In the modern IT industry, the requirement to augment your employees with outside talents is relatively common.
There is a huge need for IT experts, but it can be not easy to find them. Businesses use staff augmentation or consulting services rather than handling the entire employment process, reducing their costs significantly. But, then the question arises: which approach is best for businesses and why? As both strategies produce remarkably similar results!
Today, in this blog, we’ll cover every aspect possible of staff augmentation and consulting services, along with their pros and cons.
What Is Staff Augmentation?
When a business hires outside employees on a temporary, occasional, or short-term basis to boost capacity and skills, this method is known as staff augmentation. Staff augmentation enables businesses to hire dedicated developers or entire teams to help manage their various services and workloads, particularly for urgent or short-term projects.
Businesses can evaluate their needs and hire dedicated developers according to their project requirements with the help of a staff augmentation company. Businesses can flexibly increase or decrease the number of employees in response to any changes in project requirements.
Staff augmentation services are a stunning approach to getting the super-specialist you need with the least amount of money and time spent, which is always a great bonus. Now, let’s then examine each benefit in greater detail!
Pros & Cons of Staff Augmentation Services!
The pros of hiring a staff augmentation company are:
#1. Minor legalities
Businesses don’t have to worry about their employees’ taxes, payroll, or other perks because staff augmentation companies will take care of it. By using staff augmentation rather than a full-time resource, there are no legal concerns. Only projects or hours determine how much staffing firms are paid.
#2. Faster onboarding
As the developers are highly trained by the staff augmentation company, businesses can hire many of them without conducting any training drives. So that the workflow may continue uninterrupted after the remote team joins.
#3. Full control
Managers will have more authority and power to supervise crucial aspects of a project and guarantee that the project is done on time if professional staff maintains overall leadership.
#4. Scalability
Depending on the needs of the project, businesses can increase or decrease the size of the team. They may end the contract with just a few days’ notice when the project is finished. Companies won’t have to pay additional cash when there are no current projects.
The cons of hiring a staff augmentation company are:
#1. Overloading
Long-term staff augmentation may lead to an overload of additional employees, leading to high-priced overtime pay. When managing important projects, too many augmented employees make it difficult for management to assess their worth, leading to performance problems.
#2. Not for long-term projects
Only for small IT firms, a staff augmentation is a fantastic approach. Many large-scale IT firms may or may not use staff augmentation models since they always have bigger projects when out and about.
#3. Cost ineffective
If your project or hiring a professional takes longer than you anticipated, it could become useless. For particular tasks, augmented staff always saves you money because they typically cost more per hour than regular staff, but long-term employment might completely blow your finances.
#4. Team integration
It might be difficult to integrate new employees into an internal team successfully. It might be challenging to incorporate an outside resource into an established team. It may take some time for new hires and current workers to become used to the new environment, which could temporarily slow down project implementation.
Also Read: Hire Dedicated Software Development Team
What are Consulting Services?
This service is typically used when you require professional advice on matters you lack appropriate knowledge or internal expertise.
Consulting services frequently offer various services under one umbrella, from project conception and planning to staff, project management, and post-launch assistance. They are the perfect choice for businesses that require assistance with creating a project scope, identifying the skills and talents they need, and obtaining the necessary resources to complete the project. The study found that the worldwide consulting market has grown to 160 billion dollars.
Consultants are often senior developers with strong backgrounds in the domain. They may offer professional guidance and assist your in-house developers in project planning, design, and implementation.
Pros & Cons of Consulting Services!
The pros of hiring consulting services are:
#1. Higher productivity
Based on a business’s needs and size, consulting services offer the greatest resources to fit those needs. They increase productivity by getting to know each company’s business model, expectations, and unique set of obstacles so that they can provide tailored strategies to those needs. Therefore, production increases.
#2. Saves time
You can rely on consulting firms when you are running out of time to complete a project, and the deadline is drawing near. Within budgetary restrictions, their highly skilled developers can complete the project very swiftly and effectively.
#3. Assurance
You require top talents who have a thorough understanding of the appropriate tools and technologies to build a unique project without any technical glitches. All these advantages are made possible through consulting services.
#4. Cost-effective
Consulting firms are more cost-effective than an in-house team because they have all the necessary resources and charge extremely fair rates for their services.
The cons of hiring consulting services are:
#1. Availability
Consulting services may not always receive your requests as they serve numerous clients in one go. Sometimes, you indeed need to get in touch with the firm immediately, but they might not be able to handle your request for a meeting.
#2. Higher running cost
Consulting services are costly for businesses if they need specialized skills and technologies. A consultant’s high cost can be attributed to a number of factors, including expertise, skillset, and brief accessibility.
Staff Augmentation vs. Consulting: Which Is the Best for Businesses?
#1. Team Size
You can hire experts as you require when using staff augmentation services. You can hire dedicated developers and only pay for the hours they spend on your project. Whereas the size and makeup of the team in consulting services generally depend on a variety of factors, including your goals and expectations, the project’s requirements, the budget, and the deadline.
#2. Cost
By providing a professional without the administrative costs related to an employee, staff augmentation reduces costs for the business. Contrarily, consulting services might offer a wider range of services in a small contract at a higher price than staff augmentation.
#3. Project Responsibility
With staff augmentation, all project development, feature prioritizing, and important development decisions are made by you and your project leaders. You certainly need to start working with a fully managed staff if you want to delegate technical responsibilities and decisions and concentrate on your business expansion.
#4. Security
As you avoid disclosing sensitive information about your project to outside agencies by employing within the company, staff augmentation is often safer. But, it would be best if you granted consulting teams accessibility to the project’s sensitive information when working with them.
When Should You Partner with a Staff Augmentation Company?
Staff augmentation works well for your needs if you run a small- to medium-sized business. This is because investing in operational costs is not necessary. Additionally, you might be able to reduce your infrastructure costs since the majority of augmented professionals work from home or in small offices.
Staff augmentation services are appropriate in various scenarios. Here are the scenarios where choosing these services is most appropriate.
- After experiencing a shortage of skilled employees in your region, you are broadening your search to other locations.
- A staff augmentation company may be an excellent option if you require assistance for a little time or a specific project. In uncertain times, like during downturns or when trying out a new product, this might also be the case.
- You encounter a skills gap and discover that your company needs additional assistance to complete a project.
- You wish to recruit a different team of programmers while having an internal team of engineers focusing on a specific project.
Read More: Offshore Staff Augmentation for Startups
When Should You Partner with a Consulting Service?
If you have the intention of beginning a business, consulting services are great. Consulting services can handle your company’s whole operations if you lack domain expertise, knowledge of the specific industry, knowledge of delivery models or staffing, or lack these skills in addition to others. Additionally, you can stop managing your resources and concentrate on the things that are most important to your company/business.
Consulting services are appropriate in various scenarios. Here are the scenarios where choosing these services is most appropriate.
- You should consider software consulting services if you want to upgrade and optimize your current applications drastically.
- You want to upgrade your existing software.
- You want the best product design and faster time-to-market.
Conclusion
Depending entirely on the nature of your projects and your requirements, you can choose between staff augmentation vs. consulting. You may quickly choose which of these services will be appropriate for you and how you can benefit from it using the pros & cons, and differences outlined above. Also, despite the great reliability of both models, a thorough decision must be taken.
After thoroughly reading this blog, hopefully, you’ll make a wise decision when picking the ideal model for your business. If you require help to support your business, contact us. Matellio is, therefore, always ready to assist you. As quickly as they can, Matellio’s professionals will get in touch with you!
