Do you need an offshore development team to meet your staffing requirements? Contract staffing companies in India are the best place where you can hire talent on a contractual basis and get your work done. There are many benefits to contract staffing and that has led to its popularity. If y you need to consider various parameters. These include the size of the project, the type of commitment you need, and the budget you have. Moreover, you also need to keep in mind the capacity of your organization to deal with an offshore team.

Pros and cons of hiring an offshore development team

There are certain things that you need to know before recruiting an offshore development team. Take a look at some of them listed here –

Advantages

• Access to an international talent pool

When you choose to go the offshore route, you gain access to a global talent pool. Now, you don’t have to rely on commuting professionals. With this, you can hire professionals having expertise in specific domains. Moreover, with this, you can attract a diverse clientele from all corners of the globe. Ultimately, it leads to an increase in profits for your company.

• Formation of a diverse team

On paper, having a diverse team of professionals looks good for your professional image. It indicates that you are willing to work with different individuals, no matter their origin. This instantly gives you an edge over the competitors in the market. Having a team that is diverse in languages and cultures is motivating. Moreover, with a wide range of opinions, it becomes easy to resolve an issue.

• Reduction in risk

One of the massive benefits of hiring an offshore development team is the decrease in risk with having a diverse team. You can reduce volatility by having a team of offshore vendors. Apart from this, having an offshore development team will ultimately aid you in securing more clients. Also, you can save a great deal by hiring an offshore development team.

Disadvantages

• Differences in culture

While cultural diversity can play a positive role in your company, it can also lead to differences. For instance, a software developer studying in college in Chicago will think differently than one graduating from India. The diversion in cultural preferences may cause issues within the firm, leading to more chaos. The only way to handle the problem is to deal with the creative differences as soon as possible.

• Issues with time zone

While hiring an offshore development team is definitely cost-effective, there can be some time zone troubles too. The difference in the time zones can lead to severe issues, including delays in project submission and more. That is why it is vital to consider the time zone of the offshore development team before making a decision. For instance, the East Coast is 10.5 hours behind India. This can cause problems if the team needs to complete the tasks together to get the desired results.

• Communication problems

Another massive disadvantage that you need to address is communication issues. Though technology has helped us in file sharing and video conferencing, miscommunication can happen at any time. It is quite possible that messages can get delayed or lost during the shuffle. This can have a negative impact on the business while increasing the overall costs.

Conclusion

There are several pros and cons that are associated with hiring an offshore development team. You need to take all these factors into consideration before making any decision. However, for the best results, choosing the best offshore development team is crucial.  Check out GoodWorkLabs, based out of Bangalore, India. Being renowned staff augmentation service providers, they will make sure that your hiring needs are met. To discuss further, contact here!

Amidst the ever-evolving software development industry, hiring a remote development team is a daunting task. With business growth, you need to recruit a workforce that can adapt to the competitive landscape. The increasing competition in the market indicates that there is a need to hire the best team.

And it leaves you wondering, how to choose the best remote development team? If you are in the same dilemma then this blog will give you the answer. There are several parameters that you can look out for while choosing the best remote development team. Let’s discuss further –

• Expertise

Skill and experience are two major factors that you must keep in mind while hiring a remote development team. That is why it is vital to evaluate the specific project needs before making a hiring decision. Here, it is imperative to understand that subject matter expertise is extremely important. You need to hire expert domains so that you can bridge the existing skill gap in your company. For that, you need to set up a properly structured interview process. Asking the right questions is the key to hiring the best development team for your project.

• Perfect communication

In most cases, the remote development team works in a different time zone and location. That is why perfect communication is extremely vital. You need to maintain the flow of communication so that there is no room for errors or misinterpretation. For that, you need to decide the best medium for such communication. Efforts on both ends are crucial to make sure that the results are high-quality and error-free.

• Feedback cycles

Though not a task, the remote development team will have to deal with various feedback while working on the project. The capacity to handle the review and incorporate the changes is of immense importance. It also aids in the discovery of glitches or errors and urges you to make instant decisions.

• Follow correct work procedures

The remote development team that you hire must be able to follow the proper work procedures. Here, you must discuss different aspects of the project with the team in order to expect the best outcome. In order to receive high-quality project results, the remote team needs to follow all the steps in minute detail. Apart from this, maintaining seamless communication is also vital.

• Problem-solving skills

Another essential skill that you must search for in a remote development team is the ability to solve problems instantly. It is vital to note that when you work remotely, you will often need to resolve small problems on your own. There will be no one to offer help. Instead of holding the work, you need to have the sense to make sure that the issue is solved.

• Self-motivation

One of the most vital parameters that you need to look for in a remote development team is their ability to stay motivated. The lack of an office environment can lead to feelings of isolation. This, in turn, causes anxiety and panic. Moreover, the lack of supervisors means that the remote team needs to hand in the work within the stipulated deadline. For this, go-getters are the obvious choice.

Conclusion

There are various factors that you must consider while hiring a remote development team. In order to gain the best IT end-to-end solutions aiding in digital transformation, you must focus on recruiting the top-rated software development team. For that, you need to get in touch with the best staff augmentation service providers. Check out GoodWorkLabs, based out of Bangalore, India. Being renowned staff augmentation service providers, they will make sure that your application stands unique and fascinates users. To discuss further, contact here!

Today, businesses (big or small) are looking to cut down on the operational costs until they recover the losses occurred during the pandemic. Minimising the expenditure will be their key motto. Therefore, many companies will look at outsourcing a few key talents for their projects and assignments, for it is the most cost-effective operational strategy.

Due to the worldwide pandemic, in the past few months, we have observed an increase in the consumption of technology by every sector. Now every company will adopt technology to be in line with their competitions and survive. From manufacturing to financial services firms to non-profits all will hire more technology and IT talents. The mass migration to cloud computing, remote and virtual working will require experienced technology talents with right skill sets. Therefore, technology is one of the top domains that businesses will outsource to different companies. From small to big, all corporates have been opting to choose to outsource IT services for many different reasons. Before choosing to outsource any talent, companies should weigh the benefits of the services provided by the outsourcing partner.

Apart from being cost-effective, here are some of the benefits of having outsourced technology talents:

Experience and Skills

Investing in the services from a trusted and dependable technology service provider will bring in the change and help you grow with the guidance of top-tier technology experts. The external team will possess in-depth expertise with excellent skill sets in the technology domain. The experienced talent will defiantly add value to your project and operations by applying their knowledge to your business processes right away.

GoodWorkLabs’ technological knowledge and the team’s capability to understand the know-how of every business seamlessly is key to offering the solution that best suits the companies. This mix allows us to offer the technological profile that best fits the requirements of each project.

Increased Productivity 

By having an industry specialist in your team, you can be sure that your work will be done to the T with zero monitoring and micro-managing. This will shorten the time needed to complete the projects and thereby finish them in time. Having a highly-skilled expert will only fasten the processes, boost the performance, and yield better ROI.

Focus on core operations

By partnering with an experienced service provider, the companies and businesses can focus on the core – the revenue generation part of their business. This will help them concentrate on their business objectives more effectively. It is very common that businesses, where technology is not their core get distracted by applying more energy and time in understanding technology. While technology is relevant for their company, it is outside their business goals, therefore, for situations like these, outsourced technology companies come to the rescue. They can help business managers to focus their energy on areas within their competencies.

Security

Small businesses that do not have a specialised IT security team needs a bit of expert advice on how can they protect the company data from cybersecurity threats and hackers. If you have an external technology partner, they can assist you in protecting assets against digital thefts by using innovative and advanced cybersecurity tools. Traditionally, implementation of the cybersecurity infrastructure is often expensive, therefore having a technology partner can help you eliminate these costs.

Risk Mitigation 

Ever thought what happens when you do not get desired results from the technology talent you outsourced? Worry not, they can be replaced with no or minimal added charges. Helping their clients to be aligned with technology, the outsourcing partners help companies meet their expectations through all odds. Even if the talent leaves the company before the end of the project, the outsourcing partners start looking at alternatives at no added cost.

If you are looking to outsource technology talents, then let us introduce you to the top technology outsourcing company – GoodWorkLabs. GoodworkLabs helps you with all the technical requirements that you may have, from developing an app/software product to staff augmentation. Also, during this ‘work-from-home’ and quarantine time, we can help you with remote developers who can assist you in your projects and do some great work together! Should you require any more info on our offerings then reach out to us at +91- 9863077000 or [email protected].

The contemporary IT market is very dynamic and is constantly changing its business objectives and technical needs. To match and stay ahead of your competitors, it is vital for you to have a team that can match the market requirements. The major constraint to growth is that so many companies that need a tech team to enable their business, spend most of their valuable time, energy, and money on doing recruitment instead focusing on their core business. 

Are you doing the same and seeking an alternative for this?  If yes, then Staff IT augmentation is the answer for you. Want to know what it exactly means?

Staff Augmentation is a flexible outsourcing strategy that allows you to onboard high-tech talent worldwide. Once you have identified your requirements, you need to identify an IT staff augmentation partner who’ll provide you with a team for your requirement. You can onboard a team on a short term or long term basis. Your staff augmentation partner would take all your administrative and organization troubles and you would get all the time to tackle your main responsibilities and integrate well with the augmented team.

Now, you must be thinking who would choose these candidates? It’s you who will select the candidates who fit your company’s requirements and also you can cut or extend the augmented team whenever you wish to. One thing you would really like about is that the liability and cost of hiring new full-time employees are stamped out. The remote developers who are hired by a staff augmented company are committed to one project at a time. 

Now, it’s time to understand why staff augmentation services are important for any organization and why it is becoming the future of work?

Closing the skills gap-

The organizations which have inadequate IT Talents for their existing or upcoming projects can appoint programmers or developers outside the country with staff augmentation services. These companies usually hire from countries where there are developers in abundance and resources are economical.

Easy reach for skilled talent-

This would be one of the major advantages of staff augmentation as they have a grip on both active and passive market. You must be aware that active resource talent is available for everyone in the market but the premium and best talent are usually in the passive market, which makes all the difference while hiring. This means that the accessibility of consulting firms is pretty high and they can hire skilled professionals for your company easily.

Lessen the recruitment time-

As mentioned in the above point that staff augmentation can hire specialists easily and within a short span of time. Thus, it helps in reducing the cost and time that you would spend on finding tech professionals for your company. With the help of Staff Augmentation, you can get a specialist with rare skills from anywhere in the world and that too within record time. Thus, your company would not have to suffer losses in searching for the right talent and waiting for the project to begin.

Flexibility-

The major advantage of outsourcing the technology requirements of your company is that you have the complete flexibility of utilizing the resource. You will have complete freedom to appoint numerous specialists for a project within a short span of time and only for the period they are required. You can hire them for 6 months-2 years and can renew their outsourcing contract, doesn’t that sound great as you would not be tensed of having so many resources on the bench.

Less operational overheads-

Employee related operational stuff like signing employment contracts, accounting, and payroll would be taken care off by your staff augmentation partner. 

The next question which you may want to ask could be – “How do we find the best and cost-effective staff augmentation company? “

Before selecting any company there are a few things that are to be done at your end. Firstly, you should check what kind of talent do you lack. Secondly, is your requirement long term or short term. Once you are aware of the requirements, it is easy to look for the best-suited staff augmentation company both onshore and offshore. Once you have the best possible options then select them according to the preferred location and see if they match the time zone, prices, and other such factors. 

Thereafter you need to verify testimonials and see their rating and feedback. Once everything is done then you can negotiate with them for pricing and other terms and conditions. Choose the best one according to your requirements and the best price and sign a contract with them.

Once you choose the best then you can rely on them and get the best talent out of the pool. Now is the time to understand how staffing companies work and deliver you the best results?

• Identify the skill gap- Check what you have in terms of team and what more you might need
• Tell your needs- Articulate your requirements and expectations to your staff augmentation partner. 
• Interview and hire developers-Once they get the best talent for your project, you can conduct multiple rounds of interview with the tools and methods as per your organization’s recruiting procedure and after you are satisfied with their skills and talent, you can give them a go ahead, so that they could work for you
• On-boarding- The staff augmentation also takes care of the on-boarding process. The specialists hired are introduced with the in-house team and briefed about the project.

We hope this article helped you with your dilemma of hiring an in house IT team Vs onboarding a staff augmentation partner.

Looking for a staff augmentation partner? Contact us. 

Stratistics Marketing Research Consulting released the figures for spending in the worldwide IT outsourcing market. Expectations are that the amount will reach $481.37 billion by the year 2022. 

The figure is not at all surprising- this is because companies are looking forward to reduce their IT component spending. The focus is shifting to the main functions of the organization.

To solve the various enterprise challenges, the two models of IT outsourcing- staff augmentation and managed IT services are considered the best. 

We take a closer look into both these models to determine which one is better suited to the needs of companies.

Staff Augmentation

Staff augmentation refers to hiring professionals from outside the company. This is done on a contractual basis to cover up for the in-house staff.

Staff augmentation model has several benefits-

• Cost-Effectiveness

There are a lot of companies without the need for added staff. This eliminates the point to pay regular wages. Staff augmentation provides businesses with complete support through skilled professionals.

• Adaptability

Whenever a project comes up to a company, it is easy to understand and make a note of the missing skills to complete the project. Staff augmentation comes with the feature of adaptability. As a result, you can quickly scale up and down as per the project range.

• Resistance to Attrition

Obtaining and keeping a permanent staff is a difficult task for companies today. Because IT services are growing in demand, employees move over from their present employer to another more quickly.

There is not much companies can do to avoid this, but staff augmentation makes it less difficult to fill their staff with qualified specialists.

These are the important attributes of staff augmentation. However, it is interesting to note that staff augmentation is perfect only as a short-term solution. Future-oriented companies want to keep their technological development safe for a long time.

With the benefits on offer through staff augmentation, many people in the top management look to make this model a permanent one in their operations.

A Few Limitations of Staff Augmentation 

Choosing staff augmentation from a permanent hiring model brings two critical disadvantages to light-

• Overall Cost- Effectiveness Gets Challenged

When you choose staff augmentation, the labour costs increase. These expenses include overheads and positive margins too. Regularly hiring freelancers on a contractual basis is not a permanent solution, as the administrative costs become higher also.

• You Don’t Get Enough Insights For The Work Done By Your Contractor

Staff augmentation model does not generally mention any other service commitments than the work hours. As a result, the permanent staff often ‘invents’ new tasks to keep temporary hires busy. 

Staff augmentation brings you high-cost permanent resources. Yes, the quality of their services will be outstanding, but every company will also need favourable results too.

With staff augmentation, the customer company is entirely responsible for the infrastructure management procedure as well as quality assurance. The result, therefore, also becomes the responsibility of the company.

Managed IT Services

The managed IT service model is a definite mix of services, responsible for applying an external degree of control on a company’s non-core systems.

The model brings in all benefits of flexibility and skill access of staff augmentation. It then overcomes the major disadvantages the former model has to offer.

The advantages of managed IT services are the following-

• An Improved Cost Model

The vendors of managed IT services tie the pricing of the contract to the outcome. In other words, if customer demand for certain services grows or decreases, the price of the contract will differ accordingly.

• Guaranteed Output

Because service delivery includes a service level agreement (SLA), the overall scope and time limit of the service are all documented. Service providers try to fulfil their commitments, so they are required to put their value of work at a maximum.

• Access To Many Different Skills

Organizations providing managed IT services are often more significant than staff augmentation companies. 

As a result, these companies offer their customers an extensive base of skills, knowledge and solutions necessary to meet the ever-evolving requirements of customers.

Managed IT service model keeps your focus on the core business and transfer all the supporting services to a skilled and result-oriented company.

Adopting Managed IT Services

Stepping to a managed service model is not a single step, but involves a gradual procedure of four phases-

• Planning

Firstly, it is essential to have a clear definition of what to outsource.

It is vital that you do not delegate the processes, knowledge-intensive and makes you stand apart from the crowd. If you choose the wrong service for outsourcing, it can result in vendor lock-in.

Also, have a clear decision regarding the scope of managed IT services. If it is a hosting service, for instance, you should have a clear idea when the hosting begins and ends. It looks pretty ordinary but can have problems in the future.

• Choosing a Vendor

The reliability of a managed IT service vendor is a huge factor in making companies doubtful of selecting this model.

Shortlist managed IT service providers based on criteria like recommendations from experts, the capabilities of vendors for a particular technology and testimonies from previous customers.

The rest of the process is simple. Interact through one-on-one sessions to get more information and proceed ahead.

• Transition

A transition plan is generally in an SLA, where the methodology and schedule of a project are specified. Over-specification on the way the service will be delivered is a common problem to avoid in this phase.

Transition is the phase where the actual transfer of knowledge happens. At the start, a new vendor observes how the internal staff works. Right after that, this vendor takes over the overall responsibilities of service management.

• Governance

For maintaining the consistency of managed IT services, it is vital for a customer to conduct regular reporting and performance audits, review the services in line with the SLA and ensure that the vendor stays alert to what the IT service market offers.

The Dilemma Among Staff Augmentation and Managed IT Services

Choosing between these two models depends on the kind of company looking for them. Essentially, the best way to choose is to have a detailed cost-benefit analysis.

If your company requires specific services for a limited period, staff augmentation is the perfect option for you.

However, if you are looking for a continuous operating model, having a predictable cost structure, you will want to consider managed IT services for your company.

You can connect any time in case of any doubts about the two models we have discussed above. Also, we offer staff augmentation services and co-working space, Reach out to us, if any of the above service interests you.