42% of companies use staff augmentation services to address their skill gaps in IT and engineering. This number only proves how hiring outsourced professionals has become a competitive business strategy.
Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) must find the right balance of expertise and cost management. Consider staff augmentation to extend your in-house team without breaking the bank.
We wrote this blog post to discuss staff augmentation, what it is, how it works, and why it’s the ideal choice for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
What Is Staff Augmentation?
Staff augmentation is a hiring model that enables businesses to outsource individuals with specialized skills to support their operations. This staffing approach allows leaders to meet changing business needs without delays and eliminates the long-term intricacies of employing in-house.
Let’s say you own or manage an SMB, and you’re launching a new product soon. This project needs a full-blown marketing team to ensure its success. However, you currently have only a few staff members in your in-house team.
Hiring additional in-house team members may address the skill and staffing gaps. However, it will still require you to invest time and resources, which may cause further delays. Hiring augmented staff helps you speed up this process, allowing you to meet project demands swiftly and efficiently.
How Does Staff Augmentation Work?
To give you a clearer picture of staff augmentation, here’s how it works:
Step 1: Outline Your Business Goals.
Identifying your business needs and goals helps you understand the skills you need and why you need them. It also ensures you only hire people you need, preventing you from overspending.
Step 2: Sourcing Your Talent.
You can build your team by partnering with business process outsourcing (BPO) providers that offer staff augmentation services. They can provide you with any number of skilled individuals, including (but not limited to):
- Accountants
- Bookkeepers
- Digital Marketing professionals
- Web Developers and Designers
- Legal and Compliance Professionals
Find a trustworthy BPO partner with a solid track record of driving business success.
Step 3: Onboard New Hires.
Define the roles and responsibilities of your new team to ensure smooth, streamlined operations and minimize confusion. Encourage new team members to ask questions about your business goals and processes so they can understand what they need to do to help you achieve your goals.
Step 4: Manage Augmented Staff.
You must continuously support your augmented team staff to ensure alignment with your company culture and project goals.
Furthermore, you must assess their performance to determine their effectiveness. Evaluating your augmented staff is essential to your business’s success.
How Is Staff Augmentation Different From Traditional Outsourcing Solutions?
The similarities make it easy to confuse staff augmentation with traditional outsourcing services.
But staff augmentation is different.
For one, you will be much more involved with augmented staff than traditional outsourced teams. With staff augmentation, you integrate team members into your operations, making them much more engaged in your projects than outsourced teams.
Furthermore, staff augmentation addresses skill gaps and increases operational capacity. In contrast, other outsourcing solutions involve external staff handling an entire business function or project.
Another key difference is their cost structure and flexibility. Staff augmentation offers more scalability and often relies on a fixed pricing model. Meanwhile, other outsourcing solutions operate on outcome-based pricing and may require thorough contract negotiations.
5 Reasons Why Staff Augmentation Is a Game-Changer for SMBs and Startups
Here are five reasons why staff augmentation is a game-changer for SMBs looking to expand their operations:
1. It Reduces Your Overhead Costs.
Building your team from scratch will require investing in the infrastructure and tools they need to operate and spending a significant chunk of your budget on costly overhead.
Some costs of hiring full-time employees include office spaces and equipment, training, compensation, and other employee benefits. All of these expenses can pose a considerable burden for a growing startup. You can reduce fixed costs and accelerate the hiring process through staffing solutions.
You’ll reap the benefits of hiring qualified professionals with minimized time and effort. Unlike in-house teams, augmented staff can get your business up and running quickly.
2. You Can Scale Your Operations Rapidly.
Business markets constantly change, and you may face many setbacks as you grow your business. Consumer and business demands change almost immediately, and you may need to scale up or down. It’s always better to be fully prepared should the need arise.
With staff augmentation, you gain a better position in an unpredictable business space and more room to scale your business without the hassle.
Communicate with your BPO or staff augmentation provider so they fully understand your needs. It will make your partnership fruitful and ensure they can help you navigate market changes with minimized disruption.
3. You Streamline Your Project Management.
Startups face many challenges, including tight deadlines and multi-scale projects. Often, more resources are needed to keep up with both. Failing to deliver could mean hindered growth or, worse, none at all.
Outsourcing a team with specialized skills solves these problems by allowing you to allocate your internal resources better and expand your team for a set period. It will equip you to meet client demands and manage your projects without sacrificing overall quality.
4. You Get Access to a Global, Specialized Workforce.
Pursuing specific projects may demand specialized skills that your startup business may need to improve.
Partnering with a BPO or staff augmentation service provider addresses these skill gaps. Their global operations help you quickly assemble specialized teams with the proper training and specific skillset you need. You can work with remote teams quickly instead of worrying about training or upskilling in-house staff.
5. You Can Mitigate Risks Easily.
Mitigating risks is essential for any business, especially startups. Minimizing risks helps you secure investments and ensure sustainable growth for your business.
Outsourced specialized teams significantly reduce the risks associated with growing your business. The collaborative responsibility over risk assessment and management improves service delivery.
Additionally, staff augmentation providers manage compliance and work classification needs. They implement strict procedures to minimize risks when dealing with third-party talent.
Bringing Outsourcing Excellence to Staff Augmentation Solutions
Traditional staff augmentation platforms eliminate the hassle of finding skilled and experienced personnel.
Partner with a company with the resources, knowledge, and proven track record in the field to maximize the benefits of staff augmentation.
At ClearSource, we’ve taken our 17 years of experience helping major corporations succeed to provide SMBs with our brand-new Staff Augmentation service (Small Teams).
Our global operations ensure SMBs worldwide gain access to our diverse talent pool. Furthermore, our years of outsourcing knowledge remove the hassle from all the work while minimizing costs.
Learn how Staff Augmentation is a game-changer that can drive lasting success for your SMB. Contact one of our experts today.
