How to build teams for a global company with geographic remoteness

How would you compensate for their geographic remoteness? Each team in each region should be self-managing team, being able to answer questions and solve customer issues at the local level. The team should be made up of individuals that are aware of each others skills of expertise and be able to call on the other team mates if they need to so. Also know as "Optimizing Human Resources". (Thompson, Leigh, 2004, pg 119) Each team should have a group leader responsible for coordinating between the "home office" and "Regional Offices."

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Each team should be made up of those that understand the culture and can relate to customers of that region. It will be the Human Resource manager assigned to that team that will direct the team members in business etiquette.
2. To build trust, you would need to have them be a part of the creation of the newly formed global sales teams. So it is not being dictated to them the new global sales program, they are actually building their own program.
3. To compensate for their geographic remoteness, they should use such programs as Microsoft Live Meeting or something similar for them to communicate with the home office on a regular basis. When you have people in remote regions, you bring together though the intranet, real time meetings on the internet, conference calls and video conferencing.
   
   
   References:
   Thompson, Leigh L., 2004, "Making the Team, A guide for Managers, Second Edition", Pearson Education Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 07458.