QA transformation

  Any website needs to be evaluated against a host of parameters such as stability, loading speed, stability, and scalability under varying load thresholds before it is deployed for actual use. This is of utmost importance as a website with poor functionality and usability can affect its user experience and get rejected by the very users it wants to reach out to. Remember, outages with websites or software can make a big impact on a brand’s popularity as evident in the cases of Facebook, Lloyds Bank, and Jetstar. For instance, on March 14, 2019, Facebook was not accessible to many people due to a server configuration change. Also, Virgin Blue’s reservations management website faced an outage for 11 days leaving many passengers stranded, and the company Navitaire ended up paying more than $20 million to Virgin Blue as compensation.   As per Gartner, the average cost accrued due to IT downtime is $5,600 per minute. And since businesses operate differently, the lower end cost of ...

  Customer experience or CX has become the fulcrum around which all digital strategies drawn by enterprises revolve. It decides the success of enterprises and the latter are splitting their hair on how to enhance the digital touchpoints of customer access - websites, web applications, and mobile applications, among others. To understand the critical role of delivering superior customer experience, let us cite an example: A big brand decides to undergo digital transformation and move its products and services online a la the eCommerce model. The entire exercise, including the launch of the portal, is done with precision and fanfare. However, on D-day, the portal flounders, leaving the customers frustrated and the brand’s reputation lying in tatters. The reasons could be many; the pages loaded slowly, the images were not attractive, the payment gateway did not function properly, and many more. So, instead of the enterprise moving to the new realm and improving sales, the outcome was ...

  Web application security testing is a procedure that involves testing, analyzing, and reporting on the security aspect of a web application. The idea is all about identifying and removing any security-related vulnerabilities that can be exploited by threat actors and cause a data breach. With the rise in digitization across domains and enterprises, sensitive and confidential pieces of information about enterprises and their customers are available to be exploited. This makes security testing an extremely important activity to be performed in the SDLC. The objective is to find vulnerabilities that can pose a threat to the website or web application of an enterprise. Like all software, web applications may contain certain bugs, defects, or vulnerabilities. And if exploited by threat actors, these can lead to serious consequences, including inviting penalties from regulatory agencies and undermining the credibility of a brand or enterprise, among others. For instance, Kaseya, an au...

  The Internet of Things, or IoT, has emerged as a remarkable technology that can connect a wide range of physical objects or devices through the internet, such as cars, watches, refrigerators, thermostats, security cameras, printers, locks, mirrors, and speakers, among many others. It is capable of making science fiction become a reality and is futuristic in its scope, utility, and application. According to statistics, enterprise IoT spending increased by 12% in 2020 to an expected $128.9 billion in 2021—a whopping 20% increase. This spending is expected to grow at a 26.7 percent annual rate after 2021 (Source: IoT Analytics). Along with this incredible growth trajectory, however, there is an ever-increasing shadow of security risks that threaten to derail this ecosystem unless stringent measures such as IoT penetration testing are implemented. This is amply corroborated by statistics, according to which cyberattacks on IoT systems have more than doubled in the first half of 2021....

  The healthcare sector is changing at an unprecedented scale with the adoption of new technologies, devices, and methodologies. It is progressively becoming an all-encompassing service underpinned by the seamless delivery of a superior patient experience. Further, patients want their healthcare experience to be defined by five E’s – Experience, Empathy, Efficiency, Economy, and Empowerment. And this can only be achieved by embracing advanced technologies and creating a strong digital network enabling greater communication, coordination, and decision making. However, these technologies and the software driving them can have quality challenges, compromising the outcomes. It is only through the rigorous application of healthcare software testing guided by quality engineering that such challenges can be effectively addressed. In fact, quality engineering should focus on the following areas: ·          Data centralization, accuracy, transformati...

  The inexorable run of technology and its adoption by businesses across domains are a foregone conclusion. The benefits so derived in terms of enhanced quality of products and services, increased productivity, performance, and efficiency, reduced waste, better security, customer-centricity, and profitability, among others, have necessitated the need to strategize. The goal is to harness the power of digital forces and bring about transformation in the way businesses operate. This helps them to stay ahead of the competition and deliver superior customer experiences. An important outcome of harnessing digital technologies pertains to enhancing the quality of deliverables, preferably by hiring digital assurance services. A robust digital transformation strategy for an organization involves the use of technology to gain a competitive advantage. It includes transforming the existing business models and legacy systems to create innovative solutions marked by quality, agility, and speed ...

  With the spread of digitization across domains, cybercriminals are having a field day. They are leveraging every trick in the book to hack into websites or applications to steal confidential information or disrupt the functioning of an organization’s digital systems. Even statistics buttress the malevolent role of cybercriminals with scary projections. Accordingly, by the end of 2021, the world is going to be poorer by $6 trillion as cybercrime is expected to extract its pound of flesh. And by 2025, the figure is expected to touch $10.5 trillion. No wonder, security testing is pursued with renewed zeal by organizations cutting across domains, with the market size expected to touch $16.9 billion by 2025. One of the measures to implement cybersecurity testing is the use of security testing frameworks. The importance of using such frameworks lies in the fact that they can guide organizations in complying with regulations and security policies relevant to a particular sector. Let us...

  Business processes across domains are becoming more comprehensive, complex, technology-driven, and cost intensive. Managing such processes entails giving proper focus and time and making employees more productive and efficient. It calls for replacing repetitive manual tasks with automation courtesy Robotics Process Automation (RPA). Here, processes are automated using advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics, thereby facilitating streamlined operations and deriving minimal costs, reducing scope of error, and better profitability. Even so market predictions for the usage of RPA seem to touch $1.89 billion in 2021, which is a phenomenal increase of 19.5% from 2020. Further, the growth is expected at a CAGR of 34% by 2027 (Gartner). It is a given that RPA has transformed businesses by eliminating or minimizing human intervention in routine rule-based jobs, thereby achieving significant levels of ROI. If repetitive manual processes take ab...

  Any software application needs to tick all the boxes when it comes to complying with its varied functional requirements. These requirements involve functions the applications are meant to perform when certain inputs are entered. And it is by leveraging manual and/or automated functional testing services that the software application’s functionality is validated as per the mandate of the client. This is of paramount importance from the perspective of meeting the software application’s quality assurance. As the tech-savvy and highly choosy users of today expect the application’s functionality and other aspects to meet the highest standards of quality, businesses have their tasks cut out. They need to ensure the software remains compliant with its functional requirements by running functional automation testing in the SDLC. So, what is functional testing for web applications and mobile apps all about and why is it so important? What is functional testing? A software application per...