What is staff augmentation? How does it differ from managed services, what are the benefits, and in which scenarios is outsourced staffing the right solution for your business?
Hiring dedicated experts is a growing trend among enterprises, and for good reasons. It’s a solution that offers multiple advantages, including cost-effectiveness, access to top-tier talent, and a substantial boost in productivity. Let’s dive right in.
What is Staff Augmentation?
Staff augmentation is a practice of temporarily hiring employees from a specialized agency to supplement your in-house team. This can be useful for businesses that need to quickly increase their capacity to handle a specific project or workload.
For example, if you are a publishing company, and you need to develop a new website, you could hire a team of developers from an agency. The developers will work with you for the duration of developing the website, and wrap up once all engagement deliverables are completed. Some businesses partner with staff augmentation agencies for long-term, ongoing requirements as well.
If you don’t have an in-house team, an external team can be hired as part of the staff augmentation service that will manage your projects from end to end. Such a team would typically have a project manager along with software developers, for continuous support & development.
Staff Augmentation vs. Managed Services
Many frequently confuse staff augmentation services with managed services, yet they are distinctly different. Each model offers its set of advantages tailored to meet specific business requirements and objectives.
Staff augmentation can assist with individual developers or small teams, from a specialized agency, to work on specific projects or tasks. The developers are essentially extensions of your team and work under your direct supervision. This model gives you more control over the project and the team working on it. It can be a short-term or long-term enabler, based on your requirements.
Managed services is a more long-term solution where you hire an external company to take over a specific & regular function. For example, regular maintenance & upkeep of your website, which can include updates, performance optimization, licenses, etc. Here, the external company is taking responsibility for part of a function of your team; freeing them up for business priority tasks.
| Engagement | Staff Augmentation Model | Managed Services Model |
| Scope | Can expand or contract as the client decides how to utilize the augmented resources | Typically, hired for ongoing maintenance and upkeep – fully managed by the service vendor |
| Control | The team is managed by the Client, based on their priorities | The team & tasks are managed by the service vendor |
| Flexibility | Upscaling/down-scaling resources based on the ongoing requirements provides great staffing flexibility | Based on the kind of resources available with the service vendor, this model can sometimes be less flexible |
| Training | A short ramp-up and orientation are recommended | The service vendor handles the orientation and ramp-up efforts. |
When should you go for Staffing solution?
Staff Augmentation can be a good solution for businesses in the following situations, when:
- You’re looking for specialized skills required for a project
- Your project needs to get off the ground quickly
- You are facing a tight deadline, and you are understaffed.
- You need to expand your team quickly, without getting tied to long-term expenses.
- Your hiring cycle is long, without any guarantee of finding the right person.
- Your project needs to get off the ground quickly.
- You want to explore the global talent pool without going through the hassle of compliance, specific to each country.
Although this is a non-exhaustive list, there is a good chance that organizations face similar challenges at some point. Staff augmentation becomes a very effective solution at such times.
What are the benefits?
Did you know the average US employer spends $4000 and 24 days to hire a new employee? This can change based on the roles, level, and number of employees.
To summarize – Apart from lowering hiring and training costs, Staff Augmentation offers many other benefits over traditional hiring methods, including:
- Access to experienced talent: Staff augmentation companies have access to a wide pool of experienced talent. This means you can be sure to find the right people for your project, regardless of the skills or experience level you need.
- Staffing flexibility: The staff augmentation model gives you the flexibility to scale your team up or down, as needed. This is ideal for businesses that experience fluctuating volumes of work.
- Full control over the project: With staff augmentation, you retain full control of your project/s. For all practical purposes, staff augmentation resources act like your internal team members, with you having full control over their deliverables and priorities.
- Improved productivity: Staff augmentation improves productivity by allowing your in-house team to focus on their core competencies.
- Reduced risk: Staff augmentation can help you reduce the risk of hiring the wrong person for the job. With staff augmentation, you have the flexibility to source team members that complement your team’s existing strengths.
- Enhanced innovation: Staff augmentation resources bring industry expertise and experience which can benefit your existing teams and provide exposure to new ideas and perspectives from outside your organization.
Overall, staff augmentation’s flexibility and ease of use offer a lot of value for organizations looking for external support for their ongoing needs.
Staff Augmentation with rtCamp
At rtCamp, we understand the unique needs of all businesses, regardless of size or industry. We have a proven track record of delivering high-quality staff augmentation services to a wide range of clients, including IT service providers, conglomerates, large publishers, and product companies.
Our team of experienced engineers is trained in-house and has the necessary experience and exposure to handle large enterprise projects. We have multiple grades of WordPress, React, Node.js, and Quality Assurance engineers to choose from.
We offer engineers for varying levels of skill & experience, to meet the complexity of your projects without any long-duration contracts, helping you optimize TCO. When you partner with rtCamp, you get engineers & project managers who are familiar with working in a distributed environment and understand the time-sensitive, critical, and agile nature of your project.
If you think staff augmentation is the right model for your business, learn more about our dedicated staff augmentation services.
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