Undoubtedly, digital transformation has been here for more than two decades. However, it has been amplified during pandemics. The spread of the novel coronavirus and the shutdown of in-person meetings has forced enterprises to embrace digital transformation at an accelerated pace. However, companies were investing heavily in digital transformation even prior to the pandemic. But for now, they are doing this at lightning speed. Statistics suggest that companies were able to embrace digital changes 20-25 times faster than they would have expected. Business leaders across diversified industry verticals, including telecom, banking, manufacturing, distribution, professional services, and education, have been aggressively pursuing digital transformation initiatives for their survival.

Though the benefits of ERP implementation are countless, there is also an alarming fact associated with it. Statistics suggest that the majority of ERP Implementation projects fail due to improper test planning and strategy. Enterprises that want to make sure that software or applications failure should never happen on their watch need to understand how much testing is important for them. Testing not only boosts software quality assurance but also ensures that all security mechanisms work seamlessly, including security controls and compliance configurations.

Continuous Testing – A Critical Success Factor

Businesses that have taken digital transformation as an opportunity to gain a competitive edge have embraced Agile and DevOps principles. It means rather than rolling out a disruptive upgrade every three to five years; software updates are released and deployed on a much frequent basis. Though organizations have embraced mature and rapid application development practices with DevOps implementations, the speed of development is still a matter of great concern. To support Agile and DevOps, test execution turnarounds must be faster, and feedback should be quick so that issues can be identified swiftly. The traditional testing approach is not only prone to high risk but also fragile and costly. In case bugs are found at later stages of development, much rework, redesign, and rethinking of strategy needs to be done. All this would impact the time to market adversely.

Mitigate the Risk of Failure with Early Issue Identification

Since digital transformation projects are at a higher risk of failure during implementation and upgrade, a well-defined test automation strategy can help in delivering robust quality software. The manual testing approach is error-prone, fragile, and cannot cater to the requirements of diverse web browsers, devices, operating systems, screen resolutions, and dynamic systems. Therefore, testing practices need to be evolved.

Enterprises that have embraced DevOps but still relying on manual application testing approaches need to revisit their testing strategies. Lack of innovation, duplication of efforts, inability to scale on-demand, and inability to identify patterns impacting performance in manual testing can negatively impact business continuity.

Continuous Testing Approach is a necessity rather than a luxury

Digital transformation needs an ‘Agile and DevOps’ strategy. And ‘Agile and DevOps’ approach is incomplete, inefficient, and ineffective without continuous testing. By embracing the ‘continuous testing’ approach, enterprises can identify defects early to meet the client demands of quality at speed while mitigating the risks associated with each release. High-velocity test automation helps enterprises by avoiding business disruption and lack of visibility across project timelines. In this ERP arena where platforms are being continually expanded to incorporate new features, functionalities, and technologies, test automation helps you to seamlessly validate the performance of critical business processes to lower the risk associated with software updates. Furthermore, automation testing ensures fewer time and budget overruns while offering significant benefits when it comes to ERP upgrade project times and expenses.

For instance, Oracle offers quarterly updates. Enterprises using it need to bring in continuous test automation in order to keep pace with innovation. Oracle Cloud test automation will help enterprises to test apps in the test window of two weeks, keeping risks at bay.

Concluding Remark

Thus, we can infer from the above text that to transform your organization; you should transform your testing. By bringing in the right testing strategies supported by the right test automation tools and processes, you can achieve sustainable software quality. By deploying continuous test automation, you can gain several benefits, including improved efficiency, accuracy, and time savings along with defects identification at early stages of development, quick feedback, and quicker time to market. Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms in test automation help to speed cycle time and improve software quality.

 

By Sohaib Abbas