5 Staff Augmentation Benefits for IT Startups
Having a revolutionary product idea is half of the success for a startup, the other half is in smartly organized business processes, e.g. cost optimization, development of a quick-to-market strategy, implementation of innovation, and hiring the right software development team. To ensure that their startups meet all these challenges effectively, many entrepreneurs leverage a staff augmentation strategy.
The staff augmentation service from a reliable software developers’ provider can help startups successfully launch the product to the market and mitigate many startup-related risks. In this article, you’ll find out what staff augmentation is and what advantages startups can reap by using this outsourcing strategy.
What Is Staff Augmentation?
Staff augmentation is one of the outsourcing strategies that allow companies and startups to hire top software experts for a certain period of time. It means that businesses can extend their in-house teams with external IT specialists who will follow the company’s workflow and regulations.
Technology staff augmentation has always been a viable option for those businesses that wanted to boost the working capacity of their in-house teams and add them some tech expertise. Though, in the time of the Covid-19 pandemics, its popularity has risen. With a staff augmentation strategy, companies managed to keep their operability and high-quality level of their services due to the quick access to a dedicated and highly-skilled workforce. Startups most likely do not have an internal development team thus they search for IT talents more often than other businesses turning to staff augmentation providers.
When hiring IT specialists from a staff augmentation firm, your startup can choose the necessary specialists independently in relation to your project needs. Qualified specialists will provide ad hoc assistance and help meet all the project objectives regardless of the development process specifics, implemented technologies, or utilized development tools. This way, with IT staff augmentation you’ll be able to meet all the deadlines and fulfill the most demanding project requirements.
Benefits of Choosing a Staff Augmentation Model
Release and promotion of a new product or a service are always related to certain risks. In this regard, startups frequently encounter a wide variety of challenges from finding a reliable investor to establishing stable infrastructure and hiring the right specialists. Staff augmentation for startups can be a feasible solution to many of these problems.
Let’s have a closer look at how your startup can benefit from technical staff augmentation.
1. Cost-Effective and Flexible
Flexibility and cost-effectiveness are the two parameters essential for startups as they are often limited in budget and time.
Staff augmentation allows startups to select software development specialists on their own and scale the chosen teams up and down, depending on their project needs. This way, your startup receives a properly equipped team for realizing the most ambitious projects and can reduce their expenses by using only the needed software development experts.
For even more budget savings, many startups prefer working with their augmented teams remotely. This allows them to significantly reduce the overhead costs related to workplace provision, payment of extra benefits, and other expenses.
2. High-Level Expertise
Startups widely use innovative technologies such as AI, Blockchain, Big Data, and others in their projects. Therefore, they need to have specialists who have a strong grounding in the latest tech innovations. Unfortunately, the IT industry is experiencing a great skill shortage in various fields and it can be rather challenging for startups to find the required specialists in their area.
Staff augmentation vendors can help your startup quickly fill the software development gaps with the necessary specialists who have the most specific skills. All this is possible as IT service providers select and hire the best software developers with diverse expertise ensuring their availability for any specific software development cases.
3. Simplified and Short Recruitment
To quickly launch a product in the market and ensure its high quality, your startup needs to have a strong team of experts who know their job well. Therefore, you should know where to look for the right specialists and how to hire them seamlessly. For example, many startups prefer to search for software development specialists remotely. Remote augmented teams deliver a considerable number of benefits such as international talent pool, lower development rates, expertise in the implementation of IT innovations, and others.
Staff augmentation helps startups cut downtime on searching for the necessary specialists and alleviates the hiring and onboarding processes. IT companies offer a broad choice of highly-skilled software developers that require minimal training and can quickly immerse themselves into the development project.
4. More Transparency and Control Over the Development Process
Unlike many of the outsourcing strategies, staff augmentation hands all the control over the hired software development team to the customer. It means that when your startup opts for staff augmentation, you become in charge of its software development tasks, project effectiveness, and its outcomes. This way, you can manage the ongoing project processes and monitor its progress without any third-party intervening in the workflow.
5. Flexible Adaptation to Market Fluctuations
For achieving success in their niche, startups should have the ability to quickly adapt to the market changes. IT tech startups experience even more market fluctuations and it’s quite challenging for them to keep the competitive edge.
To complete projects of any scale and complexity successfully and exclude any product quality and productivity risks, you need to quickly search for the right specialists, wisely allocate the budget, rapidly implement any project changes, and carefully scale the existing teams. In this condition, staff augmentation strategy becomes one of the most optimum solutions for startups. It can help your startup to stay flexible and smartly adapt to any shifts in the market, mitigating the risks of product failure or revenue losses.
Bottom Line
Startup successful development largely depends on the technological innovations they use and smart implementation of business practices. One of these practices is to use a staff augmentation strategy for efficient and cost-effective project development. The strategy can help startups to quickly hire the right specialists, better allocate resources, timely scale the development team, and manage project development without any outside assistance. As a result, startups can effectively create and launch their products timely and within the budget.