Effective leaders are always striving to achieve their business goals and objectives. Sometimes, however, important projects are jeopardized because the right team or staff are not available and companies must acquire skilled and flexible staff for temporary or short term positions.
Key Benefits of IT Staff Augmentation
IT staff augmentation works well because it increases an organization’s agility when facing staff or expertise shortages and allows them to get the best talent without the long-term commitment of hiring full-time staff. This factor greatly increases the probability that projects will be delivered successfully.
Some of the key benefits of IT staff augmentation include:
Cost Effectiveness
IT staff augmentation allows the organization to utilize recruitment capital at the right time, and only for the right required set of skills. When the business undergoes expansion, it is not an overnight process. IT staff augmentation provides the resource support, as required, which permits organizations to support business growth.
By removing the need to hire full-time staff, a company can benefit by better leveraging their existing funds in the short and long term. Simply put, on-boarding costs amass even before a candidate walks in for an interview. For example, expenses often include advertising fees, job posting fees, and administrative costs.
Adaptability
IT staff augmentation enables organizations to adapt quickly. By adding immediately available, specialized talent, businesses can extend their in-house team when project deadlines require a larger workforce. This flexibility allows companies to respond faster to changes in the market and exploit opportunities for growth.
For example, a major project is taking place in the organization and the team on the project is becoming overworked. By augmenting staff during peak seasons, organizational leaders will be able to reduce overtime costs and make sure no one gets burnout. After the project winds down, the resource’s contract ends and the organization continues as it was before – business as usual.
Maintaining Control
By using IT staff augmentation, the organization retains complete and total control over who is doing the essential work, who is entrusted with major / minor tasks and who is leading the charge on the most crucial and demanding projects.
Reducing Risk
While it rarely makes sense to completely outsource a project, because key knowledge may not be fully transferred to the organization upon project completion, augmenting existing IT staff with highly trained and knowledgeable consultants reduces the risk of project failure while ensuring critical staff exist within the company can support the ongoing operation.
Not all HR Speaks IT
An organization’s HR team might not be fully aware of the credentials and skills required of an IT professional – particularly given the rapid speed of change within the technology landscape. As such, finding the right skill set can be challenging and time consuming. IT staff augmentation helps both HR and IT departments solve that problem and frees them to focus on the important strategic issues.
Achieve Business Initiatives
Augmenting the IT staff to cover back-fill situations often frees up time for regular staff to work on important business projects that are essential for growing the business and maintaining a competitive advantage.
Improve Application and Network Performance
Often IT staff are overstretched, leaving little room for application maintenance and network performance. By using contract staff, on an “as needed basis”, applications can remain up to date and the network performance remains stable.
Improve Business Workflow
Gaps in skill sets, employee turnover, and many other factors often affect day to day operations. IT staff augmentation can help to ensure that the organization’s business workflow is continually productive and free of distractions and interruptions.
A focused and unbiased workforce
When consultants are engaged to participate in specific projects and meet project deadlines, they must approach tasks with precision and focus. Their goal is to ensure the client’s success. Since they aren’t concerned with advancement or the corporate political environment, they are able to maintain objectivity and can provide unbiased feedback related to project status and delivery.
IT staff augmentation is a viable option for companies looking to avail themselves of the most expert talent in the industry. Businesses can reduce costs, achieve project goals, and increase the organization’s growth – not to mention injecting subject matter expertise – all while retaining oversight, control and the strength of the current organizational structure.
The Litcom approach
Skilled, experienced consultants are in high demand and difficult to find. Litcom has an extensive team of highly knowledgeable consultants and we can provide the talent that technology leaders need.
Litcom provides IT staff augmentation support to our clients including (but not limited to) the following resource classifications:
- IT leaders (Interim CIOs, CTOs)
- Business Analysts;
- Project Managers; and
- Security Specialists
Please contact our talent acquisition specialist – Ashley Thompson, to learn how our IT staff augmentation solutions can help your company gain a competitive edge.
