Dedicated Teams vs Staff Augmentation

If you’re reading this, you probably reached the point with your business when it needs to expand and you have to look for possibilities of outsourcing.

There are two ways in which it can be applied to your organization: finding a dedicated development team or using the staff augmentation strategy.

Choosing between them might be a challenging task because there are a lot of things to consider. We would like to help you make the right decision by comparing these approaches in this article outlining their major pros and cons.

The main features of the staff augmentation model

This outsourcing strategy focuses on specific business needs. It is usually utilized to deal with a narrow set of tasks that are actual for a short period of time.

Staff augmentation can be very effective when you need to adapt to your customers’ changing demands.

The main benefits of this strategy include flexibility and cost-effectiveness.

Apart from this, the services provider also takes care of various administrative tasks just like any other outsourcing team.

However, there are disadvantages that can make you give a second thought to the decision to apply staff augmentation to your business.

The major cons of this approach include:

  • It can be costly if used in an appropriate situation. 
  • It’s not suitable for long-term projects.
  • It can be time-consuming in case your project requires deep contextual knowledge.
  • The quality of services may suffer if you change specialists on every project. 

When should you consider using this strategy?

Different organizations can have different reasons for using staff augmentation but the main situation when this model is applied is when you have to reach some short-term goals.

This strategy is most suitable for increasing your business’ capacity to meet temporary demand, engaging skilled specialists occasionally, and using a flexible team for gaining a competitive advantage here and now.

How does a dedicated team work?

Now that we figured out the staff augmentation strategy, let’s see what works best for long-term projects.

A dedicated team is a perfect choice when you need the outsourced specialists working for you on an ongoing basis.

In this model, you basically hire a team that works for you full-time dealing with a variety of tasks that your staff cannot handle.

The major pros of this strategy include such features:

  • It is possible to integrate the team with your internal staff so that they could work together achieving better results.
  • You have more control in terms of managing the team and distributing the tasks.
  • The costs for such a team’s work are quite predictable. 
  • This model is scalable.

Even though this strategy provides considerable benefits, there are also a few drawbacks. It requires a lot of planning and collaboration, so you can’t simply give this team a set of tasks and wait for it to complete them without having a full picture of what goals must be achieved.

Therefore, you need to have a clear vision of what you want from the team and how it should integrate into your company.

Among the major disadvantages of this model are the inefficiency of the dedicated team for short-term projects, expensiveness, and the necessity of significant managing effort.

When To Hire a Dedicated Team?

If you’re looking for a committed collective of highly proficient specialists to help you deal with specific tasks on a regular basis, then a dedicated team is your best shot.

This model requires you to build a stable cooperative relationship with the service provider because you will be trusting an important part of your business’ operations to it.

As a result, you will acquire a valuable partner who will help you achieve your strategic goals.

In short, you will want to hire a dedicated team when:

  • You need to realize long-term or complex projects.
  • Your staff lack the knowledge or skill necessary for specific tasks.
  • Your project has an undetermined scope of work or requirements.

Conclusion

Choosing between staff augmentation and hiring a dedicated development team, you should be guided by your business specific needs.

If you are launching a short-term project that doesn’t require the outsourced team to be fully engaged into your operations constantly, choose the staff augmentation model.

Also you can find this option more suitable if you have a limited budget.

On the other hand, if you need a team that will be fully committed to your long-term strategic goals and provide support for your complex projects on a regular basis, working with dedicated developers will be your best solution.

At Devox Software, we offer the services of both types.

So, if you are ready to start searching for the perfect outsourcing team, begin with the best providers on the market and check our website: https://devoxsoftware.com/services/dedicated-team/. It is likely that you won’t need to look any further.