Staff augmentation, managed team or outsourcing: how to choose

Staff augmentation adds people to your team who work under your direction while a provider employs them. Outsourcing hands a whole job or project to a provider that runs it its own way and delivers an output. A managed embedded team sits between the two: the people work inside your team, and the provider also handles their HR, equipment, performance reviews and reporting.

The three models side by side

• Who directs the daily work: you with staff augmentation, the provider with outsourcing, you with a managed embedded team.
• Who is accountable for the output: you; the provider; shared, against agreed KPIs and regular reports.
• Where the work happens: your tools; often the provider’s tools; your tools.
• What you manage: the people; the contract and the deliverables; the goals and the work.
• What stays when it ends: the know-how in your systems; usually little; the know-how in your systems.

When each one fits

• Staff augmentation: you have managers and processes, and only need more hands with specific skills.
• Outsourcing: the job is well defined, separable from your team and judged on its output, such as a fixed project.
• A managed embedded team: you want dedicated people in your team, without the work of employing, equipping and managing them abroad.

Questions to ask any provider

1. 01Who chooses the person, and can we meet them first?
2. 02Will they work in our tools, meetings and channels?
3. 03Who handles payroll, equipment, IT and data protection?
4. 04How will we see output and quality, and how often?
5. 05What happens if the person is not the right fit, or leaves?

Where GrowAxis fits

GrowAxis embedded teams are the managed model: dedicated experts based in Egypt (customer service, digital marketing, business development and software development) who work in your team every day, employed by GrowAxis, with payroll, HR, equipment, performance reviews and monthly reporting handled. When you need a whole function run as a system rather than people added, the four engines install it with your team.