Long-Term Staff Augmentation for a Digital Agency

Background

The Client is a well-known and constantly growing digital agency offering innovative services since the early 1990s, the beginning of the Digital Era. However, the agency faced challenges in keeping up with the evolving technological landscape while maintaining its focus on creative excellence. To bridge this gap and enhance their service offerings, they sought a reliable technology partner that could provide experienced developers to collaborate seamlessly with their creative teams.

Challenge

The Client's challenge was to find a tech partner who could offer skilled IT professionals capable of seamlessly integrating with their creative workflows. They needed a partner who could not only deliver technical solutions but also understand their unique culture and strict delivery requirements, enabling them to bring their digital strategy to life effectively.

Requirements:

The Customer came with several goals and requirements:

1. Operational Seamlessness: The partnership aimed to provide smooth operations, predictability, and minimize disruptions in day-to-day activities.
2. Technical Excellence: Proficiency in Microsoft .NET and related technologies, including Azure, Umbraco, and Optimizely, was a crucial need.
3. Flexible Resourcing: A sourcing model that allows flexibility to manage peak demands efficiently and optimize expenditures during low-demand periods.
4. Direct C-Level Interaction: The ability to engage in direct communication with C-level executives for prompt decision-making.
5. Long-Term Developer Engagement: Ensuring a minimal employee turnover rate to secure the involvement of the same developers in long-term projects.
6. Cohesive Integration: A team of like-minded developers seamlessly collaborating with the client's team for a productive partnership.
7. Cost Optimization: Prioritizing cost reduction efforts in all endeavors.

These requirements were extremely necessary to follow because the Customer had a negative experience with staff augmentation providers before.

Grounding on the previous experience, The Customer also had a list of no-goes that shaped a potential vendors' list and could act as blockers in decision-making.

• Lack of required expertise and tech support
• Long staffing time
• Excessive approval routines and long escalation process
• Higher costs (about 40% more than UKAD proposes) and charges for every action taken
• No help in workforce utilization.

Solution

Recognizing the client's need for a strategic technology partnership, UKAD, as an experienced Staff Augmentation provider, formulated a comprehensive solution capable of covering every requirement and avoiding all the no-goes. This approach includes the next points:

Expert Development Team

UKAD deployed a pool of senior certified developers with diverse expertise, including web and mobile application development, backend systems, and cloud infrastructure. They were handpicked to align with the Client’s requirements.

Integrated Collaboration

To ensure a seamless partnership, UKAD’s developers integrated directly into the Customer’s workflow, building effective communication and collaboration between developers and creative personnel, resulting in a cohesive approach to project execution.

UKAD Sourcing Methodology

UKAD recognized the Client's approach and understood the unique requirements of each project. And, the process is the following:

1. Comparing the required expert's profile with the available developers from the UKAD team. If there is a fitting developer in UKAD, only the Client conducts an interview. 
2. If there are no available in-house experts, the recruiting team screens the local talent market and picks suitable candidates for the tech interview.
3. UKAD conducts technical interviews without disturbing the Customer. Coding skills, deep theoretical knowledge, and soft skills are the main focus. One of the UKAD C-levels always participates during the interview to ensure the quality of the candidate. We believe that if we want to hire the candidate for ourselves then the Customer will be happy too.
4. English proficiency check
5. Interview with the client’s team to ensure the culture fit.

Ongoing Talent Fostering

Every developer was assimilated into UKAD's team, providing access to tech mentorship, personalized improvement plans, and certification training, fueling rapid professional growth. Regular performance evaluations guided developers and ensured alignment with the client's long-term strategy.

Every developer gets access to the tech knowledge the company gains through many years and could get help within the organization if he or she is stuck on the project. It increases the overall efficiency. 

Technical Consultation

Beyond development, UKAD provided technical consultation and proactively suggested innovative ways to incorporate the latest technologies and widen the tech expertise. This insight empowered the agency to offer cutting-edge solutions to their clients and draw the direction of self-improvement for years.

C-level Communication

The client benefited from direct interaction with UKAD's C-level executives, guaranteeing immediate attention to any concerns or glitches throughout the collaboration.