What is Staff Augmentation?

In an era of rapidly changing market needs, skilled IT experts are at a premium. However, only some companies have dedicated employees on board who specialize in technology development. But this is no obstacle to accessing a global talent pool of IT professionals. With help comes a collaborative model like Staff Augmentation, which you may have already heard about. But what is Staff Augmentation? What benefits does it bring, whose needs does it address, and what does it consist of? That’s what you’ll find out in this article.

Types of IT Staff Augmentation

Staff Augmentation services is an outsourcing strategy in which an enterprise expands its team with external specialists from another organization for a contractually defined period. This flexible solution among IT Services allows access to additional skills and resources without hiring permanent employees dedicated to a particular project. The Staff Augmentation collaboration model can be delivered in several ways to address the different needs of the market and the companies.

Onshoring Staff Augmentation

This system allows a company to outsource specific IT tasks, including projects or solutions to be designed and implemented, from a company in the same country. By joining forces, companies achieve facilitated communication and a deeper understanding of local specifications or compliance with the same laws and regulations. As with any other type of Staff Augmentation, the outsourcing company doesn’t need to hire IT professionals in-house – the outsourcing provider will provide the necessary staff resources so that the outsourcer can focus on their core tasks.

Nearshoring Staff Augmentation

Nearshoring Staff Augmentation involves outsourcing tasks to companies in neighboring or geographically close countries. This facilitates communication, project management, and possible in-person meetings. Companies operate in the same or very similar time zones, significantly affecting cooperation quality. Cultural similarity is not insignificant here either, but unlike onshoring, in such a model, companies can also exchange experiences and be part of organizations that are different in their specifics. The biggest benefit? Access to a talent pool of IT professionals from other regions that often have qualified talent at optimal prices and laws that facilitate this type of collaboration.

Offshoring Staff Augmentation

Thanks to this outsourcing strategy, any company can outsource specific tasks and projects to a company located abroad, often with lower labor costs. One of the key benefits here is access to international teams of employees from different countries that offer competitive prices for the work performed. This system allows remote collaboration, for which communication technologies are used, significantly affecting cost savings and effective management.

Hybrid Staff Augmentation

The last model combines Onshoring and Offshoring, resulting in the Hybrid Staff Augmentation system. It combines elements of cooperation with a company located in the same country and the ability to access specialists abroad. Such a system allows flexibility, high scalability, cost optimization, and access to non-standard international talent while allowing personal meetings and working in the same time zone. This is a solution for companies that value cultural and knowledge exchange, access to diverse skills of IT professionals, and the feeling that the service provider is also close by, which affects communication effectiveness.

Benefits of Staff Augmentation for your company

The benefits of the Staff Augmentation list undoubtedly contain many points. It’s worth starting with the most important one: You don’t have to hire IT experts, implement them in your company, and incur the associated costs. The outsourcing company will provide you with qualified experts and select them according to your needs and requirements, while you can focus on your strategic goals and other essential activities. That most significant advantage is behind us, so let’s move on to four equally important benefits of Staff Augmentation for your company.

Flexibility and scalability

Although this is a phrase we hear often and scrolls among the benefits of IT services regularly, let’s remember how great a benefit it is for your company. Think of it this way – you have an IT project for which you need professionals with specific skills, but your needs may change over time. You may want to expand your team, implement additional solutions, or customize something tailored to your needs. Staff Augmentation collaboration will allow you to do just that – you can expand your team, customize it to your current needs, and manage your resources flexibly.

Access to specialized skills

We’ve already mentioned this, but it’s worth repeating – don’t you have the employees you need on board for a specific IT task? Maybe you need testers, software engineers, solution architects, or top-notch developers, but you don’t want to hire them directly on your site. Staff Augmentation will give you access to a talent pool of professionals with skills perfectly matched to your project, solving your IT resource constraints and addressing competence gaps you may have.

Cost optimization

We all know how high costs are associated with hiring permanent staff. We also know that it is not always necessary – after all, once an IT project is completed, you no longer need specific competencies because everything that was supposed to be done has been done. That’s why this system of outsourcing cooperation brings cost efficiency; you pay only for the time of specialists for the duration of the project. In addition, you don’t spend money on their implementation and maintenance – this is on the company you choose to cooperate with. Combine this with a cost-effective model due to geographic location, i.e., offshoring Staff Augmentation. You will find that you can achieve project success at much less cost than expected.

Fast implementation

Hiring costs and the need for proper scalability and efficiency are one thing; it’s time to talk about what we all care about – fast and efficient service. Staff Augmentation provides you with instant deployment of specialists to your project. After all, on the side of your chosen company is their onboarding and verification of technical and soft skills, so choosing professionals from the IT talent pool is quick. A proper understanding of your needs at the start will allow the outsourcing company to match employees to the project you want to execute flawlessly while accelerating time-to-market. In short, with the Staff Augmentation model, you’ll save valuable time and be able to allocate it to other essential elements of your business.