Released on: July 27, 2008, 5:38 pm

Press Release Author: Ty Mays

Industry: Software

Press Release Summary: As managers struggle to hold remote team members accountable, TeamLeader delivers innovative web-based solutions for governing globally dispersed teams and increasing productivity and ROI.


Press Release Body: RALEIGH, N.C. - In response to increasing managerial concerns related to employee productivity within dispersed teams, Virtual Global (www.virtualglobal.com) launches TeamLeader, a new Software as a Service (SaaS) designed to help managers cope with the 21st century management challenge: holding remote team members accountable.

In recent years, managers have encountered a slew of productivity challenges with dispersed team members who are more prone to \"free ride\". TeamLeader gives managers an easier way to interactively manage large teams and complex tasks, while boosting employee productivity and efficiency. Using TeamLeader, managers can assign work, and report on who\'s doing what, what\'s late, and quickly approaching deadlines. This puts managers in closer touch with their teams, even if they are scattered around the world.

\"The needs of managers have been grossly overlooked in this whole collaborative movement,\" said Cary Landis, CEO of Virtual Global. \"Most collaboration suites offer little or nothing for managers who still use email as their main productivity tool. Email was never intended for productivity. In reality, it\'s usually quite the opposite.\"

While TeamLeader was engineered to help companies closely monitor contractors and offshore-outsourced work, it\'s also well-suited for managers of telecommuting teams, or those who want to keep a closer eye on their in-house activities and onsite teams.

With TeamLeader, managers can shift priorities, report on late tasks, reassign tasks, and manage daily issues. They can even graph team member performance trends using the Team Intelligence reporting component. Employers can more easily identify underachievers, overachievers and resource bottlenecks. They have the information they need for employee evaluations and other hard business decisions.

In contrast to project planning software, TeamLeader is a highly interactive way to manage the daily flood of unplanned activities within dynamic teams. Managers may choose to import MS Project task assignments to get up and running more quickly as a true Project Management 2.0 solution supporting Earned Value Management for large-scale projects. Either way, TeamLeader tracks what team members are really doing rather than what they planned to do.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity, 59% of organizations are placing a greater emphasis on improving employee productivity and efficiency. More than 60% of respondents identified software as the preferred tool to track productivity in their offices.

\"The first wave of collaboration was about communication, while the second wave, Collaboration 2.0, is more about managing all the scattering that just happened,\" says Landis. \"Managers need new ways to cope with all of their new problems. They need reports.\"

Although TeamLeader is not promoted as a collaboration offering, it is delivered with a tightly integrated collaborative suite. Managers and team members alike can use the task calendars, chat in real time, view remote desktops, organize documents, send mail, and more. As team members work, they create a rich performance knowledgebase that is readily available to managers for reporting.

Virtual Global\'s collaboration strategy incorporates an open platform. Developers can use TeamLeader\'s Plugin Development Kit to build custom components and integrate the system with in-house web applications or third-party web-services. The program can be used to manage teams in any industry, including construction, law enforcement and manufacturing. The software is currently used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

TeamLeader is available in three editions for any size team: TeamLeader Enterprise; TeamLeader Professional; and TeamLeader Starter. For more information, a free trial or to purchase TeamLeader, visit www.virtualglobal.com or www.teamhost.com.

About Virtual Global:

Based in Morgantown, W. Va., Virtual Global has been a leading innovator in team management and productivity technologies since 2003. The company manufactures TeamLeader, which is currently used in eight countries across a number of industries. The company also offers turn-key customization and integration services, including coaching for advanced managers seeking more unity and performance from their local, outsourced, and telecommuting teams. For more information on the company\'s services and products, visit
http://www.virtualglobal.com.

Web Site: http://www.teamhost.com

Contact Details: Ty Mays
(888) 302-4533 ext. 704
tmays@virtualglobal.com