Nearly 75 percent of mobile apps ship out with bugs numbering anywhere from one to 10, according to a 2015 report from Evans Data Corporation. The report announces findings from a survey of more than 500 software developers, busy doing just that at the time, developing mobile software. One-third of app developers report that an average of three to five bugs come up after an app release. Between 11 and 50 bugs are found on average, some 20 percent said. Of course, fixes come with subsequent monthly updates.
Outsourcing QA and Testing
While mobile apps have a far different value than business-solutions software, being first-to-market can play a crucial role in the success of some software products, and in the company’s success as well. Development companies must weigh the value of being first with the value of having as few bugs as possible when their software ships. Outsourcing your company’s QA and testing process to a software testing firm can give you the best of both worlds, a faster time-to-market with a bug-free product, or as close as possible to bug-free.
Protect Your Reputation
Being bug-free at launch is a goal that continues to gain momentum as software companies around the globe spend a growing amount of their IT budgets on QA and testing. The current average is 35 percent, with expectations that the average will rise to 40 percent by 2018.
Companies are placing an increased emphasis on customer value and end-user experience, factors that have found new meaning in the era of online customer comments and reviews. Social media gives consumers an outlet for venting dissatisfaction over company products and policies. Savvy business executives are taking the approach of fixing the problems before they start, or at least before they give your business a very public black eye.
Outsourced Testing Offers Many Benefits
Outsourcing software testing has many advantages for software companies, including saving time and money on development. It can also help you safeguard your company reputation by providing high-quality software from release.
Here’s a look at the benefits of working with the right software testing firm:
- Save money: Cut payroll costs by eliminating the need for internal testing and realize savings in salaries and benefits. Hiring, training, and maintaining an internal team of QA employees requires time and money. Outsourcing can also help reduce your IT staff’s workload and free them up to complete in-house projects.
- Maintain objectivity: When testing is performed by the same team that developed the software, it can be harder to spot problems. Just like editors who miss typos, software engineers can miss problems simply because they’re not really looking at the code anymore. A different pair of eyes can find defects in function and smaller errors that developers have missed.
- Save time: Outsource testing companies have the resources to focus on your software and only your software. They won’t be pulled off the job to work on other projects, they won’t find the testing process boring and give you half-hearted efforts, and they won’t try to break things to you gently and gloss over problems.
- Expertise: Software developers want to develop software, not test it. An established software testing firm has a system and methods already in place to provide quality assurance testing of your software. They have developed test strategies, as well as test environments, with the equipment, tools, and methodologies needed for rigorous testing.
Interview Your Testing Firm
When you’re shopping for a testing firm, be specific about your goals and in your interview. Ask potential firms about their QA and testing procedures and what types of tests they perform. To confirm or reject your software, they should conduct a variety of tests, including visual, regression, static and dynamic testing, and much more.
Satisfying Your Customers
Quality assurance is traditionally an important internal function, and it’s never easy to outsource such a critical process. But fixing bugs after the software ships is costly, not to mention damaging to your reputation. Company executives are under pressure to release new features constantly, however, it should not be at the expense of software quality. Working with an outsourced software testing firm can decrease the instances of software defects and protect your image, as well as your sales. Customer satisfaction is often a result of quality testing and a bug-free product.
