Digital Testing Helps Build Market-Readiness in the Connected World – Get Started NOW!

Yes, you heard it right! If you happen to be at Terminal 3 of the Shenzhen airport (China), you might just bump into ‘the Anbot’, a security robot hired to make round-the-clock patrols through the departure hall in Terminal 3. Publications and online portals recently reported that for the first time China has deployed a Robocop to monitor security at one of its busiest airports in the province. The Anbot has a digital display, with a HD camera to take pictures of travellers for further facial recognition by security officials.

Day in day out, there is a paradigm shift in the way routine activities are getting automated for better and faster performance. In many ways, human efforts are getting replaced with the efficiency of Artificial Intelligence. This brings about an obvious mind shift for both businesses and IT. Implementing new digital technologies and gaining competitive edge is undeniably indispensable. The prevailing digital innovations and strong nexus of Social-Mobile-Analytics-Cloud is not only empowering, but also transforming enterprises.

The underlying objective of Digital platforms is to connect better with Customers, bring Employees closer and transform Business processes. The race is all about who does it better than the others!

 Social Media, Big Data & Analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), and Smart devices are enabling this Digital Transformation process and getting enterprises connected effectively with their end-users. The transformation hour is getting closer for each one of us and the truth is no one can escape it, the reason being this will determine consumer experience and gratification in some way or the other.

While we say so, implementing digital solutions and working with them is creating challenges specifically for the testing and QA fraternity. The reason being, there is no particular pattern or set mechanism to do so. Some key challenges to cite are:

• Testing and managing workflows across data and services
• Consistently providing solutions and experiences across diverse channels – Social, Mobile, and many more.
• Maintaining consistent Graphical User Interface (GUI) and experience across various customer interfaces – web, mobile, etc.

With rapidly increasing machine configurations and constantly upgrading browser versions, digital implementation remains a long-standing challenge that is directly related to the end customer’s experience.

Whether you are in the products or services sector, it doesn’t matter, at the end every business connects to a consumer via an application or some kind of digital interface, which establishes the relevance and importance of testing. It means you need to ensure functioning and performance of your business-critical applications, secure it from any operational hazards or market risks, and ensure consistently rising ROI.

For instance, the release of iOS 10 has brought into the market new functionalities and productivity features for its users. However, reports suggest that there is hesitation amongst testers and developers while adopting the new Operation System, where market evangelists have also stated that the adoption rate has been less when compared to iOS 8 & 9. Some of the reasons reported by users are battery drainage, stuttering applications, sudden shut down of aps, and some other annoyances with the applications. But the fact prevails, it is an Apple platform and its popularity and adoption is unquestionable, where enterprise users are rushing and clogging Cloud traffic to adopt the platform and is becoming a preferred choice for business users.

iOS 10 being a high-level example, it does reinforce the undying need and urgency to test applications and technology platforms right from the inception to get your products and services market-ready and robust.

Move Shift-left

 How do you ensure quality every time and adopt an approach that can work flawlessly and cost-effectively? Experts have been endorsing the Shift-left approach to ensure quality and speed up to the market. It is a concept that intends to find and prevent defects way ahead in the SDLC, thereby reducing risks and costs. It involves testers early in the development process and automates the entire process. It brings together multiple methodologies, tools, and frameworks that enables prediction, prevention of bugs/issues right from the projects initiation.

While its implementation might differ from enterprise to enterprise and project to project, getting QA involved from the beginning of the project, helps establish quality metrics for review and revisions. Shift-left approach enables teams to take a holistic approach to comprehend the errors and address them throughout the Quality Assurance Life Cycle (QALC).

Dev + Ops = DevOps

 DevOps is necessarily an approach that involves processes and practices that bring development and operations teams together within an organization to develop and deploy a software, with enhanced efficiency and less interruptions. It doesn’t intend to eliminate the line between software development and IT operations, on the contrary it is a bridge that helps make the process work better and seamlessly.

Most importantly, DevOps brings business agility and continuous delivery. Some key highlights of DevOps are shorter development cycle, increased release velocity, enhanced defect detection, lesser deployment failures, and faster recovery in case of a failure. The DevOps approach has emerged out of the need for continuous collaboration and delivery.

Digital Testing poses challenges that can be managed by adopting the DevOps approach.

• Increasing need to develop and deploy Cloud-based apps
• Synchronously deploy application across diverse platforms
• Business mandates to get your apps faster to the market
• Complex IT structure and need for seamless deployment across virtualized and Cloud platforms

Digital Transformation is all-pervasive, so the approach has to involve each and every element in the ecosystem. During an interview with a portal, Elise Olding, Research Vice President at Gartner said, “The role of the CIO (in Public Sector) will be much broader than just technology. In a world where uncertainty abounds, stability lasts a few months at best and IT systems are produced through agile deployment based on the concepts of adaptation and change, a comprehensive view of the enterprise is needed.”

As we understand, the testing needs of the Digital world are complex and demanding. Digital Testing can entail anything and everything – from an application to a robot that is built using various applications and software platforms. It ensures that the product or service gives the required results and gets it market-ready.

Resourceful and incredible inventions are being launched to not only enable humans, but create a sustainable environment. A case in point, the robotics company iRobot is taking massive steps to clean sweep Lionfish, a fast growing predator fish in the coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean, by designing a robot to target and dispatch the gluttonous fish. The fish has been identified as a serious threat to the marine ecosystem in the western Atlantic and is an initiative of Robots in Services of Environment (RISE), volunteered by experts in robotics, engineering, and environment conservation.

Cigniti’s Advisory and Transformation Services help organizations understand and improve all QA focus areas – people, tools, and infrastructure across the delivery lifecycle. We enable global enterprises to embark on their QA transformation journey by implementing a very effective, efficient and metrics driven QA practice. Connect with our experts to speed up to the market with robust product that is ready to sustain the constantly rising risks.