How IT Staff Augmentation Drives Digital Transformation
Published: 2021-09-21 12:53:43

Businesses are constantly adapting to global economic conditions and social changes. Those strategies that were successful several years ago can be less effective today. One of the recent trends – digitization – encompasses virtually every business around the world. It results in new ways of how businesses interact with their clients, how they hire new employees or attract external providers, and others. 

Staff augmentation is one of the [outsourcing models] (https://scand.com/company/engagement-models/) that’s quickly spreading among many businesses. It helps them to simpler get through the digital transformation and achieve outstanding results in the market by allowing businesses to quickly find and hire remote software developers to extend their in-house teams. 

In this article, we’ll look into when you should opt for [IT team augmentation] (https://scand.com/services/it-staff-augmentation/) and what [advantages] (https://scand.com/company/blog/staff-augmentation-a-successful-model-to-extend-your-team/) it can bring to your business.

## Unlock Innovation and Growth Potential With Staff Augmentation

Staff augmentation is a super-adaptive model that successfully meets the complex needs of any company in today’s business reality. However, when considering staff augmentation, some companies may doubt when they should choose it over other outsourcing models. Let’s have a closer look at the cases when staff augmentation will be the right option for your effective business development. 

![Staff augmentation](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/rle9lkb8r9184laaz00p.jpg)

Here are 5 cases when you need to opt for a staff augmentation outsourcing model.

### Replacement of Legacy Systems

Those companies that have been relying on [software technologies] (https://scand.com/technologies/) for quite some time form their core tech systems made of solid and often difficult to update legacy software. With the companies’ digital transformation and development, these systems can significantly slow down their business workflow, have issues with operability, have poor security, and many others. 

To upgrade their legacy systems effectively, companies require two types of specialists – those who know all the systems’ operating peculiarities and experts from various disciplines. By opting for staff augmentation, companies add narrowly specialized support to their in-house experts and ensure an effective and quick legacy software updates.

### Restructuration of the IT Department

To stay on top, businesses have to keep pace with the dynamic economic and social changes. That’s why many businesses undergo digital transformation and reorganize their departments, making them more tech-reliant. This allows companies to integrate digital systems across departments and make them more transparent to each other, improving their inner workflow and minimizing the level of bureaucratic procedures at all steps. 

At the same time, these changes help businesses to stay agile and expand effectively.

![Agile](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/x13cq4uwxlmh93beyykt.jpg)

Implementation of digital transformation is a rather challenging activity and often requires outside support. For this, many businesses address staff augmentation teams. They help organizations to adopt digital changes successfully in all companies’ departments and at all levels, whether it is just a form of modernization or implementation of DevOps practices. 

### Effective Organization Scaling

Companies have to build their business strategies in compliance with rapid market changes. It means that sometimes there is a high demand for services on the market or there can be a downshift overnight. This way, the companies have to keep up with the market altercations and be prepared for seasonal peaks in their services.
 
To alleviate pressure on their in-house teams at seasonal peaks, many businesses turn to staff augmentation companies. It helps them to provide the same service quality at a high season while being able to proceed with their long-term development goals. 

### Lack of Tech Expertise

Companies employ augmented teams to boost the technical expertise of their in-house teams. It can happen when a company decides to develop customized applications or when they want to add some specific features to the existing software or upgrade it with innovative features. For example, it could be [IoT] (https://scand.com/industries/iot/), [Blockchain] (https://scand.com/industries/blockchain/), or [FinTech] (https://scand.com/industries/fintech-development/), and other solutions that require narrow expertise or costly training of in-house teams. 

When hiring an external team, businesses get access to a global talent pool and can quickly find IT specialists who are ready to help them with their projects. Therefore, they don’t need to spend much time and money on training their own specialists for just one-time implementation or development of a particular feature.

### Quick IT Experts Hiring and Onboarding

The recruitment of new employees with the right technical background can turn into a rather lengthy process. At the time when a company needs to make really fast software decisions, the best option is to turn to staff augmentation providers. They will find the needed specialist in no time or even assemble a whole development or tech support team that will meet all the current company's tech requirements and needs. 

## 5 Ways to Drive Digital Transformation With Staff Augmentation

Here are 5 viable methods on how to drive your digital transformation with staff augmentation services.

1. **Carefully Choose Your Staff Augmentation Team**

When selecting the needed specialists for [effective digital transformation] (https://scand.medium.com/how-digital-transformation-can-enhance-your-business-761c763a4661), you should consider the skills and expertise you want to utilize in a short and long-term perspective to foresee what skills the staffing resources should possess. 

![Digital transformation](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/wghzuegekk6kf6n7xt7t.jpg)

It’s important that you select the right talents for your projects on your own after assessing the technical and cultural fit of the potential candidates. This way, you ensure that you hire augmentation professionals who will be able to complete the defined objectives. 

Some companies prefer when their staff augmentation partners present the candidates for  interviews. In this case, you need to provide a detailed job description to your [outsourcing partner] (https://scand.com/company/blog/how-to-choose-an-outsourced-software-development-partner/) and let them select the right candidates. 

2. **Take Care of Your in-House Team’s on-Going Education**

Hiring an augmented team of specialists gives businesses the opportunity to encourage their in-house teams to learn from their external partners. This way, they can study and further employ new technologies in their day-to-day work. 

When hiring an augmented team, you need to make sure that your in-house team is engaged with the project development and their learning progress at the same time. For this, you need to monitor the ongoing educational results and show an interest in what the team has already achieved. 

3. **Create and Share Your Transformation Roadmap**

For effective digital transformation, many companies develop their own digital transformation roadmaps. This helps them to share their technology vision with their teams, deeper involving them in the digitization process. 

When creating your own roadmap, it’s very useful that you seek advice on possible improvements from your external employees. Augmented teams have plenty of experience in working with various companies and projects. Therefore, they can considerably improve and alleviate your digital transformation steps, highlighting possible challenges and suggesting ways how to solve them.

4. **Go Agile**

When choosing your staff augmentation provider, make sure that they implement Agile Methodology in their project management processes and have proven cases of product delivery. This will ensure that you’re opting for the right [staff augmentation partner] (https://scand.com/company/become-a-partner/).

If your in-house team doesn’t follow Agile Methodology in their daily work, you can always ask for support and guidance in establishing all the needed processes. Moreover, you can hire various specialists to ensure the stable functioning of these processes, including software developers, QA specialists, business analysts, scrum masters, and so on.

Going Agile will help you to shorten your product delivery time and establish a collaborative environment for your in-house team, remote augmented staff, and all the stakeholders involved.

5. **Manage Your Changes Effectively**

To put into effect all the aforementioned strategies, you can appoint a board of Change Agents. They can facilitate the digital transition  processes in your organization which can include:
 
* determination of the lacking skills in the in-house team and participation in augmentation staff hiring;
* encouragement and monitoring of in-house team professional development;
* planning the steps of shifting to Agile Methodology;
* development of a digital transformation roadmap, and much more.

## Summing Up

Staff augmentation is a popular outsourcing model that promotes collaboration among in-house and external teams, provides great educational potential, helps businesses to overcome a variety of digital challenges, and much more. Though, to implement this model successfully, businesses need to realize when and how to use it.

Many companies opt for a staff augmentation strategy when they’re undergoing digital transformation. Augmented teams with skilled and experienced IT experts help businesses to make this digital transition much easier and faster. As a result, companies are able to keep their competitive edge and expand their businesses effectively.