The
combined onslaught of disruptive technologies, changing user preferences, a
greater competition and security considerations have forced businesses to
reimagine and reinvent themselves. To achieve the same, companies are
increasingly into innovation and development of products that reach the market
faster. The aim is to pre-empt competition and enjoy the early mover
advantages. The approach forms a part of the digital transformation initiatives
that businesses have adopted with a greater frequency.
The process
of digital transformation ought to be smooth without disrupting the existing
ecosystem. For otherwise, the customer service gets impacted leading to
dissatisfaction and the company risks losing its brand value. Bringing about
digital transformation in an organization is a difficult proposition. This is
mainly to do with the presence of legacy systems (read unwieldy, non-scalable,
complex and costly), and human resources that need to be upskilled for new
technology platforms and paradigms.
Furthermore,
the growing expectations of customers about 24 x 7 connectivity and device
agnostic products and services have necessitated the adoption of new
technologies and business models. This has brought about challenges for
enterprises as many dimensions of technology are not in their control. These
dimensions include network connectivity, availability of an adequate bandwidth,
and the security of cloud platforms among others. These challenges coupled with
the business imperatives of reaching the market faster have given rise to the
need for quality assurance. In
fact, there is a growing realization among business stakeholders that quality assurance and testing cannot
be ignored any longer. This is due to the fact that software quality assurance testing plays a greater role in
achieving business outcomes.
The greater
emphasis on software quality assurance
testing has led to adoption of innovative practices, tools and
platforms. The industry has seen a paradigm shift in testing approaches – from
the early manual based waterfall model to the latest Agile, TCoE, and DevOps
models with emphasis on test automation. Importantly, notwithstanding the role
of QA software testing in improving the product quality and meeting business
outcomes, business strategy is still about beating the margins. Let us find out
the consequences of neglecting qualityassurance and testing in terms of ruining a business strategy.
Consequences
of not following Quality Assurance
Losing
competitiveness: One
of the objectives in framing a business strategy is to remain competitive. And
to achieve the same, the products and services of a company should either be on
par or better than its competitors. This is where the role of software quality assurance becomes
critical. It validates the quality of a product on parameters like performance,
functionality, load carrying capacity, usability and security. However, in the
absence of testing, the inherent glitches can let the product falter on any of
the above mentioned parameters. As a result, the user experience can go for a
toss leading customers to opt for competing products and the company losing its
competitive edge.
Not
reaching the market in time: The
changing market dynamics and evolving technologies mean businesses need to
remain ever vigilant. They are required to bring out innovative products and
reach customers before their competitors. However, without using the right test
automation tools, the timeframe of testing applications gets extended. This can
delay activities like the delivery of innovative solutions, adding
functionalities/updates or conducting regression testing.
Security
ramifications: Neglecting
the quality testing of software applications can leave glitches to go unnoticed
and unmitigated. The same can be exploited by hackers with the use of Trojans,
viruses, spyware and malware to achieve the following:
- Steal sensitive personal and business information
- Disrupt the systems and networks
The above
activities can lead a business to lose customer’s trust, attract penalties and
censure, or lawsuits from customers and regulatory agencies. These have the
potential to ruin a business completely.
Impacting
the product quality: Customers
are increasingly using software applications to carry out a plethora of
activities. These can range from paying for utility services and booking of
train/plane/movie tickets to buying from eCommerce stores among others.
Moreover, in the age of the Internet of Things (IoT,) embedded technologies are
used extensively in medicine and other mission critical processes. The lack of
quality of such software can lead to the malfunctioning of sensitive equipments.
This can have perilous consequences such as loss of life and property.
Conclusion
The
unpredictable business environment shaped by increased competition and the
advent of new technologies has meant that companies have to deliver quality
products within tight turnaround times. This can be ensured by following
rigorous testing of software and streamlining the processes. Neglecting the
same can have perilous consequences as mentioned above.
This
Article is originally published at Medium.com, How
can neglecting Quality Assurance and Testing ruin a business strategy?
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