Digital QA for Enterprises: What is the Agenda in 2018?

Who wouldn’t agree that the current technology scenario is totally disruptive!

Isn’t it evident from the trending news stories on Artificial Intelligence and hovering drones? Intentionally, disruptive in the most positive way. The technology sphere is overwhelming us with updates around growth, automation, with growing digitization.

Deloitte in a report on ‘2017 Technology Industry Outlook’ mentions, ‘The digitization of the enterprise is also opening up whole new markets, creating ecosystems that often extend across multiple sectors. Connected and autonomous vehicles, e-medicine, fin tech, e-tail, and smart cities are all enabled by connectivity, growth in storage and bandwidth, advances in cognitive technologies, and increasingly sophisticated data analytics. They are spawning a myriad of new products and services that will continue to excite and astonish us. The Internet of Things (IoT), while it may be overhyped on some fronts, has only just begun to reveal its promise.’

Having said so, there are a whole bunch of uncertainties that are still causing concerns and doubts for experts and analysts. As the report further states, ‘The transformation of an enterprise is a complex undertaking, and the digital solutions needed by companies don’t come neatly bundled out of the box. Rather, they are combinations of hardware, software, networking, data storage, analytics, and cognitive technologies. Furthermore, the complexity involved in designing today’s technology platforms requires deep expertise in a wide array of areas.’

Digital Transformation hikes up the need for a greater focus on QA and Testing. Ultimately, it is not just about adopting new technologies, but it’s about making them more applicable and creative for your business needs. Digital Technologies must enable businesses to grow and sustain the competition. At the same time, businesses should be able to offer better solutions to the customers and enhance the overall experience. Adoption for the sake of adoption could be an absolute waste of investment in the technology. Digital QA helps enterprises to validate whether they really need the transformation or not.

While a lot has been spoken about the concerns around digitization and digital transformation, the enterprise and consumer scenario is constantly changing and evolving. Along with it the challenges are sprouting in multiple ways. One of the greatest challenges is to ensure speed of delivery with assurance that the product/application works the way it has been conceptualized.

Let’s look at Digital Quality Assurance with a fresh perspective in 2018. Here, we shall not only discuss the upcoming challenges, but also the areas that enterprises must consider while adopting digitization in any way for the business to enhance customer experience.

Agile and Shift Left will continue to add value

Frequent testing and early testing have brought a lot of value to the overall Digital QA process. Considering that the stakes will be high going forward, Agile methodology will continue to add value for testing teams. The core need is to build shorter testing cycles and ensure that both the tester and developer are involved in the process. Applications will get upgraded more frequently and enterprises would need to validate whether or not the delivery is as expected. Shift-left approach will ensure early testing, offering greater flexibility and cost-effectiveness.

DevOps will bring relevance

Continuous Testing and Delivery will be needed to ensure that the high quality software is being delivered constantly. DevOps methodology will make it possible for teams to ensure the same. Development and IT operations will have to collaborate even going forward to ensure that the quality is intact. Organizations will have to transform to ensure that quality-driven practices are adopted to ensure that every function in the enterprise is on the same page.

DevSecOps will be necessary

The objective of DevSecOps is to develop a mind-set that everyone within the system is responsible for security and it should never get compromised in the delivery process. Security is a growing concern for enterprises and with the growing digital influence on businesses, the issues are going to spike up. Organizations will have to build protocols to ensure that security doesn’t get compromised in any possible way. It will help ensure sustainability and overall profitability of the business. DevSecOps is a state that enterprises must adopt with the increasing adoption of digital technologies.

Continuous Integration will enable safer delivery

It is a process where developers check the code and ensure that it is working and integrated within the repository. Continuous Testing is necessary to constantly verify that the code effectively integrates within the overall scheme and delivers the required results. This enables immediate validation of successful changes to the application. This reduces the time taken and even testing efforts.

Moreover, by automating the deployment process, it is possible to release a good build for the testers and users. So, why is it critical in the Digital QA process and the overall Digital Transformation phase? It is critical, because ultimately it will enable teams to deliver new functionalities to the users within minutes, whenever required. This helps to bring flexibility to the process and also ensures quality of the release. Digital QA will have to depend a lot on CI to bring value to their products and applications.

In Conclusion

The business scenario is getting highly competitive and enterprises cannot wait much to adopt the next big technology and make it relevant for their business. Whether it is Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality, or Machine Learning, – adoption of new and fresh perspectives in businesses is indispensable. The scenario is going to get more challenging as we move ahead and explore the tech space further. Digital QA & Testing cannot take a singular route. They will have to reinvent to bring value for businesses by being more creative and more innovative.

Cigniti’s Digital Assurance & Testing Solutions address the multi-faceted needs of digital transformation testing. We assure digital transformations by conducting comprehensive testing across your digital value chain encompassing digital marketing, web portals, web content, digital assets, web analytics, and the entire digital ecosystem – which includes cloud, mobility, big data, and connected devices.

Connect with us to give your business the right digital twist and bring relevance for your end customers.