The technological revolution during the last few decades has transformed the operational mechanism and organizational structure of a wide range of sectors. Besides providing companies with endless growth opportunities, these developments have enabled entrepreneurs to effectively meet modern corporate challenges.

Today, nearly 2/3rd of the corporate world is going through an unprecedented crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic and uncertainty. The markets have been shut down to stop the spread of coronavirus at the community level. As a result, the global economy has been badly impacted due to the closure of financial activities and a historical recession has been predicted by the leading economists.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged entrepreneurs to search for alternative mechanisms to ensure continuity in operations and rapid growth under unusual circumstances. Several ideas from corporate structure reforms to the application of modern technologies are being considered by higher management.

Nevertheless, staff augmentation has been the best model for organizational growth in terms of efficiency, reliability, and cost-effectiveness. Due to numerous benefits of staff augmentation, this approach has been endorsed by the CEOs and directors from the leading companies worldwide and considered the only viable and trustworthy solution to growing concerns regarding market competition and organizational performance.

The term IT staff augmentation refers to the process of hiring remote IT professionals on a short or long-term basis to complete specific projects. The trend of recruiting remote software developers is becoming more and more common every year. IT staffing services have played a key role in providing global talent a platform where skilled developers can cash their abilities and earn market competitive income without geographical boundaries.

During the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, offshore IT staffing services helped companies continue their operations remotely and complete all pending tasks without getting affected by lockdown and uncertainty. This article gives valuable information on how entrepreneurs can use IT staff augmentation to counter market challenges and gain the maximum benefit in software development.

Choose the Right Candidates

With saturated job markets across the globe, thousands of software developers are graduated every year from renowned educational institutions. Nevertheless, the skills, knowledge, and intellectual approach of fresh graduates significantly vary from each other.

Although IT staff augmentation provides companies with highly qualified and talented software developers, a few things need to be kept in mind while hiring remote IT professionals.

Firstly, classify your expectations from applicants based on their experience and skills. The selection criteria for fresh graduates is different from that of experienced ones. If you are going to hire a team of inexperienced software developers, analyze the candidates’ passion to learn new things, commitment to their job, and interpersonal and professional skills.

On the other hand, consider work history, acquired skills, technical knowledge, career aspirations, and intellectual approach the most important factors while recruiting experienced software developers. Notwithstanding, ensure you hire remote resources purely on merit without any prejudice or discrimination in the name of background, ethnicity, gender, and nationality.

You can find highly skilled software developers only if you partner with a reliable and competent IT staff augmentation consultant like Khired Networks.

Define your Organizational Structure & Operational Mechanism

An organizational structure defines the direction of various business activities and provides a solid foundation to place the standard operating procedures. It works as an economical and proactive model that promotes coordination among different departments and improves the quality of operations through supervision.

Similarly, the operational mechanism is the working framework of an organization that plays a key role in corporate growth and development. A viable and effective operational mechanism drives business activities in the IT industry and encourages employees to show exceptional performance.

There are eight major categories of organizational structure depending on corporate needs and market conditions. These include functional, product-based, geographical, market-based, network, process-based, circular, and matrix structure.

Defining your organizational structure and the operating mechanism is the first step towards achieving sustainable growth in today’s highly dynamic and competitive IT sector. Although small business IT consulting can provide you with skilled and dedicated remote software developers, their performance and output depend on how you utilize their abilities.

The first thing to be considered while formalizing your organizational structure and the operating mechanism is to analyze your core strengths, weaknesses, and operating styles of the principals. It gives you an idea of where does your organization stand today and where it is likely to stand in the coming future.

Similarly, identifying the weak and strong areas highlights potential vulnerabilities and helps you make feasible plans to ensure rapid growth and development.

Next, observe the key personality traits of your in-house and remote software developers and define your expectations within suitable deadlines and resources. While assigning tasks to your employees, make sure they are capable of handling the project efficiently without compromising on the work quality.

The best thing is to form a chain of commands in your organization where every developer is given a specific role based on his or her skills and competencies. This approach will help you improve the overall organizational performance and exceed the clients’ expectations.

Use Advanced Technology

Technology makes things move faster, more efficient, and cost-effective. The utilization of advanced technology significantly improves the quality of your products & services and allows you to meet tight project deadlines.

Establishing high-tech IT centers equipped with state-of-the-art facilities is essential to stay ahead of your competitors and get the maximum benefits from remote software developers. It also helps you win the confidence of your customers and exceed their expectations.

Therefore, equip your software house with next-generation devices with an updated operating system and software. Appoint a team of qualified DevOps engineers for regular software updates and troubleshooting. Additionally, protect your database and systems from malware or other malicious programs with the latest version of antivirus so that hackers cannot compromise the performance of your computers.

Make sure that your remote staffing solutions provider also have advanced computer systems with updated software and hardware. Integrate your in-house team with remote developers so that they can work together and collectively resolve their work-related problems.

Give your augmented teams with full access to software and tools that are used by your in-house teams. This will further strengthen the integration process and help remote professionals work dedicatedly by the effective utilization of available resources.

 

Leverage on Flexibility

Unlike in-house teams, augmented teams demand flexibility in their duties and perform well in flexible working environments. The integration of remote professionals becomes easier by providing them with a flexible work schedule and project deadlines.

Hence, avoid rigid development processes and adopt a flexible approach towards managing remote software developers. Flexibility will not only improve the overall performance of your augmented teams but will also help you achieve high customer satisfaction rates.

Augmented teams can become more flexible and show exceptional performance through agile development methodologies. According to the latest research, agile projects are 28% more successful and cost-efficient than traditional ones completed with a conventional approach.

Another important factor to be considered while managing remote software developers is that you must maintain a certain level of compromise. Experienced developers have a long history of integrating with the in-house team and collaborating on various projects. Hence, you must remain flexible and always applaud the performance of augmented teams to identify more efficient ways of working.

Summary

The above discussion focused on four primary ways entrepreneurs can make the most of professional staffing solutions in software development. Key points of this article are as follows:

Candidates’ Selection

Ensure that the selection process of remote software developers is purely based on merit and free from prejudice. Hire the right candidates who possess relevant skills and experience in their field.

Organizational Structure and Operational Mechanism

Define your organizational structure and the operational mechanism by identifying the core strengths & weaknesses of your business, observing the personality traits of in-house and remote teams, and forming a chain of commands outlining specific roles and designations.

Advanced Technology

Establish high-tech IT centers equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and empower your augmented teams with the next generation hardware with updated software. Allow remote developers to gain access to advanced software development tools and protect your systems from malware by installing reliable antiviruses.

Flexibility

Augmented teams demand a high degree of flexibility in their work schedule and project deadlines. Flexibility foster better integration of remote developers with in-house professionals and encourages cooperation. Besides, adopt agile development methodologies that are more successful than conventional methods and offer cost-efficiency without compromising on the work quality.

Khired Networks

Khired Networks is a leading provider of end-to-end solutions and digital resources. Empowered by the latest technology and advanced IT infrastructure, we provide companies with highly qualified and experienced remote software developers. Our IT staff augmentation consultant services are catered to the requirements of the global IT industry and help entrepreneurs accomplish their desired objectives. Besides, we work dedicatedly to bring innovation in our services and adapt ourselves according to transformations in the digital world. Out staff augmentation consulting ensure cost-efficiency, reliability, and excellence in our services, which help us remain ahead of the rest of IT staffing services companies. Contact us today and start augmenting your team by hiring skilled software development professionals.