Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key
The impressive growth in web-mediated organizational relationships has created an escalating interest in how to manage virtual teams successfully. As organizations increasingly expect their managers to lead employees in these online groupings, it becomes imperative to identify and train them in the skills to do this effectively. The purpose of this article is to organize and present strategies that organizations have found successful in helping their managers lead virtual teams. While all successful managers must ensure that they have provided the basic organizational support for their employees, especially effective leaders also ensure they build trustworthy relationships. Thus, we emphasize how each strategy contributes to building and sustaining a climate of trust in virtual teams.
Authors :: Robert C. Ford, Ronald F. Piccolo, Loren R. Ford
Swot Analysis of "Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key" written by Robert C. Ford, Ronald F. Piccolo, Loren R. Ford includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Virtual Teams facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Leadership, Leading teams and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key casestudy better are - – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Virtual Teams, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Virtual Teams operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Virtual Teams
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Global Business field.
4. Making a Global Business topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Virtual Teams
Strengths Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Virtual Teams in Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Virtual Teams to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Virtual Teams to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Virtual Teams has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Virtual Teams to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Virtual Teams has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Virtual Teams is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Virtual Teams in the sector have low bargaining power. Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Virtual Teams to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Virtual Teams has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Strong track record of project management
– Virtual Teams is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Virtual Teams is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Virtual Teams in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Virtual Teams is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Virtual Teams in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Virtual Teams has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Virtual Teams has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Weaknesses Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Virtual Teams has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Virtual Teams has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Virtual Teams even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key, in the dynamic environment Virtual Teams has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Virtual Teams has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Virtual Teams has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Virtual Teams is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Virtual Teams has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key HBR case study mentions - Virtual Teams takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Virtual Teams is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Virtual Teams needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Virtual Teams to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Virtual Teams has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Virtual Teams supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Virtual Teams vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Virtual Teams has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Opportunities Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Virtual Teams has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Virtual Teams to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Global Business industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Virtual Teams can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Virtual Teams to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Virtual Teams in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Global Business segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Virtual Teams can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Virtual Teams to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Virtual Teams to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Virtual Teams is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Virtual Teams has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Virtual Teams to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key case study. Virtual Teams can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Virtual Teams to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Virtual Teams to increase its market reach. Virtual Teams will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Developing new processes and practices
– Virtual Teams can develop new processes and procedures in Global Business industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Virtual Teams in the consumer business. Now Virtual Teams can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Virtual Teams has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Threats Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key are -
Environmental challenges
– Virtual Teams needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Virtual Teams can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Virtual Teams high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Virtual Teams is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Virtual Teams will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Virtual Teams can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key .
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key, Virtual Teams may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Global Business .
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Virtual Teams in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Virtual Teams demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Virtual Teams needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Virtual Teams in the Global Business industry. The Global Business industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Virtual Teams.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Strategies for Building Effective Virtual Teams: Trust is Key is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Virtual Teams needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
