DELL
Globalization leads to restructuring of traditional organizations towards hierarchical arrangements and horizontal differentiation. Innovation based organization is organic in nature whereas repetitive production process of such organization is still mechanistic in nature for efficiency. Management functioning has been formalized to synchronize the error and formulate a set of guidelines decision making assigned to groups and teams. Globally dispersed team members have led to formulation of virtual teams that facilitate the organization to involve the expertise of capable people irrespective of geographical constraints (Bratton Gold, 2001). Virtual team members perform the tasks from their respective locations by using digital technologies. They communicate with other team member over phone or internet for task management. Virtual team collaboration leads to utilization of advanced technologies for communication and performing of tasks. Therefore, direct communication is not necessary to be present for virtual team member, they may have direct conference meetings depending on tasks requirement for discussion (Bratton Gold, 2001).
Many multinational organizations offering customized products to customers in diverse markets form virtual teams to manage administrative duties. Organizational management decisions for virtual team formation require the evaluation of environment, market needs, resources availability and market penetration. Virtual teams comprise of employees with extra-ordinary skills and capabilities which gives flexibility to arrange tasks among virtual teams for managerial activities irrespective of geographical boundaries. Employees may exist in different locations and rely on technological advancements responsive decisions require virtual team as part of globally distributed activities (Kimball, 1997). This flexibility gives competitive edge to organization as it can decrease its human capital cost by employing resources effectively while also enhancing inter-organization communication according to changing market needs.
Dell Inc. global expansion success is based on capable employee involvement in corporate decision making and activities. Operational duties that include distribution and sales related tasks allow operational workers to have flexibility in their tasks related decisions. Globalization puts pressure on the organization to address the diverse market issues and which leads to virtual team formation with considerable decision power for administrative issues management (McNamara, 2008). Dell Inc. operations are distributed across the world that requires coordination of activities and proper management of tasks. Strategic business divisions arrangement of Dell Inc. is each assigned with a separate set of activities and products are interlinked to the organizational goals. Such arrangement of decisional power leads to coordination of activities for distributed administrative tasks. Communication of globally distributed employees of Dell Inc. for management of administrative duties would require frequent movement of employees from one destination to another which will add up to the total operational cost whereas considerable important time will be allocated to the journey. Hence virtual team formation for administering the duties will benefit Dell Inc. to achieve desired objectives with competitive advantage over other organizations.
Virtual Team Formation
Virtual teams give advantage to contemporary organization in terms of resource management and access to skilled personnel. People across the world can participate in these teams as an active member being a part of an organization as duties assigned to them. Members may be located at far places from other members of their respective teams. Tasks collaboration and work is carried out by the help of latest internet technology and hence for project based management it is essential to involve professional expertise of people residing in distinct places.
Dell Inc. manages its operations in many countries around the world, locating in different continents, and hence distributes the management responsibilities by assigning objectives to each country division. This leads to a duplication of administrative tasks in each country division and may result in low grade decision making based on limited knowledge of people working at administrative level of company. Therefore, virtual teams are a magnificent solution to the market needs and management of companys administrative responsibilities. Since the tasks assigned to company personnel working at administrative level are distinct and diverse due to association of members with different projects, therefore specialized employees knowledge is distributed over the projects. Teams work on different projects simultaneously such as the latest Dell Citrix, Dell VMware, and Dell Microsoft projects. This strategy head towards transfer of company personnel to different destinations for project management as a result administrative duties of companies that include corporate strategy affairs, organizational planning, personnel management suffer to some extent.
Therefore to form a virtual team that handle such administrative tasks would require considerable assessment of company resource capabilities, financial position, market need and access to information for goal setting and planning (Kimball, 1997). Technology based organizations are heading towards the management concern of team communication and tasks collaboration for goal accomplishment. Such organizations objectives are based on project and once a project is completed, team members are shuffled to form new teams. Therefore, employees location and adjustability in different environments needs to be considered for formation of virtual team that allows employees to have flexibility in the achievement of their tasks. Employee skills and knowledge must exceed the project requirement to effectively manage the responsibilities assigned to each member of team.
To form a virtual team, first of all administrative tasks and duties should be defined contributing to organizational goals. Tasks based project structure would lead to clarity of goals and hence employeesteam members can have specific direction to lead the tasks with respect to organizational goals and policies. This would lead to planning process of defining goals, objectives, work arrangement and policies for virtual teams. Coordinated support groups would be identified for support of virtual team members at their respective locations. Once all the objectives are set and coordination mechanism has been identified, it would require recruitment and selection of employees dispersed geographically. It would also require recognizing core competencies of people necessary to include them in virtual team in addition to their experience and specialized skills. This process further leads to selection of competent employees to support the organization function as a virtual team member in this case to perform administrative duties for Dell Inc. Virtual team members would be located at diverse locations worldwide and hence they perform their duties by using technological gadgets and equipments (such as computer and digital communicating devices) through a medium (internetvirtual private network) which help them to communicate regularly with other team members by using internet and collaborate prompt decision and actions. Therefore to form virtual team we should consider the availability of above stated equipments to all team members. For Dell Inc. virtual team members can be from any country where they hold capabilities to perform their services for Dell Inc.
To meet the standards and timeline, communication among team members need to be coordinated by a team leader responsible for the performance of virtual team. This would be achieved based on remuneration planning such as pay for performance. This would enhance the teams performance and capability of team members to perform their duties with diligence. Activitieswork done by the group members will be monitored by the state office of Dell Inc. based on reporting of virtual team leader. In this way I will form virtual team for Dell Inc. that allows flexibility to employees in decision making and authority to manage tasks on their own whereas employee performance will be monitored by an independent unit.
Recruiting and selection of personnel requires analysis of market condition and job needs. To recruit effective people for being a part of virtual team proper applicant pool needs to be generated. Since the team would be required to handle administrative duties of computer based firm therefore people who have expertise of the related field would be recruited. Job requirement follows the administrative capabilities to manage the tasks and coordinate with other members to make appropriate decisions. People who possess excellent knowledge, skills and are working for small IT based firms across the world will be approached for the positions. These people can be easily attracted by paying right amount of remuneration for their services which will enable the organization to create a large pool of recruited applicants. Selection process will further lead to finding the strengths and weaknesses of people that will help to identify the specialized key skills possess by people required to do the job.
In this case approaching such people is controversial towards affecting the organizational functioning. People who are under-rewarded and have unique abilities to serve the computer based firms will be approached by virtual team career opportunity through official website of Dell Inc. Virtual employment opportunity will be publicized through the media channel to reach potential virtual team employees for company. Recruitment of people will be done through process application list of person applying to be a part of virtual team for Dell Computers Inc. This allows the organization to have flexibility of decision and have access to wider range of people irrespective of geographical boundary limitations. Candidates will be required to undergone an assessment online for the position in order to assess the knowledge and capability of an individual. Shortlisted candidates will be required to join an online forum organized by Dell Computers Inc. where they will have discussion with other participating members. Communication will be monitored by the specialized selectors in order to select the effective virtual team members. This would enable the organization to hire suitable candidates in consideration of job profiling and market needs. Virtual team members can communicate and have collaborative decision with each other by using common digital software designed by Dell computers that will be programmed to show current status of tasks and will record the performance of team members to appraise their capabilities and concern shown towards work.
Motivational Factors for Virtual Team Formation
Virtual teams offer benefit to both organization and team members thus contributing towards the success of an organization operating globally and in uncertain environment. This contributes towards the motivational factors necessary to form and manage the virtual teams. Virtual team includes diverse group members having different cultural background and expertise which identify different motivational factor required for each team member. Multiple set of motivational factors would be considered to form a virtual team for Dell Computers Inc for administrative duties.
To derive the human capital towards the virtual team participation would require offering tangible benefits (Bratton Gold, 2001). Such benefits are recognized at the initial stages of group formation which regulates the participation of people in tasks and exhibit higher level of performance. This include offering higher salary packages to team member comparing to their existing remuneration packages if they are part of any other company but have specialized unique skills required by Dell Inc. to support its administrative duties. To maintain effective communication system technological equipments would be offered to team members at the time of virtual team formation. This would help the company to motivate employees and start building loyalty towards the organizations which will be seen as retention of employees and fulfillment of tasks with dedication. Other tangible benefits include perk benefits offered to employees to increase the performance level while maintaining the objectives of organization.
Employee status inside the organization and image of organization in consumer setting plays a very important role in attracting specialized employees. Employees status inside the organization contributes towards their social status in society and hence affects their performance and need driven factors. Need for power, need for achievement influences the person to indulge in any particular activity (Bratton Gold, 2001). Similarly, in this case virtual team formation would require addressing these two motivational factors to involve people as a core component of virtual team to support Dell Inc. by performing administrative duties. Team members would be assigned strategic roles to lead the tasks assigned to team from time to time. This would address the need for power motivational factors of individuals as people who are assigned lower grade in the group will dedicate their energies towards achievement of higher roles in the team by giving better performance and results. Signifying the inter-linkages between need for power and achievement people performance and attitude towards tasks responsibilities result in better achievement of objectives.
Clarification of goals and objectives depict the outcome result in favor of the organization. Motivational factors other than above specified which include tasks importance for virtual team members, flexibility of work , adjustment in duties, collaborative approach for decision making, decision making power, team cohesion, and continuity of purpose. These things will affect the ability of virtual team members to adjust themselves according to the norms of groups and meet the standard of performance required to fulfill the tasks.
Virtual Team Cohesion
Team cohesion for the effective carry out of tasks is essential when members are specialized and have autonomy of decisions and flexibility. Virtual team members have flexibility to perform their duties but require coordination with other team members at some point in time for effective management of tasks and follow up. Essential management rules imply formalizing the behavior and actions of individuals as virtual team members would have expertise in their work for handling administrative duties and would have gone through social specialization. Therefore set of expectations associated with work and decision autonomy complying with group norms will be high for such group members thus team cohesion will be based on behavior and social specialization of team members for effective carrying out of tasks and duties (Dyer et al., 2007). Virtual team formation in consideration of work setting increases the capacity of firm to adjust the tasks and duties for each team member based on capacity of person and resources availability. Dell Inc. deals in continuously reforming and changing technological equipments for manifold business solutions thus team members must have effective communication skills, coordination and unity for the management of duties to manage the administering duties of Dell Inc. to built short term plans and business operations.
The strategy that I will emphasize to increase team cohesion would be to focus on key mediator for the coordination of tasks and communication among team members. Existence of team members in different places of world makes it necessary to have formal communication among team members. Virtual team members must have a proper direct reporting relationship for the clarification of goals and unity purposes. Team cohesion will increase based on the strategies adopted for communication management and task management with concern for social and technical issues to support team performance and coordination (Dyer et al., 2007). Fundamental concern for team leaders is to synchronize the constructive conflicts for the proper functioning of team that ultimately encourage cohesion among team members autonomy in issues discussion and management of tasks discrete the individual flexibility towards the team performance. Team spirit building fosters team members to participate in tasks which can be enhanced by defining success criteria.
Each team member must know and understand roles assigned to them so that team members can actively participate in the tasks. Trust among employees will increase team cohesion that will depend on the leader role and other team members preference to support the organizational tasks assigned to the virtual team. To effectively manage the team cohesion team discipline norms would be established highlighting the group expectations and mechanism for the coordination and its mutual importance for participating members and organization. Implied group norms facilitate the functioning of virtual team on the basis of employee specialization. Strategic leadership role will assist the coordination among team members achieved by involvement of all team members in task setting and considerable importance paid to each members suggestions. Continuous innovation in technology requires rapid restructuring of administrative tasks therefore all members need to have contemporary knowledge about the prevailing market conditions, competitors strategy, and effective functioning mechanism (McNamara, 2008). Therefore, offering a flexible environment for work arrangements among virtual team members would strengthen the trust relationships among group members supporting the objective of Dell Inc. Proper feedback channel and patience among employees towards responses will generate cohesive team work towards achievement of organizational goals and fulfillment of tasks.
Virtual Training Program
Effective use of virtual teams is dependant on the designing of strategies for team development and virtual training programs for team members. This enables the organization to overcome weak parts of team development and management with major concern towards increased employee productivity and collaboration towards the goals of an organization. Dell Inc. administrative duties require independent decision making by virtual team members and flexibility to perform tasks. Proper communication among team members with feedback channel helps to facilitate the team functioning and ability to employees to adjust according to shaping of team structure based on industry needs.
Virtual training program helps the firm to facilitate the functioning and productivity of employees. To set up a virtual training program for Dell Inc. virtual team members requires assessment of capabilities of team members and resources available to support the program. Training programs will range in various categories for different proposed outcome that include communication, cultural differentiation understanding for coordination to effectively manage the team process inside virtual team atmosphere. Understanding of diverse backgrounds of team members will support the team members to effectively manage the situations and hence communication will be improvised.
To achieve above stated outcomes I will prefer to choose online virtual training programs for team members to strengthen the team work. An online virtual conversation program will be built up in which each member can independently participate. Main objective of the program will be to streamline the verbal communication among team members. Each member independently will answer to virtual computer program preset verbal questions employee response will be recorded including observing of pitch rate, speed of speech, choosing of words in virtual verbal communication. At the end of simulated computer program figured out results will be shown to participant with suggestion to help participants understand their communication action with other team members.
The next virtual training program will include an online assessment about the contemporary technology related business issue so that employees knowledge level can be tested about the recent market data and prevailing trends. Assessment will include an online test with multiple choice questions with one correct answer that will help team members know their knowledge level in relation to latest market information required to perform the administrative duties for Dell Inc. Questions will be about competitors strategy, new innovative products introduced in market, strategy suitable to manage situation, steps taken by rival company to effectively use resources. Such online assessment will further lead to presentation of problem case to employees each one would be required to submit a solution that will be analyzed by executive managers from different perspectives, as a result outcome will be communicated to the team members and in case shortfalls in solution arise an online direct conversation program (audio and video conference) will be arranged in which senior administrators of Dell Inc. will discuss the issues with team members in order to reform their strategic pattern of thinking.
In addition to above stated training programs digital videos will be uploaded online accessible by all team members as a skill practice technique to help team members analyze their capabilities and improvise skills that needs to be strengthen. This training programs effectiveness is dependant on the capability of team member to grasp the information and understand the differential pattern (Piccoli Ives, 2000). Lack of direct communication among team members will restrict the direct sharing of issues whereas team leader will need to recommend the coordination and skill development concern among team members to efficiently manage the tasks and its affiliated outcome.
Virtual Team Designing
Virtual team structuring is significant for the effective management of tasks and responsibilities assigned to team members. Dell Inc. has to deal with computer technology therefore its workforce requires more autonomy and flexibility in the arrangement of duties. Provisions for strategies to handle uncertain situations will offer advantage to manage the productivity of employees working for virtual team of Dell Inc. Geographical dispersion of team members and scarce knowledge skills to manage administrative duties emphasize on the integration of processes for achievement of desired goals (McNamara, 2008).
Virtual team designing process to manage functional responsibilities would be tested in a simulated environment to assess the probability of outcome. Team structure would be simple and geographical horizontal differentiated. Reporting process will lack vertical hierarchical structure in virtual team as all people involve in team would have different pace of knowledge. Therefore coordination will be strengthened through horizontal arrangement of tasks and duties with discretionary power to team members under the set of guidelines to regulate their behavior and attitude towards the work setting (Piccoli Ives, 2000). Team leader would be chosen from the team members based on his independent performance evaluation who will be responsible to coordinate and lead the tasks. Communication will strengthen impacting the productivity of employees positively.
Job designing process would be based on professional bureaucracy that will be characterized by low formalization, low centralization, and high social specialization. This will offer autonomy in decisions and flexibility to employees to perform any particular activity related to duties from their place of convenience (Bratton Gold, 2001 McNamara, 2008). This virtual team structure would be accompanied by policies of Dell Inc. to regulate the employee behavior and decision within prescribed standards. Coordination of team members with business clients, corporate customers to administrate the duties will be based on virtual communication by such respective clients of Dell Inc. Therefore, Dell Inc. can have opportunity to involve capable employees in their administrative duties if geographical constrains intervenes in selection of person.
Virtual teams would be assigned specific tasks related to their duties team leader as a negotiator and communicator will follow standard procedures to manage the information flow to all or concerned members who are part of virtual team. All team members will have flexibility to coordinate with each other and on regular basis to keep management update about the status of their work. Team leader will have autonomy to discourage the ideas of any team member if majority of team members are not in favor whereas all employees views must have to be considered with respect to its importance for work. Concerning the global differentiation and cultural differences among group members all group members will be required to assess the issue and decision outcome from the perspective of other team members.
Timeline will be specified for each member to effectively carry out the duties and report to the team leader. If necessary team leader can provide support to team members as and when required. This would enhance the coordination among team members to facilitate the functioning of team. Employees performance will be assessed and rewarded on the basis of fair equal sharing. As team members would be socially specialized in their functional concern therefore less action would be required to manage their behavior because team members already set an expectation level from the duties assigned and its consequences on their goals. Therefore, they show a responsible attitude towards the duties assigned and work responsibilities. This would help to facilitate the information flow among the team and company with substantial impact on functioning of team (Piccoli Ives, 2000).
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