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Fast Growth, Zero Risk – How to Scale Your Development Team with Hub-as-a-Service in Weeks, Not Years

04 Mar | 9 min read

Scaling a tech team is one of the biggest challenges for fast-growing companies. Hiring takes time, acquisitions are expensive, and outsourcing often means losing control over your core operations. So how can you expand your team rapidly while maintaining quality and flexibility?

The Challenge: Scaling Without Losing Control

Imagine this scenario: You’re a CTO at a successful technology company. Product development is running smoothly, customers are lining up, and growth projections are promising.

But one challenge is slowing you down – your team isn’t scaling fast enough. Projects are piling up, developers are stretched to their limits, and recruitment is slow. Clients are waiting, but you can’t afford mistakes.

This is a common challenge for technology companies. Once a company achieves product-market fit, the next hurdle is scaling the team quickly without disrupting development. But top-tier developers are scarce, and recruitment processes are slow, costly, and uncertain. Outsourcing isn’t an option because you want to maintain control over your core team and ensure high quality. You also want to keep Intellectual Property in the house.

So how do you expand your team rapidly, efficiently, and without unnecessary risks? There are essentially three options: Strategic M&A, building an in-house nearshoring hub (DIY), or partnering with an experienced Hub-as-a-Service provider like Allies.

M&A: Shortcut to Success or an Expensive Pitfall?

Acquiring an existing software development company might seem like an attractive shortcut: you get a fully operational team and instant access to talent. However, in reality, acquisitions are complex and come with hidden costs.

EY report found that nearly half of a company’s key employees depart within a year of a merger or acquisition, and 75% leave within three years of a transaction.

This means that despite investing millions in acquiring a team, a significant portion of that talent may walk away almost immediately. Moreover, M&A transactions require extensive due diligence, legal consultations, and integration efforts, consuming time and resources.

What does an acquisition cost?

M&A can work if your company has a well-defined acquisition strategy and the resources to integrate new teams effectively. However, for most growing technology companies, this is not a viable option. In the worst case, you could suffer multi-million-euro losses and still need to recruit new developers through alternative strategies.

DIY: Building Your Own Nearshoring Hub

The second option is to go all-in on building your own nearshore development hub. You lease office space, set up a recruitment team, and start hiring developers in European tech clusters like Poland or the Baltic region.

This gives you complete control over team culture and operations, but at the cost of a steep learning curve and a long timeline. Finding the right developers can take 12–24 months, and hiring mistakes can cost tens of thousands of euros.

Hiring times are a major challenge for technology companies. For example, Digia Hub struggled to find rare D365 talent in Finland. However, through the right network, they secured qualified experts in just 12 hours, allowing them to respond to client needs instantly

Read more:

Allies: The Risk-Free Way to Scale Your Team Quickly

The third option is partnering with a nearshoring specialist. Allies offers a "Hub-as-a-Service" model that combines speed, flexibility, and risk minimization. How does it work?

  1. Allies handles recruitment – No need to spend months searching for the right talent. Allies has an established network of top European developers. These established recruitment channels that enable hiring top experts within days not months.
  2. No bureaucracy – Allies takes care of local labor laws, employment contracts, and administrative tasks.
  3. Full flexibility – If a team member isn’t the right fit, Allies replaces them at no extra cost.
  4. Seamless ownership transfer – Once the hub is running, you can fully integrate it into your organization.
  5. Fast scaling – Start with a small team and expand as needed without heavy upfront investments.
  6. Risk-free launch – Test the hub before committing long-term. If it’s not the right fit, you can walk away without major losses.

Many scaling technology companies, including Volvo, Gofore and Metso Outotec, have used nearshoring hubs to meet growing customer demand. This model has allowed them to access top experts quickly while maintaining their service commitments.

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Final Thoughts: Which Model Works for You?

Our calculations show that Allies’ Hub-as-a-Service solution is 2–4 times faster than an acquisition and 3–6 times faster than DIY. Additionally, it is far more cost-efficient than M&A, where costs can quickly escalate.

While traditional models like Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) provide structured long-term solutions, many fast-growing companies are opting for the flexibility of Hub-as-a-Service.

Want to see how this could work for your company? Contact us, and let’s find the best solution together.

Here you can see our calculations:

Our advantage

Hiring to build a software R&D Hub in CEE with Allies takes 3x less time, comes with 2x less costs and 5x less risks than the best alternatives.

Interested in how we stack up?

Strategic M&A (Merger&Acquisition) DIY (Do-It-Yourself) Allies
Minimum setup timeline 12 months 18 months 3 months
Total setup cost € 2,058,000 € 556,500 € 556,500
Minimum M&A cost € 1,800,000
M&A advisory + legal (in-house or consult) € 90,000
Post M&A team replacement cost € 168,000
Key executive salary fund x setup timeline € 144,000
Recruitment fee for the following roles € 20,000
Local Senior Recruiter salary fund x setup timeline € 90,000
Local General Manager x setup timeline € 126,000
Local HR Officer x setup fee € 40,500
Office fee € 100,000
Legal fees € 36,000