For making the virtual teams to work together, they will be taught the

collaboration skills by trusting the working of each other. Virtual team members are also
required to effectively work on their communication (written and verbal) and required to
learn some enough understanding of the emotional content of the message that is
communicated. In this way, attentiveness, Trust, and communication are most significant
features of virtual teams. In addition to this, there is varied number of approaches that leaders
can effectively use to develop these qualities in the team members. In this way, it is necessary
to take the video conferencing so that every team member build the trust in their virtual team.
In addition to this, virtual teams will be connected through the Skype where they will
share their work progress and discuss the problems being faced by any of the team member.
Weekly report will be prepared for the task given to each member and discuss it with each
other. At the end of reporting, if any member faces any problem at any place of their task,
they will discuss in such weekly reporting. Afterwards, the person who is getting the task
which is not understood by that member, will ensure the completing of that task.
Communication tool that can be used during the virtual team interaction
Skype is the first and foremost communication tool that will be used during the
communication of virtual team members. It is true that eye contact is also required during any
conversation. Due to the varied feature provided by Skype such as transferring of files,
messaging instantly, previous conversation as well as several other features helps in making it
popular. Members who are included in the virtual team install the app and register with the
account with no charge. In case of any problem or confusion regarding the task, all members
can come together and discuss the task again. This tends to ensure the removal of confusion
that is faced by any person. Skype is the best tool because it also supports the large files.
With the help of Skype, it is also possible to hold the question and answer session for the
virtual team members. In this way, Skype is the most significant tool (oegl & Muethel, 2016).

In order to ensure the success of this tool, a team leader will be made who will ensure the
success of virtual teams. He or she will be responsible for the problems that will be faced by
any of the memebrs. It will also fix the problem by effectively allocating the responsibility of
task to any of the member whom he or she thing perfects.
For ensuring the task management, Wrike is the significant solution for ensuring the
collaborative work management. This tool; scales seamlessly with the team across
organisations globally. This app caters to the team that ranges from creative, marketing,
product development, project management, and professional services. The most significant
advantage of this tool is that is equipped with features such as templates, Gantt chart, budget
and time tracking, as well as resource, engagement for the effective utilisation of resources
and better planning. It has different collaboration tools such as communication, personal
dashboard, approval and proofing, email, live activity stream as well as calendar
synchronisation allows the faster execution of task among the workforce. In addition to this,
Wrike also gives the visibility in the project. By ensuring this, it effectively helps in ensuring
the proper management of task among virtual team members and thus improves productivity
(Wieland & Wolf, 2016).
Ways to manage the teams in both locations
In the globalised world, it is quite easy for assuming that every person tends to speak
the similar language. The first way to break down the cultural differences is by knowing how
team members view organisation (Schulze & Krumm, 2017). In order to overcome the
language barrier, it is effective to use the stories, pictures and data for helping in illuminating
the conversation. For breaking or minimising the language barrier, words with two meaning,
confusing context, and slang will be removed. At the same time, organisation will be
straightforward in order to ensure that the entire member of virtual team will be brought

together through video conferencing time to time. Difference in time zone is also seen as the
biggest and obvious challenge in the virtual team as most of the members live in different
locations. However, Effective collaboration tool can be used to minimise the overlapping of
time between the members. in addition to this, reducing the virtual team number is also one
such effective and proven strategy to address the time challenge. It is true that political
agenda of the different geography, nationalities and department is prove to be the significant
hindrance on the success of virtual team. Therefore, awareness can be built in the mind of
team members to remove the political issues and work a team by appreciating and respecting
each other (Gross, 2018).
Advantages and disadvantages of virtual team
The most significant benefit of the virtual team is the cost saving. Through the virtual
team, organisation tends to save the expenses on real estate, office space, and utility bills such
as water, electricity and gas. At the same time, virtual team allow the organisation to look
after the talent beyond their country. This directly assists in bringing together the specialist
and global experts to work on any specific project (Ford, Piccolo & Ford, 2017). Greater
innovation and knowledge sharing occurs as organisation share its accepting of the global as
well as local markets. Moreover, virtual team members give high emphasis on the task. In
practice, virtual team also provisions the flatter organisation structure. Members of virtual
team do not deal with the superfluous bureaucracy that slower the decision making. As a
result, it helps in enhancing the productivity. Virtual team also helps in creating the several
new opportunities for all those people who are less hesitant and mobile to reposition due to
their physical issue or either of the family requirements. Due to this, any such task which do
not necessarily require the bodily existence of the person or which can be sustained by the
communication technology tends to bring the opportunity for several deserving candidates.

On the negative side, virtual team increase the cost of technology such messaging, emails,
well as video conferencing. The cost that is associated with the maintenance and installation
tools is still found to be the higher side. The cultural modifications between the virtual team
members also creates number of conflicts. This tends to create the difficulties in positive
collaboration. It further required for the success of functioning of virtual teams. The most
significant disadvantage of the virtual team is that many of the virtual team members
negatively affected by the absence of some physical interaction. Most if the communication
held among virtual team is task oriented. In the recent time, job is significant social force
because most of the workforce colleague constitute to the close friend. This does not give not
too good feeling of the social isolation. Due to this, stress is seen among people and further it
affects the productivity (Alsharo, Gregg & Ramirez, 2017).
Techniques to build a strong virtual team
It is true that successful integration of virtual team directly requires the strong
partnership with organisation. For this, firstly performance of virtual team will be evaluated
time to time wherein their performance will be measured and suggestions for improvement
will be given in case of deviation found. A Digital landscape will also be made for the
members of virtual team. Tools like Zoom and Google Docs will be used in order to ensure
the success of diversified workplace (Castellano Davidson & Khelladi, 2017). These
collaboration tools will make it easier for the virtual team to work together seamlessly and
facilitating the another big piece of the pie that is required for success. It is true that people
always want to feel invested in the company at end of the day. By ensuring strong
communication, it is possible to convert culture in the workplace. Culture will be well
prepared by using the messaging platform and chat program. In this way, several techniques
can be used by Jarir to ensure the string virtual team through mutual discussion, problem-

solving and relationship building (Ubell, 2016). Time to time team building exercise among
the team members will make the team stronger and ensure the success of task performed by
those members.
Conflicts that might occur between the virtual team and how to overcome them
Disagreement on one idea is the most significant conflict that might occur between
the virtual team members. It is true that colleagues more likely to disagree their idea when it
is delivered from distance (Keefe, Lang, Rumsey & True, 2016). It is seen that virtual team
tends to present the paradoxical situation because on one hand, members of virtual team are
more tasks oriented and on the other hand, due to lack of facial interaction, tasks related
conflicts transfer into the relationship or interpersonal conflict. When any group project is
given to the members of virtual team, the conflict of responsibility sharing and task allocation
is majorly seen because it might be possible that two persons wanted to do the same task. All
these conflicts occur majorly due to the lack of non-verbal gestures of communication such as
body language, gestures, facial expressions (Hoch & Dulebohn, 2017).
In order to overcome such conflicts, the best way is to understand the needs of team
members and ensuring that the working environment is quite adaptive to extend the trust and
relationship among team. The best way to remove the task or interpersonal conflict is to
ensure the well planned and strong orientation during the project initiation. In this regard,
members will be encouraged to share their past experiences, backgrounds, as well as some
other information related to themselves. Besides this, team-bonding activities will also be one
that will help in removing the conflicts and help them to stick to one common goal. At the
same time, daily update from the all the members related to four things named challenges
faced, work completed, next day agenda as well as assistance required will be taken (Cordes,
2016).

Ways to manage the outsourced team
As a manger, it is not easy to manage the outsourced team. Communication is the key
to ensure success of any project. In this regard, communication process will be followed that
will start by building a rapport and further maintaining positive relationship with the
members working in outsourced team. In the outsourcing project, I will ensure the constant
contact with the help of skype call (Connelly & Turel, 2016). It is because constant contact
through emails, direct messaging, and text is possible on the same page toward same goal.
Hearing each other voice will not only build the rapport but also ensure that the entire team
member is working toward the same organisational objective. It is true that virtual teams who
are working on the outsourced project have different time zones. As per the timings of those
members, I will send the email. As a manager, I will also provide them the entire contact
information and will be available for them when they will need me. This will ensure the
communication lines open as well as give me the chance to ensure regular check-in on my
team. In this way, scheduling of work, goals, deadlines as well as meeting time prove to be
the best way to manage people working on the outsourced project.
Techniques that will be applied to motivate and encourage the virtual teams
Empowering the employees through right tools is the best way to encourage the
virtual teams. For this, development plan will be created that ensures the success path.
Continuous investment will be made in the development plans that will definitely help in
promoting those people internally. Such culture will lead to make people ensure that they all
are part of organisation. Casual communication will also set aside some time for the team
members. Team building exercise is also best technique for getting everyone together who
are only connecting virtually with each other. For this, team-building weekend will be
considered yearly and considered. These kinds of activities will definitely help in fostering

the strong relationship with each other. In the recent time, employees get motivated by
providing them rewards and recognition. In today’s workplace, rewards are found to be the
way to attract younger talent. For every virtual team, vinyl firdays as well as free coffees
stations will be provided so that they become motivated to work at the workplace. Small
gestures will also be provided such as writing a recommendation, praising publicly, as well as
providing company wide recognition to motivate and encourage the employees.
Conclusion
In the limelight of above discussion, it can be concluded that virtual team work
together for a common purpose with the shared vision. They work from different places, and
have different language and culture. Workers are dispersed in different locations and brought
together through the communication technologies in order to complete the organisational
task. Most of the organisations are adopting approach of virtual team in order to encourage
the sharing knowledge among the employees and reducing the operational cost. For ensuring
the success of success of virtual team, it is quite necessary to overcome or remove the
communication barriers through adoption of effective strategies such as team building
activities or communicating with every member through different tools.

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