subject: Testing Times Are Here To Stay - Factors Influencing Spending On Testing Services [print this page] IDC and Gartner forecast that the enterprise spending on independent testing services would cross the benchmark of $30billion by 2015. Yet another highly reputed research firm, PAC has forecasted the software testing spends to hit Euro 100bn by 2014!
It is not surprising to industry folks that testing today is seen as the Fastest growing niche in IT space What is it that is driving such unprecedented growth in the software testing market? A closer look points us to a few towering factors that form the kernel of this spend:
1) Rigorous up-front requirement validation: As a result of poor requirement gathering, the cost incurred in removing the defects later in SDLC is very high. Adding further, the increased code complexity and high end development environment are leading to pre and post deployment defects. As a result, enterprises now understand the benefits of driving validation to the front-end. Hence they are adopting front-end validation strategy that minimize the cost spend on quality initiatives by reducing the number of defects identified during validation life cycle.
2) Increasing use of cloud based services: With more and more enterprises offering its services over cloud, security remains one of the most important concerns. Securing the apps over the public and private cloud is one of the major mottos of any enterprise. Transparency and open access being the main features of cloud, has also led to threat like hacking of sensitive information. Thus testing the cloud is in no small measure contributing to this massive surge in enterprise spending on independent testing and validation services. Add to this, the spend on performance testing that many enterprise consider a natural pasture for cloud.
3) Building risk mitigation strategy: Though this strategy is seen more as a part and parcel of driving testing throughout the SDLC, most enterprises are taking this approach very seriously. Enterprises are trying to drive down the defects in first place so as mitigate the risk that arise post release. As a result, demand for test automation, test framework, end-to-end app testing, etc. which can mitigate the risk, are leading to mounting demand and spend on testing services.
4) Increased adoption of TCoE: Today, enterprises are highly aware about the benefits and ROI they get through TCoE. Though not everyone is trying to setup their own TCoE, outsourcing apps to a third party independent testing vendor is always an option. By leveraging vendors established testing framework and test processes, an organization can actually move away from their unproductive methodologies.
5) Automation: Automating common processes help enterprises reduce its time to market thus minimizing overall validation efforts. Automation of regression test beds or automation of platform configurations is the common area of interest for various organizations. Though the initial investment required in automation might be high but the benefits one gets outruns the cost easily in long run.
6) Compliance testing: The increasing number of regulatory compliances for each industry has paved the way for compliance testing. Every regulatory firm is coming up with a new set of compliances which vary for each and every industry (like PCI DSS, SOX). Failure to meet any of these compliances can cost permanent damage to ones brand and business. Thus, in order to meet these industry-specific compliances, compliance testing is gaining currency.
7) Product IP protection: Testing vendors are now-a-days offering robust protection frameworks to help enterprises (especially product based enterprises) protect their IPs against any theft. This kind of protection is extremely important in order to gain customer confidence and is directly linked to the enterprises revenue generation strategy.
8) PaaS testing complexity: Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) comes with its own set of testing complexity. On one hand it facilitates its customers to directly use the underlying components thus leveraging integrated development environment (IDEs) in cross browser environments, they also demand sophisticated analytical techniques to validate components functionality and performance. Apart from these, they also need to get evaluated for load testing and compatibility testing with various browsers.
