Shortage of skilled and talented employees is a global issue. Sometimes companies have an urgent need to hire the best engineers and sometimes they need some developers only for the time being to complete a project. There are several scenarios, which make the hiring process a bit unreliable in terms of value generated over investment, which has increased the interest of businesses towards staff augmentation. In the VoIP industry as well, the trend of VoIP staff augmentation has already set, and it is going to be growing in the upcoming years.
VoIP is a highly technical industry, which is why it is often difficult to get the right team members at the right time, and hiring an extended team can be a great solution. Staff augmentation in the VoIP industry is one of the hot topics right now. If you are one of the companies that are interested in leveraging the advantage of augmenting your capacity with a distant team of experienced VoIP developers, then it is necessary to explore how to find a reliable partner for this. There are already several companies offering VoIP staff augmentation services, but it is necessary to identify the right partner to yield the right returns from your investment of time and money, both.
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In this blog post, we will delve deeper into this subject matter to help you give a complete guide that will help you find the best VoIP staff augmentation provider. So, let’s talk about this hot topic of the VoIP industry and explore how you can find the best provider to meet your need of onboarding the best talent in the VoIP industry.
What is Staff Augmentation in VoIP?
 Staff augmentation is an available option to fill in the talent gap in a company or business by hiring developers or any other team members on a contract basis, in general. The company hires as many skilled experts as they want without getting into legal aspects related to hiring a full time employee.
There are several advantages of hiring VoIP experts with the team augmentation model such as:
- No liability for managing human resources in any manner
- Low hourly rate or wages compared to an in-house team
- Reduced operational expenses
- Access to the pool of talent
- Flexibility to add and remove team members based on the budget and requirements
- Shortened recruitment cycle
- Better value over money
When is the right time to invest in Staff Augmentation?
The requirement for skilled VoIP development experts is common in this industry. A company may require Asterisk or FreeSWITCH developers, for example, to finish the development of new features for their class 4 Softswitch project quickly to hit the market fast. They may also need OpenSIP developers to provide technical support services to clients. That means the need to add more team members is common in the VoIP industry, similar to any other industry vertical.
Unlike the traditional approach of adding more engineers or technical staff to the team, the augmentation of staff lets businesses hire VoIP developers from a VoIP staff augmentation service provider.
Any business owner can get benefited by adding more VoIP experts to their team with this team augmentation model, but there are some cases, in which the returns are really high and that is the right time to invest in this model of team extension in the VoIP industry:
- When you have a temporary requirement for a developer or technical support engineer
- When you are operating remotely
- When you have an urgent need for manpower
- When you need a more reliable workforce to ensure nobody resigns or goes on leave until the project is over
The augmentation model lets you hire VoIP developers without any dilemma of losing your focus in between. It is the most reliable option by far compared to hiring an in-house team or outsourcing the project to any freelancers or individuals.
What are the best qualities of a reliable VoIP Staff Augmentation Provider?
If you are in need of VoIP staff augmentation services, then it is necessary to find the best provider for the same. This section covers all major qualities that your VoIP staff augmentation service provider must have.Â
Expertise
As you have started looking out to hire technology experts such as OpenSIP developers, you must have some clear requirements in mind. In this case, you need development experts for OpenSIPs technology or a support team that masters this SIP server platform. Thus, the first quality to look for in a provider is whether he has the expertise that you are looking for or not. It is always good to connect with a company that can meet any type of staffing need in the VoIP industry, but they must have an expert team in the technology you prefer or with whom you are comfortable.
Experience
Experience plays a major role in any industry and area. For example, an Asterisk developer with a decade long experience can do a specific job in two hours compared to a developer with 3 or 5 years of experience. The former one would not need any assistance and is likely to understand the issue quickly and the latter one may need you to spend time making him understand what you really need. In a nutshell, an experienced team helps in making things easier and faster. Thus, it would give better results.
In a project, you may need multiple developers or engineers with different levels of experience. In this case, your VoIP staff augmentation provider company must have the diverse experience of the team. This will help you choose your team rather than just go with the recommendations of your provider.Â
Team size
Another important quality to look for in your provider is the number of resources the company has to provide you with. This number must match your present and future needs. For example, if you need five FreeSWITCH developers for your company for now, but in the future, you may need ten developers for FreeSWITCH. In this case, your provider must be able to meet your growing need for developers without any huge delay because that is the beauty of VoIP staff augmentation. You don’t need to go through the hiring process, and you also don’t need to wait for too long to onboard the hired resource.
Diversity
Diversity of experience and expertise is a must in your provider. Even if you are working on a simple product such as a call center solution as of now, it is always good to partner with a company that has a team of experts that have worked with this solution, as well as other VoIP solutions such as a class 4 Softswitch. This gives great problem solving skills to the developers or technical experts you are going to hire for your team. Moreover, diversity helps in augmenting other traits in providers, as well as the staff working for that provider. In addition to that, the team must have diversified experience. You should be able to hire a VoIP developer from zero to ten years or more. You must be able to hire a developer, technical support engineer, project manager, technical lead, and other resources to meet all types of staffing needs now and in the future.
It is possible that you require only an Asterisk developer for your project, and you do not think you need any further resources for now. However, you must have a vision to grow and expand and, in the future, you will need more resources depending on how the market turns the table or customer demands shift. At that time, your provider must be able to meet your needs and there is no need to look for another provider for staff augmentation in the VoIP industry.
Availability
This is another very important quality to check in your provider company, which is the availability to get started. Definitely, the availability of resources is a must in the VoIP industry, but what is even more important is how soon they can get started with your project. In a majority of VoIP staff augmentation service provider companies, the team members are allocated to different projects full time or part time. Some projects are on the verge of getting over and the resources to be available will be allocated to your project. It is also possible that the provider has enough resources to provide you as soon as possible, but do not stay in any assumption. It is necessary to check the earliest possible allocation of resources to your project to leverage the real advantages of staff augmentation.
Communication and interpersonal skills
In general, businesses hire resources from international VoIP staff augmentation service provider companies, which work in different time zones and might have different first languages. English is a globally accepted business language, but it is still necessary to check how good your provider and his team are in the language you are comfortable with. Language barriers can cause major challenges in the future. Therefore, it is necessary to check this aspect.
If your provider works in a different time zone, then it is necessary to check how your provider will arrange communication sessions with you. The VoIP development experts working in the augmentation companies often work in different time zones, but it is necessary to ensure there is no roadblock in that once you get started working with them.
You also need to check the communication channels supported by the provider as per the company legislation and it should cover what you are comfortable with.
Tracking Models
When you hire a VoIP developer that is going to work from remote locations, you must be interested in having a tool to track the hours they work and the productive output of those hours. There are several tools that help in tracking the productivity of a team, but your VoIP staff augmentation provider company must support these tools and models.
Reputation
This can be a vital aspect to check as it will ensure the reliability of the provider. One of the major reasons to not invest in a freelance Asterisk developer, but hiring from a staff augmentation service provider is reliability. You need to ensure that the resources will not stop working halfway. If your provider has been in the industry for many years and has a positive reputation, they would care for incidents that may damage their reputation. Thus, you must check the reputation of the company before handing over the contract.
Concluding notes
Staff augmentation is a great way to onboard as many and the most experienced and versatile VoIP development experts in your team. It will eliminate several challenges related to recruitment and human resource management. There are also many advantages associated with team augmentation models, which is why it is recommended to hire the best resources from a staff augmentation company in the VoIP industry.
When you decide to leverage the advantage of staff augmentation in the VoIP industry, you must look for the qualities mentioned in this blog post. The best VoIP staff augmentation provider will have all these qualities and help you make the whole experience delightful.
It is easy to check all these qualities by simple communication with the providers that you have shortlisted. You can check the portfolio of the company to ensure this quality. You must interview the team members that are supposed to work for you along with checking their professional resumes. All this will help you evaluate their expertise and other qualities before you make any decision for hiring.
If you have made the decision to invest in VoIP staff augmentation, you can start by having a discussion with the best company in this industry and that is Inextrix Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Initiate the discussion by filling in this simple contact form, here.
