If you are looking for software development services, you have various options for that. It depends on your project demands and prerequisites. What is your preference? How do you want to expand your in-house resources? Do you want to hire new full-time employees? Will hiring temporary workers be faster and cheaper for your business? How will you meet the need for specialist skills? Do you want to go with staff augmentation or consulting?
There are several answers to these questions, but they all depend on a range of factors, including:
- The current skill level and capabilities of your in-house resources
- Skill shortage in your team
- Project demands
- Your corporate strategy
- Long- and short-term goals
- Your expected outcome
- Your monetary constraints
- Budget
Together, all these concerns and factors impact your decision to expand your resources and how you can make the most of your available options. There are two ways to proceed – staff augmentation and consulting regarding outsourcing. Are you confused about the two? Let’s compare each to help you understand.
Staff Augmentation is a cost-effective and flexible outsourcing strategy by which businesses hire tech talent globally from a third party on a contract basis for concrete projects or so. It provides adequate resources at the right moment for immediate and quicker working with not only startups and mid-tier but also larger enterprises and meets all your project objectives.
Cost-Effectiveness
Although both options are cost-friendly but for different reasons and scenarios.
- Staff Augmentation: it is cost-effective because the process exempts the company from maintenance and hiring costs associated with a full-time employee. These include medical expenses, insurance, fuel reimbursement, and monthly salaries. It also forgoes employee training. Therefore, it is friendly on the pocket because the hired resource can start right away.
- Consulting: it also saves the company for business a considerable amount of cost because it does not require the frontload to create an entire in-house team. But it will still be relatively pricier than staff augmentation services. However, consulting has the flexibility to adapt and provide relevant services in one deal.
Control
- Staff augmentation: enables a company to have more control and check over the newly hired resources because they will work under the company’s mandate and conditions. The company will dictate the process and methodologies.
- Consulting: Because the hired teams have their way of operating, the parent company does not have much control. Hired resources employ models, strategies, and methodologies that the company may be unaware of.
Communication
- Staff augmentation: There is open and transparent communication between the company and hired individuals regarding the process and progress.
- Consulting: There is limited communication and discussion regarding the projects underway.
Flexibility
- Staff augmentation: It is super flexible and allows organizations to hire people according to their needs for a specific time period.
- Consulting: It is less flexible than the former because of a limited scope of hired resources and skill sets. It can sometimes amplify the costs of services.
Security
- Staff augmentation: It is more secure and safe than consulting because you maintain control and can choose not to expose your sensitive information or company data to outside resources.
- Consulting: It is risky because the hired team has access to the project’s information, which could lead to security breaches, malicious attacks, and data leakage.
Pros and cons of staff augmentation and consulting
We will now compare the pros and cons of each strategy to further our understanding.
1. Infrastructure
Staff augmentation: The company is responsible for setting up the infrastructure for hired resources.
Consulting: Brings its infrastructure with itself required for the projects
2. Training
Staff augmentation: the hired staff requires proper training in the company’s processes and tools.
Consulting: Hired resources do not require training from the company.
3. Management
Staff augmentation: the company manages and allocates the resources for the new staff.
Consulting: there is no need for extra management because the hired resources take care of everything.
Conclusion
There are many facets of consulting and staff augmentation that differ from each other. You can fill in the missing expertise and skills with both techniques to accelerate your growth. Both contribute in their unique ways. These temporary outsourcing strategies will help you with development tasks. Hiring new resources is a time-demanding and costly affair; therefore, companies opt for different outsourcing strategies. So, if you are looking to hire resources, then do a detailed analysis of the prerequisites mentioned earlier and then pick the one that suits your infrastructure the most.
Hiring and retaining IT staff has always been a challenge for organizations. While there’s a competent in-house team working on different client projects, there are times when multiple projects will be in line. It makes it compulsory for the presence of an additional workforce for the short or long-term basis for handling those projects. it saves a lot of time and money. The enterprises can also grow or cut down the augmented team when required.