Software’s are different from one another. Each piece of code is innovative and unique depending on the technology, use cases, coding practices, and other ways in which the software will be implemented. This is the major reason testing methodologies for different businesses will also be unique.
For SMB and SME, it is said that there is nothing that Automated testing can’t fix. However, it seems introducing automation for medium-sized businesses sounds like a lengthy, costly, and time taking process. Therefore, many small to medium-sized businesses are scared to induce automation in their Line Of Business.
Even though it seems scary, in a long run small to medium-sized businesses will be benefited from it a lot. Automation will expedite the deliveries which eventually will benefit the SMB and SME. Consistent improvements are always required to enhance your small business’s success and sustainability. Hence, it is essential for small to mid-sized businesses to adapt to intelligent automation testing solutions and be a leader in the market.
Automation testing is a professional segment that is performed more or less like software development. In this segment, certain industry standards and best practices are applied and developed for automated testing which is similar to that of software development.
Let’s agree to some definitions:
- Intelligent and robust programming is what you need for introducing automation in small to medium-sized businesses.
- SMB and SMEs using business automation need reliable data principles.
- Technologies that are used in automation are quite innovative. They will enable the organizations to automate themselves.
While this will certainly keep our job exciting and fresh, it will also produce a list of problems as a by-product that is left to the expertise of developers and QA Engineers. There is a whole set of questions before we incorporate automation testing in small-mid-sized businesses.
- What are the tools and approaches should we follow in selecting the automation framework?
- What should be the Recurrence of the automation test execution?
- Which DevOps tools such as CI/CD tools should be used for whisking up the process of automation testing?
Automation Test Engineers are required to maintain a vigorous tool for the effective execution of the automated task. However, given the pool of various DevOps tools and automation frameworks to choose from, it can be challenging to keep the automation skills up to date.
There are certain working patterns and necessary components to achieve the benchmark in QA and test automation for small to medium-sized businesses. There are multiple levels to be automated from scratch for SMB and SME that are just introducing automation their product. Therefore, basic knowledge of QA and test automation best practices paired with a specialized, industry-specific toolset will increase the efficiency of the team which will ultimately lead to an increase in the productivity of the organizations.
There is an ongoing wave of SMEs and SMB. India’s GDP is reviving and all the credit goes to these SMEs and SMBs. They are the key drivers behind this story.
To give a clear picture of the SMEs, there are certain key MSE statistics, trends, and reports.
- Number of SMEs in India: The number is estimated to be 42.50 million, registered & unregistered together. A staggering 95% of the total industrial units in the country.
- SME & Employment opportunity: Employs about 106 million, 40% of India’s workforce. Next only to the agricultural sector.
- Products: produces more than 6000 products.
- GDP Contribution: Currently around 6.11% of the manufacturing GDP and 24.63% of the Service sector GDP.
- SME Output: 45% of the total Indian manufacturing output.
- SME Exports: 40% of the total exports.
- Bank Lending: Accounts for 16% of bank lending.
- Fixed Assets: Current fixed assets at INR 1,471,912.94 crore.
- SME Growth Rate: Has maintained an average growth rate of over 10%.
Sources: msme.gov.in/KPMG/CRISIL/CII.
What Challenges Can Automation Bring To SMBs and SMEs?
SMBs and SMEs’ challenges vary from the challenges of the large organizations. Automation SMBs/SMEs is not a one-day process, it demands time, skillsets, ability, scalability, and agility. It is one steady process to introduce automation into SMBs and SMEs as the process expands and the business develops. Therefore, SMBs and SMEs are required to have such technology that can expand and shrink as per the business requirements.
These challenges can be overcome if you follow the right tips and tactics to introduce automation in SMBs and SMEs. In this article, we take you through the tips for automated testing for SMBs and SMEs.
6 Tips for Automated Testing For Small to Mid-Sized Businesses
- Use Cloud-Based Testing Solutions:- Any business comprises of different functionalities and can be bifurcated into different departments such as
- Service/Product offered
- Customers it will cater to
- Business Domain
Each of the segments has a separate development team to work on the features, which can create a lack of communication among the people of the organizations as nobody will get to understand the product or the business better.
If you are working in product bases SMEs and SMBs, you are reliant on the scratch development teams. In small to medium-sized businesses, transparency of all the states of the applications in the test system will significantly save team times during test execution activities.
Teams have increased the visibility into different states of the applications with cloud-based automated cross-browser testing solutions like Lambda Test. It allows us to leverage the cloud to its maximum potential for automated UI testing of web apps. It helps us in the testing of different sites across multiple browsers and platforms at a much faster speed. Lambda Test enables teams to have transparent testing efforts, enabling teams to understand the rules and requirements of applications outside of their own.
- Check the Compatibility OF Test Tool: – SMBs and SMEs should get the tools tested within the isolated environment before installing them in the target test environment. To determine the compatibility of the application and the test tool you must do a pre-check by installing the target application along with the test tool. The test tools should be compatible not only with the current software application but also the future developments. The major motto behind adopting the primary test tool by SME and SMB should be compatibility with the primary development tools in the market.
- Keep Automation Simple: – To make a small-medium-sized business successful, it is required for them to keep automation simple. Sometimes, the most elaborate test script is not always the most useful and cost-effective. While deciding the approach of the automation, the test team should keep in mind the size of the application, the test budget, and the return of investment that is expected when applying a data-driven approach to automation testing.
- Use the Data-Driven Testing: – Data-driven testing commonly means setting up test scenarios with different permutations of a different set of data. There are test executions where the same scenario is run ‘X’ number of times, where X is the number of data permutations.
Data-driven testing is obtaining real, production user data and statistics to drive test scenario design. With the help of this user data, you can create the user metrics. Depending on the user metrics which is derived from the above data, a large amount of baseline test scenarios can be created. This will account for a large amount of applications’ real use cases.
- Reuse Analysis: – The test engineer should conduct a reuse analysis of the already existing test scripts, to avoid duplication of the automation test efforts. When SMBs and SMEs introduce automation testing, then everything is planned judiciously and within a budget. Therefore, test resources are limited, but the expectations of the test team are greater than the budget. As a result, the test team cannot afford to waste their time and energy in duplicate test efforts. Hence, measures can be taken to avoid duplication of the test efforts.
- Integrate Software With Larger Capabilities: – For SMBs and SMEs, it is most important for them to integrate the software with larges capabilities in their applications. Such software comes as a complete package and offers many advantages like built-in tools for automation, regular updates, and the ability to grow as the businesses scale up.
Wrapping Up
This is the era of SMBs and SMEs and many new small to medium-sized businesses are emerging. While major small medium-sized businesses are competitors, trying to differentiate from one another, they all are the same generally at a high level. Either the business will offer you a product or a service.
Of course, introducing Automation testing is a complex task for a small to medium-sized business. Thankfully, we can do the testing at the database level, web service level, UI application layers level which will mostly cover the user-facing functionality that customers interact with daily.
We hope this guide has helped you find the right tips for automation for small to medium-sized businesses. And if you find it valuable, we’d be grateful if you share it on your LinkedIn.