Staff Augmentation vs. Project Outsourcing vs. Managed Services: Which One is Right for You

Staff Augmentation vs. Project Outsourcing vs. Managed Services
Every successful project entirely depends on having the right team in the place. But what makes a project team great? And how can you even ensure that you have just the right people on board from the start?
With the market uncertainty, now more than ever, companies need to be flexible, agile and responsive to the ever-changing market dynamics and customer needs. Achieving this also involves investing in flexible talent management services. There are quite a few ways to accomplish this. Resource and staff augmentation is one of the popular methods to do it.
IT staff augmentation has proven to be a time-tested staffing model as a potential addition to your company’s flexible talent management plan.
Investing into a proper company for IT staff augmentation services will pay you in the longer run by also saving time and energy.  Another way of talent management is IT projects outsourcing. A good project outsourcing company will help you to plan your projects accordingly by saving a lot of time. Managed services, on the other hand, is a form of outsourcing for small businesses. The best part of managed services is that it includes all the upgradation and maintenance of tasks.

What is IT Staff Augmentation?

It Staff Augmentation is the process of hiring additional staff to your company to meet increased demands or achieve specific goals. This can be done by either hiring new employees in your company or by contracting with external IT Staff Augmentation company. With the IT staff augmentation services, you can hire employees to your team based on the project requirement. Also, the augmented staff can join the team at any stage of your software development. It helps you add the necessary skillset workforce for a specific period or at a crucial stage of development. To simply put, IT Staff Augmentation is hiring external workforce/staff for your projects to fill gaps in your in-house team. Let us now take a look at the pros and cons of IT Staff Augmentation.

Pros

  • Cost Reduction: IT Staff Augmentation lets you simply pay for what you need. With this, you cut costs without sacrificing the quality of the work. Also, hiring staff helps you to avoid recruitment and hiring costs.
  • Expertise: In IT Staff Augmentation services, you do not hire people who might have the right experience or skills, but you pick someone who exactly matches up to your expectations. This expertise of people is what makes IT Staff Augmentation for your projects.
  • Geographical limitations: If you need someone who is not in your country, you can always hire a specialist from abroad. Also, IT Staff Augmentation services from your client’s country, it will also give you an advantage.

Cons

  • Cost ineffective: For long term employment, IT Staff Augmentation can alter your budget. Sometimes, a project can go on for more than expected time making a costly resource. IT Staff Augmentation services are usually more costly per hour than normal employees, making it cost ineffective at times.
  • Training: Although you hire someone who is experienced, you will still need to train them (to let them follow your company’s procedures). The augmented staff joins your internal team who have been working with each other and knowing everything. You need to pay for the extra time that is spent in training this augmented staff.
  • Responsibility: If you need someone who is not in your country, you can always hire a specialist from abroad. Also, IT Staff Augmentation services from your client’s country, it will also give you an advantage.

Project Outsourcing

IT project outsourcing is the process of hiring an external team of specialists or generalists to hand over a complete project that is traditionally done in-house. This is usually done by companies to focus more on the core business tasks. Often,IT project outsourcing involves delegating the most time-consuming or tedious tasks across multiple verticals- from HR & accounting to administrative and customer service. The aim is to free up time for your in-house team to focus diligently on more revenue-generating tasks & projects. In any project, the most important aspect along with all the other aspects is the project management. Project management outsourcing is a form of hiring project managers from an outsourcing firm for a specific project. Thus, project management outsourcing is in a way an integral part of IT project outsourcing . Let us now take a look at the pros and cons of IT project outsourcing.

Pros
  • Quick start of the project: When you hire a team to outsource your entire project, it gets started quickly than when you work with in-house teams. A good project outsourcing company helps to provide you with a team of technological experts where you do not have to worry about training, research or buying tools to start the project. The entire outsourced team takes care of your project right from start to the deployment.
  • Reduced Risks & Costs: Recruiting outsourced staff for your project involves working of skilled professionals who take the responsibility for your project. This way, it reduces the risks that are associated with software development. Also, with IT project outsourcing, you need not spend on recruiting employees, payrolls, health care insurance, buying office spaces and training staff, etc saving you a lot on costs.
  • Access to skilled developers:Since IT project outsourcing allows you to access worldwide talent, you get adept developers to work on your project to make a robust product. That is the primary reason, companies often prefer to outsource their project to an offshore IT project outsourcing company.

    • Cons
  • Coordination Issues: As the IT project outsourcing team is working differently than your in-house, there can be communication issues at times. This can result in the project being delayed or not completed. However, project management software like Zoho can help you to tackle this issue.
  • Security Issues: IT project outsourcing can cause security issues when you are handling sensitive data, intellectual property, and any confidential information. It can all boil down to the level of accountability that the outsourced team has. However, signing a proper NDA can help you avoid this challenge.

    • Managed Services

    Managed services is the process of hiring small teams for your IT needs and requirements. Usually, Managed service providers support your company’s technology for a monthly flat fee. Also, the team proactively monitors your business’s network, minimize IT problems and troubleshoots any issues that come up on the network. With the advancement in cloud technology, most IT work is available for outsourcing. The managed service provider remotely accesses networks and deploys solutions for any computing issues directly from the cloud without being in-house. Let us now take a look at the pros and cons of Managed services.

    Pros
  • Proactive solution: If the managed services team operates efficiently, it can prevent a lot of technical issues. THey constantly monitor IT elements like hardware, applications, security and much more. In a way, you are hiring people to keep your business from having issues rather than fixing them.
  • Tech expertise: A managed service personal is really a professional in every IT function. This makes you better equipped for your business in all ways.
  • Business continuity:A disaster recovery is one of the most important aspects of the business. Managed service provider can assure that you sleep well at night without worrying about any disaster that can strike. An efficient disaster management plan is made to endure your business against all the risks.

    • Cons
  • Less On-Site Availability: As most of the IT managed services personal are not physically in the office, it can be problematic at times to fix emergency issues. To make sure you do not face this, make sure the managed service provider has an office and can provide you with emergency support.
  • Less Synergy between Business and IT: Since the managed service provider works with multiple businesses at a time, it can get difficult for them to align with your business goals and internal processes. To avoid this, make sure you partner with a company for managed services who properly know about your business & industry needs.

    • Why should you choose Bee Logical for Resource & Staff Augmentation? Bee Logical has been a known name in the IT industry for the past 9+ years for the best web and mobile app development services. We understand your business needs and industry trends perfectly. Bee Logical also has been among the top resource and staff augmentation companies in India, providing you with the best IT teams for your projects. With our IT staff augmentation services, you can hire employees to your team based on the project requirements. Our super team of developers and designers are there to make your project a success.
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    Staff Augmentation vs. Project Outsourcing vs. Managed Services

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    Conclusion

    While choosing the best outsourcing services for your business, it is important to take a look at what is the exact need. While project outsourcing and managed services are a great way to get your small component or the entire project, It Staff Augmentation is a way to fill in the talent gap in your organization. Partnering with the best outsourcing company will help your business scale new heights while also saving time and capital both. In the end, it is important that you make the perfect decision for outsourcing services based on the business requirements.

    The primary difference between managed services and staff augmentation

        1. Managed Services focus on the bigger picture while Staff Augmentation focuses on immediate tasks or challenges.

        2. Managed Services are provided by MSP’s managed service providers while Staff Augmentation is provided by hires, perosnals, talent management company,etc.

        3. Managed service personals are trained beforehand, while Staff Augmentation teams might need training from the client.

        4. Managed Services are charged on a monthly or a project based fee, while Staff Augmentation teams are charged on working hours.

    The primary difference between staff augmentation and project outsourcing is as follows

      1. Staff Augmentation is hiring talent for a specific task, while Project Outsourcing is hiring a firm to handover the complete project.

      2. Staff Augmentation might require you to train the personals, while Project Outsourcing does not require you to do it.

      3. In Staff Augmentation, you are completely responsible for the project, while in Project Outsourcing, you are not responsible for the project as there is a complete external team.

    The primary difference between managed services and project outsourcing is as follows

        1. Project outsourcing is a short-term solution, while Managed services work on a long-term basis.

        2. Project outsourcing takes away your control over the project, while managed services help you still control what is happening.

        3. Project outsourcing is done for the entire project while managed services are used for the improvement of one or the overall factors of the project.

        4. Project outsourcing is a one time payment model where you pay for the entire project while managed services are based on a subscription model depending on what services you opt for.

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