Class assignment for Luxottica group.

1. The Role of Technology for
Successful Virtual Teams
Michael Connery, Brandon Dickens, Barbie Sawyer, Ebony Young
BITE 5390
Dr. Maureen Ellis

2. The Role of Technology
Virtual teams depend on technology in order to function. So long as a meeting is
not face-to-face, team members must use various forms of technology in order to
communicate with one another. “Information technology provides the
infrastructure for virtual collaboration (Gibson, Cohen, 2003).”
Each Director of International Training and Development will describe their
experiences with virtual teams and the respective positives and negatives that they
have encountered through personal experience.

3. Milan
Communication and listening skills can be a challenge in Face to Face meetings but
even more so in virtual meetings. Technology can be a challenge as well if
communication and training fails to be distributed throughout the virtual teams.
International Directors of International Training and Development must ensure
virtual teams are trained to use the meeting software and hardware needed for
virtual meetings. Additionally, virtual teams must have other options for
communication that are crucial to the team’s success. These include Skype, Email,
Google Apps, GoToMeeting, etc. As Directors, It is important to create
relationships with each team member to help guide them to interact and provide
assistance as needed. As Directors, we also want to ensure each team member
understands the common goal and responsibilities it takes to reach the goals of the
organization.

4. Milan
Milan is a beautiful city to live and work in and offers many opportunities since it
is the most populous metropolitan area in Italy.
• Some of the major challenges we face in Milan is the ability to communicate
with all of the different cultures, which requires each team member to learn
the different cultures and to understand them and to build teamwork.
• Another challenge is the time zones. If each member is on a different time
zone meetings and telephone calls must be coordinated to meet at a
reasonable hour and each team member may have to meet at odd hours and
take turns doing so. Team members can take turns to meet at inconvenient
times.

5. Los Angeles
Restricted communication constricts our ability to communicate with others.
Choosing the appropriate technology to disseminate information to colleagues is
essential for quick, efficient communication.
This means that our respective roles as International Directors of International
Training & Development will be to structure a suitable training program that will
allow for everyone to share and access information smoothly without
complications in the future.

6. Hong Kong
Hong Kong is a great place to conduct business. With a large and knowledgeable
workforce and English being spoken by just about everyone, it makes it quite
easy to conduct business here. The Heritage Foundation has ranked Hong Kong
as the freest economy in the world for 20 years, with very strong and competitive
business and financial hubs. Regulatory efficiency and openness to global
commerce strongly support entrepreneurial activity. With the value of exports
and imports making up approximately 400 percent of the GDP, Hong Kong very
much welcomes trade. With a population exceeding 7.3 million people, Hong
Kong is still considered one of the safest cities in the world (Freedom, 2017).

7. Hong Kong
One of the biggest challenges that we will face from the Hong Kong location with
be the ability to communicate with other colleagues in other parts of the world.
In addition, the following challenges have been noted:
• Time Restrictions
• Government Imposed Restrictions
• Communication Challenges

8. Brazil
Even with some possibilities of complication there are more benefits. There have
been reports on the different forms of technology that has its help in our success
as an International Director of International Training and Development here in
Brazil. Reports has stated that 76% of remote employees are willing to use
augmented/virtual reality for work. Webinars, training sessions, conference calls
and so forth can be used by virtual teams. These technologies have increased in
usage over the years. Using the different forms of technology for virtual teams in
corporations has played a major part in their success. New developments in
software/applications such as Google Hangout, go Meeting, Skype and ones like
slack continue to expand communication options for virtual teams.

9. Brazil
2016 data from Dell Future Workforce Global as reported that Brazil showed the
highest belief in the product improving productivity in the workplace at 74 percent
with China behind them at 69. There are pros and cons in virtual teams. Mostly
with technology and sometime because of person, cultural or religious reasons.

10. References
Gibson, C., & Cohen, S. (Eds.). (2003). The Technology That Supports Virtual
Collaboration. In Virtual Teams that Work (pp. 235–310). San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass.
Michael D. Watkins, “Making Virtual Teams Work: Ten Basic Principles.” Harvard
Business Review, https://hbr.org/2013/06/making-virtual-teams-work-ten.
Freedom, 2. I.(2017). Hong Kong. Retrieved from 2017 Index of Economic Freedom:
http://www.heritage.org/index/country/hongkong
Dan Newman, “Virtual Reality Leads to Smarter companies, Happier Workforce”
http://shift.newco.co