Factors determining the Digital Transformation Test Strategy – Any 7

Digital Transformation Services

Digital transformation implies connecting each and every system and processes of an enterprise to achieve a slew of outcomes including quicker decision making. This has come about as a result of increased internet connectivity and a proliferation of digital technologies. Digital transformation has spawned many new age companies that are agile, lean, focused and result oriented. To compete with such newbies, enterprises saddled with legacy systems and used to the traditional ways of doing things need to transform themselves.

                   

Although Digital transformation services aim at reorienting the systems, processes, and stakeholders in an organization, they are prone to risks as well. These risks can be manifold – from having vulnerabilities in systems, processes, networks, and products to dealing with untrained resources. Moreover, since digital transformation services aim at accelerating the time to market as far as the products and services are concerned, quality is often given a short shrift. This often leads to the failure of products in meeting customers’ expectations. When enterprise digital transformation initiatives do not yield the stated business objectives, the need for digital quality assurance becomes critical.

Why digital quality assurance?

• To identify and eliminate glitches present in the systems, processes, networks, products and services.

• To meet the rising customer expectations for better quality products/services.

• To stay in competition by delivering quality products/services with reduced lead times.

• To accelerate the time to market with better products by using Agile and DevOps methodologies. 

• To adhere to quality and security regulations.

• To prevent hackers from exploiting the systems, products or services.

• To ensure brand loyalty among customers. 

• To achieve business objectives and ROI.

A robust digital testing strategy requires incorporating the shift-left approach. This is mainly to pre-empt the creation of glitches by testing the product during the development phase itself. With Agile and DevOps paradigms becoming the benchmarks for a digital testing strategy, how can test automation stay behind? Digital QA through test automation helps businesses to future proof their systems, products or services. It does so by increasing the test coverage area and carrying out repetitive functional and non-functional testing seamlessly. 

7 factors influencing a digital transformation test strategy

#1 Security: Security is arguably the biggest factor influencing the digital software testing of products. It involves aspects like vulnerability scanning, penetration testing, risk assessment, and security auditing among others. Here, testers identify the weaknesses in a system or product by using an automated software. Also, a simulated attack is carried out a la penetration testing to check for potential vulnerabilities, which when removed, can prevent the system or product from external or internal hacking.

# 2 Cost: This can have two different connotations. On the one side, the cost incurred by the business when a product fails to live up to the users’ expectations is taken into account. While on the other hand, the cost of implementing manual/test automation is considered. In the case of choosing a test automation software, the need for an open source or licensed software is decided based on the overall cost and the type of tests to be carried out.

#3 Presence of legacy systems: Digital QA involves the testing of a software product across devices, networks, platforms, frameworks, browsers, and operating systems. This requires faster systems with the latest test software. However, if an enterprise is beset with legacy systems then the test strategy needs to be looked at afresh. This is done by considering the capability of such systems and the cost of replacing the same.

#4 Reliability: The software systems that enable digital transformation should be tested to know the extent to which certain functions of these can perform on a continuous basis. This includes feature testing, load testing and regression testing.

#5 Scalability: The changing dynamics of business requires an enterprise to be flexible. The flexibility should be in terms of expanding the capacity of its systems and processes to meet any future demand. The test strategy chosen should check the scalability aspect of the systems.

#6 Interoperability: An enterprise will have a number of software programs running its digital transformation initiative. These programs should have a better interface with each other to achieve the overall business objectives. Hence, the test strategy should check the programs’ interoperability.

#7 Skillset: The success of a test strategy depends on the expertise of the test team. The test strategy should consider this aspect along with the need and cost of training.

Conclusion

The success of digital transformation initiatives by a business enterprise is critical for its sustenance. The systems enabling this transformation should be rigorously tested based on the factors mentioned above. 

This Article is originally published at Medium.com, 7 factors influencing your Digital Transformation Test strategy.

 

How The Next-Gen Testing Needs Are Defined By Digital Assurance

The digital transformation initiatives have placed the customer at their core. This customer centricity has led to strategies to find out what drives a customer to select and use specific products. As customers become aware of new age technologies, they demand products that incorporate aspects of such technologies but at reasonable prices. These technologies can have interfaces to the social media, mobility, analytics, cloud, Internet of Things, big data, AI and machine learning, and virtual reality among others.

In an increasingly interconnected world, the news of a trendy product spreads fast. In their quest to get hold of such a product, customers do not think twice about abandoning the legacy products. Such shifting preferences (read loyalties) of customers have put enormous strain on businesses as they struggle to keep pace with trending technologies and a dynamic demand curve.

This is where digital assurance incorporating predictive analysis comes to the help of enterprises. The predictive analysis uses databases reflecting past and present customer behaviour patterns. It does so to derive future trends and other business critical information by leveraging statistical algorithm and machine learning. Such an analysis helps enterprises to predict failures and take pro business decisions. The new age analytics helps businesses to foretell the market need and deliver quality products ahead of others.

Digital assurance is all about ensuring the quality of a product right from its design stage and extended to its entire usage lifecycle. It is primarily aimed at providing a seamless customer experience. To explain it further, if a company builds a powerful mobile phone, digital assurance ensures its quality right across the usage lifestyle. This means digital QA checks the product during the development phase and beyond to validate the latter’s performance, navigability, security, and usability. In doing so, it uses test automation as the technique to usher in a faster time to market besides covering a larger test area.

Before understanding how digital quality assurance can define the next generation testing needs, it is better to understand the latter. The next gen testing needs go beyond the traditional functional and regression testing. It rides the Agile and DevOps paradigms to infuse quality right into the design and development stages of the SDLC and beyond. Digital quality assurance studies the market, takes customer feedback and develops products that are high on user experience.

If the next gen testing needs are about speed, quality, compatibility, security, and scalability, digital assurance solutions can address them squarely. Let us find out how.

Speed: By employing Agile and DevOps methodologies, digital QA identifies and eliminates glitches early in the SDLC. This prevents costly and time consuming rework leading to the speedier delivery of products. Speed can offer the early mover advantage in a competitive market. It can be the differentiator between a market leader and an also ran one.

Quality: An enhanced customer experience can only be obtained if the product functions seamlessly across devices, platforms, networks, browsers, and operating systems. It is the chief enabler for business transformation and ensures customers stick to the product. A quality product always stands tall amidst competition. The leading brands in any domain are a testimony to this axiom.

Compatibility: Digital testing ensures the seamless functioning of a product across a complex application landscape. It provides a high customer experience as the product functions on different platforms and devices without any hitch. The test automation framework used in digital testing is the chief enabler for compatibility. This is because a test automation framework provides the right tools, APIs, and language compatibility to write robust reusable scripts.

Security: In the IoT defined landscape, the lack of security of an application can play havoc. Not only can it lead to the breach of sensitive customer and business information, but also lead to disastrous consequences for all stakeholders. The need for 100% trustworthy applications with multiple connectivities can be met by leveraging digital assurance solutions. Needless to say, when customers are assured of the security of an application, the trust level grows manifold.

Scalable: A product should provide more or less similar customer experience in real time irrespective of the user load. The product, be it backed by cloud or legacy systems, should meet user traffic at all times.

Conclusion

The Agile and DevOps led quality assurance goes beyond the traditional regressive testing. It has the right wherewithal to address the next gen testing needs predicated on cutting edge technologies, business models, and customer demand.

This Article is originally published at Medium.com, How is Digital Assurance Defining the Next-Gen Testing Needs?

Diya works for Cigniti Technologies, which is the world’s first Independent Software Testing Services Company to be appraised at CMMI-SVC v1.3, Maturity Level 5, and is also ISO 9001:2015 & ISO 27001:2013 certified.