Test Automation, A Must In Digital World
In 10 years, Digital point and shoot cameras have become from rage to obsolescence, same is so true for pagers, blackberry etc. Traditional newspapers and magazines are fighting for survival in today’s world which is immersed in the smart phones and tablets. Whereas Kodak, Blockbuster and Barnes & Nobles are struggling whereas companies who employed digital technologies like Zappos, Openbank, Uber etc. are thriving.
Today’s customer prefer access to all their services to happen from anytime, from anywhere and from multiple devices in a simple customer friendly experience. To provide these capabilities to their customers, being responsive to changing market needs and to remain competitive in the market, more and more organizations are implementing digital transformation projects.
Speed is of critical importance to all digital transformation projects as delay in timely implementation might lead to loss in market share to competitor who was faster to roll out the same or market positioning of the organization from leader to follower or worse a laggard. The approach to test digital applications requires covering multiple dimensions of the product including functionalities, integrations, compatibility, accessibility, user experience, performance, reliability and the like. A simple delay of a few seconds in processing an online transaction can cause a social media backlash and can cause heavy damage to the reputation of the business. This is making Quality Assurance teams to bank on test automation. At the same time, extreme automation and zero automation are the buzz word in the QA world these days. Test automation is critical for continuous delivery and continuous testing.
Continuous testing is the process of executing automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline to obtain immediate feedback on the business risks associated with a software release candidate. The future success of digital transformation depends on continuous testing for which test automation is imperative and serves as a strategic business enabler. In fact, Gartner states that “by 2020, agile and DevOps initiatives will cause at least 75% of enterprises to implement test automation.”
Test Automation Strategy for Digital Transformation
In the new age of Agile and DevOps, test automation helps teams identify and resolve issues early on in the lifecycle, thereby enabling enterprises to add value much faster. A defined test automation framework that is robust, capable of being effective in a continuous build & deploy environment, can cover omnichannel testing and has the ability to scale is a key enabler in digital testing projects. Some of the areas where digital transformation can make difference are:
1. Faster time to market: In today’s competitive world, organization are looking to launch product faster in the market to remain competitive, this is especially true in digital world where winner takes all is prevalent
2. Complex Integration: A digital transformation project involves multiple integration touch points with various components, internal or third party. It is imperative to have the integrations tested to ensure there are no handshake issues in the live system that may jeopardize customers’ user experience. An automated API test suite integrated with the UI test automation suite is an effective way to isolate issues and provide information to the development team that is quickly actionable
3. Increased test coverage: With paucity of time, test coverage always takes a beating. An automated regression suite will enable the organization to focus on validating the new features and other areas that need human screening, thereby enhancing the quality of the product
4. Performance testing: Today’s millennials have a short attention span, a small delay in loading application can ruin the whole user experience of the customer. Automated performance tests built into the continuous testing pipeline is an effective way to identify performance bottlenecks
5. Omni Channel Testing i.e. Cross device, Cross browser and cross OS: Today’s customer demand applications to be available on multiple devices running 100 of browsers and different OS, requiring applications to be tested on multiple devices and different OS. Repeating the same tests across different channels is a waste of time and automation comes in really handy in saving time and effort in cross browser/device testing
- A better customer Experience
- Faster Time to market
- Faster responsiveness to changing business environment
- Early identification of defects
- Improved chances of catching defects
In the next blog, we will be discussing the various frameworks available to organization for implementation of test automation. How to choose the one that fits your organization need and tools and practices suited to implement the same.
At Hapleaf, we have experience in providing testing solutions to all your digital transformation QA needs. Our team of QA professional has more than 200 years of combined experience in rolling out complex testing project spanned across multiple geographies in cost effective ways.