7 Ways Quality Assurance Can Help Your Business

Errors and bugs are inevitable no matter how talented and qualified the development team you hired are (this is hard to accept, we know!) It is a part of the software development process, and there is no way around it.

Bugs have an incredible potential to harm your business and do no good to your image. Moreover, they can stay in the way of proper marketing activities, have the end user of the product lose interest, and cause significant financial loss.

No business owner wants to experience that. And that’s why we hire the best software development experts, right?

Nevertheless, bugs and errors have always been there. Some errors cost more than others, but they have all brought their complications to the business owners. Here are several illustrations to show you what we mean.

Bugs-related disasters

Meet three cases when companies did not have a QA specialist to run the tests  —  and see the problems such a decision brought them.

Ariane 5 failure that cost ESA $500 million

Ariane 5 is an unmanned rocket that was launched in 1996 by the European Space Agency. However, it never made it to the destination point due to a massive explosion that took place 40 seconds after the launch.

This explosion cost the ESA $500 million and could have been prevented should the code have been previously reviewed.

After an in-depth analysis of the situation, the company concluded that the problem rooted in the software error. They said that “the cause of the failure was a software error in the inertial reference system. Specifically, a 64-bit floating point number relating to the horizontal velocity of the rocket with respect to the platform was converted to a 16 bit signed integer. The number was larger than 32,767, the largest integer storable in a 16 bit signed integer, and thus the conversion failed.”

In other words, the developers used fragments of the Ariane 4 software that was not compatible with the Ariane 5 components. Developers simply did not take all the specifications into account. And the project that had been worked on for more than ten years got completely ruined due to this failure.

If you think that this example is way too distant from your reality, then let’s take a closer look at another one.

Massive British passports issue

Less than 20 years ago, the British Passport Agency has decided to install a new Siemens computer system without testing it and showing its employees how to work with it. As a result, the system did not work properly causing long lines of people waiting for their documents in front of the Agency.

The organization spent millions of dollars buying umbrellas for customers standing in lines under the pouring rain, covering overtime work, and compensating for untimely service delivery.

8,500 patients “killed” due to the code error

The incident took place at the St. Mary’s Mercy Medical Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Due to an internal code error, around 8,500 patients were reported dead. Luckily, no fatalities took place, but what a horrible feeling it must be to see the news about your own death while being up and running.

And think of all the trouble patients had to go through with the insurance companies not willing to cover the expenses of their “dead” customers!

Do you see what we are talking about?

All these situations demonstrate how dangerous the bugs and errors are, and even if they do not cause you that many troubles, you will definitely feel the complications they bring.

So, what is the solution? How do smart business owners prevent such disastrous failures?

The only solution is in having the Quality Assurance experts test the product at all the stages of its development.

We believe that there are at least seven ways of hiring these professionals can help your business. Read on to see it for yourself!

7 ways QA experts can help your business

IT quality assurance has been in high demand in recent years. And their popularity does not seize to grow because they help your business in at least seven ways:

1. Customer retention.

You have only one chance to make a good first impression. Well, you can have all the chances you want, but at a significantly higher cost!

And if a user downloads your app and finds any fault with it, he is not likely to use your product ever again. This applies even if you fix the flaws.

Therefore, all the money and effort invested in finding the end user will be in vain. And you will have to start over.

Kissmetrics state that acquiring a new customer costs 7x more than retaining one.

So, you simply cannot afford to have any rookie mistakes in code that will appear once the user launches the app, logs into it, etc. Have the QA team fix these bugs before they come on the surface — or be ready to pay extra money for the customer acquisition.

2. Meeting clients’ needs.

As a business owner, you definitely have a clear product concept in mind. And, of course, you expect to receive exactly what you are paying for in the end.

And thanks to the effort of the quality assurance services, you will get no surprises in the end. They strive to ensure that the product you get absolutely agrees with the plan you all agreed on.

A part of their job is to check whether the app functions well, whether all of your expectations are met, and what ways there are any chance to exceed them.

3. Cost efficiency.

Quality assurance experts can keep your pockets full. The thing is that to find and fix issues at the early stages of development is a much cheaper solution than fixing bugs after the release.

Taking into account, what quality assurance does, we can guarantee that they will find and report bugs and errors before the product launch so that they can be eliminated before the user meets the software.

4. Positive image and increasing brand trust.

The QA specialists help to avoid potential damage bad reviews can cause. And the truth is if the app is released with major bugs, the bad reviews will not take long to find you.

That is why we apply various software testing methodologies throughout the whole development process.

5. It saves clients’ time (and nerves).

With all the fixes done timely, the customer won’t need to spend time logging in and out every time the app freezes. And that saves tons of time and effort to the end customer.

We believe that the client has the right to get a fully-functioning app within the set deadlines. This way, he will be able to start using right away without having to deal with dozens of bugs and errors. And since the QA specialists aim to have the product comply with the client’s expectations, the app will work properly with no harm to your busy schedule and nervous system. (Yes, we care about it too!)

6. No business activities interruption.

Great news for the entrepreneurs!

When bugs are fixed, the client will be able to run his business without having to stop and wait for the development team to fix all the bugs. This saves tons of money and makes the business consistent.

7. New useful features suggestions.

QA experts know the product from the inside out, better than anyone else on the team.

Since they have both the technical expertise and understand the client’s business needs, they form a unique opinion on how exactly it should all come together.

They help the development team make the app user-friendly and ensure the best user experience possible.

Is developer testing enough?

Many of our readers might have this question now.

Don’t developers test what they code along the way?

Of course, they do. But given how much time they get to spend inside the code, they might not have a fresh perspective and miss some crucial points.

They say those good developers make 2–3 mistakes per 1000 lines of code, while this number is much higher for those with less profound knowledge of the subject. Nevertheless, when you test your own code, you’re more likely to miss an entire class of bugs.

And even though they might effectively spot and fix most common bugs, they are likely to miss errors which QA teas identify using either manual or automated software testing.

Besides, you would probably agree that it’s very difficult to focus on testing and coding both at the same time. When a developer is coding, all he wants is to make sure that the code executes properly. He does not bother about in-depth tests because he is focused on coding.

After all, that is why you hired him!

And finally, QA experts dedicate their time to check the compatibility of the app with numerous devices, browsers, etc. There is no team to distract your team of coding ninjas to conduct the test as long as there are our great QA specialists!

We hope we’re leaving you with no shadow of the doubt that the IT quality assurance is vital throughout the project’s life cycle.

l.sidorenko