One of the most time-consuming activities in the IT field is hiring top developers. Many organizations often opt for outsourcing to reduce costs and find great talent from a pool of professionals. Outsourcing makes it easier for companies to concentrate on increasing their efficiency and focus on the business goal.

Experts project that by 2027 the global outsourcing market will grow to 406 billion dollars. A good example of countries that has extensive outsourcing is India. More importantly, most of the IT services in India come from Eastern and Central Europe. Outsourcing has several models that include dedicated teams, extended teams, project outsourcing and staff augmentation. All these models enable you to meet deadlines and get skilled developers to work on your projects. However, these models have differences that you should know. Let’s take a gander at the benefits and limitations of these models.

Staff augmentation

This model is perfect for a company that has their in-house development team. The model brings in additional experts with specific skills or adds more manpower to the development team. This model is time-bound, depending on the length and complexity of the project. Moreover, the additional expert’s objective is to ensure that the project is complete by ensuring they entirely handle their specialization area.

Note! The staff expansion model does not offer an undertaking administrator to deal with the development stream. You need a tech lead or a CTO with knowledgeable enough to take charge of the project on your side.

Advantages of Staff Augmentation 

• Cost decrease 

By picking a staff expansion model, you can diminish costs contrasted with recruiting in-house designers. Contingent upon the area, you can get lower hourly rates. Reports indicate that engineers in the USA get $8,700 every month. Programmers from Eastern Europe get $3,700 per month.

• Smooth integration

Since you employ engineers with the necessary aptitudes and information, it is simpler to coordinate them into the organization’s work process.

• Adaptability 

It is anything but difficult to increase or reduce the team. You can recruit more experts to build up the undertaking quicker or decrease engineers’ number once you have less to do.

• Full control 

Since you oversee designers on your side, you have unlimited authority over the project cycle. Your tech lead can handle everything about the task. It is conceivable to pick the project management instrument to follow time. Subsequently, you do not have to stress over the safety of your project.

Check: outsourcing pricing models

Downsides of Staff Augmentation 

• The extra burden for C-level administration 

The rationale is fundamental: the more staff is in the organization, the more duties the C-level administrators have. More importantly, they need to oversee more subject matter experts and give them an open workplace.

• Training

Notwithstanding the designers’ knowledge and experience, they should, in any case, invest some energy in discovering the organization’s work processes. The transformation period can change, contingent upon the work process’s multifaceted nature and onboarding measure.

• Project outsourcing

Outsourcing refers to completely delegating the development project to IT organizations. Moreover, the outsourcing process involves cooperation with the needed experts, including project managers, developers, quality assurance engineers, and designers.

A standard project team will include the following:

• Backend developers
• 1-2 Android developers
• 1-2 iOS developers
• QA engineer
• QI/UX designer
• Business analyst

Please note that the number of roles is not fixed. It depends on the size, requirements, and complexity of the project.

If you think of outsourcing, you need to analyze your project in detail and specify its requirements. This process is referred to as the discovery phase. The stages in this phase include the following:

Requirement gathering: The Business Analyst leads a few gatherings with customers to decide all venture subtleties. More importantly, they focus on application highlights, business objectives, target crowd, and adaptation techniques.

Specification: It is a definite report that comprises of highlight depictions, required advancements, and their conditions from one another.

Wireframes: They represent a schematic portrayal of a UI and a client stream. Moreover, creators schematically orchestrate components on each screen to later change them into the last UI.

Quality assurance: QA engineers need to give the go-ahead for the wireframes and specifications. Moreover, it takes into account maintaining a strategic distance from consistent mix-ups and rule infringement.

Detailed estimate: This report tells about the duration and cost of the project.

Different types of Outsourcing

Outsourcing, too, is subdivided into different models, with each model having different features that distinguish it from the other outsourcing models. The main sub-groups of outsourcing include the following:

• Onshore Outsourcing

Onshore outsourcing is where the company gets a service provider located in the same country to help with tasks such as business processes, project development, and management. In essence, such a team can collaborate with an in-house team to speed up the process and deliver high-quality results within a short timeline.

Onshore outsourcing will give you enhanced control over the processes and good communication, and you can monitor your project’s progress closely.

• Project Outsourcing

Project outsourcing is a perfect solution when you have many unfinished tasks, yet the deadlines are near. Ideally, your in-house team doesn’t have adequate skills and knowledge to handle and finish such projects within the required timeframe. It, therefore, becomes hard for you to manage and handle all these projects on the go, hence the need to outsource a project management company to handle everything.

• Nearshore Outsourcing

Contrary to onshore outsourcing, nearshore outsourcing is all about getting a skilled workforce from a neighboring country or the same continent.

Nearshore outsourcing is advantageous, thanks to the same time zones and cultural practices, which promote enhanced collaboration and improved productivity.

• Professional Outsourcing

Just like the name, professional outsourcing is all about getting experts specialized in a particular field to fill the gap in your company. Ideally, your in-house team doesn’t have these skills to accomplish a specific project or task, hence the need to outsource professionals.

Professional outsourcing is cost-effective because you only pay for the services delivered, yet you get top-notch results.

• Offshore Outsourcing

Offshore outsourcing is more of onshore outsourcing. However, there is a slight difference. In offshore outsourcing, you hire a company offering specific services from a different country. Therefore, there are time and cultural differences, and this is what distinguishes offshore outsourcing from onshore outsourcing.

Again, you will enjoy cost-effectiveness, access to top talents, and enhanced flexibility when handling your project with offshore outsourcing.

Advantages of Project Outsourcing 

• Lower cost 

The location you choose to outsource your project to can influence the cost. Notably, organizations from North America have the most elevated rates. Asian programming organizations have the least rates. However, their client assistance is frequently sketchy.

• Easy administration 

Your seller is entirely answerable for dealing with the development team and guaranteeing that they will do the project on schedule. Moreover, the development team has a Project Manager who is accountable for dealing with the advancement cycle.

• Simple to scale the group 

Outsourcing takes into account the simple scaling of the project team. Moreover, it means that you can grow your group on the off chance that you need to accelerate the cycle or abatement the number of trained professionals if there are no assignments for them to handle.

• Less training

Since you do not handle the entire project development process, you will not need a development team to examine your organization’s internal cycles. They can begin to build up the task when they have your development specifications and prerequisites.

Disadvantages of Project Outsourcing 

• Slow correspondence 

Communication issues and language barriers are some of the things that can stress you when it comes to outsourcing. Likewise, the delivery and availability will be affected if you are on different continents. Most often, you will have relatively distinct working hours due to the various time zones. To make correspondence agreeable and straightforward, you should plan gatherings. Notably, there are many cool specialized devices like Gmail, Slack, and Skype that will allow you to stay in contact with the group.

• Security risk 

Rethinking ordinarily experiences an absence of vis-à-vis correspondence. Therefore, you cannot handle the entire improvement measure and may not feel all around secured. If you need to protect your product, you need to consent to an NDA arrangement with a merchant before discussing your project. The NDA understanding covers such improvement viewpoints as the methodology of information assortment, move, access, and that is just the beginning. Likewise, programming advancement organizations ought to adhere to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

You need to have a well thought out strategy if you will be going the outsourcing way. There are a few issues you may confront overseeing reevaluating programming advancement groups.

Check: offshore outsourcing India

Outsourcing vs. staff augmentation: top differences

At this point, you have a clear overview of what staff augmentation and project outsourcing entails. Below is a detailed comparison of the two hiring models based on different considerations.

• Costs & responsibilities

With staff augmentation, the costs can exceed your budget, especially when you aren’t sure of when the project will be completed. Again, if you set a deadline and the project bypasses the set deadline, it means spending more on staff augmentation. However, if you execute the staff augmentation plan effectively and it takes a shorter timeline, the costs can be lower.

Outsourcing, on the other hand, is an expensive model, especially when the timeline is tight, and the project is quite complex. You will need to hire more experts in a specific field, and this means paying handsomely to have your project done perfectly and delivered on time.

However, the good thing about outsourcing the whole team is that the vendor will incur training, software licenses, office space, hardware, benefits, and utility expenses.

Note: Outsourcing is best for long-term projects, while staff augmentation is ideal for projects that can take a shorter time frame.

• Insights of the business dynamics

Augmented staff don’t have a clear overview of your business dynamics and operations. As a result, they lack potential business insights that could guide them on delivering the based on the short-term employment. Therefore, it can be hard for augmented staff to deliver exceptionally within a short period.

Project outsourcing, on the other hand, guarantees you great quality. The outsourced team has the chance to learn about your business insights as they collaborate with your in-house team to deliver the best. Understanding the dynamics of your business will give the outsourced team a perfect idea of the tools and resources they can use to deliver exceptionally.

• Project Management

Managing a project with staff augmentation is a seamless process. In fact, you are in total control of all the activities happening even though you are getting extra help from an outside team, apart from your in-house team.

With project outsourcing, on the other hand, you don’t have control over project management. Once you give the outsourced team all the requirements, you simply wait for the delivery of the results. Therefore, you can focus on other business objectives once you outsource your project.

• Company & client relationship

In the project outsourcing model, the vendor plays a big role in enhancing the success of the project. Ideally, the outsourced company or dedicated development teams take part in every activity or phase of the project development. Therefore, there is a need to have terms and conditions guiding the two sides to ensure both sides are satisfied in the end.

On the other hand, augmented staff play a minor role in the companies’ operations.

• Training

The training process is quite cumbersome and complex in the staff augmentation model. It is upon the business to guide, screen, and train new employees on business operations. The new recruits must get accustomed to the company’s culture and practices before they can begin working on a new project. Therefore, it can take time and be costly at the same time.

Outsourcing for a project, on the other hand, the outsourced company handles all the training programs and expenses.

That is it. Based on your business wants, you can choose either staff augmentation or project outsourcing. You only need to ensure you get value for your money once you engage a new team to work on a new project or finish a complex project already in progress.

Staff augmentation vs project outsourcing: steps to follow to choose the right professionals for your project

Are you ready to hire through project outsourcing or staff augmentation and don’t know where to begin? Follow the steps below:

• Pre-search stage

Highlight the reasons for hiring, then state the objectives and goals your business needs to achieve. At this stage, you will determine whether staff augmentation or project outsourcing is the ideal model based on the dynamics of your business.

• Search stage

Here, you have already determined the best model that will benefit your business. Now, start analyzing different contractors until you choose the one that aligns with the objectives of your business. Make sure to clarify all the needs of your business and the skills you need.

• Contracting stage

Finally, after selecting the ideal vendor, you can now enter into a contract with them under a set of terms and conditions, especially if you selected an outsourcing model.

Which model to choose Between Outsourcing and Staff Augmentation

Both outsourcing and staff augmentation have their benefits and drawbacks. Moreover, each of these models is good, depending on a few factors within a vendor’s environment.

Staff augmentation is the best option if:

• You wish to be in contact with your development team constantly
• You do not have enough time for recruiting and training other people
• Capable of doing the project yourself
• You have a project manager or a CTO
• You have a full experience team within your organization

Outsourcing will work best for you if:

• You lack proficiency in a particular area, and you need help
• Want a professionally developed product at a low price
• You do not have the manpower and the skill to complete the project
• You want to develop the product from A-Z

Conclusion

To conclude, the outsourcing and staff augmentation picking the correct innovation staffing accomplice can be an intricate cycle. For example, there are factors, such as an association’s IT and workforce, the staff’s specialized skill set, project security, and venture cutoff times, all of which add to this multifaceted nature.

Suppose you need a flexible staffing arrangement that allows you to acquire outside specialized ability when required, with expanded staff ready to rapidly coordinate with your current group. In that case, staff augmentation may be the ideal alternative for you.

If you would not fret surrendering direct authority over an undertaking, or you do not have the administrative assets to manage expanded staff, project outsourcing could be the commitment model for your organization.

Contingent upon your product improvement needs, you may wind up choosing staff expansion, project re-appropriating. As your organization keeps on developing, you can generally adjust these commitment models varying. The best game-plan is to pick an accomplished seller that can help you address your present staffing difficulties while continually talking with you so you can execute another reevaluating model if and when required or change your current staffing model to make your organization run as proficiently as could reasonably be expected, making it more serious in public and global business sectors

Hope you’ve got the information about outsourcing and staff augmentation, if you are looking for developers then feel free to contact us.

Also check: Outsourcing or In-house Development | benefits of outsourcing to India