Benefits of a dedicated team: why do you need to hire them?

Posted by Oleg on September 4th, 2019

A dedicated team is a group of IT specialists provided by a Managed Service Provider (MSP). Such a team can include one type of specialists, for example, it can be a DevOps team or Big Data team, or it can include different talents like developers, Quality Assurance engineers, DevOps, Project Manages, etc. You choose the composition of the team depending on your needs. Also, you can combine a dedicated team with your in-house team. For example, you might hire a dedicated DevOps team in addition to your in-house software development team. Thus, such a team can be as flexible as you need.

So, what can you receive with this team model and what other options are there?

Benefits of the dedicated team

Let’s start with the benefits. To understand if you need it or not, you definitely need to find out what you will receive with a dedicated team.

1. Fully-fledged team. As we said above, you might hire a team of one kind of talents or hire different talents in one team. The second approach is a great opportunity to accomplish your project fast and efficiently. You just hire the whole team. You might provide a few interviews with the key specialists and that’s all. There is no place for a long and laborious process of collecting in-house team one by one. You shouldn’t spend huge investments on recruitment and equipping workplaces. You just hire an experienced and cohesive team that will implement your project.

2. Cost-efficiency. Hiring a dedicated team is quite a beneficial process. As we said in the previous point, you shouldn’t look for every specialist separately and spend money and time on hiring. Also, such a type of team works remotely, so you don’t need to expand your office and equip workplaces, organize team building and other corporate events. One of the most important moments – you can hire a dedicated team only for the project and you shouldn’t pay salaries after the project ends or fire the employees like with an in-house team.

3. Access to the talents. Really high-qualified specialists are rarely available at the job market, so it is pretty hard to hire them in-house. Such talents like a challenging and interesting projects that usually can’t be accomplished in one company. Thus, great IT talents prefer working with the MSP company that provides them with a variety of interesting projects. So, you should not look for every specialist and can hire the top-level IT engineers for your project without any additional problems. Also, choosing a dedicated team, you don’t depend on location and can find the greatest specialists worldwide for your project.

4. Ready solutions. Dedicated teams are often very experienced and have a lot of ready infrastructure or workflow solutions, so they can implement them to accomplish your project as quickly as possible. Project accomplishing can include small changes and/or redesign of the whole system. The experienced dedicated team has strategies and solutions almost for every case. They will adapt these solutions for your project and implementation will be much faster unlike the hiring and training the talents in-house.

5. Individual solutions. If you have some custom request, dedicated team can implement it. The wide experience and knowledge of the newest efficient tools allow the dedicated team to design custom solutions if needed. This will be also faster than the same task for the in-house team because of the experience and time for hiring.

Weaknesses of a dedicated team model

Hiring a dedicated team looks quite beneficial but are there some weaknesses or risks? Well, there are a few risks.

1. Quality of work. We have described the dedicated team as professionals with great experience but there are still unscrupulous MSPs on the market. They can provide you a team of newbies who can’t work with complicated projects and might ruin some of your processes. We will talk about how to choose a good MSP below.

2. Management. You might face some management issues, especially if you like to control projects itself. Of course, good MSP will provide the team with the Project Manager but you still might need to hire the Project Manager in-house or remotely in addition to your dedicated team.

3. Communication. We live in the era of the Internet but you might have problems with communication because of different time zones. To avoid this risk you might choose a dedicated team from a country with an appropriate time zone to overlap your working hours. For example, if you are from the USA or EU the countries like Ukraine and Poland will suit you.

There are common risks in this type of team. As you can see, all of them can be easily removed with the right approach.

What other options are there?

Whether you want to know more or you’re afraid of the risks, you might want to understand all the variants you have. When you need to accomplish the IT project you have two other variants.

1. Hire an in-house team. We’ve mentioned it casually, so let’s get acquainted closely. You can collect the in-house time one by one. This is a pretty hard and long way. You will need to hire an HR manager and recruiter who will look for specialists, you’ll need to make a lot of interviews and check portfolios or test tasks. Also, you’ll spend a lot of time on every team member's adaptation and making the team cohesive. You should expand the office, equip the workplaces, organize different corporate events and take care of your employees. Honestly, the in-house team is pretty expensive, so you should be prepared for it. This variant is suitable for companies that have a lot of IT projects or for companies that want to become an MSP. It other cases, you will pay salaries after the project ends or should fire the team you collected so meticulously.

2. Hire the remote team. The difference between the remote team and dedicated team is that a dedicated team is already collected and the remote team you need to collect by yourself. So this is some mix of dedicated and in-house team. The same recruitment processes as with the in-house team with risks of the dedicated team. Such a variant can be viable if you need just a few or one specialist. In other ways, this is a pretty unbeneficial approach to implement some IT services.

Thus said, the dedicated team is the most appropriate way to accomplish the project fast and efficiently. The in-house team will suit mid-to-large companies who want to become Managed Service Provider. In other cases, a dedicated team is the most preferable option.

How to find a dedicated team?

Well, you’ve decided to hire a dedicated team. How to do it and where should you look for them? It is pretty obvious that to find a dedicated team you should find an MSP. So, we’ll tell how to find a reliable outsourcing partner. At first, you should define what kind of team you need. Do you need a dedicated development team or DevOps team, or maybe a mixed team? After that, find out what companies provide such teams.

You might check worldwide ratings, for example, Clutch. Usually, the top companies from such ratings are reliable. On such websites, you might find the evaluation of the company’s work from previous customers and some feedback. It is great if you are able to ask previous customers directly. Maybe, some of your partners have already referred to an MSP and can recommend some companies. If it is impossible, try to find as many reviews as you can. Find the MSP’s website and find out what services can you receive. Also, you might find the links to the previous clients or successful cases.

When you choose the MSP company, contact it and get acquainted with the team. You might have interviews with the Sales Manager, Project Manager and key specialists in the team. Of course, you shouldn’t talk with all team members, but such interviews are quite a good practice.

The next step is hiring. You should create a contract and NDA. It will be better if you have a lawyer and will consult with him about documents. After the paper signing part is over, the project starts. Discuss the strategy and create a plan with your team of specialists. After that, you can delegate the project and wait for the result. Sometimes it’s the hardest part for business owners, especially for the first business or startup. But delegating some business parts to the professionals is a beneficial decision and you shouldn’t worry about the result. The skilled professionals really know better.

Wrap up: the dedicated team is a great choice

This might sound too much but it is so indeed. The experienced dedicated team is a really great choice nowadays.

This is convenient – you might hire the team on the project and then you part ways without any hard feelings and they will be there if you need them again.

This is cost-efficient – you'll pay only for the project and can split the payment into parts. For example, pay after some milestones.

This is fast – the experienced team will be quickly diving into the project and make things well.

Thus said, you will have a great quality of work according to your time and budget. Of course, there are some risks but all of them are about the right choice of an MSP. You should pay attention and choose meticulously on the early stages and after all, you can relax and delegate your IT projects to the professionals. That’s why a dedicated team is a great choice and a beneficial investment for your business.