GoTech is a specialized technology company in Saudi Arabia that focuses on providing technical and digital services to other business structures. The company is targeted at the oil and gas market in its location region, but currently, it is expanding internationally, working in Italy and Egypt (GoTech, n.d.). The staff consists of three regional managers and thirty employees. The management style of the company is autocratic since it has a top-down model of decision-making. It is also a traditional model that suits the company’s culture. This management style also implies little input from working groups, as only managers decide what to do and how.
There are several challenges with such an autocratic management style. Due to such style, the company follows a strict hierarchy. It can be complicated for the lower-positioned employees to address some issues and solve them on their own. Employees do not have freedom of action and should always inform about what they are going to do. As such, there can be communication problems between low and high-positioned workers. Moreover, top managers may simply not listen to their employees, creating some challenges in understanding their responsibilities. This leads to the emergence of cultural and political challenges.
To prevent problems associated with the management style and unexpected risks, there is a need to create a virtual Risks Response Team based on Tuckman’s Team Life Cycle Model. A virtual Risks Response team is a group of various professionals that should ensure care for stakeholders and mitigate upcoming emergencies to secure investments. According to Tuckman’s Team Life Cycle Model, the life cycle of a team begins with forming stage, in which team members consider themselves as individuals who are grouped together (van Geffen, 2020). At this stage, they have a low level of communication and engagement with each other. Additionally, there are no well-defined goals that team members would pursue. After the forming stage, the cycle has the storming stage, where members start viewing each other as a part of the team. Yet, this stage shows some communication and interaction issues between team members. For example, they may have internal conflicts based on understanding their responsibilities and duties at work. Moreover, they may have confusion in role distribution as members do not know distinguished abilities of each other. However, during this stage, goals become clearer and more precise.
Following the storming stage, there is the norming phase, in which the team starts to set rules and regulations at the workplace. According to Fiore and Georganta (2017), members also start to interact more with each other and have some relationships. At this stage, they create the environment within an organization and become interconnected with each other. This is because employees are now aware of their capabilities, and they have distributed the work among them. As such, team members are dependent on how other members do their duties. The final stage of the team life cycle is the performing stage. This phase demonstrates the team as a single unit that operates to accomplish common goals and has similar values. Team members share the vision of the company and focus on doing their work on the strategy. Here, the distributed tasks are clear as opposed to any other previous stages. Furthermore, there are little, or almost no communication issues as members work together for a long period and know each other well.
The basis of every team is people, and the most important thing is to choose the right individuals for a team. Selection criteria for future team members depend on what type of work should be done and how managers want the team to look. For GoTech company, there is a need for employees that do their work properly and on time as the top-down approach requires meeting all deadlines and doing their responsibilities without any additional questions. As a consultant, I will try to choose IT specialists that worked for the company for a minimum of two years and have done several projects that required close interaction with people. Such people will be best suited for a virtual risks team as they have enough experience in solving technical and digital problems as well as communicating with their colleagues (Cizmaș et al., 2020). Moreover, they know how the company operates and what is needed for it.
A virtual team has its merits and drawbacks that will appear during the work of the group. Merits are that the team can assist the organization at any time when an emergency issue occurs and that it should be solved immediately. Such a team is also crucial when employees lack motivation and are afraid of mitigating some issues since the team can solve some issues that bother the employees. With regards to the disadvantages of having a virtual team, the team is costly and demands additional control. They also cannot decide for themselves and need a manager. Moreover, a virtual team is not always right in their solutions and may further make some issues more complicated to tackle. To prevent such cases, it is critical to forming an effective team with the consideration of all factors affecting a team’s productivity and performance.
Speaking about regional managers, GoTech has three regional managers that are in charge of big teams. They are leaders that should inspire and provide motivation to employees. They should be confident in their claims and be responsible for their actions. Additionally, regional managers should not forget about rewards and recognition of employees and be fair in treating them. With such qualities and treatment, they can easily manage their teams and motivate them to work harder. The managers also can be more open to discussing the concerns of their workers to ensure support for them. By this, employees can be more willing to work as they feel that their problems matter within the company and that managers would do their best to solve them. As such, showing interest in workers and their professional development is a good strategy for managers to keep them motivated (Bolsunovskaya et al., 2017). To manage the team properly, the leaders can use various tools, for example, social media chats. Such chats are popular among employers in which they can address different topics directly with the managers. The regional managers also can apply tracking digital tools that are used by human resources departments when assessing employees.
GoTech is a relatively small company that is expanding to a new market. Entering a new market is both a challenge and an opportunity for a GoTech company. The existing challenge is to make the transition to the international market as smooth as possible, and the proper way to do so is to choose suitable experts. This can be done by the application of human resources (HR) management and its managers. Moreover, given that the company has only 30 workers, the work of the HR team will be required. Otherwise, the organization would have serious problems with stuffing, while exiting workers will be overwhelmed and exhausted during the expansion of GoTech to the new markets. Furthermore, one of the potential problems can be the qualifications of employees and their adaptation to a new workplace. Egypt and Italy are significantly different from Saudi, so workers should have the training and other additional studies offered by the company.
To prevent such challenges in the future, GoTech should mobilize its resources effectively. The company has abundant resources both in terms of financial and digital aspects. It greatly benefits from investment flow from external funding and generates its own revenues. With regard to digital resources, there are different software and tools for operating the business. For example, the business structure has trading services, such as Axon and Mac Demid (GoTech, n.d.). Indeed, there are many resources of the company that can be used effectively to reach success in the market. GoTech may utilize the resources to introduce new products and spend some budget on the promotion and marketing of existing goods and services.
The discussion of resources leads to the question of the capabilities of GoTech. The existing capabilities of the company can be strengthened by increasing the number of employees and by more funding for promotion campaigns. The organization also can expand its focus from the oil and gas market to other niches, such as other natural resource companies. The human capital of the company needs to be invested in as it is the driving force of the whole organization. There also can be increased rewards and recognition for employees and improved social packaging. With such changes, GoTech can easily be a top company in its segment.
As a strategic consultant of a GoTech company, I provide two types of solutions that are immediate and future. For immediate actions, the organization should invest more in its human capital, specifically, providing training and hiring more people with different IT backgrounds. The company also can rely on human resources company to search for new employees. Additionally, GoTech can improve its rewards and recognition to workers and treat them well to keep them motivated to work. For future solutions, GoTech may shift its focus to other markets aside from oil and gas. Due to global digitalization, now many business structures require a transition of their operations into an online mode. As such, GoTech has great opportunities to develop both technically and financially. Moreover, despite being from Italy and Egypt, the company can expand to the Central Asian region that lacks IT-specialized business entities. GoTech can be the first in the new market and gain new experience. Furthermore, it can initiate new projects related to digital solutions that would be optimal for a wide range of companies.
Overall, Gotech is a company that helps other businesses to solve various issues related to digital technologies. It has great potential to be among the top business structures in its field. To develop its potential, the company should invest more in its workers. The regional managers of GoTech should engage and interact more with its teams and provide them support in their professional development. Here, eliminating communication issues between team members and managers is critical to making the company successful.
References
Bolsunovskaya, M. V., Shirokova, S. V., Loginova, A. V., & Gintciak, A. M. (2018). IT project team management based on a network-centric model. In 2018 XVII Russian Scientific and Practical Conference on Planning and Teaching Engineering Staff for the Industrial and Economic Complex of the Region (PTES), 165-168.
Cizmaș, E., Feder, E. S., Maticiuc, M. D., & Vlad-Anghel, S. (2020). Team management, diversity, and performance as key influencing factors of organizational sustainable performance. Sustainability, 12(18), 7414.
GoTech. (n.d.). Gotech | About GoTech. GoTech.Com. Web.
Fiore, S. M., & Georganta, E. (2017). Collaborative problem-solving and team development: Extending the macrocognition in teams model through considerations of the team life cycle. Team Dynamics Over Time. Emerald Publishing Limited.
van Geffen, C. (2020). Optimizing team effectiveness and performance by using the cycle of team Development. Transactional Analysis Journal, 50(4), 298-314.