Ramses the Great, perhaps the most illustrious of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs, knew a thing or two about core competencies. During his 67-year reign, Egypt enjoyed a period of great prosperity marked by the construction of many extraordinary temples, statues and obelisks that still stand some 3,500 years later.
When it came to military matters, however, Ramses understood his empire’s limitations. In anticipation of war with Egypt’s long-time nemesis, the Hittites, Ramses augmented his army with thousands of paid professional soldiers. It is history’s first recorded use of mercenaries.
Ramses was simply acting on a principle that has become common in the modern business world: Focus on what you do best, and outsource the rest.
Outsourcing has played a key role in the operation of IT departments in recent years. IT outsourcing can take many forms, from utilizing service providers for day-to-day IT functions to bringing in teams to handle projects from start to finish. Many times, however, organizations simply lack specific skill sets, and need to supplement in-house staff with subject-matter experts. As a result, outsourcing in the form of staff augmentation has stood the test of time as a way to successfully combat these challenges. It helps fill skills gaps quickly and efficiently, and gives IT departments increased agility and budget flexibility.
The IT outsourcing concept has expanded in recent years to include not only consulting and supplemental staffing but managed services and cloud computing. Managed services providers take on the day-to-day management of the IT infrastructure through remote monitoring, proactive maintenance, help desk support and other services. Cloud computing involves the outsourcing of a device, application or even an entire infrastructure to a third-party provider who delivers it as a service on demand.
While these solutions have garnered a lot of attention, neither serves as a replacement for staff augmentation. Staff augmentation continues to play a unique role within the IT outsourcing paradigm.
Organizations that have made significant investments in the staff and tools needed for infrastructure management are not good candidates for managed services — yet they still may need staff augmentation from time to time. Cloud computing may be ideal for particular applications or services, but most organizations will still need to maintain on-premises IT resources for core business activities. All of these outsourcing solutions deliver benefits. It’s a matter of choosing the right outsourcing ”tool” to meet particular business requirements.
Managed services and cloud computing require organizations to restructure their operations to support a supplier-managed service delivery model. Staff augmentation, in contrast, injects business-specific inputs into an organization’s existing processes. It provides rapid access to needed resources in a model that can scale up or down quickly with minimal impact on the existing IT organization.
As technology has become more complex, organizations have found it increasingly difficult to maintain all of the IT resources they need in-house. Even IT organizations with significant experience may find they need help with a particular problem or project, and budgeted projects sometimes languish for want of subject-matter expertise. Staff augmentation helps improve IT project outcomes while ensuring that core IT systems stay within internal control. It also helps them focus internal resources on activities related to their core mission and competitive strength.
Like other outsourcing solutions, staff augmentation reduces risk and increases certainty. IT issues can quickly become more difficult and expensive to resolve if in-house IT personnel are not familiar with the particular technology or aware of the latest tools and problem-solving methodologies. Staff augmentation helps organizations reduce these financial, technical and organizational risks by leveraging the subject-matter expert’s know-how and dedicated capabilities. The best staff augmentation relationships emphasize shared risks and goals to ensure successful problem resolution or project outcome.
Thousands of years ago, Ramses the Great and his for-hire army defeated the Hittites and brought Egypt to the height of its imperial power. In doing so, he demonstrated that outsourcing difficult tasks to experts made good sense.
Faced with a tug-of-war between network requirements and budget constraints, more organizations are choosing to outsource all or part of their IT needs to a technology partner with specific expertise in the implementation, management and maintenance of network devices, servers, system software and more. It doesn’t have to mean turning over the keys to the empire, however. Staff augmentation delivers the exact skills needed to give organizations of all sizes a fighting chance to achieve their goals.
