What is IT staff augmentation services?
IT staff augmentation services is a great way to hire top IT talent on an as-needed basis. Rather than hiring permanent staff, companies can hire remote IT staff that fulfill specific functions at different times. This allows companies to adapt their needs on a project-by-project basis and save money on full-time employees. IT staff augmentation can also be used for temporary staffing purposes; many IT staffing firms like CodersDaddy fill positions from six months to two years or longer. IT staff augmentation can include anything from training and support work (i.e., system administration) to full-fledged application development projects. In general, any task that’s not necessarily day-to-day but still requires expert knowledge falls under IT staff augmentation services.
IT staff augmentation services provide your business with a specialized and dedicated IT resource for a period of time. A managed service provider like CodersDaddy provides IT staff augmentation services manages all aspects of your custom software development and promotion. This allows you to focus on other business goals without having to worry about keeping your software up-to-date or current. You can also take advantage of seasonal or other short-term needs by engaging an MSP that offers IT staff augmentation services instead of hiring full-time employees when you need them only sporadically.
What are the top benefits of IT staff augmentation services
Finding the IT talent you need to scale your company is not always easy. Hiring and retaining this talent is even harder, especially in areas with high unemployment rates. This is where an IT staffing company can help, providing you with the benefits of IT staff augmentation services ranging from cost savings to increased productivity and lower employee turnover rates. Check out these top 10 benefits of IT staff augmentation services.
1) Increase in productivity
With an increase in workforce, companies can experience an increase in productivity. This is because augmented IT staff allows for better management of projects and that ensures a smoother workflow. Being able to manage several projects at once allows your business to complete each project faster than if they were not using staff augmentation services. Because your business will be completing tasks faster, you will also have more time to focus on other aspects of your business. For example, suppose you are a financial company. In that case, you may have time to work on improving various aspects of your company, like accounting or developing new products or services that benefit your customers. You will also see an increase in employee morale when companies provide their employees with flexible schedules and work-from-home opportunities.
2) You save money
Unfortunately, most IT departments don't have enough qualified people to handle each project as it comes in—especially if you have a large volume of projects every month. If you're like most companies, your tech team is likely overworked. By engaging an outside firm like Peers Inc to help with part or all of your needs, you'll be able to free up your staff members for higher-level tasks that would otherwise go undone or require expensive outside contractors. This can save a lot of money for companies on projects like database development, mobile app development, and more.
3) You can scale to your business instantly
You can scale to your needs quickly and easily by hiring contractors who are already trained in your systems or who are able to onboard themselves fast. You don't have to hire a full-time employee who might spend months ramping up on your technology, which is a massive expense and hassle when you're scaling rapidly. Depending on your needs, you may also be able to bypass hiring an entire team altogether. Although it can be tempting to try going without an internal IT staff entirely, most businesses find that hiring for specific skills and tasks is more cost-effective than trying to master every aspect of their own technology.
4) Avoid recruitment hassles
Even with minimal startup costs, recruitment can be a time-consuming, expensive process. The longer it takes to fill a position, the more money you're losing in lost productivity and unnecessary overheads. If a position goes unfilled for more than 30 days, you could face fines or reputational damage from unhappy customers or partners. In contrast, staff augmentation services provide high-quality resources quickly and reliably - delivering workers who are already trained on your systems and processes with no additional recruitment costs. With staff augmentation services, your project delivery is never delayed or compromised by staffing issues.
5) Attract top talent
Your staffing strategy and talent pool can make or break your project's success. Attracting top talent to work on specific projects—even if it's only for a few weeks—can be difficult, time-consuming, and (often) expensive. However, a solution to finding great candidates that could otherwise be completely unaffordable is staff augmentation services. In addition to saving you time and money during the interview process, staff augmentation also has other benefits. When you partner with an experienced professional staffing firm to provide temporary employees for your company, you can avoid hiring mistakes and get top-tier talent without breaking your budget.
6) Access new skillsets
Regardless of your business, technology is essential to its operations and staff augmentation services can ensure you have a dedicated team that works on your projects and can cover for your employees during vacations or sickness. This means you'll have access to people with new skillsets for short-term projects. With IT staff augmentation services, you'll be able to call on developers who can help you create something new.
7) No longer have to miss deadlines
As an entrepreneur, sometimes it's hard to find someone who is willing to make personal sacrifices to help your business grow. This will always be true to some extent because after all you're asking people to put in longer hours or take on additional responsibilities for a job that doesn't pay as well as it could. With staff augmentation, you can circumvent some of these issues by bringing in professionals with special skills and allowing them to work remotely (or even at home) if necessary. Not only does that free up your current employees so they don't have to miss deadlines with more administrative tasks, but you also get access to a wider pool of expertise than what would otherwise be available locally (and sometimes at a lower price).
8) No geographical limitations
There are no geographical limitations with staff augmentation services. As long as you have an internet connection, you can hire staff from virtually anywhere in the world and assign them to projects on your team, regardless of where they're located. In fact, talent is often more available in less-developed countries, which means you may find better deals and higher-quality freelancers. It's a win-win scenario! The best part? No visas or work permits are required to conduct business with freelancers overseas. All you need is a virtual network that allows communication through high-quality online video conferencing services that allow face-to-face interactions.
9) Avoid training and other overhead costs
As an alternative to training and employing your own full-time staff, IT staffing agencies allow you to outsource needs and bring in contractors as needed. Since these professionals already have all their certifications and licensing credentials, they can start contributing to your team immediately. The benefits are numerous:
>> Hiring temporary staff gives you instant access to a wide variety of talent across all industries with varying levels of expertise.
>> Because contract workers don't require extensive training or onboarding procedures, you avoid costly overhead costs such as employee salaries and benefits.
>> There is no need for extensive support services like health insurance because these individuals are usually considered self-employed.
Essentially, contracting helps cut overhead costs down dramatically and offers greater flexibility than other staffing solutions.
10) Focus on core competencies
Focusing on core competencies with staff augmentation services means that you'll focus more time on improving your products and services, and less time managing personnel. That way, you can use your energies more efficiently for innovation and strategic partnerships. For example, it doesn't make sense for a high-tech startup to hire an in-house human resources manager—there are plenty of HR support services out there that provide just as good or better service at a lower cost. Companies can maximize their potential as they grow by outsourcing these noncore aspects of business operation to dedicated professionals.
What's the difference between staff augmentation and managed services?
Staff augmentation and managed services are both technology solutions that IT companies can provide to your company, but they differ in the amount of support and assistance each one provides. Each one also differs in cost, so understanding the difference between them is key to making sure you’re getting the best bang for your buck when it comes to IT solutions.
When you outsource a service or tasks to an outside provider, you are engaging in IT Staff Augmentation. It is a way to temporarily fill in your IT skills gaps. In contrast, Managed Services is just that - you don't really have much control over what happens on a day-to-day basis. Managed Services is generally more expensive since it includes tons of bells and whistles but doesn't cover anything else out of that core package. For example, if you're paying for some Managed Services and suddenly one of your servers goes down - you call them up to fix it only to find out that server wasn't covered by their core package. You'll need to pay extra for them to come back out there again! Staff Augmentation offers more flexibility at a lower cost.
What's the difference between IT staff augmentation and dedicated development team?
IT staff augmentation and dedicated development team are the two most preferred options when it comes to IT staffing. It’s important to understand which one of these fits best into your business needs before making your decision.
IT Staff Augmentation is a mechanism to add temporary resources without impacting permanent staff. The most common use case is in IT: you're faced with an upcoming project that will require increased resources and you don't have time to hire full-time. Staff augmentation solves that problem. It allows you to pay a one-time fee for on-demand, short-term resources for your project, thus avoiding having to overstaff and hire someone permanently only to let them go once your project is complete. IT Staff Augmentation is attractive because it allows you to avoid hiring dedicated people who are working on projects that might come up but may or may not happen at any given point of time.
Dedicated development team is a group of employees that are dedicated to your company full-time. They can be devoted as in putting in long hours, or devoting them as in having their only client be you. Either way, a dedicated development team is made up of full-time employees who work for you exclusively. They might have other clients, but they’re not responsible for maintaining or updating their code or product on those other clients’ behalf -- just yours. In many cases, dedicated teams will also be full-service: they’ll take on all aspects of developing your project including design and marketing while you focus on doing what it is you do best.
Before deciding between IT staff augmentation vs dedicated development team, first evaluate your company’s current needs. If you need to expand on a project already in progress and don’t have enough personnel, consider hiring for that specific project rather than taking on an additional employee full-time.
On the other hand, if you need help with existing projects and tasks that require a variety of expertise, or you want to build your in-house knowledge base by training one person who can take on multiple responsibilities as needed in different stages of product development, then a dedicated team may be better suited to meet your needs. Dedicated development teams also tend to be more flexible since they can make their own decisions about how they want to work together.