Staff Augmentation or Managed Services: Guide to an Informed Decision

In today's highly competitive scenario, how are you planning to stay ahead of the competition? Isn’t finding the right solution to strike with your brand’s growth plans nerve-wracking?

With remarkable solutions existing today, that are most practical and refuting to ‘impossible’, digital transformation is the panacea for increasing efficiency. It drives business at double speed.

However, working in this direction too requires nothing but the best. It can either be in the form of hiring the best talents or choosing the right partner for managing services; or maybe both.

If you are a person in charge of making decisions who are dwindling between staff augmentation and managed services, we got you. This is the precise guide to help you understand and analyze the requirements and solutions you need.

So let’s start by gaining clarity first as we dive deep into the topic.

What is Staff Augmentation?

Imagine, you are in a logistics business managing operations through software. Now you are planning to create a custom application for it. Now you need specialized skills, but hiring full-time experts would require allotting a fixed permanent budget to it. Let’s assume this project will take a year to complete. But having permanent hires can overkill your resources & money.

Now you switch to the Staff Augmentation model and hire professionals for a dedicated project. It’s like having talent and flexibility both at your fingertips. Simple & scalable to requirements. Isn’t it?

Advantages of Staff Augmentation

1.???? Better Control- Having staff augmentation means you are the captain. You can oversee the project, track progress, and make adjustments according to the development scope of the project whenever needed.

2.???? Cost efficient- Instead of hiring a full-time tech geek, bringing in the help of experts whenever needed cuts down the service timeline and costs. It’s like having a ready-to-act task force on standby.

3.???? Adaptability- Market trends always change and so do project demand. With Staff augmentation, you can act for a positive reaction. Remember, when the demand for applications skyrocketed? Just like that, you can work according to the required agility.

4.???? No employee attrition- No more headaches when an employee jumps off the ship. With staff augmentation, you can have professionals on board for the short term. And, if they leave, no chaos.

Disadvantages of Staff Augmentation

1. Orientation Time- Regardless of role proficiency, every newly hired expert needs a crash course to get acquainted with company roles. It takes time and effort to make them catch up.
2. Mid-season briefing- Adding new candidates in the mid-project will require extra time and resources to speed up their results and meet project goals.
3. Team Dynamics-?No two heads have the same vision & approach. This difference between your augmented staff and the in-house team can bar clear communication for working together to bring the desired output.
4. Final output- As in staff augmentation, monitoring is the main component, you are responsible for the final result of the project. You need to take responsibility for the technical issue, assign the right candidate according to the skillset, and take up the charge on your shoulders.

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What are Managed Services?

Choosing this model means a third party handles the IT and technology services to clients. This third party that provides services is called a managed service provider. It includes a service-level agreement that contains provisions, and a plan of action and the customer pays a monthly subscription fee.

Managed services are ideal when companies have a long-term vision. MSPs offer IT benefits at lower costs in comparison to hiring a whole internal team. Managed services not only provide access to best industry practices but also careful guidance to improve the overall infrastructure. It means you are not only having a solution to your problem but also eliminating its root cause.

Managed services are a very attractive option for all IT company leaders who are looking to receive sure shot good results.

Pros of Managed Services

1. Expert skillset- Having managed service relieves the stress of selecting talented individuals & getting them on board. Whatever your project requirements are, choose your team of experts and assign them the tasks.

2. Cost efficient- As the model generally includes paying for the volume of work by an entire team of qualified experts, it is very cost-effective for the hiring company in the long term. It gives you access to all resources while paying only the subscription fee.

3. Dedicated project overview- Project management is the most integral part when choosing services. With a manager dedicated to overseeing the entire project, you don't have to worry about breaking down complex tasks or identifying issues. You can scale the project as you like with outcomes as you like and increase the efficiency.

4. ?No hiring required- No matter the talent you hire, employees are likely to quit. This will require hiring individuals over and over again. When you outsource it to a managed service provider , there’s no additional input required for onboarding or worrying about project delays.

Cons of hiring managed service providers

1.???? Project Brief Challenges- When hiring an MSP, you’ll repeatedly provide project briefs. If these briefs lack clarity or specificity, it can lead to misunderstandings and rework. If your initial brief doesn’t clearly define requirements, the system may lack the required features.

2.???? Communication Gaps- Outsourcing means less direct involvement in day-to-day project activities. Suppose you’ve hired an MSP for network management. Despite scheduled meetings, urgent issues like network downtime might not receive immediate attention. In such cases, delays can impact your business operations.

3.???? Agency dependency- When you rely on an external organization, it increases your dependency which may disrupt your operations when the software fails or other issues occur.

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How to Choose the right or appropriate model?

Choosing either of the above models depends on your requirements. Let's say, that you are looking for software development. Map your plan on the following options.

1. Duration: Staff augmentation is a great fit if it is a short project and your project can be over in less than 6 months. You get highly skilled talent quickly that can boost your company. However, if your project is likely to take more time then a dedicated team is ideally provided by full outsourcing. It will provide continuous support and management.

2. Cost Considerations: Saving costs is not the only matter you should look into. You also need to consider how well your team is trained and how they can work effectively to meet the project requirements. Let’s say you need a mobile app that might take 6 months to develop. Now if you have a small team but need extra developers to meet deadlines, staff augmentation could be perfect here. You bring in skilled developers for the specific tasks without the long-term commitment. However, if your app involves handling sensitive user data, you'll need to ensure strict confidentiality agreements are in place.

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But if your team lacks all the required skills, you can get it outsourced to implement all required features in it and then hire an expert individual to maintain its quality.

To sum it up, whether you go with staff augmentation or another model depends on your project's timeline, data privacy needs, and overall cost considerations. It's about finding the right balance between flexibility, security, and budget for your specific situation. We at Samyak Infotech offer you both services to help you find Zen while creating digital wonders for your products and services.