Running Head: HERFY 1

E-Management

Name of the Student

Institution Affiliation

Course
HERFY 2

Abstract

This project explores ways in which Herfy, a Saudi Arabian fast food

restaurant chain and one of the biggest fast-food companies in the Middle East, will use to enter

the US and the UK market. The US and the UK being home to some of the biggest fast-food

chains in the world, virtual entry into these markets will be challenging even for a company as a

big as Herfy due to the stiff competition posed by the already existing companies, political

barriers, economic, language, time, and cultural differences. To be able to set up the business in

the country, the company will have to implement the right virtual team management techniques,

methods to get the team working together, technology, and communication tools. Utilizing these

techniques, the company will be able to overcome major challenges faced when setting up virtual

teams and help it to enter the markets successfully.

Introduction

Herfy is a fast food restaurant chain located in Saudi Arabia, entirely Saudi-owned. It is

among the largest of its kind in the Middle East surpassing other international chain s in the area

in terms of presence. The chain has more than 212 restaurant branches and employs more than

5,000 employees in the country alone. Ahmed Al-Said founded the company in the year 1981.

Through a partnership with Panda United which was under Hamud Al-Ibrahim as the general

manager, Herfy first restaurant was opened in Riyadh (Herfy, n.d.). In 1998, the Panda United

was incorporated with the Salova Group; therefore, they operate together. The two companies

went public as a joint-stock in 2010.

For more than 33 years, the company has become famous for its world-class quality,

innovation and entrepreneurship. It is not only one of the leading companies in the country but
HERFY 3

also its excellent reputation as a market leader in restaurants, meat processing, and bakery &

sweets. The company vision was inspired by the American fast-food craze, which was sweeping

across the world. To control its quality, the company started making its own bread and a few

Type of virtual management

Herfy is planning to start doing business in the United States and the United Kingdom.

To make this a reality, the company will have to adapt to using different types of virtual team

management techniques. The company wishes to maintain its reputation as an organization that

cares for its employees, and the use of virtual team will ensure employee job satisfaction. To

have effective virtual team management would mean having flexible working hours which will

contribute to life-work balance. Workers have to have the freedom to choose their working

environment, depending on their comfort. The virtual team will also ensure the company costs

are reduced. Not having a physical location for its management team, the organization will save

money on office rent, transport, bill, and other facilities which would be needed by team

members. Therefore, there are a few virtual team management characteristics that the company

needs to implement to get the team working flawlessly.

The first characteristic of a virtue team management to be implemented will be trusted. The

foundation of any healthy and successful relationship is trust, and it is even of greater essence

when virtual teams. The lack of face to face interaction or contact, there is a need to be more

intentional within virtual teams to focus on building trust. The core elements of trust are

integrity, competence, dependability, and care. These four elements are essential if a company is

trying to build trust among its teams and members and using them, Herfy will be able to develop

interrelationship between its team members.

HERFY 4

Open communication is another virtual characteristic that will be implemented. Knowing

and understanding the importance of engaging in proper communication is vital to any team. The

company will establish and maintain appropriate standards of communication, diligently working

on their tone, using simultaneous communication regularly, especially at critical moments and

learning how to be more emotionally perceptive of the message passed. Since communication is

mostly non-verbal, virtual teams have to get their message across through the use of proper

tone (Darleen DeRosa, 2017). Having a clear and effective communication means giving clear

and being effective at responding to other team members when they ask for response or

clarification. This will ensure there is no miscommunication between the teams, which will lead

to wasted working hours and cost of further communication or face to face time (Randy Conley,

2014).

Strong interpersonal skills will be promoted by Herfy in the management of its virtual

team. For a virtual team to thrive, contrary to the common belief that introvert people thrive best

in this setup, extrovert fare better. They adapt to finding better ways of staying connected to

other team members regardless of location. Having frequent communication and maintaining the

same frequency in all communication within a team are crucial in maintaining transparency and

accountability of virtual teams (Eztalks, n.d.).

Flexibility is a characteristic most desirable in virtual team members and leaders. The

ability to juggle different priorities and responsibilities simultaneously is difficult for most

people. This makes it an important skill since employees can pivot when there is a shift in

priorities steering other team members in the right direction. When what needs to be done is not

clear, virtual teams can think critically with comfort and examine the facts to determine the next

step to be taken. This will not only help the company operations running smoothly but also help
HERFY 5

teams are flexible in carrying out their duties ("Managing Virtual Teams | Definition, Importance

for Career, Ways to Improve," n.d.).

Virtual teams will work together

Since virtual teams can be very complicated, especially in the case of Herfy, as they cross

geographical location, language, diverse culture, and working style. All the factors complicate

the management of virtual teams. Therefore, Herfy will have to leverage some effective team

attributes to make the teamwork efficiently and avoid dysfunction. The first step the company

will take is getting the right team in place. Like any other team, the virtual team begins with

excellent people (Baldassarre, 2014). The employees must be excellent in communication skills,

flexible, strong interpersonal skills, must be of integrity, and sensitive and awareness to cross-

culture. To make sure Herfy gets the team working together efficiently, then the company

management will have to find team members that possess the above qualities.

The company will also get the right leader to lead each team. The leader must have

qualities that make them better at communication and delegating since skills needed for

traditional leadership teams are different from those required for virtual teams. The leader chosen

by the company will need to recognize the importance of trust as it is vital to the success of a

virtual team. Therefore, they will need to be empathetic and respectful of others. He will need to

encourage team members to speak frankly and openly without fear, even in difficult times. Team

building skills will be emphasized since building and keeping a virtual team together is more

complicated (Michael D. Watkins, 2015). The leader will also need to be goal-oriented clarifying

expectations and goals to other members to reduce uncertainty and improve trust.
HERFY 6

Finally, Herfy Co. will need to use the right technology to build the right team rhythm.

By understanding the need for effective technology use, such as video conferencing, conference

calls, and other communication tools, the company’s virtue team will be effective at

communicating with each other. To best make this possible, Herfy will provide all its teams with

the right technology. It will also teach them how to utilize the tools available to them to

communicate clearly and without delay. If the organization fails to provide the right technology

and train the teams, then effective communication is hindered.

Communication and task management tools

Herfy teams will use various tools for both communication and management of tasks. These can

be video conferencing tools, data storage, or voice messages. Proofhub is one such advanced

project management tool that will be used to manage the team (ProofHub, 2019) Slack can also

be used to making sharing information and working together secure and seamless. It brings

teams together to get things done collaboratively and faster. Skype will be used for video chats

and messaging. Sitting in the office or working, Skype will allow teams to communicate through

both video and audio and even share screens at a relatively low cost. File management tools such

as Google Drive and cloud are tools that the company will invest in to ensure the data shared and

stored is safe (EzTalks, n.d.).. To track employee activities and accurately bill clients, Herfy will

employ the use of TImeCamp. To train its employees, the organization will use MindScroll.

Therefore, the employees can be educated on the operations of the company virtually as well.

Managing the teams in both locations in terms of language, cultural, time, political, and

economic differences
HERFY 7

To manage the teams in both the US and UK, the company will have to employ various

techniques to overcome the language barrier, time, cultural, economic and political differences.

The first is training their employees and encouraging them to use English as the communication

language (Cagiltay, Bichelmeyer, & Kaplan Akilli, 2015).. Since it is spoken both in both

countries, it would only be logical to use a common language. To manage the cultural difference,

the team will not only hire sensitive cultural employees but also train them to recognize and be

respectful of other people's cultures. To overcome the time barrier, the use of communication

tools such as Skype and Hangouts will be used by the teams. Navigating political differences will

require the company looking for business partners with whom the company can collaborate with,

and so will overcoming economic differences (REBECCA BAKKEN, 2019).

Conclusion

Although Herfy is one of the largest fast-food company in the Middle East, its virtual

expansion into the US and the UK market will not be easy. It will face political, economic,

cultural, time and language challenges. However, with the right preparation, it can successfully

conquer these new markets. This will require the company to apply the right strategies to ensure

implementation of the right characteristics of virtual management such as; a collaboration of

virtual teams, us of the right tools for task management and communication. Managing of

cultural, political, and other factors that are a challenge to the implementation of virtual

managing of teams in both locations will have to be overcome. By doing so, the company will

not only be successful in setting up their business in the UK and US but also thrive to become a

fierce competitor to major fast-food restaurants in the market.

HERFY 8

References

Baldassarre, R. (2014, March 24). 10 Ways to Successfully Manage Virtual Teams. Retrieved

from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244197

Cagiltay, K., Bichelmeyer, B., & Kaplan, Akilli, G. (2015). Working with multicultural virtual

teams: critical factors for facilitation, satisfaction and success. Smart Learning

Environments, 2(1). doi:10.1186/s40561-015-0018-7

Darleen DeRosa. (2017, December 28). 3 Key Characteristics Essential To Managing Virtual

Teams. Retrieved from https://www.business2community.com/human-resources/3-key-

characteristics-essential-managing-virtual-teams-01980630

EzTalks. (n.d.). 8 Best Virtual Team Tools for Communication and Collaboration. Retrieved

from https://www.eztalks.com/telecommuting/virtual-team-tools.html

Eztalks. (n.d.). The Main Characteristics of Successful Virtual Teams Discussed. Retrieved

from https://www.eztalks.com/telecommuting/the-main-characteristics-of-successful-

virtual-teams.html

Herfy. (n.d.). Home. Retrieved from https://www.herfy.com/

Managing Virtual Teams | Definition, Importance for Career, Ways to Improve. (n.d.).

Retrieved from https://www.cleverism.com/skills-and-tools/managing-virtual-teams/

Michael D. Watkins. (2015, June 27). Making Virtual Teams Work: Ten Basic Principles.

Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2013/06/making-virtual-teams-work-ten

ProofHub. (2019, November 5). Best Tools For Managing A Virtual Team. Retrieved from

https://blog.proofhub.com/best-tools-for-managing-a-virtual-team-9c01188deabf

Randy Conley. (2014, September 29). 3 Characteristics of Successful Virtual Teams. Retrieved

from https://leaderchat.org/2014/09/25/3-characteristics-of-successful-virtual-teams/
HERFY 9

REBECCA BAKKEN. (2019, November 8). Challenges to Managing Virtual Teams and How

to Overcome Them. Retrieved from https://www.extension.harvard.edu/professional-

development/blog/challenges-managing-virtual-teams-and-how-overcome-them