5 Benefits of Having an Extended Development Team

You probably have an excellent in-house team of engineers already — so why should you care about the benefits of having an extended development team?

Here’s the thing: investing in a remote software team is probably the easiest way to fill in skill gaps in your core staff, build lasting partnerships with brilliant developers, and get long-term projects done quickly and effectively.

The best part?

It all comes at a fraction of the cost of hiring full-time employees.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

First things first:

 

What Is an Extended Development Team Model?

The extended team model, also known as staff augmentation, brings together in-house and remote or “extended” engineers and has them working on the same projects. This long-term cooperation model cuts costs while benefiting from the skills of additional top calibre developers.

For optimal cost-effectiveness, extended software teams are often “nearshored” to a neighboring country — or even “offshored” to a whole different continent.

Extended Development Teams vs. Traditional Outsourcing

By now, you are probably thinking, Why should I choose an extended development team over traditional outsourcing?

And you’ve got a point there: the extended team model does share some benefits with traditional outsourcing. For instance, both models allow you to tap into a larger talent pool and offer quick and efficient team scalability.

However, there’s one key difference — and that makes all the difference, if you’ll pardon the pun.

In traditional outsourcing, you hand over the entire development process to an outside team. As budget-friendly as that may be, it often goes hand-in-hand with a certain lack of transparency and limited managerial oversight over the code you’re getting.

In contrast, one of the benefits of having an extended development team is that your in-house and remote engineers work closely together. Because they have common goals and responsibilities, they build an ongoing partnership and learn from one another — and you always know exactly what’s going on. That is why it is called ‘nearshoring‘.

Don’t get us wrong, though: full project outsourcing can work great for short-term or one-off assignments. It’s just not the best solution for when you are looking to establish lasting cooperation or to work on more complex projects. Check out this more in-depth blog on the best country to outsource software development – based on your specific needs.

The Benefits of Having an Extended Development Team

1. You Save Time on Hiring While Staying in Control

Does the thought of going through the drudgery of recruitment, training, and onboarding full-time engineers fill you up with joy?

Didn’t think so.

Lucky for you, extended development teams offer a quicker and more streamlined alternative. You get to assemble your dedicated development team and have it up and running in no time.

What’s more, because all project management takes place in-house, you are always on top of the product development.

At Alcrucis, we design a custom recruitment process that evaluates candidates in-depth and for the precise skills you need. We also take care of the sourcing, testing, and interviewing of applicants. You only see the ones we handpick for you and get to choose from the top of the top. This way, you are always in control over who works on your code.

If that sounds like something you could use, call us up

2. Cost-Effectiveness

Nothing beats a good bargain.

One of the key advantages of extended software teams is that they are budget-friendly.

US companies with extended teams in Europe can expect to cut their costs by up to 40%. And our Irish and UK-based clients that set up a software team extension in Spain or Poland can save anywhere from 15 to 25%.

What’s even better is that the lower cost does not come at the expense of quality. You can have your pick from an international pool of top-level engineers that have been thoroughly vetted and come with a proven track record of delivering excellent results.

3. Increased Transparency, Trust, and Collaboration

Direct communication, transparency, and trust are an integral part of any successful long-term collaboration — and that’s exactly what you get with staff augmentation.

Because extended development teams work closely with your core stuff, you can benefit from:

• • Ongoing and effective communication
  • Total transparency around the work being done
  • Shared responsibility on the deliverables
  • Increased productivity

Furthermore, the two teams complement their skills and exchange knowledge, ideas, and problem-solving techniques.

The result?

Not only do you gain a new set of brilliant remote engineers, but your existing employees also get to learn new things and become better professionals.

And that’s not a rare occurrence, either. At  Alcrucis, we constantly see our engineers working on improving the client company. They provide expert advice and organize various trainings on topics ranging from architecture and DevOps to process improvements and more.

4. No Setup or Operational Hassle

Compared to standard recruitment, the extended development team model requires little to no operational hassle.

With most of the work being done remotely, you don’t have to worry about:

• • Payroll and employee benefits
  • Buying equipment
  • Setting up physical workstations
  • Renting and maintaining an office space
  • Enabling a home-office setup
  • Looking after tech support

What’s more, you don’t have to do all that in a location and jurisdiction you are not familiar with. At Alcrucis, we take care of all that, so you can focus on what you do best — building great software.

The only thing you need to do is assemble the remote team and ensure they have access to the software and information systems they will need to do their work.

5. Faster Time to Market

In addition to saving a substantial amount of time on recruitment and setup, you also get to speed things up by having additional resources work on the same software development project simultaneously. By sharing and distributing tasks among themselves, your engineers will get more work done in less time.

But that’s not all.

One of the major benefits of having an extended development team is that your remote engineers will not be juggling a handful of different projects, which is often the case with outsourcing. As a result, the team will be dedicated to and fully invested in your project — and will get things done quickly and efficiently.