For some people outstaffing and outsourcing models may look the same, however it is not true. Well, both of them are widely used by IT companies globally because of various advantages they provide. It is essential to understand the difference between these two approaches to define which one is more suitable exactly for your business requirements. To make your life much easier our team has written this article. It will give you insight into outsourcing and outstaffing models, their advantages and disadvantages.

What does an outsourcing model mean?

  IT outsourcing is a type of work model that lies in hiring a dedicated development team from a service provider. In such a way a client doesn’t have to look for developers, project managers, designers and other specialists by himself. Instead of wasting time on interviewing the candidates, checking their portfolios and analyzing some interpersonal traits, a person can apply to a specific company and get a professional development team with vast experience and high expertise. The hired team usually works remotely and focuses on a specific task. The distinctive feature of the outsourcing model is that chosen professionals can cover a range of issues starting with the development of a website or application and ending with its testing.

  This model has a number of advantages and reasons to opt for it. Because of it there are a lot of successful IT outsourcing examples available. Below you will find the greatest advantages (there are a lot of them) and disadvantages of hiring a dedicated team.

Advantages:

1. Time and cost efficiency. As a rule, it is much cheaper to hire a dedicated development team than to form and maintain it by yourself. What’s more, such professionals are more object-oriented and devote all their attention to your project. It definitely speeds up the development process.
2. No additional issues. By applying to the outsourcing model you automatically deal with a number of challenges. It means that you don’t have to worry about equipment or some special development tools. They are already included in the price.

3. Flexibility is another crucial advantage. In case you don’t have a clear plan, you can change it anytime you need and give your team new tasks. What’s more, you can change team members if necessary.

Disadvantages:

  Despite having a number of advantages it is also crucial to pay attention to some disadvantages of an outsourcing model.

1. Lack of control. As it was mentioned in the advantages, a dedicated team covers a lot of business operations and processes. In most cases it is a good thing, but some people don’t like to share their control with third parties.
2. Misunderstanding. Dedicated teams usually work remotely which may result in poor communication and cooperation. What’s more, they may have another point of view as to some processes and advise you to take it into account. Compromise is something that will improve the quality of the end product. 

What does outstaffing mean?

Outstaffing lies in hiring an individual working for the company providing such services. It means that if a business owner needs to cover a specific task and doesn’t have an appropriate specialist, he can apply to IT outstaffing agency Diceus , for example, and hire a top-class expert. 

  You can choose a specialist from available ones or give managers of an outstaffing company the list of your requirements so that they can make a well-informed decision. This model is widely used for coping with some unexpected challenges and bugs that cannot be resolved by the existing development team.

  Like any other IT solution an outstaffing team model has both advantages and disadvantages. So, we will consider the basic ones for you to know. 

Advantages:

1. The ability to take control over all business operations. In the outstaffing model you hire just one person who follows all your requirements and orders. You manage the work of your team on a daily basis and ask for reports. It is beneficial that a chosen expert will fully devote himself to your project.
2. Another advantage of an outstaffing model is that it is cost-efficient. It is even cheaper than outsourcing. It is a good option to hire a person for coping with a particular task and stop paying him or her after the work is done.
3. Thanks to the outstaffing you can get down to business immediately, because the cholen specialist has the expertise needed exactly for you. In such a way a person won’t waste time on learning and mastering new development tools.

Disadvantages:

  To analyze the real value of outstaffing we must also pay attention to its disadvantages.

1. Sometimes it may be difficult to find common language with the chosen specialist. You need to spend some time together and to treat each other respectively. Anyway, you can always opt for another person.
2. Wider scope of responsibilities. Outstaffing model is entirely beneficial for large companies, because you need to take control over specialists that work remotely. If you don’t want to do it by yourself, then you need to hire a project manager or charge someone in your team with a new task.