Staff Augmentation vs IT Outsourcing: Which is Right?

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July 28, 2023 Business

Global IT services are gaining momentum like never before. In fact, businesses have begun to look out for different ways to enhance their productivity and efficiency and save money. In other words, they began to look out for the best IT services available, be it staff augmentation or IT outsourcing or anything else. Gone are the times when in-house development or hiring in-house software developers was in vogue, in today’s times the scenario seems to have made a seismic shift a lot lately. Now businesses can kill two birds with one arrow, one by closing talent gaps and another is by burdening unnecessary work pressure on their existing staff members. The following post mainly focuses on the two popular project models, one is staff augmentation and other is IT outsourcing. Here we will be discussing about what are these two models, how they are beneficial and which one is worth considering.

IT Staff Augmentation

The first and foremost model to consider is IT staff augmentation. Well, it turns out to be one of the leading business trends that focuses on hiring contingent workers across the globe. We are currently residing in the era of cutting-edge technology and revolution, so not being competitive enough is something that’s totally non-negotiable. And in order to fulfill all your pre-determined high-tech needs, sooner or later you are bound to hire elite development teams to succeed. Not to mention, ample programming languages and technologies keep on evolving every now and then, so make sure you hire a reliable IT outsourcing company that has a proven track record of offering the best possible results from their doorsteps.

In simple words, staff augmentation is a technique for outsourcing workers for projects already in charge of the current staff members. For instance, let’s say your company excels at developing gaming applications and you need around 10 developers for the project and right now you have 5 developers working in-house so you need 5 more developers to accomplish the project and that’s when the concept of staff augmentation works wonders. Now what happens when you try to hire new programmers? Well, first and foremost it might take 1-2 months to bring some well-experienced on-board seamlessly. In addition, this delays your project and might lessen your estimated revenue.

This is when staff augmentation can be of huge assistance. Here you can hire as many developers as you want within a span of weeks ensuring quicker completion and product launch. Also, you don’t have to live in the guilt that once the application is launched you have to fire the developers who worked for you. Moreover, you no longer have to get into any kind of legal hassles.

Types of Staff Augmentation

Commodity-based augmentation – It’s about adding more staff to a business. So hiring employees who might not be so skilled and well-experienced but also can perform basic tasks seamlessly.
Skill-based augmentation – As the name implies, this type of staff augmentation is required when the business needs skilled workers. These professionals possess a higher level of education and experience ensuring all the tasks to complete in the predetermined time and more efficiently.
Highly-skilled augmentation – These professionals are hired for conducting specific projects and tend to perform tasks that require immense expertise and ability to solve some of the most complex and complicated problems.

Further, I would like to mention how staff augmentation is beneficial in the long run.

Benefits of Staff Augmentation

#1 Enhanced Productivity

The first and foremost benefit offered by staff augmentation is enhanced productivity and efficiency. Here you get an in-house team or chosen set of professionals from different organizations. So the good thing is your core employees only have to focus on the core aspects of the business rest all will be taken care of by the staff augmentation programmers. In addition, the whole project can be accomplished without any delays or interruptions which significantly increases productivity and efficiency. In fact, if you are satisfied with their work, you can definitely re-hire them for other long-term projects.

#2 High-end Flexibility

The next benefit of considering staff augmentation for your IT outsourcing needs is that it offers high-end flexibility and scalability. You see when you hire permanent in-house developers, you ought to follow the lengthy procedures, especially in regards to onboarding or exit clause or replacement, etc. Also, replacing an outsourcing team turns out to be way more challenging here. With staff augmentation, that’s certainly not the case. Here if the programmer does not add a value or does not perform optimally then, he or she can be replaced without much hassle.

#3 Cost-effectiveness

The next advantage of considering staff augmentation is that it is way more cost-effective in comparison to other available development models. For example, when you hire in-house developers you have to pay them a full salary with adequate infrastructure, paid leaves and so forth. Fortunately, that’s not the case with staff augmentation, here you need to pay a basic wage without worrying about proper infrastructure or offering them office space provisions. The staff-augmented service provider takes care of everything else. So basically it definitely turns out to be a cost-effective move.

Basically, here you can pick an expert with the exact skill set you are looking for irrespective of your needs and requirements. So if you want to re-enforce your in-house team, bridge skill gaps, expand the current team, and accomplish the project within the deadline then staff augmentation turns out to be the right choice for you! Now it’s time to focus on the other alternative, i.e. IT outsourcing services. So what are these IT outsourcing services and how are they beneficial in the long run?

IT Outsourcing Services

Over the span of a few years, I am sure you must be well aware of the fact that IT outsourcing services have been one of the most trending topics and even post-COVID wave, it doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. And why not, since the concept of IT outsourcing offers such a vivid range of benefits and advantages such as high-end scalability, amazing disaster recovery, a large talent pool easy to access, cost-effective solutions and whatnot? Now outsourcing IT services is said when you tend to hire an external service provider to deliver special IT-related services, application services, and infrastructure solutions to scale up the business to a great extent.

Now outsourcing is a wide hood comprising utility services, software as a service, cloud-enabled outsourcing, and the list goes on! So further you need to make the right choice. With the mass adoption of remote work, the concept of IT outsourcing seems to be gearing up like never before. So why exactly do you need to outsource IT services or should I say when should you opt for IT outsourcing services?

When to consider IT outsourcing services?

When there is a sudden decrease in overall productivity and efficiency; it takes way longer to complete a project and you end up facing more and more downtime.
Lots and lots of security issues arise again that lead to extensive downtime.
Business is bearing huge losses
Customer support is not par excellence
There is no effective recovery plan or backup plan
No financial resources can aid the cybersecurity plan.
Onboarding new members turns out to be pretty time-consuming and expensive.

If you fit among all the mentioned scenarios, it’s time to consider hiring a reputable and reliable IT outsourcing company. What exactly will happen when you end up doing so? But before that, let us get well-acquainted with different types of IT outsourcing services.

Types of IT Outsourcing Services

Nearshore – As the name implies, nearshore is said when you tend to choose a company near the borders of your country to conduct different IT-related work and services. Let’s say for a US-based business, nearshore outsourcing is said when they choose companies located in Mexico and Canada. These service providers might work in a slightly different time zone but do share the same working culture or language as your business.
Onshore – Onshore outsourcing is said when you end up choosing an external service provider located within the same country as the hiring company for IT-related work and services. Here local development teams can be considered for assistance who can speak the same language and tend to work at the same time zone as yours.
Offshore – Last but certainly not least is an offshore development company. When you choose an offshore development company it means that it is located in a foreign country with totally different time zones, language and cultural barriers. These companies are located in countries that might be miles away and you definitely do not share your borders with them. Some of the popular offshore software development destinations include India, the Philippines, Vietnam, and China. Also, when you end up choosing an offshore development company you are bound to accomplish the project in an extremely cost-effective manner.

Benefits of IT Outsourcing Service Providers

#1 Reduced Costs

One of the major benefits of considering a reputable IT outsourcing company is that the development cost is pretty much reduced. You see when you hire a reliable development service provider overseas what happens is, you no longer have to invest in additional infrastructure or get into the unnecessary ruckus of hiring new members and making them adjust with the current employees altogether. In fact, several small and medium-sized businesses have chosen to break and fix agreements where additional payment is made only in case if any issue arises or else, everything will be done in the predetermined time frame and budget.

#2 Focus on Core Business Activities

Another interesting and major benefit of hiring IT outsourcing development companies is that you get to do you. Yes, when you hire appropriate third-party services, what happens is you get ample time to focus on your core activities and tasks since you already have experienced professionals assigned for your IT requirements.

There was a time when creating in-house teams was considered quite valuable since there was a lot of scarcity of resources, experts or experienced programmers, fortunately, that’s not the case anymore. Today, outsourcing IT service providers has become pretty much in vogue ensuring you with the latest tech services and procedures. On the contrary, this surely improves productivity and the overall efficiency of your business. Just see whether they are a good fit or not and voila!

#3 Enhanced Security

The next aspect or benefit for considering IT outsourcing services or companies is enhanced security. We all know how cybersecurity has become a prime focus with so much hacking and malicious viruses corrupting your systems and leading to huge data losses. When you outsource development services, they are viable to take care of your important data by conducting data monitoring, protection, and backup. These IT outsourcing companies even tend to monitor and report in case any unusual activity takes place. They also keep tabs on whether the antivirus is in check, and best cybersecurity practices are conducted.

You see, not all businesses are capable of investing in good cybersecurity infrastructure, hiring in-house cybersecurity experts who can assist well when there is high downtime and other problems gearing up. In such cases, hiring an IT outsourcing development company can be quite beneficial.

Staff Augmentation or IT Outsourcing Services – Which one is better?

On and all, the demand for skilled and experienced developers is growing pretty much at a fanatic pace. Sometimes it can be really tough to match, we are fortunate enough to have these kinds of options and alternatives. Well, whichever model you choose whether it’s staff augmentation or IT outsourcing company, just make sure you end up choosing the right professional featuring the best skills and expertise, abilities, experience, and of course, industry knowledge. Price, location, and such factors can be negotiable. Making a decision between Staff augmentation and IT outsourcing depends on what is the current team’s capacity and goals for the project. In case, if you have a strong, reliable, dependable internal team then you should definitely consider staff augmentation. Whereas if you want the IT project to be done in a really quick manner with no interference from internal management then, IT outsourcing services can turn out to be the best bet.

Get the Right Crew on Board!

In the end, it’s all about getting the right crew on board. So whether you choose staff augmentation or IT outsourcing services, both can certainly work in your favor but before making a choice make sure you research your options well, ensure flexibility, scalability, delivery of robust solutions, quick, effective, and cost-savvy. I hope you know what you need to do now! Good luck with your development venture. In case, if you still have any doubts or questions to ask, feel free to mention them in the comment section below.