Reference no: EM132836646

Spancom Solutions (SS) has emerged as one of the leading digital solutions providers in Singapore. Led by founder and managing director Marcus Lim, the company offers innovative and highly integrated technology solutions for its clients. Grow Digital is a digital initiative by the Singapore government that gives a head start to local SMEs to go global. This initiative has further spurred the already high demand for digital solutions in the industry and Marcus wants to grab this opportunity. He believes his company has the structure and resources to take up more digital contracts. For this, he plans to recruit more staff, including someone at a higher level to streamline the company's operations. He also believes his staff can be much more productive and is looking for ways to further strengthen employee motivation and teamwork.

The Staff Spancom Solutions's greatest assets are its people. There are around one hundred talented and creative employees who work in the four key services that the company offers: business development, digital marketing, design, and content writing. Executives in each department work in teams and report to their respective team leaders. The team leaders report to David Tan, a senior operations manager, who closely guides them in managing their teams. He believes in setting challenging goals for the team leaders and makes sure they deliver results. Most team members in each department have similar skills and they freely share information as they work towards their goals. The business development executives are comparatively younger than the executives in design and digital marketing. The content writing team of executives is a mix of seniors and fresh graduates. As such, while they remain busy chasing their goals, they are lost as to what a complete project looks like. David believes that executives are most efficient when their work is highly specialised so he insists on leaving it to the team leaders to look into finalising the projects under his supervision. After learning that Marcus was looking to appoint someone as the head of operations, David believes he is ready to take additional responsibilities at the company, hoping his promotion will happen sooner than later.

The Change Unfortunately, David's ambitions were curtailed when Marcus decided to bring in Christina Wong, an outsider, as the new head of operations. Christina has a rich experience not only in managing digital solutions, but also in managing teams. The same day, Marcus promoted David as deputy head of operations and asked him to cooperate with Christina. What was even worse for David was the fact that Christina is changing the way David used to do his work and the way the work of his subordinates is organized. Although David and the team leaders are working hard and are committed to their job, there is something amiss about the teamwork and employee motivation that bothers Christina. She calls for a meeting with David and the team leaders and proposes a new way of organizing work. All the current teams will be disbanded and new teams will be formed with executives from different departments working together on one project at a time. She redefines the role of team leaders and asks David to allow the team leaders to work on their own. She asks David to focus more on the company's new clients and their different contracts rather than spending his time supervising the team leaders. David perceives the changes to be a sharp blow to his authority. To his surprise, the executives are not showing much resistance to the proposed changes and some even looked convinced such adjustments are necessary. David manages to hold a separate meeting with the staff, without Christina, and asks his subordinates if they had been unhappy with the way he arranged their work. The executives remain silent, but later the team leaders assured David that they all respected him and that he has been their mentor. Christina has now finalised the changes she proposed and she tells David that she relies on his expertise to implement them. David, on the other hand, is reluctant to do so as he believes that she should take full responsibility for the changes that she is bringing in. David is demotivated, something that he is not known for in the company and everyone seems to notice it. Additionally, new recruits are joining these freshly formed teams that have just begun to adapt to the new ways of working, making teamwork that much more challenging and as a result, some executives have started slacking off. Despite all the new challenges at SS, Marcus is optimistic. He believes the changes proposed by Christina are for the better as he trusts her capabilities. He is also confident that soon, David will be back to his usual self.

Briefly describe the differences between groups and teams. Explain if such differences were understood at Spancom Solutions by drawing examples from the case.