What is the type of outsourcing that fits you better?

There is a time in the life of any company with ambitious development plans when additional human resources are needed. Even if the first temptation for management is to hire additional in-house people, most of the time staff outsourcing is a much better solution. Especially in tech and software development, where competent human resources are hard to find, and the recruitment process takes a long time. So, for both startups or established companies, it is crucial to focus on core business and new projects, instead of hiring new people, finding proper skills, and assembling development teams. Moreover, the outsourcing options are so diverse, so it’s quite easy to find the proper fit.

„Lack of Skills Threatens Digital Transformation” stated Gartner recently and most tech leaders acknowledge the shortage of IT talent, especially in developed markets, like The US or Western Europe. So what is the proper approach to ensure continuity of digital and IT projects, in an era when time-to-market becomes a real competitive advantage?

For software development projects, hiring outsourced staff is a faster solution, although finding a company that has the workforce, expertise, skills, and organizational culture you need and appreciate, could take some time. But this is an achievable process, if you conducted it right (pls read our article on Outsourcing Readiness Assessment), at the end of which you will have both the necessary human resources, and other advantages related to flexibility, costs, and management simplification.

If you are developing software and want to work with an outsourcing company there are several options:

• Staff augmentation
• Dedicated Teams (software development, migration, testing, security checks)
• Custom Application Development and Maintenance

It is a differentiated approach that offers specific advantages for each choice, depending on the maturity of the company, the requirements of the project, the pressures of cost and time, and so on.

Staff augmentation

Usually associated with nearshoring, staff augmentation is the fastest way to reinforce your company with proper IT skills, without the pain of a long and expensive hiring process. Staff augmentation is also a good way to reduce pressure on your team. With additional resources, you could boost any project, without fear of your people getting burned out.

This approach provides all the necessary IT talent for your projects, in terms of days, especially when you need to act fast. At IT Teams, we commit to creating a recovery plan in 48 hours or less. Such a plan outlines the technical skillset we will be able to offer, the workforce we can deliver, and the start date for each people involved. We can provide numbers but also job function: developers, engineers, architects, project managers. This option gives you full control on activity, goals, and people management.

Also important, don’t think that staff augmentation has to be cheap, but overall it’s less expensive and less time-consuming than hiring internally.

Dedicated Teams

In outsourcing, a dedicated team is a next level. It’s a team of people, provided by the outsourcing partner, with experience, predefined qualifications, tech, and non-tech skills, able to handle any tasks regarding software development, migration, testing, security checks, etc. This approach ensures a more coherent product development and maintenance for companies that want faster time to market, but neither want to manage human resources nor do project management. All these aspects are the responsibility of the partner, which means less overhead and administration effort for the client. Assembling a functional team takes time and experience and requires matching professional development goals with project context and requirements. We focus on understanding client needs and select the proper people: attitude, thirst for discovery, sound technical background, openness to learning, knowledge sharing, language skills. Also, we constantly monitor and control the project by regular internal updates, client proof of concept & periodical project evaluation meetings. The entire Management Process is led by a designated Account Manager. Last but not least, we ensure knowledge retention and keep your repositories updated so that not only nothing is lost in case of change, but our findings will help new team members to adapt fast.

Custom Application Development and Maintenance

If you don’t have the time, experience, or interest to manage the application production cycle, it is easier to handle the entire process with an outsourcing partner. For us, custom software development involves designing software applications for your organization’s purpose. This approach is suitable for companies that want to address specific needs that could not be covered by off-the-shelf software. Clients are not buying the product but the entire development and maintenance set of services. It’s a fixed price form of outsourcing, that allows clients to focus on their core business and keep a small organizational footprint. With IT Teams, clients can commission the development and release of a software product, but also corrective, preventing, and enhancing maintenance.

These three options span from having full control of people involved in software development to having full control of the features and capabilities of software applications. From our perspective, outsourcing is about offering choices, for any client to achieve its specific goals. These can be faster time to market, scalability, less overhead, and administration effort, cost optimization, access to highly skilled professionals, etc.

So if you are looking for an outsourcing partner that will be able to offer you multiple working premises feel free to contact us or subscribe to our newsletter.