The information technology (IT) market is growing right now, even faster than it was before the epidemic. According to Statista, the global IT market is expected to be valued at $5 trillion in 2021. According to future estimates, this industry will develop at a compound annual growth rate of 5% until 2024.

Simultaneously, 21% of startups fail within the first year of business, and another 30% fail within the second. The software development industry is not for the timid. Even if your company is lucky, you will still face another challenge: expanding your software development staff.

IT companies should therefore seek out ways to compete. One of the most logical ways for software companies to develop their company is through recruiting additional staff. This decision is made even easier by expanding the pool of professionals available on the market.

If you’re worried about outsourcing the entire development process, think about expanding your inside staff. Forget about inflated budgets, teams missing specific tech skills and knowledge, a small pool of local talent, and tedious administrative responsibilities. If you find it difficult or impossible to scale quickly with your current development capability, expand your software development team.

Extended Team Model Definition

With the Extended Team Model (ETM) or Team Extension Model (TEM), you can add more experts to your present development team.

You work with a staff augmentation provider to hire the necessary professionals for a one-time assignment or ongoing collaboration. In a few days, you will acquire the necessary knowledge, abilities, or building capacity in this way. You avoid the hassles associated with recruiting and searching. Rather, you receive top-notch software items from qualified and experienced professionals. Your company maintains internal core competencies. An extended development staff that works remotely closes technological gaps and fortifies your position. There is equitable responsibility distribution among all employees. Members who are further away are just as invested and driven as your inside staff. It appears that your company’s management style and ethics have been combined to achieve a single objective. You have complete control over both teams. Accountability and open communication create a cohesive team.

Benefits of Development Team Extension

Find out what benefits you receive from using the Team Extension Model.

  • Appropriate for either long-term or temporary collaboration
  • Global talent pool without limits
  • Decreased duties related to administration
  • With internal strategic competencies, your company is secure.
  • Complete control over all development procedures
  • You are in charge of staff vetting and confirmation.
  • The ability to grow quickly
  • Adaptable interaction
  • quick project start-up
  • Saving money
  • equitable allocation of resources
  • Strong motivation for responsible involvement

Relevant literature: 

  • Employing Python Developers on a Full- or Part-Time Basis: Expert Advice
  • CTO-as-a-Service: The Comprehensive Manual
  • Vendor Management IT: Overview, Benefits, Features, and Additional Information
  • Employing PHP Developers on a Full- or Part-Time Basis: Expert Advice
  • How to Put an End to an IT Outsourcing Agreement

How to Extend Your Team Successfully?

The key is to match the development team extension model that best suits your demands. Examine our checklist to determine if team augmentation is necessary.

Determine the demands of your business and the project requirements. Choose the most successful extension model that best fits your needs.

Four Strategies for Growing Your Software Development Group

We’ll start by giving you a summary of the most effective models so you can maximize your potential as you improve.

Development Team Extension

  • Team Extension Model (TEM)– You add external developers from the staff augmentation provider to your present IT team to enhance it.

In a few of days, you can identify the best prospects by using TEM. The pool is suggested by the vendor. Although they are employed by your vendor, they work full-time for you. They blend in and take on the appearance of your internal staff. The management, planning, and many other HR duties are assumed by vendors.

Committed Development Group

  • Dedicated Development Team (DDT): A staff augmentation vendor is used to recruit the entire software development team.

It can collaborate closely with your IT department or work on a different project entirely. You oversee and direct its work. The remainder is handled by the vendor, including team makeup, credentials, human resources, legal, and tax matters.

Managed Software Development Outsourcing Services

By outsourcing, you give the entire project to another party. It includes both management and development.

The organization offering outsourcing services for software development assumes full accountability. It manages every facet of the project. The vendor assembles a team based on your project requirements, business objectives, and vision. Your outsourcing partner assumes full responsibility for all duties, including managerial, decision-making, quality control, and numerous others. You give your main business plenty of time.

R&D facility

The market for R&D outsourcing services is expected to grow by $7.2 billion at an average compound annual growth rate of 8% by 2025, according to a projection by Research and Markets. This strategy proved to be the most appropriate for several multinational behemoths, like Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Skype, Opera, and many more.

  • R&D center: You create a research and development business unit and relocate some of your operations offshore.

You can save money by opening your R&D facility in an offshore or nearshore nation. You benefit from a far larger talent pool and adaptable IT know-how. Top-notch quality products are the outcome. But never forget that having a team of more than 40 people makes sense. The business climate in the area needs to be more appealing. You will be responsible for handling legal, tax, and cultural matters on your own.

Outstaffing

Through outsourcing, you can increase the amount of qualified IT specialists on staff and hence increase your potential for development.

They are hired independently by you through the outstaffing service provider. After you sign a contract with a vendor, you will get access to remote, highly skilled personnel for a predetermined amount of time. They operate under contract, free from all legal and administrative HR complexities. They consist of motivation, payroll, bookkeeping, hiring practices, training protocols, and reduced fixed expenses. You are in charge of team management, team structure, and task distribution for every team member. Excellent results and very productive collaboration might result from direct and close communication with understaffed employees.

Advantages:

  • Easy to use and quick team expansion
  • collaboration without internal hiring
  • Access to tech stacks and experience in a certain tight specialty
  • economical method as opposed to hiring people internally or contracting out projects. Only hourly or monthly prices are payable.
  • complete command and supervision of the caliber of the outcomes from your team development cycle
  • Professional development of in-house developers
  • Remember that you will need to exert additional effort. You’ll bring in outside developers and bring the team’s workflow, communication, and accountability together.

Outstaffing may work like a charm for:

  • beginnings. It facilitates the efficient use of resources, including people, money, and time.
  • SMBs, or small and medium-sized enterprises. It enables them to work around financial and time constraints.
  • big businesses. They profit from several options, including quick project scaling and completion, significant wage cost savings, and associated payments like taxes, incentives, and social benefits.

Drawbacks

  • bad routes for communication. Make sure to be as clear and concise as you can. Utilize Google Meets, Zoom, Slack, Skype, or your project management software.
  • You bear all responsibility. Which is a more significant investment for you right now, money or time?

Price

  • The two primary contract types used in outsourcing are “cost” and “cost-plus.”
  • In the first “cost” kind of cooperation, customers provide vendors with a set monthly payment. They then distribute salaries, incentives, equipment costs, and social gifts to members who are understaffed. Most of the time, clients are unaware of how vendors divide that money. You will find this form of contract easier. Establish guidelines, tenets, and KPIs for high-level participation and fruitful cooperation.

Under a “cost-plus” arrangement, a vendor receives full payment for his costs in addition to a margin that is an incentive-based proportion of fixed rates. This strategy is more open-minded. However, it is difficult to determine the project’s ultimate cost.

Outsourcing

According to Forrester’s analysis of the US IT industry, tech budget growth will reach 6.8% in 2022, with software spending in particular expected to accelerate by over 11%. Therefore, think about outsourcing if your company needs a development team at a reasonable cost.

By outsourcing, you give control of your entire project to a company that provides software development outsourcing services.

In comparison to local alternatives, selecting an offshore or nearshore outsourcing partner can save you a substantial portion of your budget. A highly skilled talent pool with the necessary tech stack, knowledge, and abilities was assembled. Together with presenting your requirements, goals, and timeline, you also give project specs. It is your partner’s obligation. A development team that works remotely accomplishes the task and finishes the project on schedule. The vendor updates you on any new developments. That is all.

The vendor has the option to divide the work into sprints using the agile methodology. Project managers (PM), business analysts (BA), quality assurance (QA), scrum masters, front-end and back-end developers, UI/UX designers, DevOps, and other experts can all be assigned by him. The vendor also owns the management of the development process. You save a good deal of time using it. It becomes a tremendous benefit to you.

Advantages:

  • superior software offerings
  • With the least amount of interference, you can free up time for your main business. No everyday duties to oversee
  • Reduced spending because of the accessible skill pool and project management
  • Top-notch developers ready-made: knowledgeable, seasoned, and adept
  • Project manager updates regularly
  • The HR component is your vendor’s responsibility.
  • It is a fully turnkey solution. You don’t include purchasing assets like software and hardware licensing. These costs won’t be your responsibility; your vendor may factor them in when estimating the project’s overall cost.
  • The adaptability of the assets. It implies that the vendor can quickly call in additional experts for a quick meeting or a single task. Hiring a full-time person is required when using outstaffing, which is frequently not reasonable.

Drawbacks

  • intricate procedure for managing a remote team.
  • Issues in communication because of time zone changes.
  • Control issues could be concerning. It is going to be difficult to hand over control of the wheel to your vendor if you become accustomed to maintaining a schedule, coding, and producing outcomes yourself.
  • larger budgets as opposed to hiring more people. Along with developers’ hourly or monthly fees, you also have to pay for project management, human resources, and administration.

Price

The most popular outsourcing pricing models are Time & Materials and Fixed Price. Fixed Price is the best option for startups with tight budgets and small-scope projects. Recall that accurate estimating requires both a clear vision and technical needs. To get the final price in the Time & Materials model, multiply developer rates by work hours. In large quantities specifically, it’s frequently less expensive.

In-house Hiring

The conventional method of bolstering your team and extending your strategic competencies is to hire in-house developers.

You find, develop, and present the best applicants based on your project requirements, company culture, and business strategy. By far, you can close a knowledge gap or improve your development ability. It will be a very profitable investment in your company when you have a clear idea for a future website or app and enough time and money to make it happen.

According to 97 percent of CFOs surveyed in Deloitte’s Q4 survey of the Fortune 500, they intend to increase labor and personnel spending in 2022. Concerns about talent and labor rank high on their list of top objectives for the coming year. Increasing expenses were impacted by two factors. Comparing 2021 to earlier times, domestic hiring increased to 5.8%. The local wage/salary rate increased to 5.2%.

Advantages:

  • complete and comfortable handling of all project-related issues
  • The highest level of involvement and the tightest communication in comparison to other models
  • Easy-to-use, well-established integration quality assurance assessment methodologies

Drawbacks

  • Onboarding and selection take a lengthy time.
  • Much larger spending plans for hiring, retaining, payroll, and related compensation
  • No simple means of ceasing cooperation

Price

Budgets for internal hiring could be very large if you intend to grow your workforce significantly. Wages and salaries, taxes, social benefits, job openings, sick days, and incentives are all included. In comparison to offshore or nearshore labor markets, local labor markets are more expensive.

Hiring Freelance Developers

Hiring developers on a freelance basis is known as “freelance hiring.” This implies that you simply pay for the work they accomplish on projects or assignments, with no additional expenses.

The importance of freelancers in the US job sector is demonstrated by recent studies. It reaches 54 million people worldwide and sets the global increasing trend. Eighty percent of workers who have full-time jobs would want to work independently to boost their income. Recently, one-third have already made the move to freelance work. Remote employment became popular due to advancements in technology, the digital economy, and the need for part-time labor. People choosing to freelance are increasing in number. They value self-management, flexibility, a healthy work-life balance, and higher compensation.

Advantages:

  • Having access to a worldwide talent pool
  • Saving money
  • Easy cooperation and low risk: the contract and legal matters
  • Time-saving because there is no need to onboard and train new hires

Drawbacks

  • Communication flow is difficult because of the remote location.
  • Your information is not secure from disclosure.
  • Low-key involvement
  • posing challenges to deadlines, milestones, quality assurance, management, and results

Price

Monthly expenses for both personal and professional use are included in freelancers’ hourly fees. In 2021, the average hourly rate for a freelance expert in the field of IT was $105, as per a recent study of freelancers.

Conclusion

To increase efficiency and meet project objectives in 2024, expanding your software development team may be a wise strategic choice. You may easily increase the skills of your team, take on challenging projects, and maintain your competitive edge in the highly competitive software development market by putting the six tried-and-true strategies covered into practice. Accept these tactics, and you’ll see a boom in software development activities in the upcoming year.

You can select a seasoned full-stack developer from Appic Softwares workforce to work on your project. Our full-stack developers have excellent soft skills and a wealth of experience working on projects all over the world.

You will be able to bring on an outstanding development staff if you hire them for your project.

Why are you hesitant, then?

Give us a call immediately!