Virtual team, is a concept that all the team members working on a project have limited or no direct interaction with other members of team, it allows startups or enterprises to have a broad talent pool available globally. In this scenario the teams normally not meet face-to-face, and conduct all project work using online tools for meetings, project/team management and task distribution.
At early stage of your startup it can be a very useful strategy for you to manage a virtual team. You can chose like minded people from various parts of world, connect with them through social media, email or other online tools for communication about your idea and share skills with each other to make your idea or business successful. Keep in mind if you are going to have a virtual team for your startup, you might have many benefits and few things to be careful about, so that your execution plan can work effectively.
How to hire a Virtual Team?
It is very easy to hire a virtual team for your starup in today’s era of communication. You can use various platforms including social media, online groups or forums, University boards etc to spread the word about your team need. Soon you will keep getting response and after careful communication and assessment you will be able to hire or engage your required resources located thousands mile away from your physical location.
Benefits of Virtual Team:
There are many benefits of working with a virtual team, here i am going to list a few of them.
- You will have less financial liability when you are working with a virtual team, you dont have to care for rent, and other overhead expenses, you also dont have to think about providing infrastructure, place of work and tax issues etc. The team member will take care of many other things, only if you found a interested person who is working as a willing team member, you just need to assign the tasks and your progress will start immediately. So be careful about choosing the virtual team member.
- You will get access to skilled and diversified resources, it is similarly important to have a skilled team member while you are still launching or at early stage of your startup. A skilled and multi talented person can be an asset for your startup in long run as well as during the process of evolution.
- Market Access -This is very important, you have sudden access to a new market if you have a virtual team member located in that market, he/she will be your source of market study and provide you very insight of target market. At the same time your team member will have instant access to the customer base and direct knowledge about your competition. You will be able to launch your product or service in that market faster than your expectation.
Challenges of Working with Virtual Team:
If there are benefits of working with a virtually located team, there will be challenges too. You have to keep them under observation as well. In simple words, you need to act smart, take decisions differently, communicate better and build the trust of your virtual team members in a better way. By keeping these facts in mind you will be able to get a very productive output and fast results of your business planning.
