What Is the Difference Between Staff Augmentation and Project Outsourcing?

Project Outsourcing

IT outsourcing is a common practice that is followed by companies nowadays. The main attraction for the companies in outsourcing is it's reduced overall expenses. It also improves operational efficiency. With the rapid evolution of technology, to keep up with the pace is pretty tricky. But if you don't keep up with it means you are going back in business. And here comes the role of outsourcing. When you don't have in-house resources for a particular skill set, and training them is an expensive and time-consuming affair, people choose to outsource.

Staff Augmentation

In simple terms, staff augmentation is the strategy of using external resources to improve your organization's capability temporarily. When there is a temporary requirement of a skillset, and no one in your organization has it, it is better to hire someone externally temporarily so that you can utilize their skills. It is cost-effective too. It is a common strategy used by companies.

It is often useful when you already have a team, and you need external professionals to speed up the project and need their inputs and ideas. To hire an employee otherwise takes a lot of time and is an expensive affair.

Key Differences

There are some key differences between Project outsourcing and Staff Augmentation and the situations in which these strategies are applicable. Let us look into those.

Managerial differences

In project outsourcing, you give away the entire project to another company. You don't have any more headaches about it. You can focus on the internal projects, and there is no requirement of any managerial efforts.

In staff augmentation, the project is still within your hands; the only difference is you have an extended team. You will have to take care of the entire team, and there are organizational efforts required.

Control over the project

The control the company has on the project varies with the two models. In the case of project outsourcing, you give the entire project to another agency. You will get the updates, but still, the control remains with the other firm. The decision making power will lie with another agency.

 In the case of staff augmentation, you are hiring only a few resources temporarily to your project, so here the control lies with your own company. You can work according to your internal policies. So, in the end, if you need more control over the project, it is better to opt for staff augmentation; otherwise, you can go for the former.

Cost effects

It is the most significant factor; the main reason behind adopting outsourcing is to cut costs. If we take the case of project outsourcing, it is efficient in ensuring the planned expense. The company has to find out the appropriate agency for the project, complete the project with the required quality, and hand it over. You don't have to worry about the training expenses of the employees. 

In staff augmentation, you have to approach staff augmentation services and get the expertise resources. Even then, you will have to spend on their training part to make them up to the pace the company wants. And also, if you are hiring the team, the expense will increase according to the resources' experience. It also depends on the project; if it is a small one, then project outsourcing is not advisable.

The quality of the outcome

Project quality might differ in both cases. In staff augmentation, you are still in control of the entire process. You know the whole strategy. So you can be sure about the quality of the end product. 

In the case of project outsourcing, you don't have hold of the project. It can affect the quality of the work. Or maybe you can also get a higher quality product. Staff augmentation offers you more flexibility to check on the quality of the product compared to project outsourcing. 

Conclusion

Another version is known as the hybrid model, which is a mixture of both staff augmentation and project outsourcing. In this case, you can choose the plan of action according to your needs