When a development project is too much for an organization to complete, they opt for one of the two options between IT staff augmentation and Offshore Product Development. Staff augmentation is a project development model where companies hire off-site staff for a temporary role for a specific task. However, you can consider IT staff augmentation as a sub-category of outsourcing. But there are quite a few differences between them along with similarities. With staff augmentation, you invest in resources and outsource the development task. But the management of the project is in your control. Staff augmentation is an efficient way to expedite extracting specialized skill sets to meet business needs.
IT staff augmentation has a lot of benefits on offer for any business. The following are some major ones:
Staff augmentation allows your company to work with trained professionals at the height of their careers. The main benefit of working with these kinds of professionals is that you can assign any level of relevant task to them with confidence. They are mid-career experienced campaigners and do not need much of training or assistance from your side. All you need to do is assign the task and tell how you want to get it done. As the staff is experienced and they all know their job very well, you get your results in a timely manner. An experienced professional brings a different set of skills and expertise to the table. This makes your job easier and gives you room to focus on the big picture.
Most software projects are completed within a short duration of time. Therefore, hiring a permanent workforce for it is not a financially wise decision. It will cost you more than it is worth. A full-time employee is entitled to salary and other benefits. This accounts for huge expenses for the company when tax is also added to it. Staff augmentation enables you to hire quality staff without engaging in long-term and costly employment engagements. Also, you do not lose the quality of the product. The augmented staff understands the project requirements quickly and gets it done efficiently.
The documentation protocol in the technical hiring systems is quite complex and tedious. There are a lot of legal aspects to take care of. It is your responsibility as an employer to candidate’s profile, official documents, and other legal paperwork. The process is time-taking and energy-draining. Staff augmentation is a good way out of all this hassle of maintaining loads of documentation and legalities. It is a relatively stress-free and convenient way of procuring a workforce for technical operations. Also, legal headaches are almost negligible in the process of IT staff augmentation.
Just like Offshore Product Development, geography is not a constraint in Staff Augmentation. You can hire the talent with the required skill set from anywhere around the world. As the control of the project is in-house. So, there are very less chances of miscommunication if you keep your scope and project objectives clear to everyone working on it. Communication and differences in time zones are the only things to manage when you hire staff from different geographical locations.
This is one of the best things about staff augmentation that IT companies admire a lot. It gives you the flexibility to hire on the go to suit your short-term needs. It helps software development services to supplant their permanent employees with skilled professionals for a specific project. This certainly enables Offshore Product Development Services to scale up their business. However, the chances of failure are quite slim. But even if this kind of setup fails, it does not put a company at a heavy loss.
However small it is, it is still a professional tie. Hence, you need to pick your partner carefully. Otherwise, instead of benefits, you might end up in loss. The following are the parameters you must analyze before choosing a staff augmentation partner:
Staff augmentation is no longer at the nascent stage as it was a few years back. It has grown beyond the inception phase. A lot of established organizations are choosing Offshore Product Development and IT staff augmentation as their go-to way of executing a development project. It is all due to the amazing benefits they provide.
Praveen is a seasoned IT Solutions Leader and Director at RSK Business Solutions, a technology-driven IT Consulting Company that specializes in Bespoke Software Development, Agile Consulting, Mobile App Development, Smart Sourcing, and much more. For the last 17 years, he has been delivering quality custom IT solutions that help businesses achieve their goals.