Understanding Staff Augmentation

Staff augmentation is a flexible outsourcing strategy that allows businesses to add external talent to their existing teams for specific projects, providing the necessary expertise to ensure success.

How Staff Augmentation Differs from Traditional Hiring And Outsourcing

• Traditional Hiring: Involves recruiting full-time employees, which is time-consuming and costly due to recruitment, onboarding, and benefits. Ideal for long-term roles.
• Outsourcing: Contracts an entire project or function to an external organization that manages the work independently.
• Staff Augmentation: Provides flexible, temporary access to external talent for specific projects without permanent hiring.

To better understand IT Staff Augmentation and it’s benefits you can read our previous blogs –

Staff Augmentation: How It Works & Why It’s A Good Move? And, Managed Services vs Staff Augmentation: Choosing the Right Fit for Your Business

Next, let’s explore the staffing challenges faced by fintech companies in Bangladesh

Staffing Challenges Faced By Fintech Companies In Bangladesh

Bangladesh’s Fintech sector is rapidly evolving, but companies in the industry face several challenges that hinder their progress and competitiveness. Some of the challenges include —

1. Limited Access To Specialized Talents: There’s a shortage of skilled professionals with expertise in areas such as blockchain, cybersecurity, data science, and AI which are critical for fintech innovation.

2. High Competition for Skilled Professionals: As more fintech companies emerge the demand for skilled professionals far exceeds the supply. High competition often leads to talent poaching, where experienced professionals are constantly lured away by better offers from rival companies or international firms, resulting in high turnover rates.

3. Rapid Technological Changes Requiring Constant Upskilling: The fintech industry is characterized by rapid technological advancements. Companies must ensure their teams are continually upskilled to keep pace with new tools and technologies. Investing in training and development programs can be expensive and time-consuming, especially for small to mid-sized fintech companies.

4. Pressure to Innovate and Comply with Regulations: Innovation pressure is always on as fintech companies stay competitive and meet customer expectations, which requires significant investment in research and development. Just innovating is not enough, they also need to be compliant as the financial industry is heavily regulated. Fintech companies must navigate complex and evolving regulations, which can be challenging without the right expertise.

How Staff Augmentation Addresses These Challenges

Staff augmentation provides a strategic solution for Bangladeshi fintech companies facing a talent shortage, high competition for skilled professionals, and the need for rapid technological advancement. Here’s how it effectively addresses these challenges:

Access To Larger And Pre-vetted Talents

Staff augmentation enables companies to access a larger pool of pre-vetted talents. Offering a wide range of specialized skills and knowledge experts. By tapping into this talent pool, fintech companies in Bangladesh gain the required talent and cut costs on traditional hiring, training, and CTC.

Scalability And Flexibility

Staff augmentation strategy allows Bangladeshi fintech companies to not access a pre-vetted talent pool but also scale their human resource capacity based on needs. Since there’s no long-term commitment to the augmented staffs they can scale up or down based on project demand.

Cost Efficiency 

Staff augmentation offers flexibility and cost savings. Hiring experienced engineers through staff augmentation saves time and money on recruitment and training, as well as reduces the Cost to the Company (CTC) since benefits are provided by the staffing agency. For instance, if your project needs a software architect but not full-time capacity, you can hire a part-time architect through staff augmentation, paying only for the necessary hours.

Risk Mitigation and Focus on Core Business Functions

Staff augmentation mitigates risks related to employee turnover and skill shortages by ensuring a continuous supply of qualified personnel, which maintains project continuity and stability. This approach also allows your internal team to focus on core business activities and in-house processes, while augmented staff handle specialized tasks, reducing the burden on your internal resources.

Improved Innovation

When you bring professionals from different work cultures to aid the cause of your fintech company, you’ll also bring in new ideas to your cause from people who have worked variety of industries including the financial market.

Use Cases of Staff Augmentation in Bangladeshi Fintech

Now that we have broken down staff augmentation, its benefits, and how it solves some of the challenges faced by Bangladeshi Fintech companies, let’s look at some of the use cases —

Development of Fintech Applications

From mobile banking, and mobile financial service to paytech apps. A fintech company can augment a huge chunk of IT resources in the development phase of their. These augmented IT professionals can work alongside and work as an extension of the internal IT or software team helping to build the ideal application.

Enhancing Cybersecurity Measures

Fintech companies can utilize IT staff augmentation to bring in cybersecurity experts who can implement advanced security protocols, conduct vulnerability assessments as well as ensure compliance with industry standards.

Data Analytics and Business Intelligence

Data scientists and analysts can be temporarily added to the team to help fintech companies analyze user data, develop predictive models, and generate insights to improve decision-making and develop personalized products and services.

Quality Assurance

IT Staff Augmentation can enhance Quality Assurance (QA) for Bangladeshi fintech companies by providing skilled professionals for automated testing, performance, and security testing, cross-platform compatibility, and API validation. These experts can implement continuous testing in CI/CD pipelines, ensuring rapid delivery of high-quality updates while maintaining compliance with regulatory standards. By leveraging augmented QA teams, fintech companies can identify and resolve issues quickly, optimize application performance, and safeguard sensitive data, ultimately improving user experience and trust.

As you can possibilities are endless, and how you want to utilize the staff augmentation strategy highly depends on individual company needs. By now if you’ve started to consider utilizing this strategy then let’s move forward to some of the best practices of implementing staff augmentation within your fintech company in Bangladesh.

Best Practices for Implementing IT Staff Augmentation for Fintech Companies in Bangladesh

Clearly Define Project Requirements and Goals

Before bringing in augmented staff, it’s essential to have a well-defined project scope and clear goals. This helps in identifying the specific skills and expertise required, ensuring that the augmented team members align with your business objectives and project outcomes.

Choose the Right Augmentation Partner

Partnering with a reliable IT staff augmentation provider is crucial. Look for partners with a strong track record in the fintech industry, expertise in relevant technologies, and a good understanding of the local market. This ensures that you get access to quality talent that meets your needs.

Prioritize Skill Set Matching

Focus on hiring professionals whose skills and experience closely match your project requirements. This reduces the learning curve and enables augmented staff to contribute effectively from day one. Use technical assessments and interviews to ensure the right fit.

Establish Clear Communication Channels

Effective communication is key to the success of staff augmentation. Set up clear communication channels, using tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or other collaboration platforms to facilitate real-time interaction. Regular check-ins and updates ensure that everyone is aligned with project goals and timelines.

Provide Access to Necessary Tools and Resources

Equip augmented staff with the necessary tools, software, and access to project documentation from the start. This helps them to work efficiently without unnecessary delays. Clear guidelines on data security and compliance should also be provided to protect sensitive information.

Integrate Augmented Staff into Your Team Culture

Even though they are temporary hires, integrating augmented staff into your company culture is important. Foster a sense of belonging by involving them in team meetings, events, and regular communication channels. This boosts morale and productivity, leading to better project outcomes.

Focus on Knowledge Transfer and Documentation

To ensure continuity, maintain comprehensive documentation of processes, code, and project details. Encourage knowledge transfer sessions between augmented staff and permanent employees, so that valuable insights and expertise are retained within the company after the project ends.

Plan for Scalability and Flexibility

Keep in mind that business needs can change rapidly. Choose staff augmentation solutions that offer scalability, allowing you to easily increase or decrease the number of augmented professionals based on project demands. Flexibility in contracts and terms can help manage costs and resources effectively.