IT Staff Augmentation: Onshore or Offshore?

IT staff augmentation IT staff augmentation fills a crucial role in the business world. These firms help companies rapidly scale their IT and software development capabilities by providing experienced software engineers on-cue. With these resources, businesses can develop custom software, upgrade their existing IT infrastructure, and quickly respond to new market developments without committing to a large permanent staff.

Staff augmentation services also allow companies of all sizes to find the sort of hyper-specialized programmers who are needed for crucial parts of the development process. These augmented workers help streamline the QA testing, UI/UX design, and software security analysis processes, but their specific skill sets are not necessary outside these limited phases of the software development cycle.

Outsourcing partners also help businesses save time and money. Research shows that it takes more than a month and a half to hire an experienced software engineer in the United States month and a half. However, companies that work with a staffing partner can begin their IT projects on-cue--and avoid the onboarding and training process--since these firms maintain a sizeable list of experienced developers waiting to begin their next assignment.

In the IT staff augmentation world, there are two main options that managers should be aware of before signing a contract: onshore and offshore outsourcing. Each of these options has its own set of advantages and disadvantages, which are explained below.

Onshore IT Staff Augmentation

One of the least well-known forms of IT staff augmentation, onshore outsourcing involves working with an outsourcing partner who is located in the same country as the client. For a company located in Silicon Valley, this might mean working with supplemental software engineers located in Columbus, Ohio. For a company located in Berlin, their onshore partner may be located in Leipzig, Saxony.

This type of arrangement allows companies to avoid the communication problems encountered with traditional outsourcing, although sourcing experienced talent is still a challenge.

Advantages

Communication

The main advantage associated with onshore IT managed services is the ease of communication. Clear communication means that an outsourcing partner’s augmented staff members are fluent in English and capable of communicating with their local counterparts smoothly. In addition, the best staffing firms will ensure that their clients are provided with regular updates and have a single point of contact who can respond to concerns immediately.

By working with an onshore partner, companies can be sure that the augmented software engineers from their country are fluent in the same language and understand the cultural practices of the industry. These contractors are also located in the same general time zone, enabling the entire development team to work at the same time and respond to emergencies right away.

For these reasons, onshore partners can help companies overcome many of the typical issues encountered with traditional offshore outsourcing services located in Asia and the Eastern Hemisphere.

Disadvantages

The American Shortage of Tech Talent

While onshore software managed services make communication a breeze, they face the same hiring challenges that internal HR teams have struggled to overcome. The unemployment rate for the technology industry in the United States is just 1.4% is just 1.4% and this means that companies across the nation are competing for the same, limited number of experienced professionals.

Onshore outsourcing partners face the same problems and may struggle to find experienced professionals that offshore companies can source with ease.

Offshore IT Staff Augmentation

Offshore IT staffing services are what most people think of when they picture traditional outsourcing. Many of these companies are located in South and East Asia where they offer an array of contracted IT services for businesses located in the United States and Europe.

These outsourcing firms typically offer short-term and long-term staffing solutions, IT managed services, and even end-to-end development teams capable of developing custom software with little oversight.

In addition, a less well-known subset of offshore outsourcing is nearshore staff augmentation--which involves working with a company that is located in a different, albeit closely located country. Companies in the United States often turn to staff augmentation companies headquartered in Latin America for their IT needs. They offer many of the benefits found in onshore and offshore outsourcing partners alike.

Advantages

Access to More Talent

The single greatest concern for executives across all industries in the United States is the shortage of tech talentshortage of tech talent. The historically low unemployment rate mentioned above has made hiring American-based software engineers a major challenge.

Offshore software managed services enable American firms to reach experienced programmers regardless of their geographic location. In particular, some of the top names in tech are partnering with Latin American outsourcing companies to find bilingual, well-educated developers who work in the same time zone as their American counterparts.

Disadvantages

Communication

The most frequently cited problem associated with software outsourcing is the communication barrier. Traditional IT staffing services located in Asia employ talented programmers. However, the communication problems that arise with workers in these countries often leads to mismatched expectations and a final product that leaves the client unsatisfied.

One of the best ways to ensure consistent and clear communication when outsourcing software development is to work with a nearshore partner located in Latin America, where most software engineers are fully bilingual and familiar with American business practices.

Conclusion

Modern businesses of all sizes rely on IT staff augmentation for a reason: the service enables managers to rapidly scale their teams and embark on new software development projects with ease. In addition, these outsourcing partners help companies stay lean and avoid the tech talent crisis that is plaguing American businesses.

Deciding whether to partner with an onshore or offshore IT staffing service is an important choice. Onshore staffing firms provide skilled American workers who think and perform the same as their American counterparts, while offshore outsourcing partners can help U.S. companies expand their hiring range and source talented software engineers located outside of the country who are ready to begin work on-cue.

Pablo Azorín is the Founder and Chief Technology Officer at BairesDev. He is responsible for coordinating the technology department as well as the Presales team. Paul works passionately to communicate the identity and values of the company.