What is Staff Augmentation and How Can it Help You?

Staff augmentation is an outsourcing strategy commonly used in the tech world. It consists of companies contracting agencies to augment their workforce and/or skillset with external software engineers.

What is another word for staff augmentation?

While the concept is known to many, its naming has many variants. "IT Outsourcing", "IT Consulting", "Team Extension", and to a lesser extent "Secondment" are used to refer to the same concept: getting talent on your team from outside your company.

What is the difference between staff augmentation and outsourcing?

While staff augmentation is a form of outsourcing, it is generally agreed that traditional outsourcing is project-based: the outsourced party delivers a finished product/task. On the contrary, in a staff augmentation setup, software engineers work as part of the client's team. They are directly managed by the client's management team, and blend seamlessly in the client's workspace.

When should a company resort to staff augmentation services?

Companies tend to hire staff augmentation agencies in situations where the need is well defined in scope and in time such as:

• When a company needs additional resources because they took on more projects than they can deliver.
• When a company needs a specific skillset that they are not expert in and which they are not ready to invest time and learning in.
• When a startup wants to build their Minimum Viable Product (MVP) or to scale their product.

Although staff augmentation assignments are supposed to be short-term, some become long-term because the client is satisfied with the software engineers assigned to them and with their output. For example, my company Supportful has been working with an EdTech client in staff augmentation mode for more than 2 years!

What are the main advantages of going for staff augmentation?

There are many benefits to using staff augmentation services, but the major three reasons can be summed up as follows:

• Find the right talent: with 78% of tech employers globally reporting difficulty in filling roles according to ManpowerGroup, staff augmentation agencies' talent pools are a much sough-after asset. If a company is spending months and tens of thousands of dollars to recruit one person, a faster alternative for them is getting several resumes from an agency in a matter of days.
• Gain in flexibility: in uncertain economic times like those we are currently living in, companies avoid hiring permanent employees and adding long-term commitments to their payroll expenses. Contracting software engineers through agencies is a flexible form of employment that can be simply terminated by providing a short notice.
• Be cost-effective: the cost of hiring the right talent is measured throughout the recruitment, onboarding, and training phases in addition to the actual employee compensation. Working with staff augmentation agencies reduces these costs to a fixed monthly fee that can be 40% to 60% more cost-effective than in-house hiring, especially in an offshore setting.

What are some known companies using staff augmentation services?

Big Tech, banks, telcos, giant retailers, insurance firms, government entities, and companies from virtually all industries resort to staff augmentation services for their IT and tech needs. To name a few, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Uber, Vodafone, HSBC, Lloyds, Barclays, BT Group, Bridgestone, Philips, EDF, SNCF have all a track record of working with staff augmentation agencies.

What are the big staff augmentation names worldwide?

Major players in software engineering staff augmentation are Accenture, Tata Consultancy Services, Deloitte, Capgemini, Cognizant, and IBM. These firms have a headcount of hundreds of thousands of consultants each.

Many people prefer though to work with smaller agencies for a more personalized service. If you're one of them, feel free to get in touch to discuss how Supportful can assist you in your tech needs.

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