As testing is a science in itself and the activities involved within testing are always never-ending (recursive), outsourcing these activities not only reduces the burden of the organizations developing software but also guarantees a much reliable and quality software in affordable way; this reliability is achieved due to the disciplined approach and well defined/ designed test activity plans done by professional independent testing companies.
According to the Gartner Research Report, ‘Market Trends: Application Development, Worldwide, 2008-2013’, the global software testing market equals $13 billion and the global market size of outsourced QA & Testing services is around $6.1 billion. Analysts from Gartner believe that the appeal of QA & Testing outsourcing will be increased in the near future due to the companies ‘understanding that offshore services are a valuable tool in leveraging testers’ expertise, tools and processes and reducing the cost of testing, while improving the overall application quality.
Why outsourcing?
1. Insufficient time: This is a major issue that every organization faces during entire development process of any software application. Tight deadlines in delivering the product (which need to be strictly followed), many times become a crucial player in dropping testing activity or winding it up in a shorter time.
2. Unskilled Manpower: Another major impacting factor is the unavailability of proper and skilled resources, which usually results when testing is not planned properly and no proper testing cycle is implemented or not at all considered.
3. Limited budget: Budget is also one of the major factors that sometimes affect the software development cycle which limits the testing cycles to one or two. Insufficient budget margins not only limits the testing activities but also limits the testing types/ phases needed based on the software application, which if bypassed may result in huge impact on the overall quality.
4. Lack of focus consideration: Organizations which develop complete software (right from initiation till closure) are involved in many activities; various phases are to be considered during this entire process in strict time frames, thus the focus is diverse with major focus on development and completion of the tasks (which are back to back) as earlier as possible which many times deviates the focus of testing leaving it unattained.
Benefits:
1. Focus on core competency: Most of the outsourcing firms are involved in to the same kind of activities i.e., testing, thus, developing a good and competent resource is not a challenge.
2. Better output due to activity outsourced to the firm specializing in the same domain: As most of the outsourcing organizations are specialized in specific domains and technologies and focus on particular fields, choosing a right outsourcing partner based on the core competencies always result in huge gains.
3. Marginally less investment cost: As outsourcing do not involve much investment like, resource management cost, cost for planning, infrastructure, etc. it is much cheaper and cost effective and can be achieved in much less investment as compared to the investment required in deploying an in-house testing activity. Also, there is no maintenance cost required if the task is outsourced.
4. Optimum time, task and resource management with higher productivity: The outsourcing firms with their expertise in specific domains and on particular technologies and testing activities can manage tasks and resources in much better manner by optimum time utilization as the major focus and goal is to deliver quality product with reliable and stable service to their clients.
5. Stronger risk assessment and management: With testing becoming as major and prime task for outsourcing organizations it gives deep focus on the major impacts, potential risks and other quality hazards due to regular work and the previous experience this helps the outsourcing firms in much better way to manage risks and plan the activities based on the risks involved and their priority. This leads to well planned risk mitigation management and avoiding risks.
Outsourcing is just not a business partnership but also collaboration for transformation towards mutual growth which, can also lead a dying/ failing business to a leading business (leader) because of its numerous hidden advantages (value-adds). Thus, in today’s competitive market moving to outsourcing is call of the hour, a wise decision!
