MNG81001 Management Communication: Virtual Teams Implementation

This report examines the implementation of virtual marketing teams within an organization, focusing on enhancing communication between geographically dispersed branches. It explores the advantages of virtual teams, such as reduced costs, access to a wider talent pool, and increased productivity. It also addresses potential issues like time zone differences, poor employee relations, and communication challenges. The report concludes that while virtual teams offer significant benefits, careful consideration of these challenges and proactive management are crucial for successful implementation. The report uses academic references to back up its claims.

Management Communication

1 | P a g e
MEMO
To- The managing director
From- Communication Management Team
Regarding- Virtual Marketing Teams in an organisation
Date- 04 December 2018
This memo will depict the custom of virtual team in an organisation so that communication
between the members can be done effectively. There are several factors that need to be
considered while introducing the concept virtual team in an organisation. This assignment is
regarding implementation of virtual teams so that different branches get connected. With the
advanced technology the way of communication in an organisation has changed, this is due to
globalization and availability of techniques in information technology. Virtual team enhances
the way communication takes place between different branches in an organisation. The
practise of virtual team implemented in an organisation assures that effective
communications take place. Virtual team supports the communication between groups from
different geographical locations (Hoch and Kozlowski, 2014). From this understanding a new
virtual marketing department can be introduced in Sydney (Purvanova, 2017). The team
members are distributed at different geographical areas like New York, Beijing, Mumbai and
Sydney (Lockwood, 2015).
Advantages of using virtual team
There are several advantages of using virtual teams like it lowers the office cost and there is a
greater availability of talent that can work together to achieve the objective. It also lowers the
employee cost by increasing the productivity. It also allows accessing multiple markets with
investing the cost of opening new office. Additionally, it is found that hiring flexible remote

2 | P a g e
teams’ support in scaling up or scaling down the team so that business runs at a fixed location
(Hoch and Kozlowski, 2014). It reduces the travelling cost and accommodation cost for
conducting physical meetings. It allows having a real time conversation at anytime from
anywhere (Purvanova, 2017). It is said to be beneficial in many aspects from hiring the talent
to saving the overall cost of the office. It also widens the scope of business by allowing the
employees to connect from different time zones. It will automatically increase the number of
clients which in turn will increase the profit margins (Hoch and Kozlowski, 2014). This will
prove as a long term success factor of an organisation.
Issues that gets resolved due to virtual teams
Virtual teams helps in resolving many issues that are commonly seen at a workplace like
discrimination, conflicts between heterogeneous backgrounds, cultural conflicts and many
others. Once the virtual team is implemented at the initial time it is possible that it is not
accepted by the team but will definitely bring positive results with time (Hoch and
Kozlowski, 2014). After certain time, virtual team will offer enhanced internal
communication between the employees, high skills development and the creation of stronger
foundations among the organisational groups (Gilson, Maynard, Jones Young, Vartiainen
and Hakonen, 2015).
Disadvantages of implementing virtual team
There are various challenges that are associated with virtual team. As in this case it is decided
that the team will be dispersed at four different geographical areas that is Sydney, New York,
Mumbai and Beijing. These locations have different time zones thus there will be issue at
time of overlapping of time (Pangil and Moi Chan, 2014). It becomes difficult in
coordinating the time so that meetings could be conducted. The other issue that is faced while
working with virtual teams is poor employee to employee relation as there is lack of face to

3 | P a g e
face interaction. This builds lower level of trust that act as a hindrance in the productivity of
team. It also increases the chances of misunderstanding and misinterpretations as the
communication is not face to face. Virtual teams allow building a professional relation with
the team members but it causes lack of informal meetings (Gilson, Maynard, Jones Young,
Vartiainen and Hakonen, 2015). In many cases the mode of communication is also an issue as
different location have different communication style that can cause misunderstanding. Thus,
it is the duty of senior supervisors to look at these matters and take action. Some of the
consideration that should be taken is related to budget, technology and psychological
resistance from employees (Ferrazzi, 2014). Virtual team set up is that it allows the scope for
hiring the best minds across the globe on the lines of the skills, capacities, knowledge to solve
the complicated issues. Thus, strategies need to be intended by the organisation to resolve the
concerns and maximize the benefit from the planned endeavour.
Thus, it can be concluded from all the above discussion that virtual team could be set up in
Sydney that will offer huge benefits to the organisation. There are various issues that may rise
but can be resolved if concerns are undertaken by the leaders and actions should are taken to
resolve it. Several other issues that are associated to virtual team are time related issue,
language difference, diverse cultural background and absence of interpersonal relationship
between the team members (Ferrazzi, 2014).

4 | P a g e
References
Ferrazzi, K. 2014 Getting Virtual Teams Right. [online] Available from:
https://hbr.org/2014/12/getting-virtual-teams-right [Accessed on 10/08/18].
Gilson, L.L., Maynard, M.T., Jones Young, N.C., Vartiainen, M. and Hakonen, M., 2015.
Virtual teams research: 10 years, 10 themes, and 10 opportunities. Journal of
Management, vol. 41,, no.5, pp.1313-1337.
Hoch, J. E. and Kozlowski, S. W. 2014 Leading virtual teams: Hierarchical leadership,
structural supports, and shared team leadership. Journal of applied psychology, vol.99, no.3,
pp. 390.
Lockwood, J., 2015. Virtual team management: what is causing communication
breakdown?. Language and Intercultural Communication, 15(1), pp.125-140.
Pangil, F. and Moi Chan, J., 2014. The mediating effect of knowledge sharing on the
relationship between trust and virtual team effectiveness. Journal of Knowledge
Management, vol. 18, no. 1, pp.92-106.
Purvanova, R.K., 2017. The Role of Time in Virtual Teams: Development and a Meta-
Analytic Test of a Temporal Model. In Academy of Management Proceedings vol. 2017, no.
1, pp. 17757. Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.