More and more businesses are faced with modern challenges in a rapidly evolving world, especially in the IT sector, where even the simplest technical advances sometimes require costly adaptations. Each challenge is unique to a company based on its size and management style. However, problems common to all company sizes and styles include talent shortages, security, time, and management issues.

To meet these challenges, organizations with technical needs often turn to outsourcing methods to fill the talent pool and make project management more efficient. There is a list of reasons why companies may choose to increase their team. Let’s learn a little more about the concept of IT staff augmentation.

What Is IT Staff Augmentation?

The process of using third party staff to supplement capability of the internal staff in an organization is known as staff augmentation or team augmentation. Essentially, it is an outsourcing approach that enables a company, which has been assigned the project, to offload some of the burden by seeking contribution from members of other firms.

Companies often choose this method to add qualified staff to their teams, avoiding the lengthy and costly recruitment process. Additionally, companies turn to staff augmentation to maintain control and visibility or to reduce costs in terms of time and money. Consequently, the staff augmentation method is common among companies with project-based needs.

Options vary depending on the size of the organization, needs, management approaches, etc. Before choosing a particular style of staff augmentation, companies must answer the key question: does the company need short-term or long-term help for an ongoing project? Staff augmentation proves to be an effective solution both ways, whether a company needs temporary help to get a project on track or a dedicated long-term team to work on multiple projects. When a company has answered this question, the mission of finding a perfect staff augmentation company becomes clearer.

After answering this question, a company can examine the types of staff augmentation and choose the one that best suits its needs. 

Types of IT Staff Augmentation

Staff augmentation: This is a good solution for long-term collaborations. Internal staff can work on joint projects with external organizations. The duration of this type of augmentation is defined by both parties and the factors that affect the work process.

Functional augmentation: This is a good solution when you need help with a temporary project. If your company needs qualified personnel to improve the quality of work, you can increase your workforce without additional time costs.

Temporary staff augmentation: This solution is a short-term arrangement between organizations and usually involves the assistance of outside companies to improve the quality of work on various projects. While functional augmentation is more continuous over time, the latter method is intended for one-off projects.

What Are The Benefits Of IT Staff Augmentation?

We’ve already talked about why some companies prefer to increase their staff, but the advantages of this method go much further. Staff augmentation helps companies reduce recruitment efforts and the time and money invested, and access highly specialized equipment.

Summary

In summary, IT staff augmentation can be effective for:

Reduce costs: Costs can be broken down into two key categories: money and time. A company’s hiring process can result in increased spending on both. It allows companies to add qualified members to the workforce without unnecessary costs.

Increased flexibility: The manageable size of the increased team makes it easier to adapt to the company’s needs.

Progress tracking: When a team is easy to manage, it is easier to make progress visible. The team can keep stakeholders abreast of progress. They can therefore quickly address any dissatisfaction that may arise during the work process.

Improved control: On the one hand, progress is visible to stakeholders, and on the other, the company itself has better control of the team, as it can track costs and identify the necessary resources. Improved control leads to higher quality of work and faster completion of projects.

Improving the quality of work: Staff augmentation companies select people with relevant and highly adapted skills and knowledge. As a result, product teams become increasingly specialized and the quality of work improves.

Differences Between Staff Augmentation And Outsourcing

You may still be wondering how staff augmentation differs from outsourcing. Outsourcing means that a partner company will hire, train, and manage a team of qualified professionals. This team will take care of specific tasks in the future. The team is external to the company and is not directly involved in internal matters. The client retains little or no control over the workflow.

With the expansion, the client retains control over the major aspects of the project. While maintaining control, the company acquires engineering resources and assembles a team that will work with the core group. Specialized personnel are chosen based on the specific requirements of the project.