Testing Automation - December 27, 2023
What's the ROI on your solution?
It’s a good question. Just about every prospective buyer wants to ask it and just about every software solution provider wants to answer it.
And while I appreciate the desire of a buyer to understand the return on their investment, and as much as I would like to be able to provide a credible response, there simply is no good answer to the question, at least not when it comes to automated testing.
The problem here is that there are just too many variables that need to be considered.
As a vendor, I can provide specific details on several components that factor into an ROI equation, such as:
- How much the software will cost to solve a specific business problem.
- A recommendation on how much /infrastructure is required to run that software
- Estimates on how much my resources will cost to help implement the software
What I cannot do is answer questions about your organization’s testing operations, like:
- How much do your resources cost?
- And what you will do with “surplus” resources if automation is able to pick up the workload of several people.
- What does it cost to manage and maintain data associated with manual testing
- Think multiple Excel spreadsheets that are all out of sync.
- How much does your infrastructure cost?
- Will you deploy on prem, in a private cloud or in a public cloud like Azure?
- How aggressively will you move to automate as many tests as you can?
- Gartner says “Everything that can be automated, should be automated.”
- How many customer satisfaction issues have been caused because testing was incomplete or not done at all?
- Have you looked at this site lately: Downdetector?
- How much business have you lost to competitors who offer more innovative products and services?
- McKinsey says that “revenues in the fintech industry will grow almost three times faster than those in the traditional banking sector between 2023 and 2028.”
And there are still more questions to be asked about the value that your organization places on things like:
- Significantly reducing project delivery times and release cycles
- Finding and correcting issues early in the development process
- Maintaining compliance with payment network specifications and regulatory mandates
- Spending more time defending your organization against fraud
- Improving overall customer satisfaction
So if you are looking for me to say that a testing automation solution is going to cost X dollars and the application is going to deliver Y dollars in savings, I am not going to be able to provide a very credible response.
However, I can tell you that testing automation offers a number of significant benefits over traditional manual testing:
✔️ It's faster
✔️It's more efficient
✔️It's more accurate
✔️It’s more secure
✔️It's more cost effective
To be sure, there will be an upfront cost to getting the new test automation environment installed, configured and operational. This will vary, depending on factors such as the overall size, configuration, and complexity of the implementation.
However, once the solution is deployed and in use, not only will your resources become more productive, you will see significant benefits from faster project cycles and deliveries, expanded test coverage, improved quality with fewer production errors, increased collaboration and control, etc. All adding to the positive return on your investment.
Interested in discussing how testing automation can deliver a solid ROI for your organization? Request a consultation with us today.
