Evaluation Report: Prospects of Virtual Teams for Global Company XYZ

This report, prepared for the Marketing Director of Company XYZ, evaluates the potential of forming a virtual team with members in Bangalore, Los Angeles, Shanghai, and Melbourne. The report analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of virtual teams, citing research on their effectiveness and challenges. It argues in favor of virtual teams, emphasizing cost-effectiveness, access to global talent, 24/7 availability, and employee retention. The report highlights the importance of effective communication technologies, shared leadership, and appropriate training to overcome potential issues. It concludes that with proper management and technological support, virtual teams can significantly enhance Company XYZ's global performance and profitability. The report provides insights into how to address issues like counterproductive messaging and the need for globally managed software to ensure success.

Running head: MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION
MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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To: The Marketing Director, Company XYZ
From: The planning team
Date: 30/11/2018
Re: Evaluation of the prospects of a virtual team
1. Introduction
1.1 Purpose
The purpose of this short report is to evaluate the prospect of Virtual teams and provide
arguments either in favour or against the creation of a virtual team. This is to bring to your notice
that this report is analysing the prospects of success for the organization if a virtual team is
formed with members from Bangalore, Los Angeles, Shanghai and Melbourne.
1.2 Thesis statement
The great communicational development that has been witnessed over the years can help in the
creation of an effective virtual team and enhance the global performance of the company.
2. Argument
Businesses across the world are becoming global and the concept of virtual teams have been
present for quite some time. Virtual teams are teams made up of various people from different
parts of the world. This way people can interact more effectively and a lot of issues that might
arise when managing a normal team is reduced effectively. Virtual teams have been known to
have failed in the past. In fact in previous studies it has been indicated that virtual teams have
often fell short of achieving their targets and many teams have considered themselves to be
highly unsuccessful. However, there remain significant contradictions in relation to the kind of

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virtuality that the organizations of the respondents provided to the virtual teams. Hence, there
can also be a debate in regards to how virtual the activities of the teams have been.
Hoch and Kozlowski (2014) argue that the performances of the unsuccessful virtual
teams can be attributed to the implementation of the same organizational hierarchies that are
implemented in normal organizational environments. Hence, it can be said that most of the
previous cases of failing virtual teams have been due to gross mismanagement of the teams on
the part of the organizational leadership. Virtual teams can be cost effective and feasible ways to
manage global workforces for multinational organizations. It has been found in some significant
researches that if leaders of virtual teams are provided with appropriate training, orientation and
support, they can effectively manage teams that can provide greater productivity to the
organization. Thus, in many ways virtual teams need to be effectively handled in order to reap
the benefits of a cost effective, global and flexible team network. Moreover, if shared leadership
or division of leadership roles among the team members is implemented, it can be more effective
towards bringing out better team performances (Hoegl and Muethel 2016).
More emphasis should be provided for the usage of appropriate and effective
communicational technologies that can increase communicational requirements.
Counterproductive message can affect the effectiveness of virtual teams. Hence, rules can be
implemented where the team members can only provide limited amount of messages. For
example- team members being able to provide only one key idea in an email when discussing
about a project issue (Wadsworth and Blanchard 2015). Virtual teams can be given better
technologies that can help in effective communication without disruptions. Specially developed
globally managed software can be used for this purpose.

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There are several advantages of virtual teams that cannot be ignored. This is especially in
view of Company XYZ’s global presence and future prospects.
1. Virtual teams are cost effective as people can be recruited across the world without having to
use the same pay roll of the parent country.
2. Globally acquired talent can help the company to get high level global expertise. In the parent
country there might be lesser availability of some form of skills that can be acquired from the
other locations (Gilson et al. 2015).
3. Higher profits can be realized by the company as the members of the virtual teams generally
have higher commitment toward their work. Without having to deal with some of the negative
hierarchical management issues of the company the employees can be able to provide more focus
towards their work.
4. Various time zones will be used in the virtual team. Bangalore, Los Angeles, Shanghai and
Melbourne all have different times. This will mean that the company will be available in the
market 24X7, meaning that the company will have greater productivity
5. The virtual team will be effective towards retaining employees. Many employees leave job
due to factors ranging from distance to relocation problems. As members can work flexibly
across the globe, employee retention will be easier.
Hence, it can be said that despite the issues that are identified, virtual teams could
generate greater profitability for the company.

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3. Conclusion
It can be said that if Company XYZ uses virtual teams, it needs to take care of the
technological aspects that can make the teams work more effectively. Moreover, consideration of
the various hierarchical changes and implementation of shared leadership could ensure long term
success of the virtual team.

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References
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, 41(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, 99(3), p.390.
Hoegl, M. and Muethel, M., 2016. Enabling shared leadership in virtual project teams: A
practitioners’ guide. Project Management Journal, 47(1), pp.7-12.
Wadsworth, M.B. and Blanchard, A.L., 2015. Influence tactics in virtual teams. Computers in
Human Behavior, 44, pp.386-393.