Find out the difference between Body Leasing and Development Teams Outsourcing!

software development in poland
Marcin Różański

The rapidly growing demand for IT workers that we are currently experiencing caused the increase of difficulties while hiring properly qualified employees. Access to fully-fledged IT staff is a problem of small and middle-size companies, as well as corporations with large HR budgets. In this situation, instead of hiring IT workers full time, it is way more convenient to use services such as Body Leasing or Development Teams Outsourcing.

What is the difference between Body Leasing and Development Teams Outsourcing?

Looking closer at the software development market, you have probably noticed that many software houses apart from classic implementations offer also outsourcing of their hired staff. If you find it hard to spot the difference between Body Leasing and Development Teams Outsourcing, this article is exactly what you have been looking for.

Body Leasing vs. Development Teams Outsourcing

Body Leasing is a periodical hire of IT professionals holding competences from different areas of software development. It is most commonly used to streamline the project management and reduce costs of the implementation. It can be suitable for large, medium and even small companies.

In other words, Body Leasing is a way of getting services of individual development team members in order to implement an IT project of your choosing. It is a solution recommended for all the companies that have an experience in software development, know what they would like to achieve and how, but at the same time need some support to build up a team. The only thing they are missing is a skilled Scrum Master, Business Analyst or a single Developer.

In the case of Development Teams Outsourcing, it is possible to request a complete and experienced team to work on your project without having to invest the time of your company’s human resources. The difference is that it is not only a single person holding a set of skills from a certain area of interest, but a team on its own working to get things done for a stakeholder. You don’t need to have knowledge regarding individual stages of software development because the people you hire have it covered and are able to deliver the result you have ordered. They could also be working remotely from a different country, and you will be informed only about the outcome of each Sprint. Your job as a stakeholder is to accept the product as it is or communicate the changes to be done. This is also why Time & Material price settlement is a preferable choice while pursuing IT projects developed by outsourced teams (more about it why, later on in this article).

Advantages of Body Leasing and Development Teams Outsourcing

Body Leasing, as well as Development Teams Outsourcing, were created to reduce the cost of employment in the long run. The main advantage of those solutions is that companies no longer waste time looking for IT specialists on the market, and thus avoid the financial outlay of constant recruitment. Turning to a software house that is offering to outsource its own employees makes it easier to get an IT project on track. As a client of such company, you don’t have to maintain a full-time employee nor a team of specialist for a single project. Those two solutions help you save on equipment, licenses, and often also on the office space. Furthermore, outsourcing in general allows engaging professionals for a short period of time. In such situations, the lack of rigid costs associated with traditional forms of employment is a great convenience for the company.

Mistakes to avoid if deciding on Body Leasing or Development Teams Outsourcing

The most crucial part of the software development takes place usually right at the beginning of the process. The choice of the supplier and then the early stage of negotiations will most likely shape the rest of the cooperation between the participants. To avoid misunderstandings and make the job easier to handle remotely, you should definitely very carefully check the references and read through the Service Level Agreement. In the classic Body Leasing, a fundamental mistake is usually a too poorly defined candidate’s profile. For example, clients often point onto too much competency in relation to their actual needs. As a result, the cost of the order as well as the time of delivery increases unnecessarily. To avoid this, it is worthwhile to designate a person (Project Owner) who will attend the meetings of the development team and take responsibility on what is actually being done. This way, it should be easier to profile the actual needs of the customer.

Price settlement – how does it work?

Both Body Leasing and Development Teams Outsourcing can be based on Time & Material or fixed price agreements. The most efficient way is definitely the first option, which is characterized as the calculation of hours worked by a specialist on the project (based on the so-called timesheet). The second model involves evaluating the project, calculating the assumptions and the outcome, as well as the team’s performance (which is quite subjective). Understandably, it is way harder to agree on the software’s value as it is done and one of the parties would like to already start using it (preferably before paying for it) and the other is still waiting for the compensation. To avoid presumable conflicts, it is recommended to use the agile price settlement on the on grounds of Time & Material.

Let’s sum it up!

More and more often, companies are interested in hiring experts for a particular project only; especially developers proficient in PHP and JavaScript and its extensions. Forms of this employment can be very diverse: from having a single professional consult on a project to the use of the entire development team. As both Body Leasing and Development Teams Outsourcing become more and more popular, before choosing one, it is crucial to examine individual needs and to decide which form could be more beneficial for a specific company or project. Body Leasing is usually more profitable for companies that already have the experience in software development and need just the support from one or a couple of individual team members. Development Teams Outsourcing is most viable rather in the case of firms from other branches that do not hire IT specialist and need complex assistance.

Marcin Różański
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