The world of the Internet and its technological ramifications are advancing by leaps and bounds. What seems relevant today is no longer applicable tomorrow or at least requires a major change in its design or implementation. Businesses struggle to keep up with these changes and resort to shortcuts to stay afloat. Customers are increasingly looking for applications that are innovative, easily downloadable, browsable, feature-rich, and secure. The only way to ensure this is through software application testing. However, the way in which technological advances have engulfed spheres such as social networks, mobility, cloud, big data or IoT, any business or software testing service company needs to invest. The investment must be in terms of hiring resources, training and implementing state-of-the-art systems on the ground.
Consequences of not testing software applications
• User dissatisfaction: A bug-prone software will not meet customer satisfaction criteria. In fact, it can cause damage in the form of loss of personal or financial information. For example, a glitch-prone mobile eCommerce app or web app can be hacked by fraudsters to steal credit/debit card information. Also, user dissatisfaction may be due to reduced functionality, navigability, usability, and slow download.
• Loss of brand value: Building a brand is an expensive and time consuming process. You need the right strategy to reach customers. However, all this can come to nothing if the software products or services turn out to be sub-par. And once customer trust is broken, it’s very hard to get it back.
• Competitors have a field day: Users are a lot of choice. If they find that a rival company’s software product is better in terms of quality and performance, they will start using it. Therefore, not hiring a software testing service company to test software quality can help competitors get ahead.
• Loss of income: When end customers are not satisfied with the quality of the product, they may abandon the product. This can mean lost revenue and a severe impact on your bottom line.
• Overrun: If a flaw is found during the customer’s use of an application, it may result in a rework. In other words, the development team needs to rewrite the code to fix the bug. This leads to cost overruns, as the team will have to spend their valuable time reworking.
If the challenge of frequent technological changes in the digital landscape is not enough, there is a greater threat of cyber fraud. According to industry estimates, around 70 percent of software can be hacked due to its built-in vulnerabilities. Therefore, companies should hire a software testing service company or have the latter update their software testing platforms and methodology.
The business drive for software application testing has shifted toward Agile and DevOps. Reference to software testing methodologies, QA is an ongoing process and works alongside development. The idea is to identify the failures in the initial stage of development and qualitatively transform the functionalities/characteristics of the final product. The other results of following the Agile/DevOps model are accelerated time to market and test automation.
Five key reasons that make software testing services extra relevant
1. Allow companies to adopt new technologies: The adoption of any new technology to improve the quality of products/services or the user experience must be preceded by rigorous quality control testing. The testing process by identifying vulnerabilities can validate the requirement for a new technology.
2. Biggest security threat: Cyber criminals are becoming more and more active in targeting vulnerable websites/apps. Avoiding that is only possible by learning about the vulnerabilities through penetration testing and then covering them up.
3.Interface with new technologies: Any new software has to be multidimensional with interfaces leading to cloud, big data, IoT or AI. QA tests can validate these interfaces and improve the user experience.
4. Cross-platform compatibility: QA tests help verify software compatibility across devices, platforms, operating systems, browsers, and networks.
5. User experience: It all comes down to the user experience. Only continuous QA testing can ensure an improved user experience across all platforms and technologies.
Conclusion
Quality assurance is not an option, but a necessity for companies to remain relevant and meet growing customer expectations. The challenge for software testing companies is to keep them up to date with the latest testing methodology.