The 3 Advantages of Virtual Teams (You Should Know About)

In this article you will learn the 3 Key Points You Should Know When Asking: What are the advantages of Virtual Teams?

Why you should care

Why should you care about virtual teams? What you do has worked. It has got you to where you are today.

But what of tomorrow? The world can easily be turned upside down. You could find yourself walking in the ashes of a demolished city…

This demolished city or city ruins are a good visual aid when thinking of what can happen to those that stay still.

Your endeavours, teams, systems. If you do what you have always done and the world changes, you will be left treading through the ash heaps.

Like it or loath it virtual teams are here.

Virtual teams are not a thing of the future. They are here now. They are here to stay. Does that mean that traditional teams are finished and no longer relevant?

No, it doesn’t.

I personally do not think that is or ever will be the case. It doesn’t sound like a world that I would want to take part in. You probably wouldn’t either?

However, it does mean that to succeed, you must understand this:

What are the advantages of virtual teams?

Firstly – How virtual teams differ…

It might be plain to see but we will first break down the differences of virtual teams. Sometimes you can miss the most obvious truth because it hides in plain sight.

If you understand how they differ you will be able to understand what are the advantages of virtual teams.

Let’s take a closer look…

Leidner described global virtual teams as “temporary, culturally diverse, geographically dispersed, electronically communicating work group of members” (Leidner (1999, p.792).

So, let’s break this down and see how these factors give virtual teams an advantage and differentiate them. There are four main elements:

1. Temporary
2. Culturally diverse
3. Geographically dispersed
4. Electronically communicating

A lot of studies on virtual teams do seem to focus on teams that are temporary. These teams are brought together for specific tasks and like project teams they have defined start and end points.

This has proved to work very well for large organisations who might need to scale up to complete a specific task but release the workers once that work is complete. The business can work across wide, varying geographic locations, utilising a team that is culturally diverse.

Every country has an its own quirks and intricacies. A culturally diverse team can support that.

These two factors enable the business to work globally but think and service their customers even when they are geographically dispersed. It gives the reach into markets and allows them to convey their message in a way that is aware of the different cultures they are operating in.

Electronic communication is an ever-evolving subject as the tools we use are constantly changing. Historically, this could sometimes act as a barrier to entry, as larger organisations had the capital to invest in expensive telco systems.

In today’s climate (2022) electronic communication is very cheap and so long as both you and your staff are trained and aware of using the correct technologies for the correct work there are definite benefits to be gleaned.

However, there are often limits to electronic communication and times when it has a diminishing rate of return. I explored some of the issues another article. “Virtual teams vs face to face teams, understanding THIS is key to your success”.

The main issue is that electronic communication can lead to a reduction of trust. This is not an advantage of virtual teams but something that should be considered.

So how else can these things help?

They can save money

This is the first and most obvious answer when asked: what are the advantages of virtual teams. Having a virtual team from a purely accounting perspective will save your business money on the bottom line.

Financial resources do not need to be spent so much on buildings, travel costs and other associated expenses.

Then there is cost of skilled workers. Let’s look at an example of a software developer.

According to PayScale the current base salary for a developer in India is ₹225,000,000 – ₹1,000,000,000.

What are the advantages of virtual teams : Massive cost savings!

At todays today’s rate (5/1/2022) is $3,017.75 – $13,412.92. This is a monumental saving when compared to the USA $51,000 – $107,000.

However, do not think this comes without a cost.

As a business leader you will need to be able to make sure you are set up to benefit from these cost savings. Especially if your business is SME. Even large corporates can become inefficient if they do not pay attention to these.

1. Cultural
   • Different thought processes
   • Language and communication barriers
   • Different work practices
2. Project management
   • Planning and structure
   • Team leader accountability
   • Selecting the correct technology fit
3. Staff factors
   • Encouragement of team members
   • Development of trust between teams
   • Teams must be trained in technology

I cannot explain the points above in detail here. Each topic (and even some of the sub-topics) would deserve its own article to successfully explain. 

It would be useful to write some practical articles explaining how these factors can be overcome and applied successfully in real life examples.

It would be great to know what you information would help you most.

They Are Task oriented, specialised and can be deployed at speed

Rapid response teams are good examples of how a good functioning virtual team can operate.

At first you might question how a FTF operating rapid response team can be comparable to a virtual team. Hear me out. In rapid forming response teams. Like the emergency services.

Like a virtual team there is little if any informal talk. Decisions are made quickly by team leaders, who give and take information from central management.

The central manager has no control of the individual team members on the ground just the team leaders that he/she interacts with.

You will likely have members of different departments and organisations who have never directly worked together before acting on a specific task, with life and death consequences (high pressure), within a matter of minutes.

Trust has not been built between these people from working together for years. Different organisations can come to the group with different cultural values.

If we look at an international task force there can be language barriers. All of this is mentioned in the previous section. As is how it is overcome.

What are the advantages of virtual teams? – Focus on planning and Structure not HR issues

The Japanese bullet train runs at 200mph safely due to its proficient driver and well-constructed track.

As the business leader you are not the driver or the track in this situation. You are the architect. The controller in head office. In this analogy you might be managing multiple trains making sure each arrives at station, on time and safely.

If you think about these analogies virtual teams can be a massive advantage to your business. Whether you are big or small.

Providing you set the groundwork correctly, you can bring together a highly focussed and specialised team at speed that can be disbanded upon completion.

This gives you access to talent and staff that you would not have the work to justify an annual salary for.

You do not need to be so concerned about finding people with necessarily the correct company culture, again this can save time, as the work is structured in such a way that this plays less of a role.

What are the advantages of virtual teams – Less personal politics (Potentially)

I say potentially because there is always that one guy.

You can stop the one that breaks the mould but rest assured virtual teams do pose less risk of interpersonal friction between people.

This is mostly because the nature of the structure takes away the necessity of group decision making. Again, that word structure is important.

However, it is not only this that this can decrease conflict between members. It also allows less dominant members of your teams to produce their best work.

From studies, it appears that when not under the social pressures that they face in the normal work environment, some individuals are able to produce better collaborative work.

What are the advantages of virtual teams – What do you think?

So do you work with virtual teams currently or do you plan to do so? Having some of these ideas and thoughts in mind should hopefully help you implement this.

Unlike my other articles which had more practical focus. This was mostly aimed at explaining some of my thoughts as to what I thought the advantages of virtual teams were. Was it helpful? Do you like this sort of article? What do you think?

Feel free to send me a message and let me know!