Staff Augmentation vs Outsourcing: The Fine Line Between Them
What happens when you receive a large project that your team can’t manage? Or an assignment your team isn’t prepared to take on? Or even a job that will give you good profit but you don’t want to manage? Well, for all these reasons, and more, is that services such as staff augmentation and outsourcing have been implemented. However, before elaborating on it, let’s see what they are.
What Is Staff Augmentation?
Using Staff Augmentation Services means bringing people into your team to work with you on specific assignments.
What Staffing Alternatives Are Recommended?
The type of team you need will entirely depend on the project. There are three ways to apply Staff Augmentation based on the needs and tasks required by a specific job.
Commodity Staffing
Commodity Staffing is applied for jobs that have a rush deadline and don’t require any special abilities. This kind of staffing is usually used in retail, special events, and manual tasks.
Skill-Based Staff Augmentation
Skill-Based Staff Augmentation requires some minimal skills to carry on the tasks. This kind of staffing is usually used for clerical tasks, data processing, transcription, and copywriting.
Highly-Skilled Staff Augmentation
Highly-Skilled Staff Augmentation involves professionals who are experts on what they do. They usually work in agile environments and produce high-standard results.
Why Choosing Staff Augmentation?
Staff Augmentation offers many advantages. First, it provides you a lot of control and insight of your project, achieving results that actually meet your standards. People who join your team can work using your systems, with no need to get the information from outside the company. Also, there are no long-time commitments. We are committed to provide a service that’s focused on finding the best talents within your time zone, bringing you the best quality at lower prices than the local ones.
Drawbacks of Staff Augmentation Services
Of course, not everything is perfect: there are also some drawbacks when using this service. New team members usually need to be trained, which is expensive. As a consequence, you’ll likely experience delays in your deadlines or low quality results if training has not been carried out appropriately.
What Is Outsourcing?
Outsourcing means giving an assignment (or part of it) to a third party who will not work directly with your team or within your company. You just provide the instructions and the expected results, and then wait to have your work delivered.
Types of Outsourcing
There are six types of Outsourcing, which will depend on the factors that are considered. These are Process Outsourcing, Project Outsourcing, Professional Outsourcing, Onshore Outsourcing, Offshore Outsourcing, and Nearshore Outsourcing.
Process Outsourcing
In this type of Outsourcing, it’s not an entire job that is given to a third party, but rather a specific process that takes too much time and your company could use somewhere else.
Project Outsourcing
You can outsource just one or several projects. This type of service is usually used when the company has a lot of different assignments with tight deadlines that their employees will not be able to meet.
Professional Outsourcing
As it happened with Staff Augmentation, there are also tasks that require experts in the matter. This way, you get highly-skilled professionals, but instead of hiring them, you just pay for their services.
Onshore Outsourcing
Onshore Outsourcing means working with Outsourcing companies that are based in the same country as you are. This way, commitment, monitoring, and control are higher.
Offshore Outsourcing
This type of Outsourcing involves working with companies that are based in a different country than you are. This means lower costs, more flexibility, and more people.
Nearshore Outsourcing
Finally, Nearshore Outsourcing takes place when the client and the company are in neighboring countries or in the same continent. This involves sharing time zones and having similar cultures.
Benefits of Outsourcing
There are a lot of benefits in delegating your work to a third party. First, you know that you’re hiring an expert team, so the quality of the job will be good and it will be delivered on time. Also, you don't need to worry about costs rising, since you’ve already arranged a price for their tasks or time. Another benefit is that there’s a big management offload, and you don’t need to train these employees. Needless to say, outsourcing always brings new ideas to the team. Two heads are better than one!
Drawbacks of Outsourcing
When it comes to communication, outsourcing can be challenging since you can’t set contractors’ working hours. Also, in many cases, you can’t meet them in your offices to work face-to-face.
Staff Augmentation vs Outsourcing
Now that we know what Staff Augmentation and Outsourcing mean, let’s see their differences and when we should choose each service.
What Are the Differences Between Staff Augmentation and Outsourcing?
Staff Augmentation gives us a lot more control over the project than Outsourcing does. When using Staff Augmentation, you hire people to work for you, which means you will have to train them. On the other hand, when you hire Outsourcing services, you just give them the instructions and deadline needed.
When to Choose Staff Augmentation?
Staff Augmentation would be your best choice if you need new people working closely with your team and you want to see results on a day-to-day basis.
When to Choose Outsourcing Services?
If you don’t have time to train new people, you have a tight deadline, or you just don’t want to worry about an assignment, Outsourcing is made for you.
Conclusion on Staff Augmentation vs Outsourcing
Staff Augmentation and Outsourcing are both great ways of getting the job done, but they’re not a choose-either-one model. You need to think carefully about what's the best option for you. Stop to analyze how your future might be like with each approach and choose the service that better fits you. You’re not sure what your match is? Contact us to receive more information and find the perfect service for you.