When businesses need extra hands or a fresh perspective on a project, they consider staff augmentation or consulting. These terms can be slightly confusing if you are unfamiliar with the industry jargon. This blog will help you understand these two solutions and which to choose for your business when the need arises.

Staff Augmentation vs Consulting: An Overview

Before we discuss these two in detail, here is a quick overview of how they differ in a simple comparison:

What is Staff Augmentation?

Staff augmentation is a modern hiring strategy in which businesses bring in temporary workers to fill a skill gap in their team. These workers join the existing team for a certain period to help complete projects without being committed long-term or becoming full-time employees. You could say they are being “borrowed” to strengthen your team’s capabilities and capacity when needed.

Benefits

• IT projects often require niche skills that your in-house team might lack. Staff augmentation allows you to hire experts for specific tasks without searching for permanent employees.
• Hiring full-time IT professionals can be expensive, especially for short-term needs. Staff augmentation helps control costs by only paying for the specific skills you need when you need them.
• As project demands change, you can easily scale your team up or down. This is especially useful for handling tight deadlines or unexpected workloads without straining your core team.
• Since augmented staff are often highly skilled and experienced, they require minimal training and can get up to speed quickly, allowing projects to stay on track.
• Unlike outsourcing where the project is managed externally, staff augmentation maintains control and management of the work within your business, ensuring your team stays aligned with the project’s direction.

What are Consulting Services?

IT consulting involves bringing in external experts to provide professional advice, guidance, and solutions to help tackle IT challenges.

The role of these consultants is to assess the needs of these businesses, which could be technological, identify problem areas, and recommend improvements where needed. Consultants work in a more advisory capacity to help improve certain operations within a company and implement best practices. 

Benefits

• IT consultants with their deep industry knowledge bring fresh perspectives and proven strategies that can elevate your business’s technology infrastructure.
• Consultants can quickly identify and solve problems that will save your internal team valuable time and enable faster decision-making.
• While consultants may seem expensive, they often provide long-term savings by helping businesses avoid costly mistakes and make smarter IT investments.
• Consulting services can be hired for a one-time project or on an ongoing basis depending on your needs without the overhead of a full-time employee.
• With consultants handling IT challenges, your internal team can focus on other needed areas, leaving the technical complexities to the experts.

Key Differences Between Staff Augmentation and Consulting

For businesses to choose the suitable model for their needs, understanding the key distinctions between staff augmentation and consulting can be helpful. Let’s break down these differences based on various factors:

Integration with Team

The staff augmentation model is designed for external workers to temporarily join your team and work alongside your in-house employees following the same processes and workflows. They contribute to ongoing projects while taking directions from the internal manager. 

Consultants on the other hand operate independently. They don’t typically integrate into your team but provide an external perspective by analyzing your business from the outside. They offer advice and recommendations without directly engaging in the company’s day-to-day operations.

Duration

The duration of the staff augmentation tends to be project-based. Commonly used for short- to mid-term engagements where temporary workers assist with a specific task or during a period of high demand. 

Consulting engagements vary widely in length but are often more short-term and result-driven. Consultants are usually brought in for a limited period often to solve a particular problem or provide guidance after which their involvement ends.

Control & Management

The management of augmented workers falls to your internal leadership. You maintain complete control over the direction and performance of these temporary workers to ensure that they align with your team’s objectives.

In consulting, consultants often work more autonomously. You hire them to deliver results, but they control how they achieve those results. While they provide regular updates and recommendations, consultants generally manage their own workflows and processes.

Cost Structure

If you’re looking to temporarily expand your team without the overhead of full-time hires, staff augmentation tends to be more cost-efficient. Augmented workers are often paid on an hourly or project basis, and their costs are easier to manage as part of your internal budget.

Consultation comes at a higher cost because you’re paying for expertise and strategic insights. Consultants are compensated for the value of their recommendations and solutions, often through higher hourly rates or fixed fees. 

When to Choose Staff Augmentation?

Staff augmentation is an excellent option in scenarios where temporary, specialized help can make a big difference. Here are some situations when a company can reap the benefits of staff augmentation:

1. Short-Term Projects

Go for staff augmentation if your business has a short-term project with a clear end date. Instead of going through the lengthy hiring process for full-time employees, you can bring in skilled professionals for the duration of the project. 

2. Handling Peak Workloads

If your business is experiencing a temporary spike in workload, such as during a product launch or busy season, staff augmentation can help you scale up quickly. You get the extra manpower to handle the increased demand without overwhelming your permanent employees or dealing with the troubles of hiring full-time staff.

3. Skill Gaps in the Team

There may be scenarios where your team is handicapped because it lacks certain skills to keep the project going. At such a juncture, you need to bring in external workers who are skilled in the area(s) your team lacks to fill those gaps. For example, if you’re developing a new app and need specialized knowledge in a particular programming language, augmenting your staff with a developer who possesses that skill can help you move forward without training existing staff.

4. Budget Limitations for Full-Time Hiring

Hiring full-time employees isn’t always financially viable especially if the need is temporary. A cost-effective solution will be to bring in talent on a flexible, short-term basis. You pay only for the needed work without the additional expenses of benefits and long-term salary commitments. 

5. Maintaining Control Over Projects

If you want to keep a firm grip on your projects while bringing in additional help, staff augmentation might be the perfect solution. It differs from outsourcing where external teams typically take over parts of the work.

With staff augmentation, the new team members join your existing processes and work alongside your in-house staff. This lets you stay in charge, ensuring the project stays aligned with your objectives and your team’s operations.

When to Opt for Consulting Services?

Consulting services are invaluable when a business needs external help to overcome challenges or improve processes. Here are some scenarios when opting for consulting is the best choice:

1. Direction and Planning

If your company is at a crossroads or planning significant changes such as entering a new market, launching a product, or restructuring, consulting services can help provide direction. Consultants bring an outsider’s perspective, offering guidance to develop a well-informed plan for the future.

2. Objective, Unbiased Insights

When an organisation needs an unbiased opinion or assessment, consulting services are ideal. Internal teams may be too close to a project and unable to provide objective opinions. Consultants offer a perspective to help you see things that might otherwise go unnoticed and ensure decisions are based on clear, unbiased analysis.

3. Access to Industry Best Practices

Consultants often work with a variety of companies across industries, which gives them a broad understanding of best practices. If your business is looking to adopt new strategies or improve operations, consultancy services can help you access these best practices to keep you competitive and efficient.

4. Driving Change and Innovation

Consulting services are particularly useful when your company wants to innovate or drive significant change. Consultants can offer both the strategic roadmap and the practical steps to make these changes successful whether you need help managing digital transformation, adopting new technologies, or changing your organizational structure.

5. Crisis Management

In times of crisis, financial, operational, or reputational, consulting services can offer fast, effective solutions. Consultants with experience in crisis management can quickly assess the situation, develop a plan, and help steer your company through difficult times with minimal damage.

How to Decide Between Staff Augmentation and Consulting?

Here’s how you can determine which option between staff augmentation and consulting can be ideal for you:

1. Assess the Nature of the Problem

• Staff Augmentation: If you need additional hands for a project or specific technical tasks and the problem is more about execution than strategy, staff augmentation is the way to go. For example, if you need more developers for a software project, augmenting your team with temporary experts can help get the work done without long-term hiring.
• Consulting: Consulting is the better choice if your challenge is more strategic or you need to solve a problem that requires industry insights. Consultants come in to diagnose problems, offer solutions, and advise on big-picture decisions.

2. Duration of Need

• Staff Augmentation: Staff augmentation is the best option if your need is temporary, like filling in for employees on leave or adding resources for a peak season. It allows you to scale your team up or down as needed.
• Consulting: If the engagement is more short-term and outcome-driven, consulting is ideal. Consultants often work for a fixed period, providing expertise until the problem is solved or the strategic direction is set.

3. Level of Control Desired

• Staff Augmentation: If you want full control over project management and direction, staff augmentation keeps the reins in your hands. You manage the augmented staff as part of your team, ensuring alignment with your internal processes.

• Consulting: If you’re looking for independent, expert-led advice and are open to recommendations, consulting can provide that. Consultants work with more autonomy and handle the solution development process, which can save time and introduce fresh methods.

4. Type of Expertise Required

• Staff Augmentation: If the need is for specific technical skills or additional manpower (like developers, engineers, or designers), staff augmentation is the better choice. You’re simply adding talent to your existing team for hands-on work.
• Consulting: If you need high-level expertise and strategic direction whether for digital transformation, business restructuring, or IT system overhaul, consulting provides in-depth knowledge and advice that can guide your business through changes.

Combining Staff Augmentation and Consulting

Sometimes, combining both strategies can be an ideal method to meet your business’s needs. Blending both will provide you with counsel on how to solve certain problems and at the same time, the manpower to get the job done. When and how to be hybrid with this model is explained below:

1. Guidance with Execution Support

In many cases, businesses need guidance on implementing certain strategies and the skills to execute these strategies. For instance, you might hire a consultant to design a new IT infrastructure and simultaneously augment your staff with skilled IT professionals to build and execute that plan. This way, the consultant provides the vision while the augmented staff ensures the work is completed efficiently.

2. Handling Large, Complex Projects

For large-scale projects like digital transformation, mergers, or system overhauls, a combination of both consulting and staff augmentation may be necessary. Consultants can provide high-level direction, conduct assessments, and offer best practices, while augmented staff can handle the day-to-day tasks required to bring the project to life.

3. Sustaining Long-Term Improvement

When consultants come in to make improvements, they often point out areas where things could be better. However, keeping those improvements in place takes consistent effort over time. For example, after a consultant has helped improve your IT infrastructure, it doesn’t stop there. You may find that bringing in augmented staff to handle the day-to-day management of these systems is necessary. This way, the improvements that were made can continue to benefit you in the long run without slipping back into old patterns or inefficiencies. 

Conclusion

With freelancers and independent contractors now making up about 36% of the U.S. workforce, many businesses are increasingly relying on them to strengthen their teams and fill up the essential skill gap. You should too, if you want your project to move forward. Contact us to learn more about how you can augment your staff to speedup the progress of your project.