Case Study - Groups and Teams in Organisation - Essay Example

College Verifone’s Virtual World Case Study: Groups and Teams in Organizations 8/23 Case Background Verifone is a premium equipment supplier for credit card verification and automated payments. The company stated out as a victual business and since then has made use of virtual teams for most of its operations. Virtual teams used at Verifone are one of the two kinds: permanent to take care of operational issues or temporary to take care of a specific problem. The company has strict rules regarding the formation of virtual teams which include: Defined purpose, diverse members, decided duration and appropriate communication technologyManagement Problem“The use of virtual teams in all the aspects of operations at Verifone leads to a large number of communication issues which may hamper its growth”The employees at Verifone often come together at Verifone to form virtual teams from different countries of the world.

The use of virtual teams in every aspect of the business leads to significant communication issues with many subtleties of the messages being lost due to the limited ability of virtual teams in the field of communication. This pose a danger to the company in case important points might get missed out. Hence it is very important to eliminate this problem. Theory/ModelTeams form an integral part of the present business world. Most of the tasks are carried out by a team rather than an individual.

Teams can be of various kinds: Project teams with team members having complimentary skills; natural work team with team members having overlapping skills; self-directed team with the members managing the team by themselves or a virtual team where members are based out of different locations and collaborate through communication techniques (Scholtes et al., 2003). In order to work efficiently and effectively, teams shall have clearly defined purposes and goals, scope and boundaries of work, knowledgeable and skilled members, and access to resources such as data and communication tools.

Virtual teams can be defined as teams crossing time zones, distance and organizational boundaries through the use of technology (Lipnack and Stamps, 1999). Virtual teams present a promising solution to the recent phenomenon of globalization. However, team problems are more in virtual environment. RecommendationsThe use of virtual teams for all the business purposes at VeriFone has increased communication issues amongst the team members. In order to remove these issues, we need to train the employees about the intricacies of working in a virtual team.

We shall train the employees in the areas of cross-culture team collaboration and the usage of appropriate communication tools. In order to make sure that no point is missed, we shall try to use two modes of communication for every piece of information that we may want to share. Moreover, the person who is forming the team shall make sure that the roles of all the members shall be clearly defined. We shall also try to move from a virtual team based organization to an organization structure with fixed teams for issues involving longer and complex decision making.

ReferencesLipnack, J., and Stamps, J. (1999). Virtual Teams. Executive Excellence, 16, 14-15. Scholtes, P.R., Joiner, B.L., and Streibel, B.J. (2003). The Team Handbook, 3rd illustrated edition. Oriel Incorporated.