6 Top Benefits of Staff Augmentation & The Future of Staff Augmentation in 2024
In recent times, staff augmentation has become an effective solution for companies seeking to complete software development projects with increased speed to market and reduced costs. No matter the industry, technology has impacted every area of various sectors, from artificial intelligence to machine learning, making it important for businesses to adopt technology solutions. Therefore, companies that want to stay ahead of the curve, be more efficient, and more productive have resorted to leveraging staff augmentation models.
Despite the tech layoffs and the economic downturn, recruiting tech talent is still challenging for many businesses. Most times, startups and mid-market companies face the challenge of competing with tech giants for the top tech talent. This, in turn, causes lengthy recruitment times, increased costs, and delays in software development projects. These and many more reasons have led companies to adopt the approach of staff augmentation to close talent gaps.
In this article, we’ll share the top 5 benefits of staff augmentation services and how businesses can benefit from this approach to ensure timely delivery of software products and customer satisfaction.
What is Staff Augmentation?
Staff augmentation is a model that allows companies to expand their team with tech talent on a temporary basis or for a short period of time. The tech talent can include software developers, DevOps engineers, quality assurance engineers, data engineers, and many more, depending on the current needs of the company.
Often, people may confuse the staff augmentation model with the software outsourcing model. Although they may seem similar, these two approaches are completely different and may be beneficial to businesses in distinct ways. While the staff augmentation model focuses on scaling a software development team with the necessary talent, the software outsourcing model allows companies to delegate entire software projects to a third-party development company.
Let's take, for example, your company intends to build a web application for e-commerce purposes. However, your current software development team only consists of two software developers, one focusing solely on the backend and the other on frontend development; but you need a DevOps engineer for maintenance to ensure there is continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD), and a QA engineer to check for bugs and ensure each piece of code is delivered with high-quality—and the list goes on. Given that you don't have the required skill set to fill these gaps, it may take a long time and cost a lot of money to undergo a recruitment process. With staff augmentation, you can expand your team with the necessary skills needed for the project on a temporary basis rather than going through the cycle of hiring and firing.
Therefore, once your product is launched, you can retain the software engineers who worked on the project for maintenance and continuous improvement.
The key element of staff augmentation is that the augmented staff members are an extension of your existing team, not a separate entity. They follow your company’s rules, use your tools, and integrate seamlessly into your workflow. This allows for a more cohesive and productive working environment compared to completely outsourcing a project to a third-party company.
What is Nearshore Staff Augmentation?
Nearshore staff augmentation is the practice of hiring top talent from nearby countries with similar time zones, such as a company in North America partnering with an IT staff augmentation firm in Latin America. The terms — staff augmentation and nearshore staff augmentation are often used interchangeably, but they do have their specific contexts.
Many companies prefer nearshore staff augmentation because it tends to be more cost-friendly and efficient than offshore staff augmentation. Nearshoring offers the convenience of geographical proximity and cultural similarities, which can greatly enhance communication and collaboration, key components of successful project management.
The Top 6 Benefits and Advantages of Staff Augmentation
Here are some of the major advantages for businesses that select the staff augmentation model:
Access to a global talent pool
A primary advantage of staff augmentation is that companies gain access to a pool of talented individuals who understand the intricacies of the industry due to their extensive experience. Reports show that companies spend an average of 42 days hiring a software developer. This is a considerable amount of time that could be devoted to core business tasks.
With staff augmentation, companies get the required talent without hiring full-time employees. This approach enables businesses to secure the best tech talent in the industry, relieves them of the burden of employee perks and benefits, and allows them to concentrate on completing the software project on time.
Nearshore staff augmentation eliminates the challenges posed by geographical boundaries because you can tap into a global pool of talent and find the exact skills and expertise needed for your software project.
In this case, you can select domain experts to work on your software projects. This encourages the generation of great ideas and offers a different perspective from your in-house development team. The staff augmentation model ensures optimal product delivery, especially if you partner with a staff augmentation company like Devsu. At Devsu, we have a pool of talented individuals with domain expertise in various programming languages and fields. With over a decade of experience working with high-caliber clients, they have enjoyed the significant benefits of partnering with us as their staff augmentation agency. We help you scale your team while you focus more on your core objectives.
Cost efficient without compromising on quality
Imagine this: You hire a full-time employee, which comes with training, recruitment, overhead, and employee expenses. This means you have to budget for salary, employee benefits, tax expenses, parking benefits if the job is on-site, health insurance, retirement benefits, and many more. An alternative to this is a more cost-efficient approach by augmenting your team with the skills required. By doing this, you save costs spent on overhead employee expenses and can focus on the software projects. This IT staffing model allows you to expand your team on a short-term basis without these expenses. With staff augmentation, you pay for the services you need when you need them, leading to significant cost savings. Additionally, you save money on training and onboarding as the augmented staff are already skilled professionals.
The quality of a software development project is crucial to its success. Though IT staff augmentation is a cost-efficient alternative to hiring a full-time employee, you should ensure that your vendor prioritizes quality above all else.
Flexibility and scalability
One of the main advantages of staff augmentation is the flexibility it offers. You can quickly scale your team up or down based on your current needs without the lengthy process of hiring or firing permanent staff. This is particularly beneficial for companies with fluctuating workloads or those working on short-term projects.
The staff augmentation model is highly recommended for medium-sized companies with ever-changing work requirements that may need to scale up or down according to business needs. By leveraging staff augmentation, you can scale your team with developers at different intervals to meet demands.
Focus on core business activities
By bringing in augmented technical expertise to handle specific tasks or projects, your existing employees are free to focus on the core activities of your business. This leads to increased efficiency and productivity as resources are allocated more effectively. Staff augmentation not only enhances productivity but also facilitates effective project management.
We understand the importance of having a software development team that is agile, flexible, and understands the customer's needs. This enables you to focus on business objectives and allows the software engineering team to develop a market-fit product.
Seamless integration
Staff augmentation also allows for seamless integration beyond the fresh perspectives and knowledge your team can gain. Augmented top talents are often familiar with joining a new project and getting up to speed quickly. This means they can integrate into your existing teams with minimal disruption. They are adaptable, accustomed to learning new systems, and can align with your company’s methods and culture swiftly. As stated earlier, this integration is beneficial in various ways — your in-house team learns new techniques and approaches, while the augmented talents gain insight into the unique aspects of your project and company.
New technology and knowledge sharing
IT staff augmentation enables the sharing of new ideas and practices from emerging technologies in the industry. Hiring top tech talent from a software staff augmentation company like Devsu would introduce your team to the latest technologies, best practices, and innovative problem-solving techniques they have applied in previous projects. Adopting these new practices and technologies into your business creates a healthy learning environment for the in-house development team.
For instance, if you hire a software developer from Devsu who is accustomed to the agile project management methodology or has been at the forefront of implementing a new programming language, this new knowledge allows your in-house team or business to learn from the software developer's skills and improve processes within your company. Similarly, your unique market insights or company-specific knowledge can help the augmented staff tailor their expertise more effectively to your project's needs.
This exchange of knowledge benefits the current project and can also set the stage for improved processes and capabilities in future work. Think of it like having a temporary team member and a long-term boost in know-how all at once.
What is the future of staff augmentation in 2024?
As we approach 2024, staff augmentation will become an integral part of the business landscape. Companies have gradually begun adopting emerging technologies and have embraced digital transformation in all areas of their business operation. With this development, many companies would need to scale and adopt different approaches to maintain their software products to satisfy customers' needs efficiently. One of these approaches would be the use of IT staff augmentation for software projects.
The majority of companies face the challenge of hiring the right employee or retaining their customers and looking for new markets they can dominate. Staff augmentation is the ideal solution to some of these challenges. By arming your organization with the right tech talent and building quality software products, you derive an increase in profitability and customer satisfaction.
A crucial question is, what will staff augmentation look like in 2024? We have highlighted some of the potential developments in the staff augmentation industry.
A high demand for artificial intelligence developers and machine Learning developers
A common trend we can observe as we work towards 2024 is the significant increase in the demand for artificial intelligence developers. This will likely lead to greater adoption of staff augmentation as companies augment their teams with the right AI experts and machine learning developers to build AI product features. In 2023, over 77% of companies adopted AI in their business; we strongly believe that more companies will adopt AI and will need the right skill set for their AI projects.
No one understands how to deliver quality AI software development projects faster than Devsu because we have the required skill set needed to bring your project vision to life.
Focus on soft skills
Domain expertise is vital for IT staff augmentation, but companies will also seek individuals who possess invaluable soft skills, such as communication, adaptability, collaboration, openness to feedback, transparency, and so on. Beyond expertise, good communication will improve efficient project management. This will enhance project delivery and focus on enabling the development team to meet the deadline. Companies will look for professionals who can seamlessly integrate into their existing teams and contribute positively to the work environment.
Cybersecurity will be prioritized
As companies build software solutions, there will be a need to protect customers' sensitive data and privacy. About 83% of business leaders believe that cybersecurity is a major priority for their companies and understand the risks that accompany cyber threats. In 2024, we anticipate more demand for cybersecurity engineers and IT professionals with vast cybersecurity experience.
Diverse and inclusive workforces
Staff augmentation allows companies to tap into a diverse pool of talent, leading to more inclusive and innovative workforces. This trend is likely to continue as businesses recognize the value of diverse perspectives and experiences.
Economic recovery and timely project delivery
Additionally, the increase in time-sensitive software projects will lead to the need for expert IT professionals who can help companies increase their speed to market within a certain timeframe.
The economic landscape experienced a downturn in mid-2023, leading to significant layoffs at companies like Microsoft, Spotify, Dropbox, IBM, and many more. As some of these companies undertake more software projects in 2024, there might be a need to hire tech talents to fill up the skill gap at a minimized cost. Staff augmentation will help companies fill roles within a short timeframe, speeding up project launches.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the benefits of staff augmentation are numerous and can offer businesses the flexibility, access to global talent, and cost efficiency they need to thrive in today’s competitive environment. As we approach 2024, staff augmentation is set to play an even bigger role in the future of work. By understanding its benefits and selecting the right staff augmentation company, your business can become more innovative, resilient, and efficient. Get started with Devsu.
