Report: Virtual Team Establishment Strategy for XYZ Company

This report addresses the Marketing Director of XYZ Company, advocating for the establishment of a virtual team to leverage advancements in information and communication technologies. It contrasts virtual teams with traditional teams, highlighting the flexibility, global talent access, and cost savings offered by virtual teams. The report emphasizes the importance of knowledge sharing, communication, and collaboration within virtual teams, and addresses challenges such as trust and management. It cites studies showing that well-managed virtual teams can outperform traditional teams, increasing employee productivity. The report concludes by recommending organizational strategies to support virtual teams, including training and awareness of potential miscommunication, acknowledging technology dependence but emphasizing the benefits of flexibility and performance. Students can find this document and other solved assignments on Desklib.

MEMORANDUM
To: Marketing Director of XYZ Company)
From: Student’s Name
Date:
Subject: Establishment of a virtual team.
Virtual teams are the solution in the era of swift advancement and dissemination of information
and communication technologies, it provides a virtual opportunity for teamwork in different
time, place and organization area and is an important part of the company structure. To establish
the requirement for creation of the virtual team following points have been discussed comparing
it to traditional teams.
Virtual team satisfy the future need and dynamic demands which cause difficulties when
managed through team that are present in the company. The change in demands requires new
skills which is difficult to acquire immediate with the traditional hiring process. Instead virtual
teams provide quick and easy acquisition of the talent required for the job. Comparing with the
traditional team is found that flexibility is an issue and team are forced to work in an
environment in which they cannot adjust to. With this organizations are able to recruit
worldwide, have flexibility in the organization, use less resource, invest in quality of product and
services, increase productive by working outside normal working hours; access to the global
environment; achieve cost savings for tangible resources and travel and have better support for
disabled workers (Ford, Piccolo & Ford, 2017, p. 26).
Virtual team is the response to sudden changes in the market. Due to increased travel costs,
international customer base and talent decentralization, many organizations are moving to
teleworking and virtual work. Virtual teams depend on the knowledge sharing, communication
and collaboration of members in the team. The newer generation are well versed with this
technology because of their up bring with the technology and are comfortable to work with it for
communication (Coleman 2016, p. 8). Virtual teams empower individuals to collaborate, team up
and look to share knowledge, data and work. Virtual teams rely upon the accessibility of proper
correspondence advances to interface and bolster clients in an approach to create trust.

Experienced workers can share their expert experience, and more energetic representatives can
share their abilities by presenting innovation in regular associations.
Virtual teams are able to overcome challenges as they meet with fresh minds that is motivated to
solve problems more ideas are exchanged and information are shared which results in effective
task coordination and results as shown by Alsharo, Gregg and Ramirez (2017, p. 481). With the
traditional teams resolving an issue takes long time and it may affect other employees also
Traditional team require time scheduling and rearranging the roster along with informing
everyone which is hectic work and cause delays. Members having issue with their team can be
easily swapped or fixed in virtual team to form a new team. Virtual team have the support of
information system where scheduling and activities are organized where changes can be edited.
Trust is the most essential factor, which enhances the execution of virtual groups. Trust is the
bond that keeps the virtual group together to focus on the main goal. Trust is a key factor in
making and keeping up social connections and is critical to collaboration relations and
cooperating successfully (Ford, Piccolo and Ford, 2017, p. 29,33). Traditional team have the
benefit of trust, reliability and good relation within a team because face to face interactions are
reliable in trust building and prove to have more effectiveness than virtual teams.
Communication is one of the concerns for virtual team. Management and leadership of the team
are quite a challenge. However, the case, now with the video calling capacity groups can have up
close and personal communication empower long distance face to face communication.
Creating dynamic team make the trust and relationship unstable within the team and it difficult
for the member in the traditional teams to work in new environments. Here the traditional team
fall short of providing the requirement of the future demands limiting the capabilities of the
company. The employees in the virtual teams are quick to adapt to the changing demands and are
accustomed to work in the dynamic environment where formation and dispersion of the teams
are relatively much easier. Through studies it has been found that a well-managed and widely
spread virtual team outperforms the face to face shared space team and increases the employee
productivity equal to 43% with their better capabilities to share knowledge and collaborate
(Alsharo, Gregg & Ramirez 2017, p. 481).

Organisational strategies require to be tuned for virtual team further enhances the capabilities of
the virtual teams and working collaboratively under effective management to achieve a common
goal. The team is required to provide training and knowledge of harms of miscommunication and
misconduct. Virtual team is hugely technology dependent but the benefit of flexibility and
greater performance to sustain the high dynamic demands is the required solution. Those who are
convinced with why creation of the virtual team is important for the company can provide their
support in this persuasion to the marketing director.

Reference
Alsharo, M., Gregg, D. and Ramirez, R., 2017. Virtual team effectiveness: The role of
knowledge sharing and trust. Information & Management, 54(4), pp.479-490.
Coleman, B., 2016. The Many Faces of a Virtual Team: A Review of Research Done on
Individual Member Input to Virtual Teams.
<https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/78918875.pdf>
Ford, R.C., Piccolo, R.F. and Ford, L.R., 2017. Strategies for building effective virtual teams:
Trust is key. Business Horizons, 60(1), pp.25-34.