From meticulous market research and product ideation to custom design and development, a software project undergoes multiple time- and resource-intensive stages. Given that level of investment, the idea of your project turning out to have sub-par quality is simply unacceptable.
A sound quality assurance (QA) strategy is what helps to deliver a top-notch product that delivers stellar user experiences and drives customer satisfaction. When it comes to quality assurance, there are basically two options:
- having an in-house testing team and performing testing within the company;
- opting for QA outsourcing, e. delegating all testing activities to an independent vendor.
And while both options are viable, a growing share of organizations choose to outsource. In fact, the global IT outsourcing market will amass $397.6 billion by 2025, with an increasing share of QA and software testing projects.
The reason for this lies in the multitude of benefits offered by the outsourcing model. Now, let’s see what they are.
Cost savings
Setting up an internal test center of excellence and maintaining a core testing team can be expensive. The costs of hiring skilled experts, continuously training them on the latest trends, procuring testing tools, and managing QA processes can be simply unfeasible for SMEs.
That said, you can outsource software testing to a professional company for a fraction of the cost. By tapping into offshore QA talent, you can benefit from lower hourly wages and hire more qualified resources (for example, middle and senior QA engineers instead of junior testers) within the same budget frame. The Eligraphics below shows the average hourly rate by region.
Source: QAmadness
Pro tip. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. In this case, the lowest rates do not always equal the lowest total cost. Mind the details and check what a vendor with the lowest rates really offers — you may be surprised to see that they do not have senior talent or just look for a first project for their portfolio.
Industry-specific expertise
Another advantage of QA outsourcing is the access to hands-on industry expertise and best practices. Throughout the years of professional activity, QA engineers evolve within the industry to stay on top of trends and technologies.
In addition, testing service providers have cloud-based infrastructure, ready-to-go testing platforms, and in-house fleet of devices to cover all your testing needs from performance and scalability testing to cross-browser and cross-device testing.
Pro tip. Remember that equally important is domain expertise. If you have a FinTech project at hand, bringing in QA engineers who have worked on healthcare projects will do no good as they do not understand your business. But a vendor with a background in testing banking solutions will add immediate value and help you prioritize the areas that need the most focus.
Reduced time to market
Equipped with the right tools and techniques, an outsourced QA team can start working on your project as soon as they are assigned. When done in parallel with the development activity, testing can help identify bugs early on so that developers can fix them before they ruin the end-user experience.
Besides manual testing, software QA companies offer test automation services. With automated regression testing, you can significantly accelerate the delivery process and release your product with confidence. Read this case study to learn how Elinext’s QA engineers automated over 2,000 test cases to ensure faster releases while accommodating the growing demand for customizations among end clients.
Pro tip. To match the pace of today’s software development market, make sure that your vendor speaks agile. The gold standard of QA methodologies, agile allows incorporating continuous testing within the development cycle to release the high-quality product through the power of collaboration and iteration.
Better focus on core competencies
Besides development and testing, there are many other moving parts in a software project like business analysis, marketing and advertising, sales-driving activities, and more. If you are not running a large company, your resources may be stretched too thin with both technical and non-technical workloads.
When you choose to outsource software testing, you can free up time that your dev team can spend on polishing the product and developing new features, and you — on strategic company growth.
Pro tip. Delegation works only when there is no micromanagement. But for that you need to be 100% confident in your partner. Take the time to carefully research available options and find a reliable vendor who won’t need micromanagement.
Fresh and objective perspective
Due to our inherent cognitive biases, it’s more difficult to find mistakes in your own work than in the work of others. That’s why a team working on the digital product day in and day out can unintentionally overlook errors in a rush to get the solution to the market faster.
Bringing onboard an offshore QA team will help you get the much-needed objectivity and unbiased evaluation of your product. Knowing the bare minimum about the solution, your testing team can actually prioritize test results, spot even high-level errors, and give you transparent feedback.
Pro tip. Make sure that your QA partner delivers test results in the form of granular reports packed with actionable insights. Ask your vendor what document management system (Jira, Confluence, TestRail) is used by default and whether they can switch to another one should you prefer it.
Wrapping up
With the rapid pace of technological advancements and shifting customer expectations, companies need to develop new products faster than ever while managing costs and associated risks. Outsourcing quality assurance can help achieve these goals and deliver the top quality solution that your users will love. From reduced costs to faster time to market to deeper, unbiased insights, QA outsourcing offers unique benefits that can help companies gain a competitive edge.
If you are looking to improve the quality of your solution, Elinext is a trusted QA and software testing vendor that can cover all your project quality needs.
