Group Names Group IDs:S
Course Title: Introduction to E-Management
Course Code: ECOM 201
Academic Year/ Semester: 2022/2023-1st Term CRN:
Instructor Name:
Student Grade: out of 20 Grade Level: Low/ Mid/ High
ECOM 201 Project
Overview
Suppose your group works as a virtual team in a Saudi company that deals with local and global clients. The company main purpose is to provide digital marketing services and solutions. A task has been given to you by the CEO. The task includes building a connection with a South African brand that wants to open an office in AL Khobar, Eastern Province. The task is considered completed when you propose a strategy to the international company representative and receive their feedback.
Requirements
The group needs to be divided as follows: one team manager, one representative from the international brand, one technical support expert, and one or two general members.
Write a reflection on your group work process in creating the team, choosing the tools, working on the tasks and reporting the strategy to the client.
Reflection (due by Week 10) [20 marks]
The reflection should be written after you establish a successful virtual team. The reflection should describe the process of 4 main components of virtual management: team building, tools, procedures, and task management. Please use these guidelines on how to do so:
1. Virtual Team: (5 marks)
In this section, you need to describe the workings of your virtual team.
• Name your team.
• Who are your team members, and what are their roles?
• What are the personal objectives for each member?
• What is the collective goal for your team?
• Refer to the four different stages of team building? Have you experienced these stages (discuss)
2. Virtual Tool (5 marks)
In this section, you describe the process of choosing a tool for your virtual team.
• What virtual tool did you use to manage the tasks? (provide pictures)
• Describe the features this tool has (provide pictures).
• Why did you choose these tools? What are the other options?
• Suppose your budget was SAR 10k; how did you use that budget to get the best possible tool?
• How frequently does the team meet? How long is each meeting? (provide photos of the team meetings at different times)
• What are the meeting minutes? How have they been used effectively? (provide an example of your team meeting minutes).
3. Virtual work dynamics (5 marks)
• How did you create a virtual office?
• What are the challenges that you faced in your work? (discuss from different roles’ perspectives).
• How did you utilize vacation time, holiday times?
• How did you divide the workload?
• What are the challenges that your team faced in communication? (discuss from different roles’ perspectives).
4. Reports and presentations (5 marks)
• Provide an example of a proposed strategy that your team worked on to make the marketing campaign successful for the international company.
• The report should be 300 words that describe the best practices of doing virtual marketing in Saudi Arabia.
o The report should have an introduction, brief strategy, and conclusion.
• Include graphs and statistics to support your report.
• The international company representative in your team should provide his/her feedback on the report (one or two comments)
• The rest of the team should address those comments.
• Conclude your reflection.
Useful links:
• http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/studentservices/documents/planning-and-preparing-to-write-assignments.pdf
• APA reference system https://student.unsw.edu.au/apa
• About plagiarism http://wts.indiana.edu/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml
• About plagiarism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism
Guidelines for the assignment:
• This is a group project (4-5 students in each group), which is part of your course score. It requires effort, collaboration and critical thinking.
• Use the given template below. One mark will be deducted if there is this template is not used.
• Your assignment must be supported by evidence and resources. Otherwise, your answer will not be valid.
• Use at least 3 different references from the SDL.
• Use font Times New Roman, Calibri or Arial.
• Use 1.5 or double line spacing with left Justify all paragraphs.
• Use the footer function to insert page number.
• Ensure that you follow the APA style in your project.
• Your project report length should be between 2000 to 2500 words.
Up to 20% of the total grade will be deducted for providing a poor structure of assignment. Structure includes these elements paper style, free of spelling and grammar mistakes, referencing and format.
Answer:
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Our virtual team for this project was named “Digital Connections”. The team consisted of four members: a team manager, a representative from the international brand, a technical support expert, and one general member.
The team manager’s personal objective was to ensure the smooth functioning of the team and to meet the deadline for the project. The representative from the international brand’s objective was to provide insight and feedback on the proposed strategy. The technical support expert’s objective was to ensure that the strategy was technically feasible and to provide technical support when needed. The general member’s objective was to Help in the research and development of the strategy.
The collective goal for our team was to successfully propose a strategy to the South African brand that would help them establish an office in AL Khobar, Eastern Province.
During the team building process, we experienced all four stages: forming, storming, norming, and performing. In the forming stage, we introduced ourselves and discussed the project’s objectives. In the storming stage, we encountered some conflicts and disagreements, but we were able to work through them and come to a consensus. In the norming stage, we established clear roles and responsibilities for each team member. In the performing stage, we were able to work efficiently and effectively as a team.
For our virtual tool, we chose to use Asana for task management. Asana is a project management tool that allows for the creation of tasks, the assignment of responsibilities, and the tracking of progress. It also has features such as file sharing, calendar integration, and real-time notifications. We chose Asana because it was user-friendly and had all the features that we needed for our team’s workflow.
We had a budget of SAR 10k, we used this budget to get the best possible tool for our team. Our team met at least once a week for around 30-45 minutes each meeting. During these meetings, we discussed the progress of our tasks and any issues that we encountered. We also took meeting minutes to ensure that everyone was on the same page and to keep track of important decisions.
In creating a virtual office, we utilized a variety of communication tools such as Zoom and WhatsApp to stay in touch with each other. We faced challenges such as time zone differences and difficulty in coordinating schedules. To overcome these challenges, we utilized vacation time and holiday times to schedule meetings and divide the workload.
For our report and presentation, we proposed a strategy that focused on utilizing social media platforms to reach the target market in Saudi Arabia. We also included statistics and graphs to support our proposed strategy. The international company representative provided feedback on the report, and we addressed their comments to make the final report stronger.
Our virtual team was successful in completing the task given by the CEO. We were able to work efficiently and effectively as a team by utilizing tools such as Asana, Zoom, and WhatsApp. Our proposed strategy for the South African brand was well-researched and well-presented, and it received positive feedback from the international company representative.
