According to your company’s goals and necessary abilities to produce a successful project, your organization can add developers and other professionals to your teams using the outsourcing approach known as IT staff augmentation. This outsourcing method provides qualified technical resources to organizations and their in-house development teams when needed, whether for long-term or short-term initiatives.
Typically, staff augmentation falls into one of the following categories:
- Commodity Staffing: When you need a dependable workforce, but don’t require a particular skillset from them.
- Skilled Staffing: When you require workers with a specific skillset to cover the demands of your business for different types of work, such as clerical work, data processing, transcribing, and simple copywriting.
- Highly Skilled Staffing: When you require employees with highly specialized abilities that can only be acquired through training and experience.
In recent times, many firms have greatly benefited from staff augmentation in order to gain a competitive edge and to obtain their goals at a faster rate without having to compromise on the quality of the project. IT staff augmentation services aid in boosting project development efficiency and accelerating growth.
Businesses that aim to produce tech-related products but lack the major skills due to limited IT knowledge and experience can make the most use of IT staff augmentation services. Businesses in the IT industry can deploy this strategy to get in touch with IT experts without having to go through the hassle of the recruitment process. Enhancing a company’s performance and effectiveness, either temporarily or over time, to improve scalability and efficiency, all while assuring efficacy, is enabled by staff augmentation services.
IT Staff Augmentation Benefits
IT staff augmentation offers a wide range of benefits:
Efficient Recruitment
IT staff augmentation limits in-house hiring of staff and hence the hiring process becomes much more efficient as this strategy does not require the involvement of HR and interviews.
Cost Effectiveness
It reduces the overhead costs that are incurred when an in-house team is hired. Moreover, it eliminates the cost of hiring full-time employees for projects that are not long lasting.
Flexibility
Companies are not bound by contracts and the adaptability rate increases as talent acquisition can be done based on project requirements. Top IT staff augmentation companies adapt to the needs of firms attaining these services and hence project effectiveness is enhanced.
No Complications
Payroll, training and performance management are just a few responsibilities that businesses no longer need to spend time managing because their service providers already handle these tasks. In order to make sure that everything goes ‘according to plan’, IT staff augmentation service providers also handle the budget and plans.
Types of Staff Augmentation
The two major types are as follow:
- Short-term: When there is an immediate need for staff or when internal employees are not available, short-term staff augmentation services are used.
- Long-term: When a project is longer in duration, there is a need to cover a skill gap, reduce operational costs or when it is challenging to hire an internal staff member, that is when long-term staff augmentation services are utilized.
Staff Augmentation vs Consulting
For smaller projects where you require temporary workers with specific capabilities, IT staff augmentation is suitable. Consulting services are more appropriate for tasks requiring a variety of specialists and generalists, as well as assistance with project planning and administration, without the need of preset parameters.
Project-based consulting companies usually offer a variety of services under one roof, from project conceptualization and planning to staffing, project execution and post-launch assistance. Project-based consulting services also offer continuous oversight, evaluation and a high level of organizational adaptation. This indicates that the services offered by consulting firms are typically delivered in a very particular manner. They often have predetermined service packages and methods of delivering those services to their clients. However, there is some degree of flexibility.
On the other hand, initiatives with established parameters, rules and expectations frequently incorporate the staff augmentation process. They actually don’t contribute anything “new,” at least not in terms of the project’s scope. That portion has been handled by the employing company.
IT Managed Services vs Staff Augmentation
Managed IT services involve outsourcing management and support for your company in order to increase operational effectiveness. The managed service provider fulfills a full-time employee role. These businesses have put together a qualified team of specialists to handle the technological burden of a wide range of clients, freeing them up to concentrate solely on their core competencies and avoiding the time-consuming task of hiring and keeping in-house staff.
On the contrary, staff augmentation is one of the models for software development outsourcing. It entails service provider hiring, additional technical talent, and/or IT knowledge. The basic goal is to support your team by filling in any temporary gaps in expertise or knowledge, or possibly both, without adding additional personnel. In this instance, it’s crucial to concentrate on contributing ideas and effort without making a commitment to the outcomes.
Therefore, the fundamental distinction between managed services and staff augmentation is that in a managed services approach, the supplier takes over all or part of the IT execution components. On the other hand, in a staff augmentation model, the supplier merely agrees to deliver predetermined services at a predetermined cost. Due to this difference, the staff augmentation pricing model also varies in comparison to the IT managed services model.
Finding outside talent is simpler and more economical than ever these days. However, there are a lot of options, making it difficult to choose. Organizations need to see what is the best fit for their business. NETSOL has mastered the art of providing all these services and our IT experts can take you through the journey to better understand the dynamics of all these models. Book a slot with our experts and proceed with the best way forward today.