The Importance of Software Testing for Businesses

Guest Blog from: Maverick Jones
Maverick Jones is a full-time geek and tech enthusiast. He likes to share his bylines and loves to gain audience attention.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • What is Software Testing?
  • Types of Software Testing
  • 7 Reasons of Software Testing Being Important for Businesses
  • Conclusion

In this digital world, software is the one thing that influences a far bigger audience these days. It enhances the business prospects, contributes to upscale life standards, offers services to large audiences in less time, and evolves a smart world. Besides this, the software offers an industrial impact and plays an important role around all the walkways of people. But for this, it requires a fail-proof and smooth functioning of the software. And the main reason behind it is that software failures can shatter the business. Therefore, testing any software is a must.

Software testing ensures that the software performs adequately and offers user satisfaction. Testers make sure that the performance of the software is not sacrificed and for that, they run various tests using both manual and automated testing approaches.

In this blog, we will learn more about software testing and see how this concept enables business software to work smoothly.

What is Software Testing?

Software testing is a very critical process that offers an analysis that enables the testers to identify and evaluate the application. It determines whether the newly developed app meets the Business Requirement Specifications. It is a continuous process and is popularly known as Software Testing Life Cycle. This process works along with the life cycle of software development.

Software testing verifies each functionality at every stage and validates the app performance with the need. Besides, when it comes to checking software perfectly and delivering bug-free software, the approach of software testing can help in improvising the functionalities and usability of apps. With different types of testing approaches, software development companies test applications and make them safer for their clients.

Types of Software Testing

Software applications can be validated and verified in two ways. By applying two different types of testing – Automation and Manual Testing.

Automation testing is an approach where the testers write different scripts and then they rely on external software to perform software tests. Besides, when the testers want to double-check the product’s quality, even the manually tested software has to go through the automation tools. And this is the type of testing that assures great accuracy level and cost-efficiency. Besides, it also saves a lot of time.

Besides, manual testing is quite different. And as the name suggests, it is a very simple process of testing the software manually. It doesn’t require any type of automated testing tool that enables the testers to check the software automatically. Instead, the tester can work on the software and perform the testing process. The manual tester can easily detect errors and bugs by following through with different levels.

7 Reasons of Software Testing Being Important for Businesses

Here are some of the top reasons that show the importance of software testing –

1.   Security

Security is one of the most important reasons for software testing. And to consider it can be the smartest choice of it all. Security is considered a very crucial, sensitive, and vulnerable part of software testing. Besides, there are situations in which all the important details and information of the company gets stolen away. Therefore, security is considered the most reliable reason to make people believe in the quality of the software. Security is one thing that ensures that the product is safer to use.

2.   Customer Satisfaction

The main objective of the business owners of the products is to provide the best services and better customer satisfaction. In order to offer quality and customer satisfaction, adopting a software testing process is essential as it provides the perfect user experience. As the software development company tries to develop the best software for their clients with a testing approach, they will earn a reputation for reliable clients.

Therefore, to get praise from the clients and offer them a system that enables long-term benefits, having a perfect software testing approach is very important. A properly tested and secured system earns the client’s trust easily and also becomes safer to make transactions.

3.   Product Quality

To ensure that some of the products come to life in a secured manner, following the requirements of the product is necessary. The product you offer to the clients must be such that it serves them in one or another way. Besides, it must always bring out value as promised. And to make sure that it functions correctly by offering an effective customer experience, testing the products before their launch is necessary.

Every testing team must check the compatibility of the device before launching the product or application. For example, when you are planning to launch a software, checking that it is compatible with different devices and operating systems is a must. This shows the quality of the software.

4.   Saves Money

Software testing comes with various benefits and one of them is cost-effectiveness. This is the main reason why organizations go for software testing services. The software testing comprises a bunch of projects. When the testers find bugs in the early stage, fixing those bugs doesn’t cost much. Therefore, it has become a prerequisite.

Every business owner hires a tester or quality analyst who has great experience and thorough knowledge of the projects.

5.   Determines Software Performance

When an application or software has low performance, it brings down the app’s reputation in the market. The users no more prefer to use that application and even stop trusting the company that offers such products. And eventually, the company’s reputation also suffers. Therefore, every application or software must never be introduced in the market without software testing.

Once the software is tested and its performance is perfect, it must be launched in the market. And even after the launch, to keep the reputation of the product intact, continuous testing becomes necessary. Basically, if the performance of the software goes down, everything goes to waste. Therefore, considering software testing is the best option in determining the software performance is a must.

6.   Easy to Add New Features

When the code is old and interconnected, it becomes more difficult to update. And this is why tests are performed that counteract this calcification tendency and enable the developers to add new features to the software. But when the software developer is new, changing older parts of the code becomes horrifying for him. And this is where test results come in to offer every detailed information about the broken parts of the code.

This process enables the business owners to make their products stand out in the market.

7.   Enhances Development Process

With the help of Quality Assurance, the software testing services providers can find an array of errors and scenarios. And once they get a hold of the information about bugs, the developers can easily help in fixing them in very little time. the same in no time. To have such a smooth development process, the software testers should work with the development team parallelly in order to accelerate the procedure.

Conclusion

As seen in this blog, the importance of software testing is of high value in the world of software development. Software testing is a fine whole process that ensures the perfect quality of the product. Besides, testing also offers better usability, enhanced functionality, and reduces maintenance costs. Therefore, whenever you hire a software development company for your project, make sure to hire a team that has expert software testers who can use the latest tools and techniques to secure your product.

This Blog was provided by: Maverick Jones
Maverick Jones is a full-time geek and tech enthusiast. He likes to share his bylines and loves to gain audience attention.

Buy the Best Software for Your Business with These 5 Steps

Guest blog post by Gloria Martinez.

Too many entrepreneurs have purchased software after watching a slick demo only to experience buyer’s remorse soon after. As a business owner, you want to buy software that delivers the value it promises, whether you buy it off the shelf or on a subscription basis.

This article shows you five crucial steps to buying software that fits your budget and needs:

  1. Assess your needs
  2. Seek buy-in
  3. Compare multiple options
  4. Mind the cost
  5. Pick a solution

Continuous Testing Blog from Eran Kinsbruner invites you to read on to find out more.

Assess Your Needs

Buying decisions that take into account all the facts result in satisfactory software purchases. Assess your needs before you make a substantial investment in software for your business. For example, if you’re looking to register your business as an LLC, then you may want to work with an online formation service that can help you correctly file the paperwork. You can call the Zen Business phone number to learn more about the process.

It’s important to break down which software and/or services will best serve your business before you consider purchasing anything, especially when you’re operating on a very tight budget.

Get Buy-In From Stakeholders

As the owner of the business, you may have the authority to make a unilateral decision on what software to buy. Still, it’s important to get buy-in from your employees, managers, IT team, and customers. Carrying out a comprehensive needs assessment helps achieve buy-in from all these stakeholders.

Take into account how implementing new software or replacing your current system will affect your processes, habits, hardware, and work culture. Purchasing new software often leads to significant changes in your operations. Let your employees know how these changes will affect them so they’re well-prepared to adjust.

Compare Prospective Software Solutions

Once you get stakeholder buy-in, start reviewing prospective software solutions. Narrow down to a few top-tier software providers. Your exclusion process should rely on questions based on the needs you identified in your needs assessment.

Here are a few examples of questions to guide you:

  • What are your must-have and nice-to-have features?
  • How much data storage do you require?
  • How much customer support will you need?
  • Do you want an on-site or cloud-based solution?
  • How scalable is the software?

Your budget also determines the software solutions you consider. A feature such as live chat support may drive up the price but may be worth the investment.

Consider the Cost

Research all the costs involved in purchasing and implementing the software to ensure you’re prepared. Here are a few considerations to make.

  • Is the software available as a one-time purchase or SaaS solution?
  • For SaaS solutions, does the provider offer a discount for annual billing?
  • Does the contract, if any, include an early cancellation penalty?
  • How much will it cost to scale up?
  • Is support billed separately?

Getting answers to these and other salient questions ensures you purchase software that fits your needs and budget.

Choose a Solution

You’ve whittled down your shortlist to one or two suitable software solutions. Take a multi-pronged approach to ensure you get the solution all stakeholders will find satisfactory.

  • Use a trial period to test the software.
  • Research the vendor by reading customer reviews.
  • Ask your industry peers who use the software their thoughts on it.

Again, consult your needs assessment to determine what trade-offs you’re willing to make.

As a business owner, your bottom line is an essential KPI. You want to optimize the returns on your software investment. The steps outlined in this article will help you buy the best software for your business.

This is a guest blog post by Gloria Martinez.

Gloria loves sharing her business expertise and hopes to inspire other women to start their own businesses and seek promotions in the workplace. She created WomenLed.org to spotlight and celebrate women’s achievements

Understanding The Role Of Software Testing In Cyber Security

Gust Blog by: Kanika Vatsyayan is Vice-President – Delivery and Operations at BugRaptors 

Over the years, Cyber Security has become a highly sensitive and significant aspect of the IT industry. And it is very natural with hackers leaning on some more advanced approaches to breach public and private networks inspecting the personal information of various organizations.   

Most importantly, these cyber-attacks have the potential to feed on business data from any small or large organization using high-end technology to attack digital systems. As per the reports by weforum, approximately $5.2 trillion worth of data would be put at stake because of cyber-attacks from 2019 to 2023.   

However, software testing has emerged to be a practice that has helped streamline the cybersecurity factor restricting hacking and diminishing the chances of any threat to data. In other words, software security testing services has turned to be a trusted shield against cyber-attacks and therefore has gained extensive popularity amongst the IT sector.   

Importance of Software Testing  

With past incidences like the WannaCry ransomware attack of 2017 and the Yahoo breach of 2013, organizations are at constant threat of cyber breaches, deploying a perfect software testing strategy should be an ideal agenda to keep things protected. However, the limited propagation has made security testing an even more complex process to understand.   

Above all, there exists a significant irony in the current approach towards software testing for cybersecurity as the present focus of the development enthusiasts is centered around the new development practices. This cuts the scope of improvement for already released technologies and makes them more vulnerable to hacking due to major security gaps.  

Thus, there is an immediate need to realize the current circumstances and make continuous software testing and DevOps an essential part of the organization’s development practices to improve the entire working propaganda. However, the process needs companies to immediately locate software testing professionals to help with planning the cybersecurity initiatives while driving quality throughout the project pipeline.   

Also, the adoption of security testing services would not only aid the security process against unexpected cyber-attacks to industries like healthcare, finance, banking, etc. while improving the entire development design. In a nutshell, the right approach towards software testing could help drive a mature security practice that will run through different stages of the development lifecycle while aligning with cybersecurity objectives.  

Penetration Testing & Its Importance For Cyber Security  

Over the years, different surveys have revealed that 75 percent of cyber-attacks happen due to insecure code that makes the application unstable. Also, the shift of all the operational processes, as well as day to day tasks to third party applications that have access to global user data, have become the prime spot for cyber attackers.   

Therefore, it is necessary that your developers, as well as security testing service provider in India, both aim at improving the source code quality for any tasks that involve the use of data. However, the process to overcome any such code issues require correct implementation of the techniques like penetration testing as it works on how the code connects with the application.  

Penetration testing is a technique that highly resembles a cyber-attack or actually an intentional cyber-attack made on the application to identify all the system vulnerabilities. Moreover, penetration testing is a highly effective practice that helps meet the goals related to web application security as it helps to improve the Web Application Firewall or WAF protection.  

Intelligent System Security Checks  

Penetration testing is more of a test design arrangement made to work on security against any attempt made on hacking. Even the tools used during penetration testing are made to replicate the cyber-attacks with the objective of getting over any system vulnerabilities.  

Underline Weak Segments  

Another significant aspect of using the penetration testing approach is to identify weak links within the software code. The practice improves the scope for protecting the personal user data, card details, or any transactional record that might be at threat. In short, penetration testing works by analyzing the security vulnerabilities of the system and use them in strengthening the system structure against possible cyber threats.  

Added Network Security  

Penetration testing is a powerful technique that could help developers and software testers to work on improving the high-speed internet like 5G network security as well as applications running on the network. When implemented through a dynamic approach, penetration testing could help the users to identify any potential vulnerabilities related to the system for preventing any chances of attack. Also, the security-related information can be used to work on compliance goals and plan the security response time to make system protection more definite.   

The Crux: Planning Cyber Security With Software Testing  

Though penetration testing is a highly efficient software testing practice that is made to simplify the test operations related to cybersecurity, running through other dimensions of testing could help make things better.   

For instance, pen testers could consider escalating their cybersecurity initiatives by using advanced cyber penetration techniques. This would not only help make the system more secure but have a complete idea of the likely cyber-attacks that could be planned in the near future. Such arrangement allows tracking of methods that can be imposed by attackers and therefore can be used to prevent any hacking incidents.  

All in all, working on the cybersecurity component of software testing is a sophisticated practice that needs testers to analyze all the aspects of the technical landscape. It is not only made to expose potential attacks before they occur but rather uses a similar set of tools and approaches that can be used by hackers. Furthermore, it cuts off the chances of any security compromises that may happen with devices running on public networks.   

In a nutshell, software testing has redefined the entire concept of cybersecurity, offering solid protection to the user data as well as development companies. Thus, it is crucial that development firms should start recognizing the importance of software security testing services in the organization when they need to put off any prospective threats as it will not only help users to experience the best of the web but development companies to enjoy sustainable growth.   

All the best!  

 Author Bio:  Kanika Vatsyayan is Vice-President – Delivery and Operations at BugRaptors who oversees all the quality control and assurance strategies for client engagements. She loves to share her knowledge with others through blogging. Being a voracious blogger, she published countless informative blogs to educate audience about automation and manual testing.