Introduction

Agencies offering team augmentation services remain relevant in the Philippines as more businesses hire IT and BPO professionals from the country. These third-party vendors provide "team extensions," complementing your company's internal staff with highly talented, specialized external talent.

However, while team augmentation is often linked with the IT and software development sectors, its utilization is not limited to the said industries. Whether you're in healthcare, manufacturing, or e-commerce, any business can benefit from this outsourcing strategy, provided, of course, that it's the best solution for your situation. 

You may ask—how does team augmentation differ from other outsourcing options? Also, when is the best time to opt for this strategy? Read this guide by Q2 HR Solutions to find out.

The Difference Between Team Augmentation and Other Outsourcing Services

Team augmentation is usually compared with certain outsourcing services, namely managed services and working with independent contractors. To see the difference among these strategies, we look into the other two options and then compare them with team augmentation in terms of personnel management:

Managed Services  

In a nutshell, managed services is a turn-key outsourcing solution. The external team's management, organization, and processes are all handled by the third-party vendor, independent of your company's existing departments and system. As such, you only receive the final output. You can request revisions and corrections, but all these are communicated to the workers via the agency.

Working With Independent Contractors

Working with independent contractors, meanwhile, is a no-strings-attached way to bring new perspectives and expertise into your existing team. Companies that do not need highly-skilled workers long-term and full-time and can handle the temporary employee's management, including payroll, opt for this kind of strategy. This option is also better if you need only one or two external talents to support your internal operations.

Team Augmentation and How It Differs From the Two

As the name suggests, team augmentation is an outsourcing strategy where you complement what your organization already has. With this method, you hire an agency to provide you with talents that can address your specific needs at the moment. The on-demand system means you don't need to hire specialists as permanent employees; you can only work with them during the duration of your project. 

This setup differs from managed services as you have more access to third-party personnel. Specifically, the hired experts will use your company's tools and follow your internal processes, which helps close progress monitoring and on-the-spot requests.

It also differs from working with independent contractors as their agency manages and compensates third-party professionals for augmentation services, subject to labor rules and regulations in the country where the vendor sources the workers.

Team augmentation is advantageous in technical industries where developments come at astonishing speed. Instead of training your employees to adapt to the advancements, taking up time, and delaying progress, you rely on vendors to provide you with a third-party team already equipped with the hard skills you need.

Business Scenarios Where You Need Team Augmentation Services

Team extensions are not for every company, but these certain scenarios might as well be good enough reasons to consider hiring augmentation services.

Sudden Increase in Projects

Suppose your outreach strategy paid off, and now you're working with double the number of clients you had a year prior. The surge of businesses trusting you for your services means an uptick in project tickets, which, while a good thing revenue-wise, can be too fast for your existing team to keep up with. 

If you see your employees often have to work overtime or experience a dip in performance due to multitasking, it will help to consider augmenting them with external talents. This way, you won't need to let go of any of your clients, and you can reduce the risk of an underperforming team without redirecting your HR department to hiring new employees.

Fast-Paced Scaling Efforts

Scaling up your company means hiring extra hands to maintain productivity. And if you're expanding quickly, you need to find these external help fast. Opting for a team augmentation service makes this doable, as the agency is focused on providing you with specific talents as soon as possible while recommending only the best from its candidate pool. 

Note that scaling isn't always upward, either. Hiring an external team means you'll have more flexibility when it's time to downsize. You'll have fewer worries as these third-party professionals are under an outsourcing company, so they'd likely find another job even if you let them go. Compare that to terminating your actual employees instead—it can have adverse effects on your brand and working relationships.

Widening Skill Gaps

When you deal with clients, like for e-commerce services, they'd likely mention a new tool or software they want to use for their campaigns, citing its popularity and usefulness. The only problem is that, while your team is competent, no one knows how to use the new technology. The development speed can sometimes be challenging to keep up with, resulting in skill gaps.

When you augment your workforce with software team augmentation vendors, you'd have access to broader skill sets and likely find an expert in the tool or programming language your potential client mentioned. This situation can also prompt you to look deeper into your team's current competencies versus industry trends, helping you identify gaps and prepare for them before the next client asks you a similar question.

Growing Need for Specific Expertise

Artificial intelligence, advanced analytics, and other burgeoning technologies require niche expertise that your existing team may lack. Augmenting with third-party professionals can address those gaps while sparing you the costs of hiring a permanent, full-time employee.

Moreover, some expertise is hard to find if you limit your search locally, so you might have to look beyond borders. The Philippines, for instance, is a hotspot for team augmentation talents due to their adaptability, language fit, and work ethics, prompting many companies to hire Filipinos to bolster their internal departments more efficiently.

Minimizing Operational Costs

While your company works directly with third-party professionals, the staff augmentation agency takes care of everything else, particularly administrative and organizational concerns. That means you need not worry about office space, work equipment, and other facilities to enable the employees to perform their tasks conveniently and comfortably. 

Augmenting your team also saves you on restructuring costs as you only add necessary expertise to your existing team. Also, as augmentation is an on-demand service, you pay only when you need certain skills and can do away with them on your terms.

Reach Out to Q2 HR Solutions for Team Augmentation Services

If you have multiple projects you need extra hands for or have limited access to highly specialized talent, Q2 HR Solutions can help you address your concerns. Our team augmentation services source qualified and competent professionals from the Philippines across various industries, from IT and software development to finance and manufacturing.

Our broad network and deep Filipino talent pool enable us to quickly find exceptional talent for on-demand placements. We achieve this through our dedicated hiring and recruitment experts, who are laser-focused on finding the right candidate at the right time for your business. We strictly follow the Philippines' labor department regulations, ensuring that the team provided to you enjoys worker rights. 

All you need to do is work closely with the highly competent team we provide you to complete projects and boost business growth, and we'll take care of the rest.

Conclusion

The outsourcing industry in the Philippines is continuously growing, with in-shore companies consistently offering team augmentation services to local and foreign businesses. Many organizations searching for external teams are from the IT and BPO sectors, owing to the field's fast-paced growth and technological advancements. 

Team augmentation as an outsourcing strategy benefits companies that already have a functioning team but need extra hands to handle project increases, scaling efforts, skill gap issues, niche talent requirements, and operational cost reduction. 

At Q2 HR Solutions, we offer augmentation services that can help boost your team's productivity and business growth while reducing your HR staff's workload. 

Contact us now to learn more about our stellar offers!