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What is testing outsourcing?

Software testing outsourcing consists in turning over software testing to a third party that, generally speaking, is not involved in the rest of the development process. 

The third party involved can either be a specialised company or an individual expert, and they are responsible for running the appropriate tests on the software developed to check whether it works as it should and to ensure that the final product is error free and bug free. 

Objectives of outsourcing testing

An essential part of the software development process is testing, which makes it possible to detect any software errors and issues before launching a product. It’s a laborious process that takes up a lot of time and entails high costs. This is why one of the main objectives of testing outsourcing is to help reduce such costs, but without affecting the quality of testing.

The current market has been designed by and for the client. If they’re not happy with the product delivered, the investment will have gone down the drain. So much so, that in 2020 alone, poor-quality software cost companies approximately $2.08 billion. This just serves to emphasis why software testing is so important. 

Services suitable for testing outsourcing

But which testing services can actually be outsourced? At present, there’s a whole gamut of software services that can be outsourced. The most common ones include:

1. Functional testing: The testing team’s objective is to find errors and test the functionalities of the software. Some examples would be agility, compatibility, integration or performance.
2. Security testing: This type of testing aims to identify weaknesses in the software system that could result in the loss of information or performance and to prevent such issues. Recovery testing falls under this, where the team tests how well your software can recover from hardware/software crashes and failures. Testing can be done through: 

• • Black-box testing: A quality control team focuses on software functionality, without having any knowledge of its inner workings. The cybersecurity engineer takes on the role of a cybercriminal, seeking out vulnerabilities in a certain system and launching controlled attacks using common vectors.
  • Grey-box testing: In contrast to black-box testing, the engineer has some knowledge of the site architecture as well as the algorithms used.

• • White-box testing: Here, the expert is actually familiar with the software and the architecture, and generally has access to the source code as they focus on the procedural details of the software. This way, the engineer runs tests executing the functions with different “inputs” to analyse each of the flows of execution of the program (intended or unintended) and to check that the intended “outputs” are returned.

3. Manual testing (Debugging): A member of the team acts as a user to manually verify the software or application in search of errors and to check ease of use. No automation testing tool is used.
4. Business process testing: Business flows are checked to see whether they are done properly.

Key benefits of testing outsourcing

Without a doubt, software testing outsourcing is a strategic business decision that has many benefits: 

1. Increased profitability: Training employees or current testers to stay updated with regard to software testing entails high costs, so outsourcing this service saves on many different costs: 

• • Labour costs: It will no longer be necessary to hire or train testers.
  • Hardware costs: It will no longer be necessary to invest in the best tools because the team already has them.
  • Time costs: An experienced team can perform a high-quality analysis in less time. 

2. More efficient and systematic testing: A quality control service provider will have experts trained in manual and automated testing. They can use these different methodologies to test your software and ensure that it’s working to its full potential.
3. Let the cobbler stick to his last: By outsourcing this expert service, complex tasks can be done in less time. You can expect the company doing it for you to stay abreast of new technologies, vulnerabilities, automation testing tools and the ever-changing trends in the market. Therefore, if your current software product needs updates to keep up with the trends, the team will know what to do and how to do it.
4. Focus on your core business: Software quality control testing can be a burden for your in-house IT team. By outsourcing this task, it’s so much easier to focus on your business and devote time to other processes that are more profitable for you, while a quality control expert takes charge of the testing process.

Software testing is essential to deliver excellent service in the digital world we live in today. Hiring subject-matter experts is the only way to go to effectively secure your website and achieve your desired objectives within the desired timeframe. 

With our in-depth experience in digital solutions, we at Quodem firmly believe in digital transformation as an opportunity for change for companies and in the potential of IT professionals to make it happen.