Assessing Virtual Teams for Marketing Purposes at Company XYZ

This report proposes the adoption of virtual marketing teams for Company XYZ, arguing that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. It highlights the potential for cost savings through hiring affordable expertise and reducing travel and operational expenses. Simultaneous global expansion is facilitated by having virtual teams in different locations, enabling a better understanding of diverse market requirements. Furthermore, employee satisfaction is expected to increase due to flexible working hours, enhanced trust, and improved work-life balance. The report also mentions reduced time to market and a commitment to a greener future through reduced transportation and paper usage. While acknowledging potential challenges in managing virtual teams, the report encourages the marketing team to embrace a virtual setting and requests the development of a robust working plan to minimize difficulties. The report concludes by advocating for the consideration of these advantages to build effective virtual teams.

Management Communication

TO: Managing Director
FROM: Marketing Department
DATE: DECEMBER 6, 2018
SUBJECT: Employ virtual teams for marketing purposes
The purpose of proposing memo in this managerial situation is to assess the pros and cons of
making virtual marketing teams to ensure viable market options globally. Even though the
cons of creating virtual teams consist of a significant failure rate of 82% in one of the studies,
the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. It is necessary to critically analyse the marketing
deliverables corresponding to our company’s present situation and take necessary steps to
expand our team virtually. Our company has the potential to undertake similar
responsibilities and I strongly recommend that we should employ virtual teams for marketing
purposes. There are few important points that are in favour of having a virtual marketing
team for our company. The following are the reasons justifying the purpose.
Cost
Affordable expertise can be hired from a diverse sample space of experts who are willing to
share their marketing skills virtually. Employing this technique of team working will bring
down costs of unnecessary travel plans, which leads to saving of time which can be
judiciously used for actual work (Serrat 2017). Furthermore, employing virtual teams on a
global level will also bring down costs of providing the employees space and other
operational costs incurred on human resources (Purvanova 2014). Managing virtual teams
will be an easy process as technological advancements have enabled companies to conduct
and manage meetings at all hours of the clock. Hence, effective navigation of work and
timely progress tracking will help our off-shore employees to stick to the deliverable
deadlines regardless of them being virtual. All these costs saved are very critical for the
company’s finances and these saved costs can be used for something more constructive and
useful.
Simultaneous global expansion
Having a virtual marketing team in different locations will help understand the market
requirements around the globe simultaneously. At this stage, it is important for our company
to strategically expand our business to places that see most value in our products and services
(Saafein & Shaykhian 2014). For this, having different employees in different locations will
help our organization to assess the best locations to pivot our business for expansion.
Furthermore, unlike finding people at given geographical location, having virtual team
around the globe can help us get skilled experts globally who will be tailor made for our
requirement and preferences (Derven 2016). Efficient screening of people for the right job
will help us get what we expect from the team. The ability to leverage global talent will be
the key advantage that can be exploited to the fullest in terms of recruiting competent
professionals.

Employee Satisfaction
Employing the strategy of having virtual teams for organization will also have a positive
impact on employees’ mindset (Romeike, Nienaber & Schewe 2016). Firstly, employees have
flexible support in terms of working hours which suit their daily routine and work schedules.
Also, employees and leader will have an exchange of trust through constant connection via
virtual platforms where they can communicate at any time round the clock. Employee
retention is another advantage that our company could avail since employees will tend to like
the working environment and will adapt to it easily. Satisfied employees will thereby exhibit
increased productivity and ensure timely delivery of work since they will not have any
excuses for not completing a particular deliverable. Employees from different geographical
locations can share knowledge through online platforms so as to deliver maximum learning
along with work.
Other advantages also include – reduced time to market where employees are working 24/7
on a particular task even though some of the employees are asleep. This will help us save
time, now that there will be employees working on the same task being assigned to them.
This will significantly shorten the product development time and increase the response time
in both local and global markets. A Better work-life balance can be established since the
working hours for doing a task are flexible. An employee will be more comfortable with
working from a place that he chooses best. He/she can have comfortable work timings,
working locations and minute points like manner of dressing can be casual now that all these
factors do not matter anymore. Another major advantage of working with virtual team is
working towards a greener future. Virtual teams would mean no need of transportation
services. Furthermore, there are no documents to be printed and shared. All documents can be
shared online for purposes like reviewing.
Consequently, these detailed advantages that are provided in the form of argument act as a
catalyst for building virtual teams must be considered. keeping the cons of working with
virtual teams in mind, I encourage our marketing team to be in a virtual setting and thereby
request you to build a robust working plan that will enable us to have minimum difficulties
with our virtual process of managing teams.

References
Derven, M., 2016. Four drivers to enhance global virtual teams. Industrial and Commercial
Training, 48(1), pp.1-8.
Purvanova, R.K., 2014. Face-to-face versus virtual teams: What have we really learned?. The
Psychologist-Manager Journal, 17(1), p.2.
Romeike, P.D., Nienaber, A.M. and Schewe, G., 2016. How differences in perceptions of
own and team performance impact trust and job satisfaction in virtual teams. Human
Performance, 29(4), pp.291-309.
Saafein, O. and Shaykhian, G.A., 2014. Factors affecting virtual team performance in
telecommunication support environment. Telematics and Informatics, 31(3), pp.459-
462.
Serrat, O., 2017. Managing virtual teams. In Knowledge Solutions (pp. 619-625). Springer,
Singapore.