Virtual Management Strategy for Souq.com's US Market Entry

This report examines the implementation of virtual management for Souq.com, an e-commerce platform owned by Amazon, to facilitate its expansion into the US market. As a global marketing manager, the report outlines strategies for managing a virtual team, addressing cultural, political, and economic differences. It details the steps involved in establishing a virtual team, including analyzing current operations, communicating a clear vision, and strategic planning. The report explores the use of various tools like Google applications, Highrise, Yammer, GoToMeeting, and Basecamp to enhance communication and collaboration. It discusses the advantages of virtual management, such as cost savings and increased flexibility, while also addressing potential disadvantages like lack of physical interaction and technical issues. The report provides solutions for managing meetings across different time zones and languages, handling outsourced projects, resolving employee conflicts, and improving overall team performance through technology, training, and clear communication. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of goal-oriented management and effective communication for the success of virtual teams in the competitive US market.

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Abstract
The aim of this report is to understand the implementation of virtual management in the
business and how it will support the business by managing the other team in US in terms
cultural, political and economic background. The advantage of using virtual management is
discussed along with the tools that are used.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Main Discussion.........................................................................................................................2
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
Souq is an e-commerce platform that is owned by Amazon. It is one of the largest e-
commerce platforms in arab world. In this report, I have considered myself as a global
manager of marketing department. The business of souq is localized in Saudi Arabia, united
arab and Egypt. It was suggested that business need to widespread in other countries rather
than just in gulf region. This report covers the strategies through which Souq could be entered
in US online market(Parke, Campbell & Bartol, 2014). The different situations are discussed
in this report and they are answered thinking in the direction of global manager. Souq is used
by Amazon to offer its e-commerce acquisition. It is an amazon company that connects the
Middle East online marketplace.
Main Discussion
Virtual management is a business management technique that is used to communicate and
control the work virtually. The virtual team can be implemented by the company by
undertaking few steps (Parke, Campbell & Bartol, 2014). The first step that is adopted by
souq is analyzing and absorbing the remote operations and current situation. The structure of
the organization is considered and how it can grow in other countries is decided. All the data
and insights are gathered of the company so that the virtual management and team could be
built accordingly (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). Then a vision is communicated among all the
team members so that work is carried out in a single direction. Then it is planned in a critical
manner so that performance of business is analyzed so that goals could be met. The planning
is done in strategic way but be sure it’s time-bound (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017).
The team is in US that are culturally, politically and economically different from the country.
The cultural differences can be resolved by organizing training so that cultural differences are
understood. The meetings and training programs are organized virtually so that
communication can be improved (Khan & Khan, 2018).
The virtual team work by establishing regular meetings so that a clear and detail deliverables
are organized. The virtual teams can be managed by scheduling face to face meetings so trust
and bond could be established. It is a way to have a clear and effective communication.
Virtual team can be built by having a right leadership so that certain skills could be attracted.
The leadership ensures that good virtual teams are built and also reduces uncertainty (Khan &

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Khan, 2018). The politically issues can also be resolved by offering the same benefits to all
the employees. The economic conflicts could be resolved by removing the disputes among
employees. The virtual teams are built in a way so that emotional response could be evaluated
and action plans are designed in a way so that disputes could be resolved. Being a manager, I
will implement regular feedback meetings so that the purpose of issue could be resolved
(Barnwell, Nedrick, Rudolph, Sesay & Wellen, 2014).
Some of the effective tools that are used for managing virtual teams are listed below. These
tools are used to improve the online efficiency of business and makes easy to work with
virtual team (Katane & Dube, 2017). The business might make use of Google applications to
communicate effectively with team members in different country. Highrise is one such tool
that is use to control the management of an organization. Yammer is a tool that is used to
build social connections. GoToMeeting is one such tool that is used to offer training and
tutorials and also supports in organizing the meeting over the network. DropBox is one such
tool that is used by employees to access the files from other location. This allows users to
access the files from any location (Chumg, Seaton, Cooke & Ding, 2016). The other great
collaboration tool for virtual management is Basecamp, it is an online project management
tool that allows you to create projects, share information and collaborate with the team
members. These tools support in collaborating the activities and make sure that teas work
together by removing the conflicts and barriers (Chumg, Seaton, Cooke & Ding, 2016).
Virtual management in an organization offer huge benefits and advantages. Some of the
advantages of using virtual management are discussed. It saves the overall time and travel
expenses and also eliminates the lack of experts. It also allow people to take part in dynamic
projects and get engaged in multiple and concurrent teams. Virtual teams offer platform to
firm so that they can expand their markets by enabling them to retain talented employees
regardless of physical locations (Gilson, Maynard, Jones, Vartiainen & Hakonen, 2015). It
lowers the overall office cost and increases the chances of employee retention. It also reduces
the travel time and offers a great environment to employees so that they can communicate
easily. It also helps in increasing productivity by eliminating the office distractions during the
working hours. Virtual tools allow the employees to remain aware and available during the
whole day and offer flexibility to access the documents from anywhere irrespective of the
location (Dekker, Rutte & Berg, 2015). Additionally, hiring flexible remote team’s worth to

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scale up or scale down your team members easily as compared to the business that runs at a
fixed location.
Apart from that there are some disadvantages that are faced by the organization due to virtual
management. It causes lack of physical interaction between the employees and staff. It causes
social isolation between the team members and the chances of cultural conflicts increases.
These challenges arise due to lack of verbal as well as non-verbal communication. The cost
of technology used to maintain virtual teams is high as the tools used require high
maintenance. The other pitfalls that are faced by the organization due to virtual management
are lack of cohesiveness (Peñarroja, Orengo, Zornoza, Sánchez & Ripoll, 2015). For
example, if there is any serious failure in the IT system that can cause huge loss of an
organization. It also causes lack of camaraderie as opportunity cannot be expanded as
employees go not gather and communicate. It sometime causes risk to the reputation and can
cause security and compliance issue (Budaraju, Schmidt & Hossain, 2018).
The company faces various problems while managing meetings between the teams in US and
gulf as there is a difference in term of time, place and language. Thus, being a manager I will
select a suitable timing that will be conformable for both the countries (Ford Piccolo & Ford,
2017). A fixed time can be set so that regular meetings and conversation can be conveyed.
Additionally, to resolve the language conflicts an intermediate could be appointed. They
transfer the thoughts so that online meeting and conversation can take place. The virtual
teams will be managed by identifying the stakeholders and building relations of trust and
reward experience. The technology can be embraced so that workload could be managed and
communication can take place instantaneously. The time zones can be managed by
scheduling face to face meetings and understanding the time difference. In the office
environment, CEOs and managers work on team member’s incremental progress by the
means of emails but virtual team works differently. They chose qualified, skilled team
members so that trust of doing the job increases (Schouten, van den Hooff & Feldberg,
2016).
As a manager of company the outsourced projects would be managed in an effective way.
The project planning is done before outsourcing the project so that team members are aware
about the next steps that would be taken. Once the planning is done, all the important
documentation will be shared among the employees so that they can work in an efficient

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manner. Then the planning will be outsourced to other companies so that services could be
improved (Lockwood, 2015). A communication strategy would be built in a strong manner so
that frequency of communication could be enhanced.
Some of the ways through which conflicts between employees could be resolved is by
listening to their problems, understanding them and then finding out a solution so that their
disputes could be resolved. The disagreement s clarified so that conflicts could be resolved by
building an agreement so that both the parties get satisfied. The barriers to common goal are
resolved by bringing up a best resolution (Pozin, Nawi & Romle, 2016). The conflicts are
resolved by asking the problem from both the ends and then finding out the best solution. It is
suggested that while resolving the conflicts the decisions should be impartial and employees
should be motivated so that their performance is improved (Syerov, Trach & Fedushko,
2016).
Being a manager I will take various actions so that overall team performance could be
improved. This can be done by bringing up new technologies so that innovation is improved
at the workplace. The productivity will be enhanced by organizing training programs so that
cultural conflicts could be resolved. It is also suggested that team should get involved in
managing the resources (Edwards & Wilson, 2017). A clear benchmark report is suggested of
all the employees and decisions are taken in a way so that performance could be improved.
The work should be organized and prioritized in a way so that productivity increases. I will
make sure that there is a clear way a communication for the employees so that they can share
their ideas (Davydova & Dorozhkin, 2016).

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Conclusion
It can be concluded that souq is an e-commerce platform that is used by management. It is
observed that nowadays multi-national organization have employees and teams in various
countries. Thus, to make sure that these companies work in an effective manner virtual
management team is used. It is a technique that is used by businesses so that they can
communicate and work effectively. In this report, I have analyzed the actions that need to be
taken so that conflicts could be resolved. The main characteristic that is adopted by managers
for managing the virtual team is being goal oriented and teams’ members should have a
platform so that they can communicate nationally as well as internationally. The virtual
management can be improved by choosing video calls over emails or chats. They also ensure
that working hours gets adjusted according to the time zones so that team members work
together. The purpose of this team is to make groups of individuals who can connect from
different geographic locations by just relying on communication technology such as email,
FAX, and video or voice conferencing services in order to collaborate.

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References
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Budaraju, P., Schmidt, K., & Hossain, S. (2018, October). Management of Virtual Teams in
Multi-National learning environments and corporations. In E-Learn: World Conference on E-
Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education (pp. 39-46).
Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).
Chumg, H. F., Seaton, J., Cooke, L., & Ding, W. Y. (2016). Factors affecting employees'
knowledge-sharing behaviour in the virtual organisation from the perspectives of well-being
and organisational behaviour. Computers in Human Behavior, 64, 432-448.
Davydova, N. N., & Dorozhkin, E. M. (2016). Management of a Network Interaction of
Educational Organisations Oriented to Innovation Development. Indian journal of science
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