While most companies have already adopted remote work, now they can expand their teams with talent worldwide. The best way to do this is to build a dedicated software development team in a trusted company. For over a decade, we have built 350+ development teams to a diverse range of clients—from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. We hope our hands-on experience will help you to decide if Dedicated Team Model suits your needs.
Let’s start from the very beginning – what does dedicated team mean? It’s a widely used outsourcing engagement model allowing companies to extend their in-house teams with one or more remote IT professionals, fully allocated and functioning as a virtual cross-border integrated team with that company. Typically, it includes developers and QA engineers, marketing managers, designers and others.
In a nutshell, using the Dedicated Team Model is like having your own team but located in a different country. However, you have a significant advantage, since you don’t have to worry about various administrative issues. From the hiring process to setting up the infrastructure, signing legal documents and even paying taxes for your remote team, your Dedicated Team Provider will take care of all this. All you have to do is define a scale and strategy, focusing on your day-to-day tasks and the management of your staff.
When considering an outsourcing model to choose from, it is essential to assess your project’s needs. Here’s a quick list to consider when you need to hire a Dedicated Development Team:
Still not sure if it’s worth a try? Watch video testimonials from companies that have successfully built cross-border organizations and what Dedicated Teams mean for them. Unlike other outsourcing models, due to its simplicity, the Dedicated Team Model works with companies of all sizes and industries.
In other words, the client is responsible for all work processes and has full control over the project. Also, he/she, in turn, can monitor and manage the team and their workflow.
| Activity | Client | Supplier |
|---|---|---|
| Profile Definition & Team Composition |
Shares the requirements | Provides consultancy and advices on the best options how to build a Dedicated Team |
| Organization of Recruitment, Pre-screening & Selection process |
Monitors the progress, reviews the profiles |
Organizes the process of searching, contacting, screening candidates Provides its own experts to evaluate soft and hard skills as well as cultural match with the company Determines a candidate’s motivation for the role and attitude Presents a short list of suitable candidates |
| Choice of the final candidates |
Conducts interviews with final candidates to validate their skills and cultural fit |
Provides consultancy and advices on the best options |
| Onboarding | Organizes the onboarding to the project |
Organizes onboarding to local organization |
| Delivery Management | Client is responsible for the delivery process. |
If a client hires a Dedicated Project Manager /Product Owner on the side of the Supplier, then the responsibility can be shared |
| Onsite Business Trips | If a client visits the office of the supplier, a supplier arranges it |
If a team goes onsite, a supplier arranges it |
| Legal Support | Signs agreement with a supplier |
Takes care of employment and legal support of local team Signs agreement with a client |
| Payroll & Administration |
Not involved | Takes care of payroll, taxes, etc. according to local laws |
| Project Knowledge Sharing | Organizes knowledge sharing inside the team |
Ensures that in case of change of employees, all knowledge stays inside the project and replacement or transfer of duties goes smoothly |
| Competence Development and Training |
Sets up the goals for the competence development of the team |
Organizes competence development Provides soft and hard skills trainings inside the organization |
| People Retention and Motivation |
Sets the standards for cooperation |
Organizes HR Processes (Performance Review, Team Building, etc) Is responsible for people’s retention and motivation |
| Benefits and Social Package |
Can offer special options for benefit package |
Administrates benefits and social packages Ensures that it allows to attract the best talents |
| Remote/Building & Facility Management |
Sets requirements for location, physical security, branding of premises, etc |
Arranges and maintains a favourable work environment |
| Technical Support | Sets requirements for IT infrastructure, workstations, software, etc |
Provides necessary equipment, software, licencing and ongoing IT support |
| Operational Support | NA | Provides operational support to ensure that everything goes ok and client is happy with the service |
| Scaling Up | Informs about the decision to scale up |
Arranges hiring of the new teammates |
| Scaling Down | Approves the notice period Informs about the decision to scale down |
Handles all questions related to scaling down of the team |
Typically, the cost of hiring a nearshore tech team is lower than that of maintaining local specialists. Moreover, it can save significant time and money spent on recruiting. A Dedicated Team supplier is in charge of the process and will be able to find you a professional team much faster than you could on your own.
As your business develops, you can terminate cooperation without any additional payments, only taking into account the agreed notice period.
Each software development company has its particular strengths and weaknesses. Many offer a great product or service, but struggle to pick the right qualified specialists among inhouse teams up to client’s needs. However, a Dedicated Team Supplier is specialised in finding the best of the best people from the global market according to client’s requirements and is not pushing semi-matching internal people in the project.
By choosing a full-time team, you can be confident that the experts you hired will work exclusively for your tasks. On contrary to other Outsourcing models where IT specialists switch between assignments of different clients, your dedicated teammates are focused on your tasks only and are as engaged and motivated as your own employees.
Many companies don’t like outsourcing models as they are not transparent. With a Dedicated Team approach you are always in control of your remote team, can see what each developer is doing, set priorities and assign tasks to them.
Before deciding to outsource a Dedicated Team, investigate what are the disadvantages of this model.
The Dedicated Team is highly integrated into the client’s organization, so it’s crucial to ensure that the software development service provider will take care about all security or business continuity risks. In some cases, companies could choose to keep all knowledge in-house. In these cases, it’s better for them to choose Build-Operate-Transfer Model and acquire the nearshore team as their own affiliate company.
In the Dedicated Team Model the recruitment is usually done from scratch, meaning that it will take some time for profile definition, recruitment, interviews and onboarding. It’s not the best option if you need additional resources instantly. For example, it can take 4-6 weeks to hire an IT Project Manager in Ukraine.
The Dedicated Team Model isn’t suitable for small projects with a short duration. Moreover, the majority of IT Outsourcing Suppliers do not provide teams for less than 6 months duration. In this case you can choose a Project-based approach.
Now that we’ve explored the advantages and disadvantages of Dedicated Team Model, it’s time to answer the burning question: Where to hire dedicated team?
According to SkillValue 2019 data, based on over 500 technical assessments, the five countries with the best developers are:
Mexico
Poland
Hungary
Ukraine
Let’s look at Ukraine as an example of a global top-5 leader compared to its neighbouring Poland.
Ukrainian programmers are continually improving their skills, which allowed them to climb to 5th place. Currently there are more than 183 000 IT specialists registered in Ukraine according to the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine.
The total number of IT specialists in Poland is more than 250 000 experts. In Poland, 1.4 persons per 100 are software developers that creates a great background for the further development of the IT industry.
Accordingly to Clutch as for 23.02.2021, in the category Top Staff Augmentation Services in Poland there are 124 companies compared to 185 in Ukraine.
Now let’s compare the hourly rates for IT profiles in these countries. The price depends on the seniority and experience of the developers.
| < $ 25 | $ 25 – 49 | $ 50 – 99 | $ 100 – 149 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of Ukrainian companies |
6 | 141 | 24 | 1 |
| Number of Polish companies |
4 | 54 | 47 | 1 |
First, check the B2B ranking platforms. This includes the well-known Clutch.co, which allows you to look at many companies, their profiles, customer reviews through filters, and different industries. In addition to Clutch, you can also find specialized providers at The Manifest, GoodFirms, SoftwareWorld, and many more.
Word of mouth is still the most common way to find a new supplier in IT outsourcing, despite increasing globalization. If your potential provider posts reviews on their site or any other channel, reach out to the people mentioned in those reviews. Even if their names are hidden, there may be a company name or some other identifier.
When choosing a dedicated team provider, pay attention to the following criteria:
It is essential to place the right mechanisms to prevent communication disruption and ineffective collaboration as your software development experts work remotely. Best practices for managing your staff include the following:
Traditionally, outsourcing service providers generally handle most of the legal aspects of hiring remote developers. Here are some of the legal issues you will have to consult your provider about.
Looking to get started with an experienced team? Pwrteams can help you out with the entire process of recruitment, onboarding, and collaboration. We have a decade of experience in software development and a large pool of highly qualified IT professionals. When you contact Pwrteams, this is what you can expect:
It’s a business model that refers to an agreement between the client and service provider when the latter provides software development professionals to the client on a long-term basis. These specialists are chosen according to the client's demands for their experience and skillsets and work only on your project.
This approach works best for large projects, long-term projects, and projects with multiple tasks requiring high-quality deliverables. For instance, you need to set up a team of experts for your web development projects or need to recruit DevOps engineers for product development activities.
Begin your journey by contacting the provider with the project scope and the human resources you need. From there, the contractor bands together professionals with specific skill sets and experiences who are suited to your requirements.
There are no limitations on your team; that can be a single dedicated professional or hundreds of people organized as a Business Unit and working solely for your company. It only depends on the provider’s capacity to staff your team at the size and the speed you need. So it’s crucial that the provider has a well-reputable Employer Brand on the market and has an attractive social package and perks.
Yes. The process starts with you and the development company’s Recruitment manager. You discuss all your needs and goals. After that, the Recruitment manager will search for candidates who are suitable for your project. Once you have selected candidates, you or your team leaders can conduct technical interviews and check the test tasks.
Before signing the contract with an outsourcing partner check how a vendor implements technical and organizational measures to comply with GDPR if needed. Pwrteams is offering 100% GDPR compliant service for its clients.
In most cases, customers need to pay for a month of developers’ engagement to the project. It’s also possible to prepay services at the choice of the parties.
The structure can look anything you like. You set the rules, and the team structure will reflect them.
You can also choose a model with developers if you have a clear vision of your project and directly manage the team. You can also select the model with PM if you’re less involved in the workflow.
When communicating with the team, ask everyone to answer three questions:
Also, use special tools like Teams, Skype, Slack, Trello, Jira, etc.
Holding these meetings daily is a good option that keeps everyone in the loop, allows employees to structure what they’ve done, and schedule the next tasks.
You can also get custom reports on tasks done and time spent to better evaluate the performance of your team.
One of the core dedicated team advantages is that you can agree with the members of your project to work overtime in the same way as you do it with your in-house team. You just need to agree on the rate for such hours and approve in advance such hours with your team.
Time and Materials is an approach in which clients are billed for the time dedicated experts spend developing the product based on an hourly or monthly rate agreed on in the contract. In most cases, customers need to pay for a month of developers’ engagement to the project. In some cases you can agree that your team needs to work a fixed number of hours to deliver the result you need.
You can go through Pwrteams reviews and case studies to find out more about our previous partnerships.
We hope this article helped you determine if you need a Dedicated Team Model. If this type of cooperation appeals to you, our company will gladly discuss your project’s details. Contact us now!