Importance of Software Testing Company in the IT Industry

One of the primary challenges faced by IT industry programmers is ensuring the software they have designed works as planned. And this problem is one of those critical ones that may make or break an organization. For instance, imagine a financial services firm migrating their vital customer relationship management software to a new platform, and further imagine the software suffering a glitch a couple of days after full-scale migration. In such a scenario, worrying about whether the customers are receiving regular relevant updates on their investments will be the least of the problems for the firm. The repercussions would be too many to handle and the business may not even survive the fiasco. Now imagine this situation in more critical industries like emergency services or healthcare. ‘Scary’ would be the most underrated word to describe the circumstances. 

And yet, all of these can be solved with some simple software testing.

Software testing, as the name suggests, represents analyzing and checking the programs and applications to make sure they work as planned. These may include testing parts of the software or the whole code whether on a stand-alone basis or in combination with other programs and hardware where the software is supposed to function. 

There are different types of software testing and these can be categorized based on how the checks are done, where the tests are done, phase of development where the checks are done and so on. Though this post will not be the right place to talk about them in detail, some important types of testing are: 

•        Alpha testing: The initial testing done in a simulated or actual operating environment

•     Beta testing: The next phase after alpha testing, where the tests are done using an external test customer base

•       Static testing: Here the flaws are identified without running the code

•       Dynamic testing: The software run to identify problem areas

•       White box testing: Here the internal components and codes are checked

•      Black box testing: In this scenario, the overall functioning of the code is checked without any internal checks

Software testing as a process is quite rigorous and requires experts who can, in a normal scenario, identify potential flaws and future technical problems just by looking at the software code. Finding such people is not easy and though a web search may bring up a list of names, whether they can do the job is another question.

The thumb rule is to go with the experts. For instance, if you look at companies from countries like India, you are unlikely to go wrong. However, you must ensure the firms you shortlist know what they are talking about. Ask them for case studies, for practical demonstrations, look at their skill levels and if needed, talk to their team members. If you know what you are looking for, then you are likely to get the right firm without much of a problem. If not, then your selection process needs to be a bit more rigorous. Looking for firms who have expertise in your industry or a related field can be a good starting point.