9 Key Benefits of Test Automation

A bug found in production will cost $10,000 to fix, compared to $100 in the development phase. With the rapid growth of business applications, manual testing is becoming obsolete. Automation testing is a superior alternative as it allows organizations to be more agile and stay aligned with their business goals. Manual testing has higher defect injection rates, resulting in poor-quality software, causing losses worth $2.84 trillion in the US economy alone. This is alarming enough for enterprises involved in core application development to consider automation testing. By adopting automation testing, businesses can experience increased team productivity, reduced costs for bug fixes, and streamlined infrastructural development efforts. Other test automation benefits include reduced human errors and consistent, reliable results.

What is Test Automation?

Test automation is the process of using automated tests to detect bugs and vulnerabilities in software. It plays a crucial role in quality assurance, customer satisfaction, and organizational growth. Test automation also supports manual testing and makes it easier for developers to test software.

9 Key Benefits of Automation Testing

Test automation has many benefits, including granular report generation, reduced latency, and cost savings. Here are the top nine benefits that organizations can expect when they automate their software testing:

1. Optimum Resource Utilization

Application testing is a continuous process, and every time code is modified, developers must test it across various configurations, user journeys, and operating systems. Manual testing requires a lot of effort and can be expensive with minimal return on investment. With automation testing, these tests can be conducted without additional cost, even when the number of applications increases or when testing needs to be done faster. Automation testing allows businesses to have a buffer of 16 hours, which leads to seamless delivery of functionality and faster time to market. Some organizations avoid automation due to cost concerns, but the damage caused by manual testing can be much worse. Automation can reduce the cost of each test hour from $78 to $17.54. To get the best ROI, businesses need to ensure high adoption of automation.

2. Reusability

Regression testing can be a nightmare if testers need to test every minor code change. Writing and running scripts can be tedious, and lead to burnout, increasing the risk of application failure. With no-code test automation, developers do not have to write test cases or execute them manually when the codebase changes. Instead, the chosen automation tool creates test scripts that can be reused and executed as needed without additional effort or cost. Organizations can significantly reduce their efforts and use that time for business development if the automation solution offers pre-built keywords.

3. Faster Feedback Execution

Test automation is closely tied to feedback, and the loop between testers and developers is pivotal in delivering high-quality services and ensuring customer satisfaction. Faster feedback also leads to less downtime and faster bug fixing. If the product has been released, errors can be fixed without sabotaging customer information, experience, or satisfaction. In manual testing, the whole process of identifying, pinpointing, and fixing bugs can go on indefinitely, damaging client relations. As a result, the adoption of automation testing is at an all-time high.

4. Improved Test Coverage

Complex enterprise applications require a larger team and more time for end-to-end testing. However, with no-code automation testing, applications of all sizes can be analyzed quickly and easily with just a few clicks, freeing businesses to focus on growth and leave application development issues behind. High-quality tools and increased coverage enable developers to test more features and configurations, making smooth application development a more achievable goal. In addition, extensive test coverage significantly increases the probability of identifying bugs in the development phase, reducing the likelihood of poor user experiences and production issues. According to the World Quality Report, requirement coverage is crucial in evaluating the quality and efficiency of an application’s automation solution. The higher the coverage, the better the application will perform in the real world.

5. Boosts Team Morale

While some business analysts may consider it intangible, test automation has a significant impact on team morale. As per McKinsey, 33% of constituent activities, including testing and quality assurance, can be automated. Automation testing reduces repetitive tasks, allowing humans to focus on what they do best: ideation, brainstorming, and planning. With more time, businesses can work on more challenging projects, experience a 360-degree change in productivity, foster innovation, and deliver consistently high-quality work. In addition, test automation enables QA teams to effectively execute usability, exploratory, and ad-hoc tests where automation cannot play a significant role.

6. Improved Security and Streamlined Reporting

The quality of test data is directly proportional to the effectiveness of testing. Unfortunately, manually creating test data can be time-consuming and may require quality engineers to work on live databases. With test automation solutions, organizations can create and protect their databases and use them when necessary. Besides, reporting in manual testing can be tedious and cumbersome, which requires updating written test scripts and bugs fixed to create a dependency. Fortunately, test automation streamlines reporting, allowing developers to access screenshots and videos of the execution steps, making it easier to identify and fix errors.

7. Accurate Results

The expertise of manual testers depends on how thoroughly the application is tested. Fortunately, automation testing at full capacity reduces dependencies, and produces consistent results every time. Another important factor to consider is manual errors. Regardless of the quality of engineers’ work ethics and technical prowess, there is a risk of missing a few steps, entering incorrect data, or making any other minute errors. These types of mistakes can lead to poor application quality. However, with test automation, it can be ensured that not only will steps be executed seamlessly, but they will also be reported objectively.

8. Supports Continuous Testing

Continuous testing involves running automated tests continuously to obtain feedback on business risks. This improves feedback on bugs and minimizes risk., making continuous testing integral to the DevOps process and enabling teams to work cohesively. Automation enables continuous testing and shift-left testing, making it a crucial part of the software development life cycle.

9. Seamless Scalability

While manual testing is scalable, the time and investment required can delay timelines. It also requires additional personnel to the project, requiring more time for training. On the other hand, automation testing allows businesses to scale minutes and easily add test executors.

How Can Hexaware Help?

Businesses with ongoing application development and deployment lifecycles require quicker time to market but, testing can take a back seat, leading to poor application health. However, only 16% of their application testing life cycle has been automated by enterprises, and even those that have automated testing have not yet achieved their desired return on investment. Therefore, there is a growing need for solutions to automate execution, reporting, and design. Fortunately, Hexaware helps QA teams solve these issues by automating 80% of the application development and deployment lifecycle.

TALOS, Hexaware’s Smart Test Automation platform, allows developers to facilitate rapid test automation for applications developed on multiple platforms and diverse Soft Development Life Cycle Styles (SDLC).

Furthermore, it accelerates the creation of Behavior Driven Development (BDD) automation scripts through the following features:

• Seamless test execution with self-healing locators
• Advanced maintenance features and detailed insights for faster maintenance
• The ability to import feature files to create automation scripts using NLP features

Hexaware’s Solution Layers

Model-based testing allows users to leverage enhanced coverage, achieve traceability, and test cases smoothly compared to manual methods. Besides, Hexaware has in-built automation accelerators for commercial and open-source tools that can function independently to develop scripts. Furthermore, Hexaware’s Insight 360 enables developers to automate 100% of test reporting activities and provides a real-time view of testing progress and vendor performance against the contractual service level agreements.