Dedicated IT Squads or Managed Services: When Does Your Company Need Them?

When the roadmap grows faster than the team

Almost every technology team at a large enterprise or bank has faced the same situation: the list of initiatives keeps growing while the number of people on the team stays roughly the same. New regulations, new digital channels, partner integrations, and requests from business units all arrive at once. Meanwhile, adding permanent staff isn't always an option.

These are some of the most common triggers for needing extra capacity:

• Hiring freezes or headcount caps, while project targets stay the same.
• Hard-to-find specialists, such as ERP consultants, AI engineers, or QA engineers with experience in heavily regulated industries.
• Systems already in production that need round-the-clock monitoring, including nights, weekends, and holidays.
• Fluctuating demand, for example an intense development phase followed by a lighter maintenance phase.

In situations like these, the question is no longer simply "hire or don't hire," but which working model best fits each type of need.

The options available

In-house hiring

Permanent employees remain the foundation for core roles: architecture, product decisions, security, and strategic business knowledge. The drawbacks are a hiring process that can take a long time, especially for specialist roles, and capacity that is hard to adjust when needs change.

Project outsourcing

You hand a defined scope of work with defined deliverables to a vendor. This model works well when requirements are clear and relatively stable. The challenges arise when requirements change midstream, or when knowledge about the system doesn't transfer to your team after the project ends.

Dedicated squad on retainer

A cross-functional team, for example a product owner, business analyst, UX/UI designer, developers, and a QA engineer, works with you on an ongoing basis. The squad follows your backlog and priorities rather than a static scope document. This model suits digital products that keep evolving and need continuity.

Specialist staffing

You add one or more individuals with specific expertise to an existing team. This approach is effective for closing a particular skills gap, as long as your internal team is ready to direct and integrate them.

L1/L2/L3 managed services

For systems that are already running, the need is different: not building features, but keeping services stable. This is where tiered support comes in. In general terms, the levels are:

• L0: self-service and automation, such as a knowledge base, FAQs, or automated notifications that help users resolve issues on their own.
• L1: the first line. Monitors systems, receives and logs incidents, handles issues that have standard procedures, and escalates more complex ones.
• L2: deeper technical analysis. Investigates logs, configurations, and integrations to find the cause of a problem and restore service.
• L3: expert teams or application developers who fix the root cause at the code, architecture, or infrastructure level.

Managed services let you run 24×7 monitoring without having to build the entire shift schedule and escalation process yourself.

How to choose the right model

In practice, many organizations combine several models. These questions can help you decide:

1. Is the work about building or running? Feature development tends to fit a squad or specialist staffing, while keeping production systems healthy fits managed services better.
2. How stable is the scope? A fixed, clear scope can be handled through project outsourcing. A scope that keeps changing is better served by a squad that follows your backlog.
3. What knowledge must stay in-house? Decisions on architecture, security, and product direction should remain with your internal team, whatever external model you use.
4. Do you need coverage outside business hours? If so, consider managed services on a 24×7 scheme with a documented escalation path.
5. How will your needs change over the next year? A retainer or squad contract makes it easier to adjust capacity than adding permanent headcount.

Making a squad work well

Whichever model you choose, success depends heavily on how the external team is integrated. A few principles to keep in mind:

Onboarding to your standards

Treat the squad like new team members. Introduce your coding standards, release flow, security policies, tooling, and business context from the start. A squad that understands "how things work here" becomes productive faster and produces less work that has to be redone.

Clear ownership

Define who sets priorities, who approves releases, and who is accountable when an incident occurs. For managed services, document the boundaries of each support level, the escalation criteria, and who to contact at each level.

Working as one team

Include the squad in the same rituals as your internal team: sprint planning, stand-ups, reviews, and retrospectives. Use the same communication channels and tools. Drawing a line between "our team" and "the vendor's team" usually slows work down and gets in the way of knowledge sharing.

Measure outcomes, not just attendance

Agree on relevant indicators, such as features shipped, test quality, or incident recovery time. Review them regularly and adjust the squad's makeup when your needs change.

How Digital Center helps

Digital Center Indonesia runs five Digital Centers in Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Batam and Bali. One of our three solutions is Digital Talent, alongside Digital Product and Digital Transformation.

Through Digital Talent, we provide:

• Dedicated squads that work as one team with you, with roles such as product owner and project manager, business analyst, UX/UI designer, fullstack developer, mobile developer, QA engineer, ERP consultant, and AI engineer.
• Professional services and specialist resources to close specific skills gaps.
• Onboarding to your standards, so the team follows the processes and policies you already have in place.
• 24×7 L1 and L2 managed services for systems already running in production.

For example, after Allo Bank set up a new data center, it needed a team to monitor it. Digital Center provides 24×7 L1 managed services that monitor all of its systems. At XL Axiata, the Busol division runs applications that need 24×7 monitoring. Digital Center helped set up the L2 team on a 24×7 scheme, supporting L0, L1, and L3.

Engagements can run on a monthly retainer or a squad contract, depending on your needs. If you're considering a dedicated squad or managed services for your team, let's talk at marketing@digitalcenter.id.