Benefits of Global Virtual Teams

The dispersed business landscape as well as the technological progress today have made a nurturing environment that has allowed global virtual teams to thrive. In fact, global virtual teams have become a common phenomenon in several multinationals. A global virtual team can be described as a collection of individuals who are independently employed to work together in order to provide external clients with business solutions. Organizations that specialize in the delivery of global virtual team services tend to hire people with the highest qualification available, people with varying areas and levels of experience. It is a framework that can be properly complemented by hiring virtual employees in many geographical locations to provide support to clients who come from different regions of the globe. It will primarily comprise of members that mainly work from home and whom may possess a small centralized office whereby group projects and meetings can be planned and consequently implemented.

Main Benefits of Global Virtual Teams

The concept of global virtual teams is growing in popularity by the day because of several reasons and that is inclusive of the benefits outlined below:

  1. Affordability

Companies with global virtual teams only pay for the required level of support, pay significantly reduced costs compared to professional consulting organizations that support professional fees and large infrastructures. There are no overhead costs incurred for associated services like office space, computer, benefits as well as communication between in-house staff and virtual staff. There are efficiency savings that are made by the reduction of relocation costs and travel costs.

  1. Flexible support

The companies that invest in global virtual teams carefully identify their requirements. For example, senior compensation analyst, junior recruiter and the virtual teams satisfies their needs. This means that companies can control the length of service depending on their needs.

  1. Leverage global talent

Global virtual teams enable organizations to seek talent far beyond their country of origin. Something that that converges specialists and experts from different parts of the world to join their efforts on a single project. This has the benefit of enhanced knowledge sharing as well as greater innovation. This is mainly because the human capital of an organization shares their understanding of local and even global markets as well as the best business practices.

  1. New opportunities

From a larger societal level, global virtual teams are responsible for creating new opportunities for individuals that are less mobile and quite hesitant to relocate because of physical challenges or family ties. This means that tasks that do not need a person's physical presence and can be properly supported by video conferencing technology such as ezTalks Meeting provide rare opportunities for a good number of deserving candidates all over the world.

  1. Decreased time to market

There are usually different teams working on a similar project throughout since global virtual team members span across different time zones. This means that there is always someone to proceed with work from where a virtual colleague had left off. The ultimate benefit of this is that shortens the period required for product development and increases the response time to demands in local and global markets. A difference in time zones in this case is used to the advantage of a company as projects are continuously worked on.

  1. Higher profits and increased productivity

Global virtual team members have a tendency of developing a higher performance for the tasks at hand. Most global virtual teams bypass organizational structures thus do not have to tolerate unnecessary bureaucracy that considerably drags down the process of decision making. Business hours for global virtual teams increase and this is normally with more flexibility. This ultimately results in increased productivity that directly translates to higher profit margins for an organization.

  1. Better work-life balance

Global virtual teams enjoy the benefit of flexibility to strike the elusive and very delicate balance between their personal lives and work lives. This promotes a balance life for the employees. Members of global virtual teams will therefore have lower stress levels and eat healthier.

  1. Full suite of services

Global virtual teams provide access to several disciplines in multiple geographical locations.

  1. Greener digital work

This is because the need to use either private or public transport to work is completely eliminated. Furthermore, there are no documents that require printing as all communication is conducted on online communication platforms such as ezTalks Cloud Meeting.

  1. Higher rates of retention

Global virtual teams report much higher job satisfaction rates. Satisfied team members are unlikely to quit their jobs, a fact that translates to a higher retention rate for companies.

The benefits of global virtual teams listed above are not exhaustive as there are many more advantages that are associated with the adoption of global virtual teams by companies.

Conclusion

In order to enjoy the potential benefits outlined above, it is necessary for companies with global virtual teams to overcome the hurdles inherent in the lack of direct contact among managers and team members.