Managed services vs staff augmentation: what’s the difference, and which is right for your business?
The fiercely competitive market demands organizations to meet business-related challenges in real time. Unfortunately, a lack of expertise and proper skillset at a specific project can sabotage your reputation. Managed services and staff augmentation are well-tried solutions that help organizations stay competitive. Let’s have a detailed look at them to find out which one you should choose.
A Rundown Of Staff Augmentation
- Staff augmentation is the software development outsourcing model that involves hiring additional IT expertise to support the team. This approach caters to the temporary lack of tech talent, knowledge, or both.
This model focuses on labor resource expansion to augment the existing team with professionals from a third-party provider. Staff augmentation differs from regular hiring in that another company’s staff is temporarily added to your team on a contract basis.
Pros Of Staff Augmentation
- Organizations can hire a specialist for a precise amount of time. It allows you to save the cost of hiring additional staff.
- The headcount can be changed according to the changing project requirements.
- Permanent employees don’t feel threatened and treat the specialists as team members.
- Staff augmentation is particularly a suitable option when time pressure is heavy.
Cons Of Staff Augmentation
- Management expenses escalate as the team grows bigger.
- It may be tedious to keep tabs on the performance of remote workers.
- It requires time and effort to adapt to new members.
- Security and access protection need to be controlled.
A Rundown Of Managed Services
- Managed services are based on a task delegation model in which certain IT functions and responsibilities are outsourced to a third-party vendor. Managed service providers can tackle all issues, from developing advanced websites, services, and applications to catering to cybersecurity and backup needs.
This approach is typically used when the company does not have sufficient funds to hire in-house IT expertise. Managed services enable the in-house team to focus on core business tasks by taking the responsibility of IT management off their hands.
Pros Of Managed Services
- Managed services reduce the expenses of purchasing new equipment, training, and paying wages to full-time staff.
- It equips your organization with a large talent pool to meet the changing demands.
- MSPs offer more flexibility by being available round the clock.
- Managed services monitor all the processes and take charge of the resources and necessary tools. Thus, boosting productivity in the long run.
- MSPs access the risks to provide the appropriate strategies tailored to your project.
Cons Of Managed Services
- Since managed services are based on the remote work environment, urgent issues are not as promptly dealt with. However, this shortcoming can be remedied by MSPs that provide 24/7 support.
- Finding a service provider that understands your internal infrastructure and needs takes a lot of work.
- Since MSPs provide a complete package of tools and resources, it comes with a price. Therefore, hiring MSPs can be expensive.
Which Model Is Better?
Staff augmentation and managed services are two models of IT outsourcing. They make it convenient for organizations to comply with their operational requirements without hiring in-house teams. Both models come with a specific set of advantages and disadvantages. The inherent strength of one model could become the weakness of the other.
Therefore, the choice of model depends on the organization’s needs. Staff augmentation is ideally suited for small-scale requirements that can be met in the short term. On the other hand, for long-term operational process management, managed services are the best choice. However, managed services are generally the intelligent option for forward-thinking businesses in terms of cost savings and efficiency.
If you are still determining which IT outsourcing model suits your needs the best, consult our experts. Henson Group is an award-winning Microsoft Certified Azure Expert Managed Service Provider and offers consulting, migrations, and optimization services for Microsoft Azure. We have developed specialized skill sets for managing cloud services for businesses. For more information about our managed cloud services, visit hensongroup.com today. Get in touch today to know about us and ask us anything!