WQR 2015-16
NEWS
QUALITY ENGINEERING

World Quality Report 2015 shows businesses are struggling with speed of technological change

The speed of digital transformation and short life-cycles of device and services is increasing the importance and pressure on quality assurance testing.

Dayton, OHIO, 9 September 2015 – Capgemini, one of the world's foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services and Sogeti, its local professional services subsidiary, today released the World Quality Report 2015.

The annual World Quality Report, published in conjunction with HP, examines the state of application quality and testing practices across multiple industries and geographies. The report this year found that organizations are placing more importance on quality assurance and testing due to the speed of digital transformation which is increasing the number of new applications that are shaking up their business operations. The speed of this digital transformation within organizations has been identified as a clear hurdle, with 55% of organizations identifying ‘application functionality changing too quickly’ as their biggest challenge.

In an attempt to gain control over the influx of new applications, the report found a 9% Y-o-Y increase in IT spending budgets directed towards testing and quality assurance. Of this budget, almost half (49%) is dedicated to maintenance work, focused on trying to ensure applications are suitable for business use. Relatedly, budget spent on new transformational work has decreased by 1% as companies begin to reign in their spending to focus on coping with the continuous transformation of applications.

A seamless customer experience is a key driver for QA testing

This year’s World Quality Report found that companies are continuing to invest in securing the integrity of their systems, with more than four out of five (81%) citing security as the main purpose for testing. This heightened awareness of security is driven by digital transformation and security testing has become critical to business assurance for many organizations. However, the role of the customer experience is now almost as important to companies with 79% identifying this as a key consideration for their quality assurance testing. This marks a notable shift for organizations who have come to realize the growing importance of providing customers with a smooth, seamless experience whenever they come into contact with the company’s properties.

Acknowledging the renewed intent on IT investment, Govind Muthukrishnan, Senior Vice President and Testing Global Service Line Leader observes: “This year’s World Quality Report shows that we live in a fast moving world where customer experience and flexibility are as important as keeping up pace  with digital transformation using Agile QA and DevOps. Today, we see that organizations are making significant investments in Test Environments and Test Data - Test Ecosystems - and are focussing on end to end automation of not only Testing but also the Test Ecosystems. However, organizations must move beyond automation of Testing and Test Ecosystems to an integrated and intelligent QA Lifecycle that can deliver synergy in business assurance.”

Shorter lifecycles demand greater agility

This year’s report also revealed that with spend on quality testing and assurance increasing, a higher proportion of that budget is now dedicated to DevOps and Agile principles, with more than half (59%) of respondents saying at least half of projects within the organization use DevOps principles and 47% use virtual test environments. While organizations attempt to modernize their testing practices and procedures, they also have to deal with the increasingly shorter life cycles of programs and applications, which is forcing an increase in demand for testing hardware and infrastructure: an increase of 5% to 38% from 2014. However, despite the decrease in spending on new transformational work (down 1%), almost one in three (29%) are intent on developing Testing Centers of Excellence (TCoE) within the next two years.

New roles being created to meet testing demand

The maturity of the quality assurance market has seen the function become a critical business operation. With an increasing number of organizations now adopting DevOps and Agile, there are a number of new roles being created to match the growing importance and size of the market. Roles that never previously existed, such as Software Development Test Engineers, are now appearing and the demand for these positions is only likely to increase as quality assurance become more central to the operation of organizations.

“Technology disruptions such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data and mobility are leading to faster business transformations than ever before. Companies have to pivot quickly in order to stay ahead of the curve, compete and conform to the new style of business,” said Raffi Margaliot, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Application Delivery Management, HP Software. “This year’s World Quality Report highlights how quickly IT leaders are responding to these mega trends that are rapidly changing our industry and the steps they are taking to keep pace with the demands of their users without compromising application quality and user experience.”

The World Quality Report, which this year interviewed 1,560 respondents from 32 countries, is the only global report for application quality.  It has been produced annually since 2009. Now in its 7th edition, the 2015 report adopted a hybrid methodology of data collection using both computer aided telephone interviews and computer aided web interviews. Based on analysis of five respondent groups: CIO, VP Application, IT Director, QA/Testing Manager and CDO/CMO, the report surveyed respondents from across the globe through quantitative interviews followed by qualitative deep-dive discussions.

 

Further information

To download a full copy of the World Quality Report 2015 go to www.sogeti.com/wqr2015-2016.

About Capgemini

A global leader in consulting, technology services and digital transformation, Capgemini is at the forefront of innovation to address the entire breadth of clients’ opportunities in the evolving world of cloud, digital and platforms. Building on its strong 50-year heritage and deep industry-specific expertise, Capgemini enables organizations to realize their business ambitions through an array of services from strategy to operations. Capgemini is driven by the conviction that the business value of technology comes from and through people. It is a multicultural company of 200,000 team members in over 40 countries. The Group reported 2017 global revenues of EUR 12.8 billion.

Visit us at www.capgemini.com. People matter, results count.

About Sogeti

Part of the Capgemini Group, Sogeti makes business value through technology for organizations that need to implement innovation at speed and want a local partner with global scale. With a hands-on culture and close proximity to its clients, Sogeti implements solutions that will help organizations work faster, better, and smarter. By combining its agility and speed of implementation through a DevOps approach, Sogeti delivers innovative solutions in quality engineering, cloud and application development, all driven by AI, data and automation.

Capgemini is a global business and technology transformation partner, helping organizations to accelerate their dual transition to a digital and sustainable world, while creating tangible impact for enterprises and society. It is a responsible and diverse group of 340,000 team members in more than 50 countries. With its strong over 55-year heritage, Capgemini is trusted by its clients to unlock the value of technology to address the entire breadth of their business needs. It delivers end-to-end services and solutions leveraging strengths from strategy and design to engineering, all fueled by its market leading capabilities in AI, cloud and data, combined with its deep industry expertise and partner ecosystem. The Group reported 2023 global revenues of €22.5 billion. Get The Future You Want | www.capgemini.com

Visit us www.sogeti.com

 

Contacts
  • Sam Connatty
    Sam Connatty
    ‎Global PR Lead at Capgemini
    +44 870 904 3601