Businesses who are planning on, or who have already implemented test automation will likely be aware of its benefits. As well as the faster delivery of new processes, it also minimises risk and results in a greater level of accuracy across business functions.
Business leaders will notice that test automation reduces their overall costs for implementing new technology, and that they can achieve a greater level of optimisation.
This is because a single automated testing model can outperform a team of manual testers if implemented correctly. This in turn allows you to more strategically place your team’s skills in areas such as advanced useability or contextual testing.
Alongside the obvious benefits of test automation, we think it might be good to delve a little deeper. Especially across the financial sector and other fast-paced industries, knowing these 12 steps for how test automation can benefit your business might help you realise its true value.
1. Faster feedback cycle
Once you know what to look out for, it’s always easier to adjust your input for a better response. This is why test automation works so well. Test automation continuously acquires knowledge and allows feedback cycles to run much faster.
Automated tests can run on a schedule or whenever new features are added, ensuring that whenever you need results — they’re there.
2. Saves teams time
One of the biggest disadvantages of manual testing is the level of time that tedious tasks take up. When test automation is in place, the constant need for manual input becomes a thing of the past.
Your teams can also await the outcome of testing without having to monitor the system. This frees up time for them to focus on more advanced matters such as adding new features or fixing bugs.
3. Reduces business expenses
Manually repeating tests can be a costly operation. Not only does it tie up valuable resources, the trial and error of manual processes can waste hours, if not days of precious time.
In contrast, once you set up test automation, it can run continuously without limitations on time or duration. Your QA team can also be much smaller, with top engineers now having an opportunity to exercise their talents more effectively for your business.
4. Higher test coverage
Software testing in high volumes is a difficult task for your business to carry out manually. With test automation, a few clicks of a mouse is all that’s required to initiate testing. This not only frees up team members, it also allows for you to schedule further and more advanced testing.
With much wider testing parameters, you can also identify issues much earlier than with manual testing. This results in a higher quality application all round, with outcomes immediately accessible for strategic planning.
5. Test suite is reusable
Manual testing relies on code changes for even the most minor of tasks, something that can be extremely time consuming for each new project. With test automation, once an automated test has been created, it can be reused again and again.
An automated testing model can be run multiple times on a particular project and even after that project has been completed, its data persists. This means that if a new project with the same system or application arises later, it can be tested using the same automated test as before.
6. Faster time to market
One of the biggest benefits of test automation for your business is that you can monitor and amend “kinks” in the systems you’re using without any downtime or inconvenience to your stakeholders.
Additionally, when a system can run 24/7, your ability to test and validate new features is greatly optimised. This accelerates the feedback and testing cycle, allowing companies to bring their products to the market faster.
7. Better insights
Even the best teams in the world will struggle to keep up with the level of detail that test automation can capture. With manual testing, it’s natural that your team’s capacity for capturing insights when tests fail won’t match up to that of an automated system.
As well as being a volume issue, everything about test automation is configured to automatically help developers identify issues more easily.
Its capabilities include displaying memory contents, data tables, and file contents. It can even automatically provide screenshots that help developers pinpoint faults.
8. Improved accuracy
With society moving at such a fast pace, there’s no time to waste in improving the position of your business. This is why accuracy is so important — improved decision-making relies on definitive knowledge.
Especially for complex use cases, it’s common to produce different test results each time. With automated tests, you can be assured that tests will always be executed with 100 percent accuracy.
9. Automated testing provides more features
When you remove manual input from the equation, you’re in a much better position to broaden your range of testing features, without compromising on accuracy.
For example, testing automation even allows you to emulate how thousands of virtual users interact with your web application at once — something you can’t do with manual testing.
10. Less stress on QA team
With automated testing in place, you eliminate monotonous coding and testing tasks. This allows the advanced skills of your QA engineers to be put to better use.
When you place QA engineers on ‘higher value tasks’, this will also help improve productivity and the overall feeling of satisfaction your team gets from their jobs.
11. Quickly Determine the Stability of Your Build
Due to the speed and accuracy of automated testing, you can more easily determine the stability of your build — even during early phases.
With manual testing, validating stability can be a slow process and even once you’ve completed it, there can still be doubt that something has been missed.
Without a need to set up databases or manually input data, test automation ensures that you can move into your next growth phase more quickly, and with greater confidence.
12. Eliminate Human Error
With manual testing, one of the biggest causes of human error is how repetitive tasks can be, often resulting in a tester’s level of concentration slipping. It can also be caused by testers feeling under pressure to complete manual input tasks as quickly as possible so they can move onto more central parts of the testing cycle.
In the case of automated testing, the same tests run exactly the same way every time — relieving testers from the tasks they find most time-consuming and often below their skill level. This not only improves accuracy and productivity across the board, it also helps keep testers more strategically engaged in their roles.
Test automation is a strategic business decision
As we’ve established, test automation isn’t just about making systems more efficient, cost-effective, and more accurate — it’s about helping your business maintain its position and allocate valuable resources more strategically.
More stable outcomes from testing also makes it easier to support decisions that previously would have involved a greater sense of risk. Automated systems eliminate doubt, making them the perfect solution to help your business grow.
How can Assured Thought help?
At Assured Thought, our QA testing operating model helps you avoid all the disadvantages of manual testing and ensures your business can move forward, without risk.
Serving highly competitive industries such as the financial sector, we understand the importance of accurate and fully-optimised software. This is why we tailor our test automation to suit exactly what your business needs.
If you’d like to talk more about what our testing model can do for your business, you can request a free consultation and a member of our team will get back to you. We don’t just deliver Quality Assurance, we help you identify opportunities to get ahead.
