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The Multiple Advantages of Staff Augmentation

Companies today are faced with a lot of challenges and a great deal of competition, having a successful business is a lot harder today than it used to be, why? Because in today’s world consumers expect to get everything they need in the palm of their hand. This is the era of technology, the era of social media; and this trend doesn’t discriminate between huge companies with a lot of capital to invest and small or medium size corporations that are just starting to give their first steps.

No matter the size of your company you’ll always need a team to handle all your technology needs, and even huge companies get to a point where they can no longer support an in-house team for each of their IT operational needs, which is why Staff Augmentation has become a convenient option for businesses all sizes.

What exactly is Staff Augmentation?

Perhaps the term is self-explanatory, it refers to increasing staff, right? No, there’s a lot more to it. Staff augmentation actually refers to an outsourcing strategy which involves evaluating the existent talent in-house and considering additional resources needed, with this information in hand companies proceed to outsource the needed services.

Staff augmentation is a popular trend in the area of technology due to the many different specialties and needs that exist today. If often happens that personnel with particular skills is needed for a specific project but only for a limited time; in other cases it is hard to get talent with a required knowledge or sufficient experience and therefore it is easier to get the needed personnel through a third party company; it is also a good alternative for companies that require development solutions across diverse platforms.

Grow your team without growing your payroll

According to Marco Tonti, CEO from Softon, a software development company located in Costa Rica and a pioneer in staff augmentation services for local and international corporations, there are multiple advantages to staff augmentation services, he shares a few of them with us:

  • Costs:This is the number one reason companies opt for staff augmentation”, says Tonti, and he continues, “companies don’t have to grow their payroll, they can forget about vacation time and bonuses, and everything that comes along with handling human resources. Through staff augmentation you get the qualified personnel you need for a fraction of the cost of hiring in-house personnel; especially when choosing offshore companies like Softon because the cost of labor in Costa Rica is considerably lower than in North America”.
  • Control: Through IT staff augmentation the client doesn’t relinquish control entirely, as it happens many times with regular outsourcing, the personnel is still responding to an in-house team, they respond to the client’s requirements directly and this makes the service efficient and easy to monitor.
  • Access to Resources: Staff augmentation allows a company of any size to have access to talented professionals with very specific skill sets and knowledge which is usually not possible for small or medium size companies since hiring personnel of this caliber directly is something that they generally cannot afford.
  • No Limits: Work by project, grow at your own rhythm without limitations. “Many times we hear about companies that are growing but they eventually get stuck because even though they have the right ideas they don’t have the staff or human resources to execute these ideas, staff augmentation gives companies’ access to those needed resources”, explained Tonti.
  • Flexibility and Fresh Perspective: In house personnel usually gets caught up in the company’s way of doing things, especially in cases were the team has been together for a long time, they tend to look at things from a very subjective point of view; “when someone new comes along it rattles their cage; not only do they get a fresh perspective but the in house staff starts thinking outside the box, and this helps in the creative process and the search of solutions, it even helps them learn new things in the process”, assured the Softon executive.

As you can see this outsourcing tendency has great advantages, and can be beneficial and convenient for companies in different industries and of different sizes; however, it is important to search for a company that is reliable and knows what they are doing.

For additional information or advice contact Softon.