Case Study: Planning, Organizing, Leading Virtual Teams at DEF

This case study examines DEF, a financial advisory firm expanding its business through a virtual team structure. It details the planning phase, including goal setting and environmental scanning using PESTEL analysis. The report explores the organizational structure of the virtual team, emphasizing the importance of trust and online availability. Leadership styles, particularly transformational leadership, are discussed in the context of motivating and guiding the virtual team. The case study also touches on controlling mechanisms to ensure team effectiveness and alignment with organizational goals. Desklib offers a wealth of resources including past papers and solved assignments to aid students in understanding such management concepts.

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Executive Summary
The report throws light on the significance of virtual time in managing organization. The given
company DEF is expanding its business to maximize profit. DEF deals in providing financial
advices to its customers. Among self- managed, overseas team and virtual team, the team
structure selected by the company is virtual team structure. The report further elaborates the
organizational structure and design of the virtual team. In addition to this, the planning,
controlling and leadership style for the chosen virtual team structure is also identified.

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Table of Contents
1. Overview......................................................................................................................................3
2. Planning.......................................................................................................................................3
2.1 Financial Planning Advice Division goals............................................................................4
2.2 Environmental scan...............................................................................................................4
2.3 Operations/ team management..............................................................................................6
3. Organizing...................................................................................................................................7
3.1 Virtual team structure............................................................................................................8
4. Leading........................................................................................................................................8
4.1 Leadership style.....................................................................................................................9
4.2 Reward, recognition and motivation....................................................................................10
4.3 Communication....................................................................................................................11
5. Controlling.................................................................................................................................12
6. References..................................................................................................................................13

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1. Overview
DEF is one of the largest specialist organization offering financial advices to the people
in Australia. Three financial advisors established the company in the year 1994. In the recent
times, the company employs more than 300 staffs and has linked with partner firms in all over
the country. The company also practices retirement seminars and financial planning besides
providing specialist advice. The financial advice is facilitated in various fields, which includes
superannuation, retirement, aged care, divorce and corporate activities. The organization focuses
on growth and quality as it has a very strong industrial reputation.
The organization is recently expanding its business and aims to offer innovative services
to its clients. With the help of financial advice phone line, the company plans to operate in
business activities. The advice line team can be a virtual team, an overseas based global team or
an Australian based self- management team. The report will discuss the best chosen option from
the three, which is a virtual team. Therefore, planning, controlling, structure, organizing and
leading of the virtual team will be discussed.
Vision:
Empowering and enriching the life of the clients to make crucial decisions related to
financial advice from their specialist and team of dedicated expert.
2. Planning
Planning is very important in outlining the course of the business beforehand. The
procedure o the business usually begins while reviewing and identifying the needs that are

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required in the upcoming year (Krumm et al. 2016). Through planning the steps can be
determined that is required to obtain the desired goal.
2.1 Financial Planning Advice Division goals
Increase in the level of competition and expectations, high performing virtual teams are
increasing in the current times. A virtual team will be comprising of total 30 employees and
would be working from Monday to Sunday from 7 am to 10 pm. Virtual team practices is
increasing at a rapid pace due to various reasons. This includes shared resources, high number of
cross-organizational projects, outsourcing and partnering. Due to the advent of latest technology,
the people can now easily telecommute and have flexible hours.
The main objective of any team is high performance. It could be easily possible through
continuous performance improvement. There should be common understanding between the
people and honor individual cultures. This would lead in creating an effective team culture while
working across the organizational boundaries. Team members should be able to work
independently and communicate in a smooth manner. DEF will ensure that all the employees are
given proper training to make the efficient in the following ways:
 Planning and managing tasks
 Understanding technology infrastructure
 Collaborating effectively in the work group (Hoch and Kozlowski 2014)
 Conducting virtual meetings
 Managing the entire client’s phone call in a highly efficient manner.

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2.2 Environmental scan
There are various macro-environmental factors that affect financial service industry. Tax
changes, trade barriers, government policy changes and the demographic changes are few of the
examples related to macro changes. With the help of PESTEL analysis, all the factors affecting
the industry can be analyzed.
Political factor: Australia is a high developed economy, and the country’s political and
economic condition is fully stable. This provides the investors a much higher degree of
confidence and certainty. The effectiveness and transparency of the government is rated highly.
The financial services provided are attributed to an effective system of balances and check
(Ellwart et al. 2015). The country has an effective law enforcement system. Stable political
environment leads to multi- lingual employees. The factors lead to sophisticated business market
and perfect environment through technology and innovation`
Economic factor: in Australia the current exchange rates are highly favorable and
adequate to make any financial decisions. The economic growth of the country is higher than
most of the other developed country. Generally there is a very low degree of risks that affects
the economic condition of the country. The financial service industry enjoys maximum
advantage due to the stable interest rates, strong GDP growth, rising exchange rate and a very
low level of inflation.
Social factor: the changes in various social factors can be due to the increase in demand
for the organizational services. Consumer demographics and attitudes of the people towards
financial services have changed a lot in the recent times. The financial service industry in the 21st

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industry has taken an entirely new dimension for customer satisfaction and orientation (Charlier
et al. 2015).
Technological factors: technology is virtually everywhere in allover Australia. Majority
of the business operations are carried with the help of effective technology. Technology had led
to increase the convenience related to banking. The financial service industry’s security and
privacy issues have grown rapidly due to the rise in technology. It has led to improving the
quality of life of people by reducing cost and innovative strategy.
Environmental factors: in Australia, sustainable growth is considered to be an important
element for carrying business. The financial service industry is vulnerable to catastrophes. The
industry also faces unfavorable loss development. The industry also has to publish their annual
environmental reports that help in creating a positive image of the organization and reducing
several operational costs.
Legal factors: these factors are concerned with the legal environment in which the
organization operates. Legal changes within an organization are affected by the firm’s cost.
Before accepting or signing the contract, it is important to seek professional legal advice from all
the specialized authority (Buchanan 2015). The financial service industry has to face
considerable impact due to changes in state or federal laws. It also leads to delay in the takeover
attempt of the organization.
2.3 Operations/ team management
Virtual team is the rising new trend that is followed across all the business sectors. The
major benefit of using virtual team is that huge expenditure related to real estate, utilities bill and
office expense is reduced to a great extent. This further leads to the reduction in the production

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as well as operational costs. Virtual team leads to increase in the productivity of the organization
as it supports more effective organizational structure (Algahtani 2014). The team does not have
to further deal with bureaucracy, which can slowdown the decision making process of DEF.
Moreover, virtual team creates new opportunities for all such individuals, who are
hesitant to relocate, and less mobile due to being physically challenged or family requirements.
On the other hand, the major disadvantages of virtual team are conflict, lack of collaboration and
lack of trust. Most of the communication that takes place within the organization are mostly task
related this can lead the individuals to be socially isolated.
Self-managed teams can provide their employees more job satisfaction in the daily
operational activities of the business. The direct involvement of the employees can help in
identifying the objectives more closely (Han et al. 2015). The employees get immense
satisfaction by developing new problem-solving and decision-making skills. Self-managed teams
have lower turnover rates and absenteeism and also improve the organizational productivity. Self
–managed teams also have certain drawbacks like recklessness, inefficiency of the employees,
demand for equal treatment and extended time.
While an overseas team management can provide chances to exploit and identify all the
required opportunities that are present overseas. It provides flexibility to control or expand the
operations when required. It furthermore provides opportunity to extend the intellectual property
rights as well as registration in other markets. The major drawbacks related to the overseas –
based team management are that the costs are generally high to expand business overseas. The
risk is high and also involves various financial and legal implications in establishing the business
overseas.

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3. Organizing
A virtual team exists with the help of telephonic and electronic communication. The
virtual teams needs to be properly organized and should develop trust among each other to make
the arrangements productive in nature. The virtual employees and the managers should be
available online when the required time is available. While developing trust in one another and
exercising discipline will make the team more effective.
3.1 Virtual team structure
In the world of internet and mobile technologies, it is generally easier to manage the
dispersed members present within the virtual team. The team members collaborate online and
participate in video conferencing by discussing the real matter to realize the common objective
(Al-Haddad and Kotnour 2015). The virtual teams are easily manageable. The teams are built
around with highly formalized regulations and rules. The major decisions are made by the
centralized level or the higher authority or the main directors at DEF. The new team division is
mechanistic in nature. The decisions that are made are followed by a specific chain of tasks and
commands that highly specialized in nature. All the employees within the organization should
know to whom they should report. It is highly important that the employees interact smoothly
with each other. Their main goal is to provide financial services to their customers.
4. Leading
Leading is another major element of the organization and it is one of the core functions of
the management. Leading the employees helps in motivating and influencing the employees to
achieve the desired goal for the organization. The leading functions of a virtual team would help
in motivating the employees to go forward to attain the goals and objectives of the organization

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(Buchanan 2015). Leading improves the confidence level of the employees that further helps in
developing their morality. This furthermore reduces any types of chaos or conflict of interest
present within an organization.
4.1 Leadership style
The virtual team is characterized by team that operate it business activities far away from
the organization (Algahtani 2014). The communication technology tool is used an interface to
interact with the main company. The virtual team offers a unique challenge while managing the
business activities. Therefore, it is important for the leader of the virtual team to adopt a
combination of three major leadership styles (Iorio and Taylor 2015). The major leadership style
includes transformational, transactional and situational leadership style.
The best leadership style that is best suited for the virtual team to achieve the goal of the
management is Transformational leadership. As per the transformational leadership approach,
the different mechanics to inspire and motivate the employees can be used through this
transformational approach (Puni, Ofei and Okoe 2014). It requires proper support, care and
intellectual support. The virtual team leader is expected to perform the following activities:
Creating team identity in the formative stages: this involves using tools like video
conferencing and orientation mail. This further helps in creating shared virtual team values and
culture as per DEF organizational culture.
To build trust: trust is the major element required for a successful virtual team. It is
important for the leader to foster trust among the employees as it would help the members to
prepare for the deal beforehand (Pangil and Moi Chan 2014).

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Encourage collaboration and cohesion: the leader should offer a share platform to the
employees so that they can easily discuss the learning’s, suggestions and opinions freely. This
would help the employees to reflect their opinion.
It is the duty of the team leader to provide opportunities to the team members. The
members should connect with each other at a personnel level through team meetings. This would
aid in building relationships, which make the employees engaged and committed to the purpose
or goal of the team (Maynard and Gilson 2014).
4.2 Reward, recognition and motivation
In the case of traditional team structure, DEF used to organize business parties and
ceremonies to reward and motivate their employees. The common approach to celebrate the
team success would involve cash and non-cash payments in the form of public appreciation,
certificates or customized merchandise (Ellwart et al. 2015). The performances of the employees
were appraised both as an individual and at team level.
When the teams are distributed in a global manner, it becomes a challenge for the
employees to recognize and reward their performance in an encouraging manner (Sivunen 2016).
In the case of virtual team structure, such kind of rewards and appraisals are more important. The
feeling of isolation is experienced more by the virtual team members as compared to the co-
located teams. In the followings ways the performance of the team member would be encouraged
to keep their morale high.
 All the team members should take out adequate time to appreciate the performance of
each other. This should enhance the team bonding by highlighting all the particular
actions that contributes to the success of the team.

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 It is relevant to use opportunities like the client calls, open house and group meetings so
that attention can be drawn of the employees for better performances (Lockwood 2015).
 Using e-newsletter, e-certificates and e-announcement to cite the efforts of the employees
that contribute towards the success of the team.
Virtual ceremonies are highly innovative in nature but are a less utilized method to celebrate
the success of the overall team. Moreover, a personalized congratulatory note by the upper
management also gives immense pride to their employees (Schulze and Krumm 2017).
4.3 Communication
Effective communication is an essential quality of a high performing team or
management. Without regular and clear communication the performance of the team as well as
team cohesion suffers top a great extent. In a virtual team structure, the communication is done
through non-verbally in the form of technology (DellaNeve, Gladys and Wilson 2015). Trust is
an essential feature of an effective and smooth communication between the team members. It is
important to set clear expectations for the team members. This would help in creating a shared
sense to communicate in a positive manner to achieve the desired goals.
A common language should be created in the virtual team. This facilitates in setting
expectations for the team. Moreover reduces any potential for uncertainty and also negative
interpretation of the team member’s communication (Gilson et al. 2015). The communication
channels by the virtual team should be chosen appropriately. In addition to this, both task –
oriented and so0cial-oriented communication should be encouraged within the organization.
Efficient selection of communication channel would help in improving team cohesion and
productivity.