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The Long Tail of the IT supply chain

In the past two years, Chris Andersons Long Tail has become relatively common in the business lexicon. Does the long tail apply to coders?

Common business knowledge says that companies should focus on their core competencies. Having fat staff that doesnt contribute to the focus of the company reduces overall efficiency of the companys resources. Return on assets and revenue per employee drops. Additionally, internal teams tend to lose their edge and do not keep up with the latest trends and knowledge.

The answer to this problem is outsourcing tasks that require specialized knowledge. A common example is utilization of external law firms for major court cases. While companies maintain legal counsel for ordinary, non-specialized tasks such as employment contracts and basic SEC filing, few companies will look to their internal corporate legal staffs to lead the defense of a lawsuit against the company.

This process also applies to IT staffs. Internal corporate IT staffs are generally well-skilled, but generalists. They can keep the engine running, but are not staffed appropriately to handle large projects. Hence, companies look to external agencies for staff augmentation. Not only can external agencies help smooth out staffing requirements, but these contracted developers can bring in new knowledge to the existing IT teams.

In applying Long Tail theory, corporate IT staffs are the head of the curve, and the contracted developers are the tail.

Typical recruiting processes focus on the head rather than on the tail. This makes economic sense for corporate recruiters and for recruiting firms. They seek to place developers in full-time jobs, and the economic incentives of working to develop the capabilities to deliver short-term contract developers with specific skills do not provide the profitability and value to move down the tail. Recruiting agencies utilize push processes; coders who want full-time jobs go to recruiters, and the recruiters push those coders to companies that are looking to hire coders.

When looking for project staffing or short-term (under 1 year in duration) staff augmentation, look down the long tail for solutions. If you want to go down the long tail for your project or staff needs, contact us.

Also, if you are one of those coders who lives in the Long Tail and doesnt want a full-time job, but also doesnt want to have to consistently self-market, send us a resume, code sample, and rate sheet. We are constantly looking to build up our contact list of exceptional coders who are interested in doing onsite short-term contracts.