Can Digital Testing Strategies Really Help Implement Quality Engineering?

Market research reports have been defining and redefining the concept of Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) for enterprises. At the same time, these reports have also been emphasizing on the security aspects associated with the Enterprise Applications that are and in the near future will determine the impact of BYOD policies across an organization. Digital QA / Digital Quality Assurance and Testing is seen as a catalyst to power the implementation and effectiveness of Enterprise Applications for businesses. The new-age digital innovations and the unstoppable popularity of smart gadgets like smart phones, tablets, robotics, and new operating systems (OS) is making digital testing and digital QA a much more critical mandate.

A research report by Mckinsey states that companies are expecting digital initiatives to deliver annual growth and cost-effectiveness of almost 5-10% or more in the coming 3 to 5 years. Enterprises are making substantial investments in various enterprise-level digital initiatives with a key business objective to strengthen their customer experience strategy, and are also expecting equally exciting ROI.

As software testing and industry experts validate, there is no definite way of testing the effectiveness and seamless functioning of digital enterprises. It is an evolving pattern that is inventive and progressive at the same time. A digital enterprise mandates a new but proven strategy of quality assurance that is more focused on the outcome and not just enables the digital transformation, but accelerates the business growth. Whether born digital or loaded with redundant legacy systems, every organization today is facing a pressing need to embrace digital quality assurance to transform digitally.

Solutions ensuring Digital Assurance are enabling enterprises to unlock the value of digital economy and enhance customer experience. Besides ensuring better customer experience, it also facilitates seamless operations of various enterprise level applications, making them secure for desired performance and expected convergence across the digital platform.

While we are experiencing an absolute paradigm shift for both businesses and IT operations, the digital race is all about bringing in more creativity while adopting digital technologies and staying competitive. The deadly nexus between Social Media-Analytics-Mobile-Cloud (SMAC) and Internet of Things (IoT) & Smart devices have proven to be the key enablers for Digital Transformation. These are the major tools that are helping enterprises to get closer to the customers, empower employees, and transform business processes. No industry can escape this change.

This is it – the big Change

Quality Engineering and Assurance helps the overall software development process with required testing support across various hardware and software. It ensures that testing begins way ahead in the overall SDLC, ensuring maximum test coverage and quality.

Digital Assurance helps CEOs & CXOs assess their enterprise for digital readiness, draw a roadmap for transformation, and ensure complete business assurance.

Every organization is today working towards translating Digital Transformation into commercial success. This specifically needs the right digital skills and proven expertise to assure digital effectiveness across the enterprise. What is the key to achieve this?

A strategic and result-oriented approach that automates and integrates the entire landscape for seamless functioning.

Can Digital Testing strategies really help implement Quality Engineering?

A comprehensive Digital Assurance & Testing strategy provides scalable and reusable assets and enablers for improving the overall efficiency of Quality Assurance and Testing processes. Suggested below are some key aspects that an experienced testing partner considers while strategizing a QA approach for digital enterprises.

• Omni-Channel Assurance:

It is an approach that takes into account a test strategy for all the channels, on the basis of the patterns of user interactions. Digital Assurance is expected to provide consistent experience across all channels of user interaction – physical as well as virtual. The user must not just feel connected, but also have an overall cohesive experience.

Testing should prominently focus on functional testing across various channels of interactions. Test environments can be virtualized to create an ecosystem for testing, which can be an effective approach to confirm a particular behaviour/outcome. The two integral aspects of Omni-Channel Assurance are:

1. Various devices: The application should be tested across all kind of devices, such as tablets, mobiles, wearable devices, web, etc., where every platform/device should provide consistent experience. This can be ensured by implementing Test Automation across devices, for continuous integration as well.
2. Various platforms: Compatibility across various browsers and operating systems is a must for connected and desired consumer experience. Compatibility testing ensures this and brings seamless experience.

• Widespread User base:

Internet connectivity and Internet user density is increasing across the globe, where it is estimated that over 50% of the global population has access to Internet. This means, every user anywhere and everywhere should experience the same functionalities. Digital Assurance and comprehensive testing strategies ensure both localization and globalization tests for seamless customer experience.

• Security Assurance:

With data sensitive applications being hosted across multiple platforms, it is important to test them to check the possible risks and ensure resilience during load situations. Security Assurance and testing measures risks and vulnerabilities of a platform and tests the system for all possible loads/hacks. Particularly, it focuses on application profiling, authentication, encryption algorithms, and data validation.

• Application Lifecycle automation / Business process automation:

Enterprises are looking at gaining a competitive edge by building quality applications and a robust digital platform for consumers/employees. However, the overall ecosystem is getting complex due to constant innovations, and the traditional ways of testing are getting obsolete. Test Automation for ensuring high velocity and speed to market is coming up effectively and enterprises are increasingly embracing it for minimal glitches.

Business process automation works massively to gain competitive edge, as it helps organizations to scale up effectively with lowered costs and minimal efforts. With start-ups springing up every day, experts claim that process automation can improve the cost performance by almost 90% across various function within an organization.

Digitization/Digital Transformation as they say has less to do to technology, but more with the overall approach. Digital enterprises with a thorough Quality Engineering strategy are better equipped to reinvent their overall business processes and bring agility in their approach.

At Cigniti we take pride in building enterprises for the future. We bring about digital transformations by establishing comprehensive testing across the organization’s digital value chain that comprises of digital marketing, web portals, web content, digital assets, web analytics, and the overall digital ecosystem – Cloud, Mobility, Big Data, and Smart devices. Connect with our Thought Leaders in the Digital QA & Testing space for a complete QA strategy and build your enterprise for the Next-Gen.