Advantages and Disadvantages of IT Staff Augmentation

Building your business application is an amazing experience. You need to remember though that without the support of skilled experts, your project may face challenges nobody in your team may be able to handle and the whole process could spread out over time. This may cost your company time and money. Is there any method to prevent such an outcome?

How to Manage a New IT Project?

You can develop your application, even if you do not have your own, in-house development team. All kinds of companies – small, medium, and large – can gain access to the newest technologies and customized business solutions. Apart from building applications and tools, and running processes inside your company with the help of programmers you hire, you can choose between two approaches:

• Managed IT services
• IT staff augmentation services

By choosing managed services you outsource the whole process from the external software house. You may outsource many types of services of course – you can move the responsibility for managing networks and infrastructure, providing cybersecurity solutions, performing data analytics, and many others to the other organization to save your employees’ time and resources. 

IT staff augmentation is recommended for projects that are limited in time – for example when you want to develop an application or modify some solution that is already in use in your company. But what does staff augmentation mean? This approach allows you to remain in control of your development process and benefit from the support of talented experts.

What Do You Need to Know About Staff Augmentation?

Staff augmentation is a type of IT service. It is a good choice for companies, which already hire some developers and maintain IT departments of their own, but require help from more experienced programmers or experts with particular, rare knowledge in a specific IT field. This service is usually leveraged in case of time-sensitive projects, as the costs may be significant. Cooperating with skilled specialists may reduce development time and prevent many mistakes in the project.

Types of Staff Augmentation

In general staff augmentation services are divided based on how long a company needs the assistance of an expert. You can ask for:

• short-term support – a good way to replace your in-house specialists, when they are on sick leave or holidays,
• long-term support – when you have planned a specific project, and you know that you do not want to hire an employee with the required skills.

In some articles, you will also find categories such as commodity (when you simply need extra employees, and they do not need to have any specific skills), skill-based (when you need your temporary employee to have certain skills, but they do not need to be an expert) and highly-skilled (when you need only the best from some particular field).

Should Your Company Choose IT Staff Augmentation Services?

The question is: what kind of tasks should be performed, what kind of employees do you need and for how long. If you are working on a new application or new business tools and your employees may lack experience or know-how, staff augmentation may be the solution for you. Of course, this approach has drawbacks as well as advantages.

What Are The Drawbacks of Staff Augmentation?

It is inefficient in case of very long cooperation. Some may think that by “renting” a specialist from a software house, they can save money. It is true if staff augmentation is used for projects to be performed over a limited time. This approach is no alternative to the traditional hiring model. If you feel that you need a full-time employee, just hire one – staff augmentation is a great choice only for temporary cooperation.

Advantages of Staff Augmentation Services

The main benefits of this solution are: 

• retaining full control over the project – the project is carried out by your in-house team, which is simply supported by a consultant or developer with bigger experience or some particular skills;
• access to talented employees – you are not limited by lack of access to talents. You can check in different companies for the experts you need for a certain project. You do not need to search only in your city or country, because IT specialists are quite used to remote working;
• cost reduction – sometimes you need some type of skills only for a particular project, and you do not want to hire an expert full-time. It costs a lot. With staff augmentation, you can rent his services only for as long as you need the help.

Staff augmentation services can help you scale your business faster and easier. Choose this approach and work with the best IT specialists from all over the world.

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