Communication Strategy: Memo on Virtual Teams in Marketing (MNG81001)

This assignment is a memo addressed to the Marketing Director of XYZ Company from the Marketing Manager, discussing the implementation of virtual teams within the marketing department. The memo highlights the benefits of virtual teams, such as access to global talent, reduced travel time and costs, and the incorporation of diverse employee characteristics. It also acknowledges the challenges, including time zone differences, language barriers, lack of trust, initial infrastructure investment, and difficulties in decision-making. The memo suggests that the company align its operations with emerging technologies and that the management should consider both the benefits and challenges to maximize the advantages of virtual teams in the marketing department. References to academic sources support the arguments presented in the memo.

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MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION
Name: ___________
Subject: _________
Date: ___________

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MEMO
To: The Marketing Director, XYZ Company
From: Marketing Manager, XYZ Company
Date: 09 December 2018
Regarding: Virtual Marketing Team
The businesses of the twenty-first century are highly driven by information technology
practices. One of the techniques of the communication that is dependent upon the
information technology and its components is the virtual teams. Virtual Teams refers to the
team, the members of which are separately located in the different geographical locations,
and are connected via internet and components like fax, video conferencing calls, emails,
voice calls, intranet, online groups and more (Gilson et. al, 2015).
As the entity is considering the implementation of the virtual teams in the marketing
department to connect the team members located at Melbourne, Los Angeles, Shanghai,
and Bangalore, the memo is drafted with the aim to guide the management for the same. It
is significant to note that the communication serves as a foundation of the various facets of
the business operations. Hence, when the virtual teams are considered the following
benefits are noteworthy, on lines of the effectiveness of the communication.
Among the range of the benefits, the first and the foremost is that the virtual teams enable
the entity to recruit the talented personnel from different locations around the world
(Mukherjee et. al, 2012). This enables the pooling of experts under one organisation. The
same would not have been possible, had organisation would have entered into face-to-face
meetings and business operations. In addition, this extends the range of services and the
business area of the organisation too. Thus, there is a dual benefit of the extension of
human resources having the different skill set, for the entity as well as the expansion of
business area coverage of the organisation.
Another benefit that would be yielded by the virtual team implementation is that it would
lead to a drastic reduction in the travel time of the employees (Wei, Thurasamy and Popa,
2018). Meetings can be conducted in real time and opinions can be sorted as and when
desired, just by few clicks. Accordingly, various nature of expenses such as the
accommodation, travel allowance, lodging allowance is saved. Thus, virtual teams provide

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an economic solution to the entities to conduct meetings and arrive at organisational
decisions. An initial investment in infrastructure can save both time and resources within
the geographically different organisations.
Some of the other benefits that can be reaped by the entity from the adoption of the virtual
teams are making use of the creativity and diverse characteristics of the employees
belonging to different ethnicities (Carter, et. al, 2015). This further creates a framework of
equality for the members of the organisation. In addition, the virtual team incorporates the
objective of discouragement of racial and other kinds of discrimination. This is further
because the performances are based on the skills and not on the bias because of the online
environment.
However, with the above-listed benefits come a number of challenges as well. Firstly, an
entity to enable the collaboration among the geographically dispersed peopled must create
an overlapping time zone window. This is a complex procedure. In addition, there are
language barriers to communication flow (Haines, 2014). Further, to add, the employees do
not trust each other completely because of the lack of physical presence and thus the
interpersonal relationships. It is also important to note that the initial investment is required
in terms of the infrastructure set up and the expertise hiring. This is because the technology
must be managed by the experts to allow the proper communication flow. Lastly, there can
arise difficulties while team members try to resolve the difference of opinions and try to
arrive at a team decision (Wadsworth and Blanchard, 2015). In the above terms, the face to
face communication teams is able to connect more efficiently.
Thus, as per the discussion conducted in the previous parts, it can be stated that an entity
must align its business operations with the upcoming technologies to sustain in long run.
Accordingly, it is suggested to the senior management that virtual team set up in the
marketing department would be fruitful to the entity on the lines of the benefits as
mentioned above. Though a few challenges exist, those are also mentioned. The
management must take into account the challenges and abilities of the organisation, to
yield the maximum possible benefits from the implementation of the virtual teams in the
marketing department of the organisation.

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References
Carter, D. R, Seely, P. W, Dagosta, J, DeChurch, L. A, and Zaccaro, S. J 2015, ‘Leadership for
global virtual teams: Facilitating teamwork processes,’ In Leading global teams, pp. 225-252.
Gilson, L. L, Maynard, M. T, Jones Y, Nicole 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.
Haines, R 2014, ‘Group development in virtual teams: An experimental re-examination,’
Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 39, pp. 213-222.
Mukherjee, D, Lahiri, S, Mukherjee, D and Billing, T. K 2012, ‘Leading virtual teams: How do
social, cognitive, and behavioral capabilities matter?’, Management Decision, Vol. 50, no. 2,
pp. 273-290.
Wadsworth, M. B and Blanchard, A. L 2015, ‘Influence tactics in virtual teams,’ Computers in
Human Behavior, Vol. 44(C), pp. 386-393.
Wei, L, Thurasamy, R, and Popa, S 2018, ‘Managing virtual teams for open innovation in
Global Business Services industry,’ Management Decision, Vol. 56, no. 6, pp. 1285-1305.