Team Augmentation or Project Outsourcing: Which is Better?

According to American CIOs survey in 2018, finding the right talent in today’s IT industry has become a daunting task.

Staying nimble in today’s competitive world is a challenge. Nowadays, there has been a tug of war for the top-tier talent and ever-changing deadlines for deliverable. Your company may be developing unique and exciting products or services so you may need an extra professional hand to get the job done. When that is the case, you explore different options as well as hiring models to ensure that the best one fits.

Here is an in-depth regarding the outsourcing models that can be adopted:

Team Augmentation

Team Augmentation is the type of outsourcing that follows the approach of hiring qualified members from a technology partner who later coordinates the team on-board. Let’s make it simpler. It is a temporary addition to your development team. Team augmentation is a great way to fill the skill gap of the organization. This is the sought after solution for the IT business that helps in overcoming skill crunch, enhance project delivery and accommodate the impact of hiring restrictions.

For example, you are not confident about the efficiency of your employees in completing a newly hired project. The reason might be the incomplete knowledge of code required for the project or a tight deadline. The solution? Team Augmentation.

Note: Remember the core in-house team stays intact. More team members are added to get the job done

As per the non-profit tech association CompTIA, the IT market is estimated to hit $5 trillion in 2019. The United State still remains the largest tech market across the globe, and the other major regions where outsourcing is preferred are Asia-Pacific, India and Latin America.

Here are the key points worth-noticing when it comes to Team Augmentation:

•   A larger talent pool of qualified professionals having extensive experience

•   High scalability improves the chance to find the best team

•   Accessibility to missing talent inclusive of the tools, frameworks, libraries and more

•   Handles team shortage for the on-time project delivery

•   The hired staff directly works with the in-house team

•   Instant change in products/services as per requirement

•   Businesses get new and innovative perspectives

•   There are low labor overhead prices

•   You get an edge over your competitors

•   It decreases the communication barriers

•   Execution of operational efficiency takes place

•   A great time-savior

•   Transparency exists among the team members

•   Aggressive deadlines are successfully met

Project Outsourcing

Project outsourcing differs a lot from staff augmentation in different ways. In this type of outsourcing, the partner company executes the entire project by hiring resources. The company keeps track of the progress while coordinating with the technology partner. The main difference is you are purchasing engineering resources while having direct control over the team.

What makes project outsourcing stand out?

•   Reduced operational expenses are one of the most obvious benefits

•   You can expand, downsize and re-prioritize certain aspects of the business

•   Speeds up the process without compromising on quality

•   Companies can focus on their core objectives.

•   Hassle-free partnership

•   No need to keep an eye on the progress

•   Designing it from scratch until the final result

•   The professionals are efficient in handling the project having a wider understanding

•   A lot of emphases is put on the final outcome

•   The company doesn’t have to manage a team

•   There is no task assigning issues

•   Management of the complex implementation of features and different functionalities.

•   Reduces project delivery timeline as the tasks are segmented within their team

Team Augmentation vs Project Outsourcing

By now, you must be aware of the benefits that both of them offer, let’s see which one fits the best as per your requirement.

1. Final Result

When it comes to team augmentation, the main focus is to get the process done with the help of experienced professionals. They collaborate with the in-house employees and are responsible for delivering the final result according to the requirements.

On the contrary, in project outsourcing, you outsource the project to a third party which is responsible for delivering it on-time focusing on the final result. When the project requirements are pre-defined, and there is a lot of focus on the output, then this outsourcing works.

When the final output is the requirement, project outsourcing dominates team augmentation.

2. Cost-effectiveness and Budget

Team augmentation cost is flexible and depends from company to company. According to the requirement, you can ramp up or downsize the team.

On the other side of the coin, the total cost of project outsourcing is directly proportional to the initial requirements and is then taken care of throughout the development process.

Here team augmentation is a clear winner.

3. Project scalability

As the projects progress, there is a scope of improvement and changes. In team augmentation, when the new members club with the already existing employees, there is a huge opportunity to improve the project, making it more functional by adding unique features.

On the other hand, project outsourcing keeps adding the cost for the extra efforts in the middle of the process.

So, which one is better? Team augmentation of course.

4. Project management

Team augmentation offers complete control over the project. By this, we mean that resources as adapted as per the changes.

Whereas in project outsourcing, technology partner handles the work cycle. Because of this reason, making changes in the middle of the project becomes a bit challenging.

What worked better here is team augmentation.

Wrapping up

When you have finally decided which outsourcing type to choose, the next step is to find a reliable outsourcing partner. The best is to hire an outsourcing team from reliable countries like India as they can help you meet the challenges so that you can effortlessly implement the project. In addition, the partner should strive to make your business more competitive in the national as well as international market.