Staff augmentation has made it to the top of the list when it comes to ways of improving the time it takes products to be taken to market, improving ways of cutting certain costs, and embracing innovation.
The pandemic has proved the worth, and strengthened the position, of the remote working model. Its effectiveness has shown across the world the certain advantages that it has. For example, 83% of employers who were served said that the shift to remote working has been successful.
As a result, many companies all round the world have plans to expand their capacity through outsourcing models such as staff augmentation. And this includes many companies that have never outsourced before.
And despite the strengths that the model has, it does come with challenges.
So today we’re going to talk about some of these challenges and point you in the right direction when it comes to resolving them.
Staff augmentation helps companies tap into talent from across the world while maintaining a controlled budget.
Whether it’s virtual interviewing, digital signatures, carrying out team meetings, developing on major products, and celebrating the success of a project launch – the entire working process is entirely capable of being done online.
But challenges do appear and we’ll look at these right now.
First challenge: discovering the right specialists
When it comes to tech talent, places in the US and Western Europe are actually coming up short, and so it becomes hard to find the right specialists for the right projects. For example, in the UK, 69% of business leaders think that their companies are facing a digital skills gap.
The solution to this is to plug their company into the talent hotspots around the world. Destinations such as Eastern Europe as well as Latin America are such places that provide regions of software development talent at competitive rates.
But when it comes to staff augmentation, the location of it is less important than the actual quality of the team itself. To find the best-fitting outsourcing team, take into account the language compatibility, the cultural compatibility, the size of their talent pool, and of course the time difference between the US and location of the staff augmentation consultancy.
Second challenge: the communication
Team success is never achieved without proper and effective communication. And through the pandemic, it has been important to set up close connections with your distributed teams so that everyone can feel integrated.
Good staff augmentation agencies have well-established processes and best practices that have been tried and tested and strengthened over the years of their work. Underline things such as agreeing on coding practices; the regularity of meetings and reviews; security processes; and of course the specific tools that are going to be applied to the project.
Third challenge: the legal issues
Negotiating a contract is a core part of the process and it provides simple transparency and security into the relationship. A contract that is built on shaky grounds is detrimental to a project, and can lead to issues such as unexpected bills, loss of control over the quality, and being compromised in security.
Getting the contract correct means bringing up the complexities and clarifying as much of the aspects of the project as possible. Things such as the terms for invoice issuing; data protection rules; and any notice periods and time frames for scaling.
Fourth challenge: the transfer of knowledge
Knowledge transfer is key at each stage of the project. The beginning point as the project kick offs; during the implementation of the project; and finally when the project comes to a successful close. Without a good plan on what assets to gather and the organization of the process itself, there is a risk of suffering from organizational waste.
The solution here is an effective process for knowledge sharing. Essentially, hire a staff augmentation agency which has best practices for knowledge transfer and a well-established track record.
Because knowledge transfer fails when it is done through ad hoc or informal processes, and succeeds when the process is solid and methodical, and takes into consideration things such as defining the items to be passed; the people who will be responsible for the transfer; checking the availability of technology documentation; conducting meetings and Q&A meetings; and creating measurements to assess progress and results.
