Did you know that the IT outsourcing market revenue is projected to reach $512.50 billion in 2024? Not just that, it is expected to show an annual growth rate of 10.99% resulting in a market volume of $777.70 billion by 2028.
And this is why team augmentation is getting more eyeballs rapidly in the IT job market, compelling businesses around the world to hire remotely. Yielding great results by providing access to a broader talent pool, cost effective solution, and flexibility in scaling resources.
In this write up, we will be discussing what exactly team augmentation is and will delve into how it works and how you can maximize the potential of augmenting your team with experienced tech professionals.
Team Augmentation: A Clever Move to Elevate Your Team’s Potential
Team augmentation is a strategy where you bring in external experts on a contract basis to complement your in-house team’s knowledge and skills. It’s all about figuring out what your team can already do and identifying where you need extra skills.
Now, within team augmentation, there’s this thing called team extension or staff augmentation. This is like a specialized version where you hire tech professionals temporarily or permanently to fill specific roles in your team. It’s a smart move because you get to pick folks who perfectly match your needs, filling any skill gaps you might have and giving you the flexibility to scale your team up or down as needed.
Many companies provide team extension services, offering access to skilled technical resources to fortify your in-house development team. By directly employing software engineers through outsourcing providers, you sidestep the expenses and responsibilities tied to new full-time hires.
When you engage remote developers through an IT team extension company, you secure dedicated professionals committed to one project at a time. They adhere to a standard workweek, mirroring your internal team’s schedule with 5 workdays and 8-hour workdays.
Why Do You Need Team Augmentation for Your Business?
So, why should you consider bringing in a new team member using this approach? To start, let’s explore the some advantages that come with the staff augmentation model:
1. Maximized efficiency
Team augmentation proves beneficial by filling gaps in your team, boosting efficiency, accelerating work pace, and simplifying the resolution of potential project issues. As an added advantage, hiring developers only for specific projects eliminates the need for extensive, costly training and onboarding.
Moreover, since you’re bringing in individuals with the required expertise, there’s no need for extensive explanations or waiting for them to settle in. This translates to significant time and cost savings in the long haul.
2. Enhanced quality
Elevating the quality of your in-house team’s work becomes tangible with the integration of additional developers. The inclusion of dedicated augmented developers, working seamlessly alongside your core team, ensures a swift and streamlined approach to project requirements, minimizing disruptions.
Yet, staff augmentation isn’t solely about numbers—it’s a catalyst for collaboration. By refining how your team works and communicates, you cultivate a more efficient workflow, translating directly to an enhanced overall quality of output.
3. Better expertise
Staff augmentation is also a good way to get professional tech help when you need it. If you have a project that requires specialized knowledge, you can bring in an expert to help out without having to hire them full-time.
4. Access to a wide range of talent
One significant benefit of staff augmentation lies in its ability to connect you with an extensive talent pool. Instead of restricting yourself to past hires or local professionals, you gain access to a broad network of software developers.
This implies that you have the flexibility to discover the ideal tech talent for your project, irrespective of the required skill set or experience level. Especially for intricate projects, you can assemble a complete remote team to collaborate with your in-house developer teams and project managers.
5. Offers flexibility
The traditional route of hiring new developers is time-consuming, expensive, and limits your flexibility in team building. You can’t realistically bring on board every specialist as a full-time employee.
This is where the adaptability of team augmentation services proves invaluable, offering endless possibilities. You have the freedom to add, remove, or swap team members as needed, allowing for seamless scaling of your development team based on project requirements.
For instance, if an unexpected issue arises during a project, you can promptly incorporate a new member to address and resolve the problem.
At Veroke, we have successfully managed numerous staff augmentation projects, giving us the insight and expertise to make them work. Whether it’s a straightforward task or a complex, long-term project requiring multiple team adjustments, we’ve got the experience to navigate it all.
Challenges Associated with Team Augmentation
So far, it sounds quite appealing, right? Staff augmentation services indeed offer an excellent solution for companies seeking a swift infusion of skills or expertise into their in-house teams. However, it’s important to note that staff augmentation comes with its set of challenges that you’ll need to tackle for it to thrive.
Here are a few hurdles you might encounter when employing this approach to expand your team.
1. Less control
When opting for staff augmentation, you’re essentially entrusting part of your project’s responsibility to another party. This collaboration involves working with individuals or teams that might be unfamiliar to you.
Understanding the processes and work dynamics of this remote team, along with ensuring a cultural fit, becomes imperative. This mutual understanding is vital for keeping the project on track and achieving the desired results.
Despite these challenges, success ultimately hinges on selecting the right team. Choosing a group with strong communication, collaboration skills, and the expertise you need, all within your budget, has the potential to make staff augmentation a transformative force for your business.
2. Cost
While staff augmentation may come across as an expensive option compared to other staffing solutions. Because it involves the hiring of specialists or a dedicated team of experts. However, when weighed against the potential drawbacks of hiring freelancers (who may offer lower rates but pose risks to work quality and sudden departure) or maintaining in-house staff, staff augmentation stands out as the most cost-effective alternative.
For those operating on tight budgets, the perceived expense of staff augmentation might raise concerns. In such cases, it’s crucial to ponder whether investing a bit more upfront to secure an expert for your project is a wiser choice than dealing with potential complications later, where the costs of getting the project back on track could prove significantly higher.
3. Smooth Integration
A significant hurdle with augmentation lies in integration. Bringing new members into a team can be a complex task in terms of aligning everyone’s perspectives. This underscores the importance of establishing effective communication and collaboration right from the outset—appointing an internal team member as a managing director can facilitate this process.
Having a well-thought-out plan for integrating new members is equally beneficial. This plan may encompass training sessions, onboarding processes, maintaining regular communication with the project manager, or any other strategies aimed at ensuring that remote developers feel seamlessly integrated into the team.
When Team Augmentation is a Good Idea?
If you’re wondering when is the best time to go for team augmentation or whether it is required or not. Well, there is no universal answer–as it comes down to your specific needs and business goals.
But before deciding to add a new developer to your team, spend some time figuring out your requirements and expectations.
Here are a few scenarios where staff augmentation could be a smart move:
- When you need to scale up quickly.
- When you need additional support.
- When you need expertise in a specific area.
- When you need to access developers with particular skills.
- When you need to increase capacity quickly.
How We Can Help You?
As discussed earlier, bringing a new team member on board through augmentation involves more than simply hiring the first software engineer you find. The success of staff augmentation hinges on collaborating with developers who possess the requisite experience and skills—individuals you can trust with your project even if you’re not in the same location.
Why not consider reaching out to us at Veroke? With a proven track record of successfully delivering hundreds of projects—ranging from small, quick tasks to highly intricate ones involving multiple teams—we hold expertise in energy & utilities, electric vehicles, and custom software development.
If your primary team is grappling with challenges, facing high turnover, or lacks developers with essential skill sets, we likely have the solutions to get your project back on track.
So, if you’re seeking a flexible option to infuse expertise into your team or bridge gaps in your project, Veroke is here to assist.
