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Why Staff Augmentation Gives You An Edge You Need To Consider
What is IT Staff Augmentation?
Staff augmentation allows companies, of all sizes, to add skilled IT pros to their existing workforce. This recruitment format is very popular among IT companies due to their agile methodologies and project basis needs. Companies generally partner with outsourcing firms to get access to a workforce for a specific duration. Depending on the need of the organization, the staff augmentation services provided can take different forms, ranging from increased on-site workforce to professionals that work 100% remotely. Over time more and more IT companies are looking to staff augmentation as an alternative to traditional forms of staffing.
While smaller companies may prefer to augment their workforce with a small percentage of permanent staff, big firms have a mix between permanent employees with project basis personnel to maintain an efficient balance. The benefits of Staff augmentation in the IT industry has increasingly become synonymous with companies in the sector, as both act as perfect partners for effective project deliveries.
Why is IT Staff Augmentation Important?
Staff augmentation acts as the bridge between the available IT talent pool, from anywhere, and the availability of positions in IT firms. Staff augmentation is becoming the most sought-after recruitment and staffing model as it gives companies flexibility. While the complete take over of staff augmentation is still not what most companies are looking for, most organizations are entering into a hybrid model. Companies are leveraging the potential of coupling the benefits of traditional staffing and staff augmentation by outsourcing.
The Benefits of IT Staff augmentation
Hire on the Go
Possibly the biggest benefits of IT staff augmentation is its flexibility. It allows firms to hire employees to suit their short/medium/long-term needs as they see fit. Companies can supplant their permanent employees with skilled professionals to suit the need of the hour for a specific duration. This flexible hiring prevents the firms from incurring additional costs stemming from permanent hiring, these include funds and health benefits, among other recurring costs. Staff augmentation fills the gap between the demand and supply of professional skills, in a cost-effective and efficient way. By allowing hiring on the go, the advantages of staff augmentation serve the interests of the employees and employers.
Access to a Larger Talent Pool
Staff augmentation for IT companies provides firms with access to a very large talent pool of skilled professionals from all over the world. Permanent hiring restricts a company's ability to leverage the available talent. Staff augmentation recruits are often domain-centric and therefore, the techniques they bring to firms are unique and of great benefit to the existing team. Additionally, staff augmentation services allow firms to access experienced IT professionals that they may not otherwise have the financial state to hire on permanent roles, but can benefit from their expertise for shorter projects. By allowing the hiring of specific skill sets, staff augmentation solutions for IT companies increases the talent pool of any firm.
Cost Effective
Staff augmentation services ensure a cost-effective way of leveraging specific skill sets. Since professionals are hired for specific projects, your company does not have to bear the cost of a long term contract with benefits, your outsourcing firm takes care of all of that. Thus, project specific recruitment allows companies to pay for the IT staff they need only during the required period. Additionally, this skill specific talent ends up providing an edge over all competitors by adding domain-centric knowledge to the existing framework. The external IT talent also allows companies to reach out to greater scope of markets by showcasing the large pool of talent available. This gives companies two important competitive advantages. First, they get access to immense IT talent at a fraction of the cost of traditional hiring. Second, this IT talent pool gives firms an edge relative to their competitors that lack such flexibility in hiring.
Efficiency
Most SMBs have high overhead and variable operational costs, especially during lean periods, with return on investments that are long-term. Staff augmentation companies help these SMBs to gain operational efficiency by allowing flexible working platforms that do not impact directly on overhead costs. When companies partner with staff augmentation and outsourcing firms, they do not need to bear the infrastructure costs associated with building and conducting operations on premise. The IT staff either works remotely or from the workspaces of the staff supplier. Despite the remote working, employees are held completely accountable to your firm, your management and methodologies for success. In addition to the reduction in fixed overhead costs, the costs of operating offshore are significantly lower. Therefore, staff augmentation not only decreases the cost of hiring skilled IT professionals, it also reduces the cost of operation. Such savings can easily be translated into profits. Staff augmentation can be the difference between reaching your goals or stagnating due to excess operational costs.
Expansion and Adaptation
Flexible hiring practices allows companies to expand their operations and to test things out, without investing in a full-fledged workforce to do so. Often companies look to scale up their businesses and benefit from market conditions. However, the associated risks of failure serve as roadblocks to a push for scalable growth. Staff augmentation helps companies push through those barriers by allowing them to hire on a need-to basis, allowing them to test their reach into new market opportunities, staff augmentation opens new avenues for companies that are looking to grow but have limited resources.
In addition to the expansion, flexible hiring practices allow companies to adapt quickly to changing market conditions (possibly more important now, than ever before). With new tools and resources, market demand is rapidly changing. Companies that are unable to respond to these transformations are more inclined to failure. Staff augmentation equips companies with huge amounts of flexibility and responsiveness for the ever-changing market dynamics of today’s tech landscape.
Sustained Management
While companies gain financial and technical leverage from the professionals of staff augmentation and outsourcing forms,, they still retain control over the way they work and manage their projects. As opposed to outsourcing the whole development process, where the entire workings of a project are put in the hands of an external unit, the advantages of staff augmentation ensure that only the human component is sourced to an external agency. Full project management still remains in hand. This control over development allows firms to maintain a strong creative and operational stronghold over their projects and allow them to shape said projects in any way desired. Project outsourcing often leaves out parent companies from any say in the execution of a development, sometimes in every stage of the management process. Staff augmentation and outsourcing for IT companies prevents loss of control by allowing companies to stay in charge of the project’s direction.
Conclusion
Staff augmentation in IT companies is here to stay and is being adopted by more and more companies every day. It has become widely accepted as an alternative model of IT staffing. Companies benefit from flexible hiring conditions. They leverage the full capabilities of IT professionals with great skill sets in a cost-effective and efficient way. Staff augmentation and outsourcing is also of great benefit to IT professionals that want to work on interesting and challenging projects. They prefer working on projects that require their specific skill sets rather than undertaking traditional jobs. Staff augmentation serves as an effective bridge, an efficient pipeline of talent for companies available for project-specific durations.
