Scaling the business requires the right team and resources. However, it can be costly to hire the right team plus the resources needed to accelerate business growth while adapting to the changing innovations and tech practices. In this case, the team as a service, TaaS, is a revolutionary technology that is helping companies hire the right team while offering ultimate flexibility and efficiency to overcome challenges and utilize maximum opportunities in relation to onboarding the right team for business growth and scalability.

This guide explores everything you need to know about a team as a service, including why you need to consider this model for your company, costs, and some of the challenges and solutions, among many other valuable insights.

What is TaaS – Term as a service?

TaaS – Team as a service is a form of outsourcing model that allows businesses to outsource or hire another team to execute specific tasks or handle a specific project or a set of projects through a third-party service provider.

What makes TaaS exceptional from the traditional outsourcing model is that TaaS is made up of experts who have a solid bond working together. They bring a unique set of skills that allows maximum flexibility and efficiency during project development.

How does TaaS – Team as a Service work?

With TaaS, you simply hire a team or group of experts to help you with a certain project. Instead of opting for a software development company, an external freelancer, or an in-house team, you simply go for TaaS and get experts to support you in your project requirements.

Since there is maximum flexibility in this hiring model, you can choose a TaaS team for a fixed price, an hourly rate, half-time, or full-time. It all depends on the available resources, the nature of the project, and your preferences as well.

TaaS – Team as a service can carry out services like marketing, software development services, risk management, quality assessment, project management, and administration, among many others.

Whatever skills you need, TaaS will have you covered in the most convenient and efficient manner.

Alibaba, Slack, WhatsApp, and Google are typical examples of giant companies that have grown rapidly thanks to outsourcing specialized teams to handle specific tasks.

Core features of TaaS

The following features define what team as a service is in relation to hiring experts in a flexible and effective manner:

• Scalability

TaaS with scalability goes hand in hand. This model gives a company the flexibility of scaling down or up depending on the nature and requirements of the project at hand. This makes it an ideal hiring model, giving businesses a chance to grow and scale with the advancing technologies and innovations.

• Maximum Collaboration

Team as a service is a pre-formed team of specialists who are already working together. As a result, they work in unity, collaboration, and understanding, an element that accelerates project development and ensures the best quality of the services in the end.

• Cost-Efficiency

Companies only pay for the services they get from a TaaS team. This helps businesses save on monthly salaries, employee benefits, and other related expenses. This, in turn, makes TaaS a cost-effective hiring method.

• Expertise and professionalism

Team as a service is a team made up of experts with specific skills. This gives the entire team the flexibility to handle different requirements of the project in a professional and seamless manner. This guarantees better quality in the end.

• Responsibility & Management

The TaaS provider manages the entire team, thus allowing a company to save on internal resources. What’s more, business owners have adequate time to focus on core business functionalities that can accelerate business growth and expansion.

Benefits of hiring TaaS (Team as a service)

A business or a company that hires through TaaS will enjoy the following benefits:

• Transparency

In TaaS, there is maximum transparency. You have ultimate insights into the TaaS team you hire. There are no agents or intermediaries when communicating with your TaaS team. You simply manage all the specialized experts in your TaaS team, be it developers, project managers, testers, or any other role they play within your organization. Transparency makes the work flow smoothly, ensuring you get immediate alerts in case of anything.

• Flexibility & scalability

TaaS will give you ultimate flexibility and scalability. First of all, you aren’t limited to your local teams. You are open to choosing a global TaaS team to handle your project. This is especially important because it’s hard to acquire or get some skills within your local region. Instead of risking with talents you aren’t sure of, opt for TaaS.

Make sure you highlight the skillset you need and your budget to give a TaaS company an easy time putting together an appropriate team for you.

On matters of scalability, the TaaS team allows you to add more experts or reduce the number of experts based on the project’s progress and requirements.

• Adaptability & focus

Once you hire a TaaS team, it will focus entirely on your business. Such a team will not take on another project until yours is completed successfully. So, you don’t have to worry about the quality of the services delivered. In fact, if you are working with tight deadlines, a TaaS team will get the work done in a timely manner by focusing entirely on your project.

• Control

Unlike other outsourcing models, TaaS allows you to take full charge of your project. You control the talents selected, you oversee the progress of the project, and you give directions your TaaS team should follow when handling the project.

Taking full charge or control of your work enables you to achieve the set objectives in the most seamless and effective manner.

• Access to top talents

TaaS is open to global opportunities. You have a wide range of experts t choose from across the globe.

• Simplified & cost-friendly hiring

TaaS team is less costly compared to the permanent hiring model. By onboarding a TaaS team, you cut down on training expenses, job advert costs, and interview expenses.

What’s more, you don’t need to purchase licensing, hardware, or rent expenses. The TaaS company takes care of all these expenses, giving you room to save more for your business growth.

You only need to pay the agreed amount to the team based on the services they are delivering.

• Saves time

With the TaaS model, you don’t spend a lot of time hiring and training the team. You only onboard a ready-to-work team made of diverse, skilled professionals.

How to hire a TaaS Team: Step-by-step process

Once you realize it is high time you need a TaaS company for your project, you need to follow the steps below to ensure you get the right TaaS team for your company’s needs:

• Define your project objectives and goals

Every company or every project is unique in its own way. Therefore, before you select a TaaS service provider. Therefore, highlight the specific requirements of your project to eliminate misunderstandings later on in the future. Besides, defining your project needs from the word go enables you to select the right TaaS team.

Above all, with pre-defined goals, you will understand the skills required for your project, qualification, and planning for the project, including budgeting and timelines.

• Searching for a TaaS team

Today, online platforms play big roles when searching for the best talents for your company’s needs. With a quick search on the net, you will see many TaaS companies ready to offer the services you need. Besides, you can use LinkedIn or ask your friends & coworkers for recommendations. The options are endless. It all narrows down to the specific services you need.

Select several TaaS service providers, then move on to the next step.

• Compare testimonials and case studies

You will need to narrow down the selected TaaS companies until you select the final service provider by filtering other TaaS companies out.

You can achieve this by reviewing testimonies and case studies of past projects. Of course, positive reviews and remarkable case studies speak volumes about the ability of a specific TaaS company to deliver.

Above all, case studies will help you determine if a specific TaaS company uses the tools and resources necessary to handle your project successfully.

Once you filter out, select the best TaaS team that aligns with your project goals & requirements.

• Interviews

At this point, you have your ideal TaaS partner. However, you need to carry out some interview sessions to ensure your Taas team is on the same page as you.

Ask vital questions in relation to specific industries, technology, project management processes, best practices, communication, and general collaboration approaches. In the end, a TaaS team is going to be part of your team, hence the need to understand one another effectively.

• Hire and onboard the TaaS team

Finally, you can hire your TaaS team after a successful interview session. The key aspect here is to hire a TaaS team who has the same vision as you, as far as technology and industry-specific knowledge are concerned.

The final steps include agreeing on project goals, timelines, and budget. With everything set, you can seamlessly start working together.

TaaS model challenges and solutions

Just like any other hiring model, TaaS has its benefits and challenges, too. It is important to understand such challenges or drawbacks early enough to define practical solutions of how to overcome them and embrace a successful relationship with your Taas service provider. Here are challenges & solutions:

• Security concerns

Especially if your project requires you to share confidential information or details, you may worry about the security of your whole company.

The main solution to this challenge is hiring a professional TaaS team who values the security and privacy of their clients. Check reviews and what other clients are saying about privacy concerns of a specific TaaS company before hiring.

Besides, signing an NDA before outsourcing will help protect the confidential details of your business at large.

Above all, your TaaS service provider should be able to offer solid security control processes and follow industry-specific security best practices.

• Communication & cultural differences

While the TaaS model allows you to hire experts from different regions, you might, in one way or another, experience communication challenges, especially when in different time zones; cultural difference is another concern that can’t go unnoticed; all these issues can lead to misunderstandings, poor project management, and missed deadlines.

Therefore, before onboarding a TaaS team, make sure you agree on communication channels, frequency, and standard language. This will ensure both teams are satisfied and on the same page.

• Quality control

It could be a challenge to ensure your TaaS service provider delivers the quality required. Compared to in-house hiring, you will have less control over the processes and project progress with TaaS teams, hence challenges in relation to the quality of services delivered.

You can overcome suchchallenges by ensuring you onboard the right team based on your business needs. Above all, ensure you define the project requirements, and timely communication should be a key aspect of your collaboration.

The Cost of Hiring a TaaS Team 

The cost of hiring a TaaS team depends on the location you are sourcing the team from. For instance, hiring a TaaS team from the USA, UK, Canada and other Western countries is costly compared to when hiring from Asia.

The difference is a result of living standards of aspecific location, availability of resources, and advanced technology in specific regions.

Note: While TaaS companies in India offer competitive prices, the quality of the services delivered will remain top-notch.

With this said, the cost of hiring a TaaS team can range between $25 to $200 per hour, or even more, depending on the location you are hiring your TaaS team from.

Factors to consider before hiring a TaaS team

Before you onboard a TaaS team, factor in the following elements to ensure you have a successful collaboration:

• Language

Some experts are highly skilled in their respective fields. However, with English being a universal language, they might not be quite fluent. This will limit you, especially during communication. When you want to explain tasks & responsibilities, hold meetings with the team, and when assigning tasks, you might face challenges here. That is why you must factor in the language element to facilitate smooth communication during your active engagements.

• ‍Cultural fit

Again, you might get the best TaaS talent for your project. However, their cultural beliefs and practices might not align with your business needs. That is why you need to factor in the cultural beliefs and norms of specific talents from specific regions to ensure it doesn’t compromise your work progress.

• Skillset

Different project requires different skillsets. For instance, you will need developers, designers, project managers, software engineers, and QA, among other specialists in software development. Make sure your TaaS team has all the skills required in relation to the nature of your project.

Conclusion

TaaS is a revolutionary technology that is transforming how companies hire specialized talents to carry out specific businessfunctions.

This hiring model has its set of advantages and challenges, too. However, with the right approaches and planning, you will be able to create a stable and reliable TaaS company for your business growth and scalability.

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