Body Leasing VS. Hiring Internally

This is again Jordan from SnapStack Solutions, and this week we will try to cover more on what are the benefits of body leasing and why your company might consider it.

The continuously growing demand for ‘IT people’ around the globe proportionally widens the range of difficulties met when hiring the experienced specialists, fit for the companies requirements.

Small and medium-sized companies can sure confirm this theory as they do not have the enormous HR budgets as the big fish in the industry, so, this is the major reason why companies decide to use services like body leasing instead of hiring IT guys, as it is more convenient.

But before we go deeper into this topic, let’s remember a few terms that we learned in our previous blog post.

Outsourcing is the practice of being an entity outside your company for a task that used to, or could be performed by a team from your own organization. To make things more clear, outsourcing includes offshoring and onshoring, while the term offshoring covers nearshoring and farshoring.

You have probably read about it, or heard it somewhere, but you were not sure what exactly the term stands for. Don’t worry! Many people are still having trouble distinguishing these ‘new era terms’. Even, if you know the meaning, probably you are still wondering if you should go for these types of services.

So, without further ado, let me discuss in this article why and how body leasing will benefit your company.

First things first, the term body leasing stands for the temporary hire of an IT specialist with skills from different areas of development learned through their long-time experience in the field. The process of implementation is sure cost-reducing and it is suitable for any organization regardless of their type or size.

In fact, it is a way of fulfilling your IT project’s goals by getting the services of specialized developers that you may not need in the long term therefore it would not make sense to hire internally. It is the perfect solution for any type of organization that works in the field of software development, with given goals and deadlines, but only misses one thing, and that is the support from a particular developer(s), specialist(s), consultant(s), or analyst(s) to complement the already existing internal project team for the purpose of delivering a specific project.

The more companies you meet, the more different needs you will encounter, so depending on that, this type of cooperation’s duration may differ from just a few months to a year or more. And while the concept of short-term body leasing has been explained, there are companies that lease development capacities even on a longer-term.

One of the reasons may be company specialization (i.e. a client specializing in Data & Analytics Services has a one-time need to develop a mobile application). Another reason may be the type of budget (i.e. some companies have a limit on FTEs however can purchase/have a budget for services – an external capacity that will help deliver).

Last but not least, some corporations that are publically traded, are very strict on their effectivity ration (number of employees per share) and therefore instead of hiring internally they decide to engage with trusted partners and lease capacity on longer or shorter-term as on the end of the day cost wise it is nearly neutral.

It is important to mention that besides body leasing, there is also team leasing. It is pretty self-explanatory, rather than hiring one specialist, you are leasing an entire team. There are variations when it comes to team leasing, as you are able to design the team according to your or your client’s needs, or simply, hire a ready one that already has many specialists from different areas. Some clients demand time and material teams, that will be managed by internal management, others managed service teams that will be dedicated to delivering certain function (halfway through outsourcing).

The scenarios with the team leasing can vary according to the needs as I said previously, so it would be difficult, for instance, to hire the same team for every other project, since the project itself requires more or fewer developers from different areas.

So the most important thing comes to question. What exactly are the benefits of body leasing and why you should consider it?

Cost and time reducing – I already mentioned this above in the article. This is probably the major benefit of these solutions since the organizations are cutting down on costs and time spent looking for the perfect candidate in the entire recruiting process. Reaching out to a software house that already has some developers ready to offer will easily help your project a lot, and moreover, it will benefit both parties to enable better utilization of resources.

Savings – when opting for such a solution, your company is saving on many things, and the most important that come to mind first are equipment, licenses, and sometimes the office space. In addition, the commitment to hire internally has a lot of costs involved should this resource proves a bad match for the role, or not needed after some time, like severance pay, notice period, etc.

Mutual values – These kinds of solutions meet both candidate and client’s interests so both sides will have mutual respect and values when it comes to what needs to be done. We recommend building string relations with several partners that are able to provide such services to ensure continuity, simplify vendor management, and achieve better rates as the cooperation will mature.

Access to experts – Imagine this solution as a big database that has quick access to a large number of IT experts that have more than 10 years of experience in many different fields with knowledge of dozens of technologies. As previously mentioned, focus on your core business, hire the necessary talent, and closely cooperate with key partners that will support your growth.

Fresh perspective – Choosing an external know-how for the project you are working on can sure bring a fresh new perspective to the entire workflow. Moreover, the external resources (used to being shifted from project to project) will have much more experience across different industries than any standard potential employee.

Payment terms and cash flow – Engaging with a partner that will provide specialized resources will most likely have 1 or 2 months payment terms. Meaning the resources will start working today, the first invoice you will receive at the end of the month, and you will pay for those services in 1 or 2 months from the date the invoice was issued. A lot better than having to pay salaries each 5th or 10th day of the month, sponsor vacations, trainings, benefits, sick days, etc.

You are paying only for what you get – When body leasing resources from a partner company, you only pay for the time these people work. Moreover you are in complete control of the hours they spend. We, for example, invoice our clients only after the timesheets from our developers are sent to and approved by the client. Holidays, public holidays, sick days, etc. are not paid.

In conclusion, the process of body leasing is the perfect solution for many companies out there. It brings all these benefits simply by deciding on this kind of service. You will be given access to resources that will skyrocket your project, but you cannot afford them individually for full-time employment.

Many potential clients, before engaging with us are asking a very valid question. What if, at a later point, these resources become a crucial part of our business, or they accumulate know-how that we further need? In most of the cases, we were able to extend the lease of those resources on a longer-term, or we were able to agree with the client to let them hire these specific resources internally.

Should you consider to lease development capacity or any other IT resources? Feel free to get in touch with us. Take the time to check out our services following this link to our website, and don’t hesitate to reach us out on social media or at contact@snapstack.cz

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