What is IT Staff Augmentation?

Summary: What is IT staff augmentation and how can it benefit your business? In this article, we explain the staff aug model and the difference between traditional outsourcing and staff aug within custom software development.

IT staff augmentation is a model within outsourcing that allows organizations to augment their existing teams with the specific personnel they need in order to reach their business objectives. In this model, you evaluate your current staff and then determine, based on skills, what else your business needs. For many organizations, this is the perfect way to bridge a gap between the skills your business has, and the ones you need. Keep reading to find out how IT staff augmentation works, and more importantly, how it can benefit your business.

How Does IT Staff Augmentation Work?

When it comes to IT projects and how complex they can be, the emphasis on having the right staff and the right talent cannot be enough. If a business cannot fulfill an IT project internally, they will typically choose between a staff augmentation model or a project outsourcing model to accomplish their objectives. In a staff aug model, the goal is to leverage an outsourcing partner to find exceptional talent to fill the open roles within your organization.The biggest advantage of this model when compared to traditional outsourcing is that with the latter, you maintain control of your team by simply hiring in the IT and engineering skills you need as opposed to having an entire project sit outside your business.

What Are The Benefits Of IT Staff Augmentation?

There are many misconceptions when it comes to IT staff augmentation, so let's discuss what the benefits are of choosing to go with this model for your IT projects.

Improved Workforce Capability

By having the ability to short-term hire additional developers and IT professionals based on skills alone, you're able to improve and increase the capability of your team. Any shortfalls that your internal, full-time workforce has, can be fulfilled by an external team member recruited by an agency that specializes in IT staff augmentation.  

Higher Resource Availability

Staff augmentation increases your access to additional resources. Scaling your development teams with experienced talent not only helps you complete your development goals and projects. But, if your teams are already stretched thin, it can help you avoid burnout within your internal teams. By using this model, you can spread your resources evenly, making sure that each person has enough time to fulfill their role and daily deliverables. In addition, it provides you with an ability to leverage talent from all over the world. At number8, we recruit across 13 countries to find our clients their ideal developers. The bigger the talent pool, the more likely you are to find someone with the specific experience, personality, and knowledge you need.  

Accelerate Your Time-To-Market

With a nearshore staff aug model, you'll have the ability to complement your staff with IT professionals, engineers, and developers that operate within your time zone. At number8 for example, all of our consultants are within the same or a similar time zone as their client's U.S. based team. This means the time your project takes from conceptualization to delivery can be significantly reduced by choosing the right staff augmentation solution.  

Containing Recruitment Costs and Time

The traditional recruitment process can be time-consuming and costly for numerous reasons, this is often more so when you're looking to fill a highly-specialized IT role. Going with a staff augmentation model means that you'll forego these recruitment headaches, you simply allow the right applicants to come to you. In addition, you'll also save on the costs associated with hiring a full-time employee that needs health insurance, 401K contributions, sick pay, and vacation time.  

Other Main Benefits

Alongside the above benefits, below is a short list of the other staff aug benefits that you need to know: Lower development costs Lower operational costs Access to highly-specialized developers and IT talent Improved output with a greater team size Flexibility within your workforce It's important to note that the above benefits will be largely determined by the management of your project. Simply believing that IT staff augmentation will solve your IT problems is not the case, you need to ensure that you're finding the right staff augmentation partner for your team.

How To Know IT Staff Augmentation Is Right For You

The best thing to do is to schedule a transparent discussion with a vendor who specializes in staff augmentation solutions. With their experience, they will be able to guide you on the right model for your staffing needs. Staff augmentation may not be the answer for every development project, however if you find yourself in one of these situations, it's likely a smart solution:

1. You need an extension to your team of programmers to enhance or develop another part of your product, but local recruitment is falling short with available IT talent
2. You're developing a tech product or service that requires more than one developer or programmer, but the skills you need are not available in your geographic location
3. You already outsource your project to a business or person, but this solution is just not working for you or giving you the results you want

Transparency on your business goals, project deliverables, and skill-gaps in your current workforce is imperative to be shared with the staff augmentation solution provider you choose. By discussing these things openly, you're opening the door for your partner to give you exactly the solution you need.

How To Succeed With IT Staff Augmentation

To find success with IT staff augmentation, you're going to want to do 3 things:

1. Find the right vendor for you
2. Ensure that your remote staff members seamlessly integrate with your existing internal teams
3. Ask for guidance from your vendor on aiding collaboration and finding maximum efficiency

Interested in learning more about nearshore staff augmentation?

number8 can help with that. Connect with us today or continue exploring all of our custom software development and remote staff augmentation services.