Businesses worldwide these days have gone far from conventional practices. So if you are looking for some resources to revamp business software solutions or build a new presence but lack both the vision and execution?
While building their digital presence, many businesses outsource specific projects to qualified professionals. When a business owner hires a software development company, many perspectives arise, mainly the question of whether to opt for staff augmentation or hire consulting services.
We’ve highlighted both concepts’ significant pros and cons to simplify your hiring process. Moreover, the most practical situations to follow specific approaches are also explained; you can compare yours with the explanation below and select the right option.
What Is Staff Augmentation?
Staff augmentation is a prevalent practice followed in software development companies for staffing a new project to meet business goals. This hiring model checks the balance between current personnel and evaluating personnel needs.
In staff augmentation, a company optimizes the existing staff on a contractual basis to meet your business’s digital needs. The only difference between staff augmentation and standard recruiting is that it involves short-term goals to achieve.
However, there is a massive demand for IT staff augmentation services among the top software development companies to stay ahead of competitors.
Pros Of IT Staff Augmentation
It turns out to be soft on the organization’s investment since you’re only liable to temporarily pay until the project’s completion. Whereas on the other hand, there is a privilege to save time and resources required for in-house staff development and production.
Staff augmentation is an ideal strategy when handling staff needs and resources required. Thus, it aids staff control while working on clients’ work.
It provides advantages to businesses since they can recruit the requisite staff to support their in-house team concerned with specific projects.
With a staff augmentation approach, companies have the upper hand to accomplish their projects with more efficiency. Clients enjoy in-house expert developers at your desired times and selected tasks.
Moreover, they’ve got a direct approach to the team members and get instant feedback from experts in any unforeseen circumstances.
Furthermore, the internal team considers the staff augmentation model less risky than other models like outsourcing a project. It states that mixing up the current workforce with a few new experts is less risky than the entire project outsourcing idea.
Cons Of Staff Augmentation:
If you are planning to hire staff temporarily, then it demands ramping up the IT infrastructure and electronic equipment like desk computers, badges, and others. Consequently, it often inflates the company’s revenue.
Whereas in terms of pricing structure, staff augmentation is often more highly-priced than project-based consulting.
Without any kind of professional training, no resource management managed to cause a shift in the company’s processes, tools, and ethics. Plus, if you are training new professionals, it often results in management overhead.
What Are Consulting Services?
Consulting services are meant to be customized for a specific purpose but by permanent supervision, feedback, and a high level of organization adaption.
It consists of external monitoring of the company’s non-profile network. It proves to be beneficial in addressing the internal concerns of the organization. Moreover, the company requires no HR, IT, or department intervention.
Pros Of Consulting Services:
Since the development team is working remotely, there is no need for office furniture or technical equipment. So, the company doesn’t need to spend more on such premises expenses.
The most highlighting advantage of consulting services is that it also saves clients time. Besides, the efforts of availing resources are also cut down, thus reducing the additional time and financial risks.
Consulting service approach is entirely focused on the management process and is responsible for managing the infrastructure in a better way.
Software development tasks are highly prone to certain security risks and cyber-attacks. A consulting service reduces the risk and threats that might cause any damage or result in lengthy network failure.
When hiring an IT consulting firm, you employ a dedicated team with massive knowledge and exceptional skills. Besides, top-rated IT consulting companies have expertise in various IT domains and technologies to ensure the project leverages the advantages of efficient technologies.
Cons Of Consulting Services:
When a client subscribes to a project-based consulting firm, their development team will work only on the duty hours of their company. As they might be busy on other several ongoing projects, there are fewer chances of getting responses and feedback right away.
Most top-performing IT consultants will be found developing suggestions like TECHNOLOGY UPGRADES, which does not always sound beneficial. They may pursue you to invest in the latest technologies to enhance your business model.
Furthermore, while following consulting services, you should be ready to bear short-term or unexpected expenses as these IT experts charge clients on an hourly basis.
However, there is still room for negotiation when you make a deal with those you’ve worked with before too. You can also rely on new hires if you have a good relationship with them or if they’ve got an excellent mark on the list.
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What Is The Difference Between Staff Augmentation And Consulting Services?
Now, you are pretty much clear with the idea of both approaches. So it’s time to jump right away to the main topic about what’s the difference between staff augmentation and consulting services.
Cost-Effectiveness
As mentioned above, that staff augmentation strategy helps in cutting down the cost. When you temporarily onboard IT experts for a project, the company won’t ask you to pay any extra cost other than the finalized paycheck. The company will save time and cost from the training and development process of resources as they already have experts with the expertise and skills necessary to deliver desired products.
Control
When an expert tech staff gets onboard to take complete control of the project, these experienced project managers have more capacity and control to supervise crucial factors of the project. Besides, they ensure that the project is timely completed and delivered in its highest quality.
Flexibility
In the current competitive environment, businesses prefer to have the flexibility to stay relevant and prosper throughout the industry. In this situation, staff augmentation proves to be beneficial for businesses by allowing them to expand their portfolios to non-core services.
They simply take onboard expert staff to support their in-house team. Consequently, it gives businesses the flexibility and agility to remain competitive in the market.
Lower Risk
If you are hiring consulting services, they might not be the ideal option for data-sensitive projects such as software development and others. When you outsource your work to some consulting agency, they lose control over the project monitoring and status.
Therefore, it is necessary to get expert staff onboard to minimize the risks related to data and unauthorized access. Still, you should keep a critical eye on the whole project till the end.
Staff Augmentation And Consulting Services: Benefits Of Combination
Both options are not mutually exclusive solutions. Companies that started working on one approach initially can easily take advantage of others gradually.
Therefore, when software development companies find that an external option gives them more advantages and is highly profitable, they prefer to develop a relationship with that new idea. So, when two approaches are used in combination, they can strengthen the company’s potential.
By using both approaches, the company adds increased product responsibility, end-to-end support, and ongoing IP advantages.
Moreover, when a consultation element is added to the internally focused augmentation team, it creates opportunities to improve development methods, expand tech stack and tool options, and keep the enterprise at pace to compete in the market.
Final Words
The choice between staff augmentation and consulting services ultimately depends on one’s preferences and ground realities. Some software development companies feel more comfortable with consulting services, while others prefer to hire consulting agencies for their app development projects.
However, many software development companies also take care of both clients. Whether they want to go for staff augmentation or consulting services, they cater to them all.
About Clustox
We aim to generate more value for clients’ businesses, whether we are following a staff augmentation or consulting approach.
So, you don’t need to search for two different companies to help you with your product development project. Get in touch with Clustox today to know which one will be best for you regarding staff augmentation vs. consulting services.
