A flexible outsourcing strategy that is gaining popularity in the IT sector, IT staff augmentation lets you hire tech talent from all around the world while directly managing your augmented team. You are the person who chooses from the proposed candidates, and you can extend or cut your team whenever you need to. This approach allows you to add skilled tech resources to your in-house team on a long or short-term basis. Since the vendor is employing those workers, you are saved the liability and cost associated with new hires.
Is it Staff Augmentation Right for you?
This model works well in many different scenarios. If you have engineers working on a project in your location, for example, but want to extend to the team to have other tech professionals developing another part of the project, augmentation can fill this need. If you can’t find the professionals you need because of a local talent shortage, using this approach will enable you to connect with experts in markets other than your own. When you have a project that calls for more hands on deck but a budget that doesn’t allow for new, permanent full-time staff members, augmenting your team can help you accomplish your goals without soaring over your budget.
The Benefits Of Augmenting Your It Staff
Augmentation is not the same as full project outsourcing, and it provides various benefits related to the differences between the two approaches. In an augmentation scenario, the professionals are completely focused on one project for all of their work time, as opposed to an outsourced project team that is handling many projects at once.
As with outsourcing, you will not gain organizational and administrative expenses such as workstations and office space when you augment your IT staff. You will incur a fee for the service but your vendor will arrange everything else, allowing you the chance to focus on your main business activities rather than conducting an exhaustive search for new team members.
When you need to closely manage your resources, staff augmentation fits the bill. Here, you will have control over your augmented staff that you would not have if you outsourced the work instead.
One particular benefit that is easy to overlook with this approach is the integration with your internal processes. Businesses often find it more effective to integrate augmented staff with the business processes in place than to try to align those processes with outsourced teams. It’s naturally easier for an individual to adapt to the processes within an organization than for two separate organizations to align with each other.
Augmenting your IT staff may be the solution you’ve been seeking for your next or current project. Whether you need specialized knowledge, don’t want the cost of expanding full-time staff, or simply can’t find the right kind of talent for your project in your area, IT staff augmentation can fill that crucial void on your tech team.
