The Growth of the Software Automation Testing Industry

The desire to test software has changed drastically in the past 10 years. In this article we will explore what are the drivers behind this change and how it is reshaping the software testing industry.

There are two main consumers of software testing. Companies who create software and companies who consume enterprise software. Some companies will fall into both consumer types.

Short Industry History

For software development companies, throughout most eras of software development, testing was an afterthought. Engineers nor most companies embraced testing. It was viewed as a cost center and testing was performed at the very end of the development cycle. It was the last task that had to be completed before the big release which resulted in immense pressure to get testing done as fast as possible and a frustration point for everyone. 

When issues were found this late in the game the decision had to be made, is this issue bad enough to postpone the release, or can we release with a known issue and fix it later.

For companies who consume larger enterprise software such as ServiceNow, SAP or a Healthcare Electronic Medical Record system, testing was not at the forefront of executive’s minds. Companies would upgrade their large systems every couple of years. They would pull tech champions off the front-line for a few weeks or months to get through the upgrade and then be glad they wouldn’t have to think about upgrading for a couple of years.

The Software Automation Testing Industry is in the Growth Stage

• Introduction stage: the beginning of a new industry
• Growth stage: the market and products are growing and zeroing in on what the customer is wanting
• Maturity stage: innovation starts to flatten along with sales
• Decline stage: the product or service is being replaced by something else and sales are declining

The software automation testing industry is in the growth stage. In the past 5 to 10 year the need for testing and the need to test at scale has increased. Let’s explore the drivers that are cause this shift.

Digital Transformation

As more companies are integrating technology into their core business, they have become more dependent on software. If there the software has a problem, it is now a problem for the entire company. The sales process, customer experiences, daily reporting can come to a halt. The cost and impact of having problems is far greater than it used to be. Therefore, companies are establishing a testing strategy to mitigate these risks.

Integrated Systems

Can you count how many enterprise systems your companies use? ServiceNow for ticketing, maybe Workday for HR tasks, Microsoft PowerBI for reporting and SAP for Enterprise Resource Planning tasks. All of these systems need to integrate with one another and a common approach to this integration is through APIs. With this increased integration across vendors, there is increased complexity. When you upgrade to a new version of one system, you need to ensure that the API integration is still working as expected with the other systems.

More Frequent Upgrades

Software companies are moving to the cloud and providing SaaS (Software as a Service) versions. More and more of these offerings require the customer to stay on the current versions. Software that you used to upgrade every three years, you are now being required to take an update every 6 months. This is exposing the need to have a plan in place to handle these upgrades and ensure they go smoothly. It is now a routine for doing business.

From Cost Center to Competitive Advantage

With the release of each new software update there are new capabilities that your company can leverage. The faster you can leverage these new capabilities, the sooner you get the value. Companies that upgrade every 3 years are 3 years behind companies who can take the latest upgrade and put it to use. This ability to consume new functionality quickly becomes a competitive advantage. Shortening the testing cycle, minimizing the resources it takes to test and ensuring a high quality rollout is essential.

Increased Release Cadence

For software development companies, once a new capability or product is complete they want to be able to sell it and generate value for their customers. Technology is moving fast and letting a new innovations sit for a quarter while the QA department tests is not the path to success. Keeping the investment idle for months is only helping their competitors.

Covid Impact

I also get a lot of question around the impact of Covid and the testing industry. From what I have seen, companies are looking to be leaner and become more efficient. Automation is a space that is of interest. For the companies who are in the position to can create a strategy and be willing to invest time and money they will see the efficiencies but, it does take some time.

In Conclusion

With these drivers it is obvious why software automated testing has evolved into a hot industry with companies seeking solutions. There are multiple product and service companies in this space to fill these needs. There are different tools that will address different needs. For more information on how to select a vendor you may want to read my article: 6 Useful Tips to Ensure you Choose the Right Test Automation Tool

I hope this helps, if you have further questions or feedback you can always contact me, Chuck Schneider through LinkedIn. Until then, stay focused and keep making things happen!