Outsourcing QA Guide

Software Development
Outsourcing QA Guide
Article by Sumana Ganguly
Last Updated: September 09, 2022

If you have been in the IT industry for a considerable period, you might already be aware of the concept of outsourcing QA. However, while many companies are looking to outsource quality assurance globally, many are still blind about it.

QA services, in reality, should be on the priority list of the critical development project. After all, QA is an effective way of developing high-quality software that consistently performs beyond expectations.

This article will discuss the benefits of outsourcing QA for organizations and the scenarios and best practices.

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What is Outsourcing QA?

Before we move on to why companies should outsource QA, let's understand this. QA outsourcing entails one company delegating the quality testing of an application or software to an independent test specialist, firm, or third party.

The organization that has developed the application or software will not be involved in the testing and QA, and the outsourced QA team will not be involved in any other aspects of the software development.

QA, as an integral part of the software development lifecycle, should be outsourced because testers need the right skills to ensure that the application has excellent functionality, usability, and security. The QA team must update the latest technologies and best practices.

QA can be expensive in terms of time and resources for an organization to carry out independently, which is why outsourced QA has become an essential service. The market was estimated at $40 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow by 6% from 2023 to 2026.

Outsourcing QA: 5 Best Practices

When outsourcing software development companies for QA, it is necessary to ensure that your provider implements the best practices, including agile methodologies and the latest technology. Here is how to choose the best provider based on these practices:

1. Check the Teams’ Credibility

While outsourcing, verify that the person or company is reputed and credible by checking their past projects for the quality of service and excellent outcomes.

Not only should you check their record for good outcomes, but you should also check whether they’re equipped with the expertise for your specific project. Typically, a reliable testing service will have test documentation and provide prospective clients with templates of their test artifacts.

2. Evaluate Their Resources and Limitations

Even if an outsourcing testing company has a good reputation, it’ll always have its limitations. Consider what you need in testing before you partner with an external team. What testing tools do you prefer to use? What tools do they have in terms of automation and manual testing?

You wouldn’t expect a new QA testing service that might not have all the latest tools to complete a complex job that requires a wide range of automated and manual testing. So, evaluating all the resources at their disposal and their limitations will help you choose the best outsourcing service for your new software.

3. Seek Specialized Niche When Required

If you’re developing an app for a particular industry, you need software testing companies with experience and expertise in testing those applications. Not all software is the same, and you need to seek the companies that will make the best team for your goals.

Let’s assume you’re creating a healthcare application for a hospital, so patients have easy access to their appointments and results. This requires the best security to protect customers following HIPAA laws. Choose a team that has worked with these apps before to ensure your app has good usability, functionality, and security.

4. Check How Transparent and Communicative They Are

The best companies to team up with are transparent and communicative throughout their interaction. When allowing company access to your data, you want to feel secure in how they deal with it. If you’re on a tight deadline, a communicative team will give you peace of mind about how testing is progressing.

5. Set Strong KPIs Before Collaborating

Key Performance Indicators or KPIs are tracked to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of the testing process. Some KPIs you can measure for software testing are:

  • Active Defects: This tracks how many defects are currently new, open, or fixed and waiting for a re-test. For this KPI, you’ll set the number of acceptable defects based on previous projects and industry.
  • Automated Tests: As a company, you should decide on a threshold of how many tests you would like automated. It’s suggested to start at 20% of trials and adjust as you have more experience knowing what works best for you.
  • Tests Executed: This is a velocity KPI that monitors the different types of tests you complete, including manual and automated.

These tests will give you the raw data you need to decide when you can safely and confidently launch a new product.

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What are the Benefits of Outsourcing QA?

Let's look into the significant benefits of outsourcing QA in detail:

Cost-Effectiveness

Many business owners think that QA or software testing is an unnecessary additional expense, but it saves time and money in the long run. An in-house development team does not have the expertise in QA testing. So, the cost savings will come in the form of human resources, project time, and eliminating the need to invest in data or hardware required to perform QA.

Efficiency

Test automation tools are neither cheap nor can detect every flaw human testing would have caught. Outsourcing QA is also the most efficient option. Even compared to automated testing, it offers better testing methodologies and higher quality assurance.

For instance, consider that your eCommerce company is creating integration for your mobile app. Your QA engineers lack the expertise in the specific API testing processes. This leads to inefficient workflows and ineffective test plans.

On the other hand, an outsourced team will know the best ways of going about mobile testing. They will be able to perform quick regression testing after every change.

Test Variety

One of the most significant benefits of software testing is the variety of tests that organizations can perform on your new software. The company can execute these tests using manual and automation testing. The different types of tests that can be conducted include:

  • Localization testing to ensure that the product/software works in global markets
  • Performance testing to make sure that the application performs to its breaking point under all testable circumstances
  • Security testing to make sure that the software has the best protection against hackers and other types of data loss
  • Functional testing to ensure that the application allows a high-quality user experience and can function under pressure
  • Explanatory testing gives the testing team the freedom to perform any tests that they consider necessary

Top 4 Reasons Behind Outsourcing QA

While outsourcing QA is crucial, some scenarios and specific reasons make it a must for organizations. Here are four of the most common ones among them:

1. Internal Team Lacks the Skills and Resources

An internal team cannot be experts in everything. For startups, it is helpful to tap into the skills and resources of experienced QA testing teams. They know the techniques, best practices, and testing methodologies needed to get the maximum out of the QA process. The outsourcing provider offers you professionals who ensure a smooth launch of your software.

Consider that your development team has made a great mobile banking app. However, they lack the processing power, hardware, software, and knowledge to test it efficiently. Outsourced QA allows you to identify the best organization for the job.

The QA testing services have already done testing for reputed banking institutions. So, they heavily contribute to the software development process and have all the systems for selenium testing.

2. You Need to Hit a Tight Deadline

Consider that your DevOps team has worked hard on a new CRM application for weeks. They are approaching the testing phase, and the app needs to be released as quickly as possible. However, the team lacks the skills, and you cannot postpone the launch because of the investors' expectations.

Outsourced QA allows you to get fast results without compromising the quality. So, to meet the deadline, you seek the assistance of a QA testing team. Their expertise and efficient workflow imply that they offer quality testing time in a short period, enabling you to meet the tightest deadline.

3. You Need an Outsider Perspective

Sometimes, working on the same project for weeks puts you too close to noticing flaws. At such times, outsourcing is the best way of getting a fresh pair of eyes on the project.

The QA team was not involved in the development process. This enables them to recognize gaps in usability and functionality. They also consider the unpredictability aspect of user behavior to check for any bugs the application may encounter.

4. It's a Short-Term Project

QA outsourcing saves money on gathering the best software development tools and expertise required for software testing. This helps even more concerning short-term projects. With outsourcing, you don't need to create an entire team of QA testers that you won't need in the long run.

Top Outsourced QA Testing Providers

1. Brocoders

  • Location: Sakala tn 10, Kesklinna linnaosa, Harju maakond, Tallinn, 10116, Estonia
  • Average Hourly Rate: $35/hr
  • Expertise: Product Design, Mobile App Development, Website Development, Software Development

Hailing from Estonia, Brocoders is an on-demand technical team catering to businesses across different locations, time zones, and industries. They bring eight years of expertise in scaling teams and building products from the ground up.

For every type of development — be it a web app, mobile app, or custom software — Brocoders offers quality assurance and testing. During the QA stage, they implement both manual and automatic testing to ensure the resulting product is of superior quality.

If you're looking for edtech, agritech, or fintech software development services, their expertise aptly cover these, as well as mobility software and digital transformation.

2. Bigscal Technologies

  • Location: 1st Floor, B Millenium Point, Opp. Gabani Kidney Hospital, Lal Darwaja Station Rd,, Surat, 395003, India
  • Average Hourly Rate: $30/hr
  • Expertise: Software Development, IT Outsourcing, Software Testing, Website Development, Mobile App Development...

An offshore IT agency based in India, Bigscal offers various development solutions that include quality assurance and testing. Their expert tech team consists of developers for web, mobile, PHP, Javascript, full-stack, Blockchain, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

Bigscal has a toolkit of various software testing methods that ensure your product meets top-quality standards and delivers optimal performance. It includes unit testing and overall regression testing.

The company boasts a vast portfolio of projects for over 500 clients across the world and throughout its 11 years in the industry.

3. Nopio

  • Location: ul. Kniaźnina 12/102, 31-637 Krakow, Kraków, 31-637, Poland
  • Average Hourly Rate: $50
  • Expertise: Software Development, Business Consulting, Website Development, WordPress Website Design...

Nopio is a design and web development studio offering high-quality services to a wide variety of businesses. Their combined experience in many domains e.g. publishing, travel, healthcare and a myriad of technologies they work with, allows them to provide you with a service that lets you worry about what you need to - and not how it should be done.

The agency translates your ideas into technology that runs for you. Their area of expertise is technology consulting, project discovery and planning, Back-end development either from the ground up or using existing solutions, Front-end development, responsiveness eg. using Bootstrap.

Clients include The Underwear Expert, Ceros Inc. and Porter Novelli.

4. BeyondKey Systems

  • Location: Beyond Technologies LLC, Chicago, Illinois 60654, United States
  • Average Hourly Rate: $50/hr
  • Expertise: Mobile App Development, Magento Development, Software Development, IT, Staff Augmentation

Founded in 2005, BeyondKey Systems is a multi-awarded global IT consulting and software agency composed of over 250 software experts.

BeyondKey has a range of services and solutions geared toward digital transformation, from AI, ML, IoT and data services to HR and utility management. Their software testing services boast up to 99% accuracy, covering various industry segments and all business sizes. They provide QA consulting, automation and manual testing, performance testing, and SharePoint testing.

The agency's clients are scattered across the US, the UK, Australia, Germany, MENA and South Asia.

5. Blue Bee Web

  • Location: 111 E Pigeon Plum Dr, Jupiter, Miami, Florida 33458, United States
  • Average Hourly Rate: $95
  • Expertise: Web Design, Software Development, Digital Marketing

Blue Bee Web helps businesses boost their online presence through digital marketing and web design.

They build websites that are fully optimized and easy to manage and scale. As part of their digital marketing services, they provide SEO, link building, lead generation and A/B testing, among others. The agency demonstrates success by the numbers — they've saved clients over 200 hours and drove $150,000 of revenue.

Blue Bee Web has worked with clients in the restaurant business, electronics, real estate and eCommerce.

Outsourcing QA Takeaways

In the present-day fast-paced software development market, QA outsourcing is a valuable resource.

QA service providers dedicate themselves to using the latest technology tools and methodologies to promise you the best in functionality, usability, and performance.

If your organization is considering outsourcing, you must do your research and ask questions. Speak to an outsourcing QA team to see how you can leverage QA's power to enhance your software's performance.

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