$2.41 trillion lost by businesses due to downtime, low productivity, and customer churn.
Skipping QA in software development fosters these issues.
Not just that, the consequences of skipping QA can be far-reaching, from the loss of revenue to damaging the reputation and customer trust.
What is Quality Assurance?
Quality assurance is a proactive method that follows a process to prevent quality control issues in products and services before they are developed and deployed. Essentially, quality assurance can be seen as a preventive measure.
What is QA in Software Testing?
In software testing, Quality Assurance refers to a process that guarantees the quality of software products or services offered to customers by an organization. It concentrates on enhancing the software development process and making it efficient and effective, as per the defined quality standards for software products. Quality Assurance is commonly referred to as QA Testing.
Cutting corners on QA is not only a bad idea but also a potentially catastrophic one! Read on to discover why it is a risky practice.
Immediate Cost of Skipping QA
Releasing buggy software into production is a bit like jumping out of an airplane without checking your parachute first. You might make it out alive, but the chances of it going wrong are high, and the consequences can be tragic.
Fixing bugs in production can be an expensive and frustrating experience, particularly if it results in emergency hotfixes and downtime. This can lead to a decrease in productivity, damage to customer relationships, and a significant loss of revenue.
Long-term Cost of Skipping QA
The potential damage to a business’s reputation and customer trust can be devastating and difficult to recover from. This is one major long-term cost a business pays when it glosses over QA in the software development process.
Customers are often the primary sufferer when buggy software is released after production. They may encounter errors or glitches that prevent them from using the software as intended, leading to frustration and lost sales. In some cases, customers may even decide to abandon a company’s product or service altogether, leading to customer churn.
Opportunity Costs of Skipping QA
In today’s fast-paced business environment, being first to market is critical. When QA is skipped by a business, development can be slowed down and time-to-market can be delayed. And the delayed software releases lead to missed opportunities and lost revenue. Not only that, businesses risk losing their competitive edge as consumers turn to competitors who are able to deliver a better product more quickly.
We know the tough competition given by Apple to Microsoft. The latter released Windows Vista, which was plagued with bugs and performance issues. Because the bug-free release was delayed by several years, the company lost market share to competitors as a result. Apple seized this opportunity and released its own operating system, OS X, which was seen as a more stable and reliable alternative to Windows.
Difference Between Smoke Testing and Sanity Testing
Smoke testing is also known as build verification testing. It is used to quickly identify major issues with a software build before diving deeper into more comprehensive testing. Smoke testing is usually done after a new build has been compiled, and it involves a quick and simple check to ensure that the basic features of the application are working as expected.
Sanity testing, on the other hand, is the test done when the build has passed the smoke test and is deemed stable enough for more comprehensive testing. It is a more focused type of testing that typically covers a specific area of the application or a set of features. Sanity testing includes testing the effect of newly added features on the existing functionality.
To avoid these hidden costs, businesses should prioritize investing in effective quality analysis to ensure a high-quality product that meets customer expectations, reduces the risk of bugs & security vulnerabilities, and delivers a competitive edge in the market.
Are you willing to uphold an effective quality analysis of your software? Connect with the QA experts today!
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