Imagine you are a startup whose stars aligned, and it bagged a huge project from an enterprise to implement their upcoming project. This is a turning point for your startup and make it a name in the market just the way you always wanted. However, there is a catch. The timeline is very constrained, and you need a considerable number of additional resources highly specialized in AI, and you need them all very quickly.
Now you have two options – first, wait for the hiring process to take its due course. Second, find a good IT staff augmentation services provider that can share the needed resources so you can start with the project right away and save precious time.
What option would you choose? The answer is obvious – the staff augmentation provider. So that not only can you save on time but also capitalize on other benefits of the services like their expertise as an organization in handling resources and the projects.
In this blog we will be discussing many of the ways in which staff augmentation, especially the remote one helps startups. It not only overcomes challenges that prove fatal to your startup but also ensures that the startup achieves what you always wanted.
What is Remote IT staff Augmentation?
Remote staff augmentation is a kind of hiring model wherein you bring in experts for a temporary period to your team in the need of the hour who contribute from a distant location.
They join your business quickly, thanks to a well-defined and refined hiring process in place with the staff augmentation service partner that quickly supplies you with the specialized talent as per your specific needs. It can be a developer, an AI expert, or someone skilled in cybersecurity.
IT staff augmentation benefits you in many ways
- Filling the skill gaps in team no matter how specific your skill requirement is.
- Providing access to a global talent pool at a low cost. For example, if your hire developers in India or a country with favorable labor cost you not only tap into the global level skills but get them at a very low cost and power your competitiveness.
- Ensuring project deliveries on time even in the case of a tight deadline, helping you build trust and capability.
- Bring pre-trained augmented staff who start contributing right away from day one. No need to wait for ramp-up time.
- You access global level expertise and skills to make sure your project meets the highest standards. This includes even technologies like AI and blockchain that have just erupted in the scene.
All this means that remote IT staff augmentation helps your startup grow and scale quickly without the hassle of recruiting or managing a large team. Getting the right people and at the right time.
So, how relevant are these services for start-ups? The next section will make it very clear.
Top Reasons Why Startups Fail and How Remote IT Staff Augmentation is the Solution
Research by CB Insights found some of the common reasons why startups fail. Surprisingly, for most of the reasons, remote IT staff augmentation can be a perfect solution. Let’s look at them one by one.
Lack of Product-Market Fit: Absence of Expert Take
The biggest reason for startups failing to survive was the lack of demand for what they were offering. This accounted for the failure of approximately 34% of startups.
Such a problem is very dangerous as business might not even know that it exists and only a fresh outsider perspective can spot it. Remote IT staff augmentation can offer you this required perspective backed by their vast experience. The experience that they have gathered over the years of working with a range of projects for a range of clients.
Inadequate Marketing Strategies: Inconsistent Focus
Another important reason responsible for the failure of around 22% of startups is due to ineffective marketing. Now there can be various ways this problem can impact your business. So, for example, you have expanded to the tech domains from a different domain by creating a tech product that meets the needs of customers in your domain.
In both scenarios, remote staff augmentation helps you overcome obstacles to your business growth. You can hire experts to gain the required bandwidth to focus on the developmental as well as the marketing aspect.
Not Having the Right Team with Right Skills and Experience
The third prominent reason for a business failure, i.e. around 18%, is due to team-related issues. These issues can range from lack of skills, training, experience, and collaboration. Now here the experience of staff augmentation services providers comes very handy.
They have been working with different clients on different genres of projects. It is this experience that startups lack big time.
Not only do they extend their talent pool but also the necessary expertise to succeed.
Unoptimized Spending: Smart Finance Management Needed
Financial problems, oh yes of course. This is quite an evident problem and many of the startup business owners would readily agree to this. Running out of cash and other finance associated problems contribute to 16% of startup failures.
Staff augmentation helps startups optimize their spending by avoiding the additional expenses associated with full-time hiring. Thereby conserving capital and making it available for activities that contribute directly and significantly to startups’ growth.
Failing to utilize technology
Staying abreast of the latest technological trends is one of the most growth boosting approaches for a startup. On the flip side, failing to capitalize on the latest technologies has also led to many start-ups failing badly. They may lose out on the changing market trends or may fail against their competitors that made the early move.
One of main reasons for it is the skills gaps for the required technological advancement. This leads them to miss out on critical technological opportunities such as automation tools, data analysis, as well as game changing technological solutions like AI, AR/VR, blockchain etc.
Poor Offering Due to Lack of Skills
Yet another important reason for a startup failing is the poor quality of their products and services. This again happens for two reasons – lack of development skills and lack of quality control skills.
Thus, as you can see there can be two scenarios. One, when you do not have the idea or the skill to develop quality products or services. Here, you can make the most out of remote IT staff augmentation, that can bring industry-leading skills for an industry-leading quality.
Second, you have worked hard to develop a top-quality offering for your startup. However, you lack the skills to put in place an efficient qualities assurance system. Here you can opt for hiring qualities assurance experts to develop and implement an effective qualities assurance system. Here again you can ask the IT staff augmentation services providers to lend their quality experts.
Now that we have discussed how remote staff augmentation for IT talents help startup overcome the significant challenges, it begs the question to discuss what the qualities of this hiring model per se. In the next section, we will discuss these qualities in detail to give you a complete picture on staff augmentation.
How Remote IT Staff Augmentation Services Help Startups Grow
The IT staff augmentation market is projected to grow by 11% annually through 2025. This reflects the increasing demand for specialized skills especially in the context to rapidly emerging next gen pathbreaking technologies.
Partnering with staff augmentation providers allows your startups to quickly integrate the latest technological tools without the need for extensive in-house training. Here is a detailed discussion on the qualities of remote IT staff augmentation to boost startups.
Filling Gaps to Success
IT staff augmentation gives you access to specialized skills. Thus, helping you fill the specific gap in your team. These gaps can be any such as:
- Skill Gaps – You need resources with specific skills.
- Scalability Gap – You need resources to scale.
- Cost Gaps – You need resources but cannot afford to hire full-time.
- Time-to-market gap – you have a tough deadline to meet.
So and so forth, the requirements can be any and IT staff augmentation helps fill all of it with a tailored approach and solution.
A Fair Chance on Scalability
Talking about scalability, staff augmentation offers a pay-as-you-go model. This means startups can adjust team size as needed. They can increase the team size when the workload is high, or the deadline is tight and vice versa.
This flexibility allows startups to scale smartly and under a defined strategy, bringing greater control on their business growth. Additionally, it helps them avoid long-term commitment of full-time hiring and the associates monetary and other costs and challenges.
Saving Cost for Capital-starved Startups
To elaborate on the costing part itself, the remote staff augmentation helps capitally constrained startup save a lot of money in the form of:
- Reduced recruitment costs: You don’t need to spend money on an elaborate hiring process involved in full-time hiring including expenses like job postings, background checks and onboarding, etc.
- No-employee benefit: Employee benefits like health insurance, retirement plans, etc. are taken care of by the IT staff augmentation services providers.
- Low Overhead costs: You do not need to have office spaces, equipment and other infrastructure with remote setup.
Core Business Gets Its Due Attention
The staff augmentation method of hiring helps your startup to delegate technical tasks to the augmented staff, creating enough room for you to concentrate on their core business functions, driving innovation and growth.
So, a healthcare business does not need to worry about their app and instead focus on providing the best patient care as the app is being handled by the expert app developers at OrangeMantra.
Accelerated Timelines: Seizing Opportunities
Staff augmentation gives you immediate access to skilled professionals, expediting your project development. This helps you meet tight deadlines and client expectations. Thus, helping you tap growth opportunities just like we saw in the case at the beginning of this article.
Power Innovation: The Core of a Startup Business
A startup is all about innovation and staff augmentation helps your startup tap it to the fullest. The hiring models lets you utilize the diverse expertise from augmented staff to develop unique solutions. Thus, not only do you stand out from the competition, but the chance goes high of your creating a market of your own and achieving phenomenal growth in the likes of Meta, SpaceX, OpenAI and many others.
Conclusions
In conclusion, remote IT staff augmentation brings exactly what a startup needs to grow, expand and scale, beyond a strategic advantage as many think of it.
It fills the prominent fatal gaps that lead to many startups facing failure and get the needed expertise, experience and edge that helps them survive and thrive.
FAQs
What is remote staff augmentation?
The word “staff augmentation” is when you hire experienced resources on a temporary basis from a staff augmentation company. On the other hand, the word “remote” implies that the service providing company is in a distant location helping your business capitalize on the competitive, cultural, strategic, financial, and operations advantages that come with such partnership.
What is the IT staff augmentation process?
IT staff augmentation services are a strategic solution where a business hires the needed technological resources from a staff augmentation company. They help business work and improve their technological capabilities to bring the needed edge in the technologically driven market.
What is the difference between staff augmentation and software outsourcing?
Staff augmentation is the hiring of skilled resources to work as part of your own team on the project that is still being taken care of by your company. While software outsourcing is handling a project or a part of it completely to a different company that specialized in that specific domain. The outsourcing services providing company takes care of the project end-to-end.
