Financial Advice Provided By Dedicated Team – DEF Financial Advisory Firm

Financial Planning Advice Division Goals

Discuss About The Financial Advice Provided By Dedicated Team.

The report provides an insight into management aspect of a Financial Advisory Firm based in Australia. The firm under discussion is DEF, which is one of the largest advisory firms based in Australia with over 300 staffs and offices located along the Australian east coast. DEF also represents a network of the partner firms across the country. The firm is also responsible for providing planning, retirement and financial seminars along with advice of the specialist in superannuation, retirement, divorce, corporate and aged care. The strategy of DEF is based on the growth and quality due to their strong reputation in the industry.  The firm holds the vision of enriching the client’s life by overpowering them in making important decisions of life depending on the financial advice provided by dedicated expert team. The firm however plans in setting up a newer division located at an arm’s length distance from the main branch. This was done for providing innovative service to the clients referred to them from other organizations related to debt recovery. For carrying out this activity, the firm plans to provide phone line advice to the clients through the expertise financial planners from 7 am to 10 pm from Monday to Sunday. The report helps in analyzing the decision of the firm in setting of the newer division through planning, organizing, leading and controlling. The DEF’s new division has however considered three options for operating its advice line that includes virtual team, global overseas team and self-managed team. The report in analyzing the three options and suggest the options that best suits DEF.

Australia symbolizes a secure destination for investment purposes of the financial advisor firm.  Further, the country is also open, stable and progressive thereby aiding the financial service industry with confidence and certainty (Falkner 2017).

Economic:

Australia remains dominated by the service sector because of the ease in performance of business activities. This also holds true for the financial service industry (Dunning 2013). The various aspects of Australian economy like lower unemployment, lower public debt, continued inflation, stronger and stable financial system, open market and constant growth provides a boost to the financial service industry.

Social:

Australia known as the land of diverse people now has an increased level of education compared to before (Franks et al. 2014). Further, the national culture of the country also serves as the driving force for financial service industry.

Environmental Scan

Technological:

The financial service industry in Australia is influenced by technological factors related to speed of the changes in technology, incentives in relation to technology and the research and development (Chong 2014). The reason lies in the fact that the presence of the technology not only reduces cost but also leads to quality improvement thereby leading to the innovation.

Environmental:

The move towards environmental protection and adoption of products that are environmental friendly influences the financial service industry through creation of the newer business opportunities and change in demand patterns (Hillary 2017).

Legal

The legal system in Australia depends on fundamental belief in rule of law, justice and the judicial independence where all people receives equal treatment. This helps initiating an encouraging work culture as well as environment for the financial service industry.

Depending on comparison, the preferable team choice for DEF should be virtual team since there is an existence of the sense of trust because of adoption of the meaningful communication, open culture and the positivity in the work attitude.

Effectiveness and Cohesion in Virtual Teams is built through (Crisp and Jarvenpaa 2013):

• Specific goal setting for the team
• Clear definition of the responsibilities and roles of the team members
• Through commitment of essential charter for communication purpose
• Defining creative ways for better interaction amongst the team members

Strategies for Management of Communication amongst Virtual Team Members

Management of communication amongst the members of virtual teams is ensured through (Morgan, Paucar and Wright 2014):  

• Building of the trust among members and enabling it to grow through clear expectation
• Undertaking communication scheduling on a normal basis
• Establishment of rules for the responsiveness
• Adoption of the means of the communication that helps in time saving

Virtual team characterizes a group of individuals who works on the geographically distributed as well as interdependent task and conducts core work with the help of an electronic medium (Schiller et al. 2014). Therefore, through hiring of a specialist the virtual team will be motivated towards certainty. While a generalist will struggle on the things that necessitates a different means of thinking

Virtual teams represent groups of either organizationally or geographically dispersed coworkers assembled through the combination of the information and the telecommunications technology for the accomplishment of an organizational task (Watanuki and Moraes 2016). In other words, the members of the virtual team makes use  of varying degrees of technologies for working across the temporal, locational and international boundary for the accomplishment of interdependent task. Such teams are becoming very much part of the organization. They therefore undertake decision making by adopting the process of computer mediated communication (CMC).

The procedures and the processes of a virtual team is designed in a manner so that it does not constrain creativity and innovation as the capability of balancing flexibility and discipline holds critical importance for project environment (Al et al. 2013). The administrative structure of project should comprise of enough discipline for completion of project with minimum bureaucratic interference. The team should also consider the technical challenges, the government regulations influencing the project, its complexity and the requirement of the stakeholders of the project. The team should therefore make us of information in determining the procedural flexibility for completion of the project. The stability between the bureaucracy and flexibility should be done in a manner so that it does not become a hindrance in the completion of the assigned task.

Operations and Team Management

  For the successful operation of a virtual team in the new division there should be implementation of agenda, preparation of visuals, plan for interaction and a building time for nurturing of relationships (Pangil and Moi 2014). In addition, team roles should be identified along with the development of the ground rules involving transparency, respect, candor, trust and confidentiality. Moreover being present on an ongoing call considered a good practice. The newer division of DEF is organic. This is because organic represents a flexible structure that can well adapt to the occurrence of change.

Supervisors or the managers of a virtual team plays a key role in maintaining the togetherness of the team but also ensures motivation of its members (Hoch and Kozlowski 2014). Thus, managers of virtual team are able to effectively manage the expectations through proper understanding of the requirements of team members.

The leadership style that would best suit the virtual team is the transformational leadership (Purvanova and Bono 2009). This is defined as leadership approach that brings about change in the social systems and the individuals. Thus, it is an ideal form of leadership that not only ensures bringing about a positive change but also helps in creation of value amongst the followers with the ultimate goal of reflection of their actions for ensuring personal growth. The leadership style thus helps in motivating the individual team members thereby leading to the generation of a positive effect on the effectiveness of the team. In other words, transformational leadership portrays a higher degree of concern, power and integrity of the team members. Under this form of leadership style, team members are able to have a clear and compelling vision. These leaders ensure communicating higher expectations and remain confident that the team would achieve such goals. High team performance is ensured by the team leader through challenging team members in approaching problem from varied angles and thereby proposing solutions. These behaviors are expected to have a positive influence on the effectiveness of the virtual team.

1. Have an Idealized Influence: This is because these leaders prefers the needs of team members, shares risk with the team members and has a steady conduct following the underlying principles, values and ethics
2. Provides Inspirational Motivation: These leaders stimulates and motivates team spirit with enthusiasm, optimism and encouragement.
3. Provides Intellectual Stimulation: Such leaders ensure stimulating the members in being creative and innovative. They not only questions assumptions but also encourage newer approaches to older situations. Hence, the team members remain actively involved in finding newer ideas and solutions.
4. Encourages Individualized Consideration: In addition to achieving the goals of the team these leaders also believe in investing individualized development of the team members. They help in stimulating the team members in developing higher potential levels.

Strategies for Recognition and Reward of Virtual Team

These include (Fan et al. 2014):

1. Magnification of the Recognition Process: This is ensured through publicizing employee accomplishment across multiple forums that includes dashboards, team meetings and newsletters.
2. Creation of Employee opportunities: This encourages the employees to experience opportunities from the expanded responsibilities and training programs.
3. Offering of Financial Incentives: This kind of reward and recognition provides necessary motivation to the employees in putting forward the best effort.
4. Embracement of Gratification: This leads to the generation of friendly competition and thereby reaching higher standards of performance through the rewards.
5. Encouraging Peer-to-Peer Recognition: This acts in motivating and engaging the newer generation of flexible workers.

Virtual teams require more energy for sustenance which requires motivation. The strategies of motivation for a virtual team supported by motivation theories include:

1. Mc Clelland Need for Power, Achievement and Affiliation: This is also known as the needs theory put forward by Psychologist David Mc Clelland (Heckhausen 2013).  The motivational model helps in explaining how the needs for the achievement, affiliation and power help in influencing actions of people from managerial context.
2. Hertzberg Two-Factor Theory: This theory is also known as the motivation hygiene theory that portrays the existence of some factors in workplace  that causes job satisfaction along with presence of separate factors that leads to the dissatisfaction of the job(Ali 2013).
3. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: The theory presents description of needs that helps in motivating behavior of humans (Lester 2013). As per the theory, there exist five basic needs for human which includes safety, esteem, psychological, self-actualization and social.

Importance of the Communication and Interpersonal Skills  

Organizations depend on the process of communication which involves the exchange of ideas, information or messages through signal, speech or writing.  The functional aspect of a firm seems to come to a standstill in absence of the communication (Koprowska 2014). However, interpersonal skills refer to the ability of employee’s in mingling with others while accomplishing their jobs.

Virtual Team

 Recommendation of the Processes for Consultation and Negotiation with the Management and Team Members

The processes of consultation and negotiation with management and team member involve:

1. Encouragement towards the nuanced understanding of the other end.
2. Recognition of the inimitable knowledge and expertise
3. Acceptance of disagreement

Recommendation of Processes for Handling Conflict and Dispute Resolution

The process of dispute resolution and handling of conflict involve (Katz and Flynn 2013):

1. Adoption of the Procedure of Negotiation: This involves undertaking back and for the communication amongst the involved parties for the resolution of the conflicts.
2. Adoption of the Procedure of Mediation: This enables both parties in conforming to an agreement that is mutually acceptable
3. Adoption of the Procedure of Arbitration: This refers to the procedure where an impartial person acts as a decision maker in the disputed matters.
4. Adoption of the Procedure of Litigation: This particular procedure involves the justice system and the courts in resolving the legal queries

Importance of the Control Function

Controlling represents a management function that has massive value and importance in the business firms since it helps in determining where the real state of business affairs remains in line with the expectation (Goetsch and Davis 2014).

Controlling and Measuring Team Members of Virtual Team

These include:

1. Development and usage of a plan for management and communication of the team in conjunction with the operation of the various agreements.
2. Ensure slowing down before picking up speed that helps in the realization and understanding of the environment and the culture that an individual is working.
3. Adoption of the appropriate means of the technology necessary for the interactions of the team.
4. Enabling creation of virtual personality and presence through exploring the natural tendencies, strength and weakness.
5. Ensuring the presence of a good host who helps in determining the places for unplanned interactions of the team.
6. Ensure running of an effective team meetings through the use of the advanced techniques for its management and also involve forced engagement for the frequent interactions.

Conclusion: 

The report ends by throwing a light into planning, organization, leading and controlling of the newer division of DEF that will have a virtual team design or structure. There report however put forward a vivid analysis showing why virtual team structure better suits the financial advisory firm.

References: 

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