The All-in-One Guide to Outsource Software Testing

Imagine using a glitchy mobile or desktop app that barely performs how you want it to. Whether it’s a game, a productivity app, or a social media app, if it doesn’t work seamlessly, chances are its code, Application Programming Interface (API), or User Interface (UI) are still carrying bugs from its development stages. This is why software testing is an integral part of the development lifecycle. Enterprises must implement robust testing to ensure their software is secure and performs desirably under various conditions before deploying it to users.

Nowadays, you can outsource software testing or hire in-house testers. The latter may be beneficial, as it gives you complete control over the testing procedure. However, it also demands a substantial investment to undertake the hiring process, onboard and train new hires, and establish the required testing infrastructure and environment.

Outsourced software quality assurance services would help you stay agile by maintaining your team’s performance and productivity and saving resources for other vital objectives. To dive into this in detail, we’ll discuss why software testing outsourcing is prevalent in today’s IT industry, its pros and cons, the ideal scenarios to outsource software testing, and its best practices.

Before diving into why IT companies are increasingly choosing QA outsourcing, it’s essential to understand what it is. In a nutshell, outsourced software testing refers to a company delegating or contracting out the testing of its software or related applications to independent testing firms, specialists, or third parties. The company won’t be involved in the testing process, and the independent contractor won’t be concerned with other software development areas.

As per Statista, outsourced services’ global market size reached a monumental $92.5 billion in 2019. The same year, business process outsourcing, including IT outsourcing, generated $26 billion in revenue. In 2022, Statista reports that the IT outsourcing industry generated total revenue of approximately $400 billion. These numbers prove that outsourcing is a significant driver of revenue growth in the IT industry, and enterprises are increasingly outsourcing various tasks, including software testing.

Here’s why.

Given how necessary testing is, software testers must possess the right skill set to ensure software functionality, usability, and security. These professionals must have the right technical skills and be updated with the latest best practices and technologies to conduct their tasks efficiently. However, hiring such talent also requires companies to pour in an enormous amount of time and money. This can easily divert them from focusing on other vital areas, which can ultimately lead to a delayed time to market.

Contrarily, if companies outsource software testing, they can stay efficient by simply handing off the complete testing process to a third party. A robust quality assurance strategy, end-to-end testing, and well-oiled testing procedures are crucial to creating a high-quality product. Instead of using resources to get these done in-house, companies can outsource them and stay on track to launch on time. Some of the most common scenarios where enterprises outsource software testing include:

• There is an insufficient number of in-house QA experts, resulting in inadequate functionality test coverage and missed deadlines.
• The quality of a software product isn’t up to the mark and is unstable.
• The company needs testing process improvements, a solid test strategy, and organized and updated test documentation.

Now that we’ve established what it means to outsource software testing, let’s take a look at some of the reasons why you should choose it.

It goes without saying that professional software testers or testing companies have vast experience with a holistic quality assurance approach. Hence, they ensure that your project complies with the latest IT best practices and trends, ironing out all kinks to ensure it's bug-free. With outsourced software testing, you can avail of these professionals for the needed time and pipeline without spending extra resources to hire them full-time.

Efficiency is the biggest reason to outsource quality assurance. Outsourced software testing offers better quality assurance and testing methodologies, as you avail of skilled professionals with the necessary expertise to work on your project. This is especially lucrative when your team either lacks the experience or the tools and technologies to carry out full-fledged testing.

Let’s say you want to create an integration for your e-commerce business’ mobile app. Your QA team might lack sufficient API testing experience, leading to an ineffective test roadmap and workflow. However, if you outsource software testing, the outsourced team will understand your requirements and determine the best testing route, performing quick regression testing after individual changes.

Statistically, a QA engineer’s average annual salary in the US is about $83,000, with average hourly rates starting at around $46.24. If you’ve developed a solution and don’t have testers on your team, you’ll need to hire more than one to create a primary QA team to carry out software testing.

If you outsource software testing, it’s beneficial in the long run. You can choose software testing outsourcing companies in other countries with more affordable rates. Consequently, outsourcing is exceptionally lucrative as it helps companies expand their choice of available mid-level, senior-level, or lead QA engineers and simultaneously pay less for good quality work.

When you outsource software testing, you also get the benefit of comprehensive implementation of various tests to check how your new software performs. These include: -

• Performance testing - Assessing your application’s performance under every testable circumstance, testing your software to its limit.
• Localization testing - Checking if your software will work adequately in global markets.
• Security testing - Checking if your software is airtight against data loss, hackers, and other threats.
• Exploratory testing - Performing testing as deemed necessary by the QA team to determine potential bugs that other testing processes couldn’t.
• Functional testing - Assessing if your software can offer a solid user experience and functions under pressure. This involves taking the application through numerous test cases to see how it performs under usual and extreme conditions.

While outsourced software testing is great, it’s not perfect. Here are some of its disadvantages that you must consider when you outsource software testing.

When you outsource software testing, you’ll most likely work with remote team members (which is beneficial as you can tap into global talent). However, this would also mean working with people from different countries and hence, differing time zones. These can cause communication gaps due to cultural or linguistic differences or simply an inability to collaborate seamlessly due to time zone differences.

However, you can avoid these by working with teams from companies that have a proven track record in your location. For instance, if you’re in the USA, look for reputable companies that provide QA developers or teams for USA companies, such as Turing. Moreover, you can also ask the outsourcing party to schedule virtual interviews to verify their soft and hard skills before agreeing to work with them.

Data leakage and loss are some of the biggest concerns with outsourced software testing services. After all, you will work with external team members, and software testing usually requires sensitive company and customer data. Hence, ensuring data security must be your priority.

To avert data security issues, choose software testing outsourcing companies that offer security measures to ensure data privacy and confidentiality. Check if your outsourcing company provides data encryption, network firewalls, disaster recovery, single sign-on, and other security measures. A professional QA outsourcing company will also provide you with a non-disclosure agreement that guarantees information security.

Another issue with outsourced software testing is the difficulty of quality control. When working with outsourced staff, you may not always be able to control the testing quality, which can result in problems after the product is rolled out.

For example, if your company chooses to outsource software testing and the third party’s pricing is suspiciously low. However, team leads or the CEO didn’t want to invest significantly and went ahead with the company. Upon rollout, your QA team encounters bugs and compatibility issues in the software. This is a common problem that many face with software testing outsourcing.

Again, the best way to avert this is by choosing a reliable software testing company that provides high-quality testing to ensure your end product is of desired quality and does so at an affordable price.

After knowing the pros and cons of QA outsourcing, you may decide to go ahead. Do keep in mind that this may not be favorable for every situation. Here are some common scenarios where software testing outsourcing would be the best option.

Let’s say your team is almost done with development and is soon approaching the testing phase. After your R&D, you believe that releasing the application as soon as possible would derive the best results. However, your team lacks the resources and skills to complete it within a tight time frame. Postponing the launch may help, but it would delay your ROI and even adversely impact your perception with investors.

In such cases, it’s best to outsource software testing. The outsourcing team will have the efficiency and expertise to implement the right workflow and provide high-quality testing within a shorter time frame.

As mentioned earlier, your team may lack the necessary expertise to conduct software testing. If you want to close the skill gap by hiring a new tester, it would simply mean pushing the product launch and delaying your ROI. Instead, you can simply opt for an outsourcing provider who will equip you with a full team of QA professionals for a smooth product launch. You can simply hire them for a specific project your team lacks the skills for, and the outsourced staff can use their testing methodologies and best practices to get the job done.

Outsourced software testing services are also a great way to handle short-term projects that can be completed without hiring full-time employees. For example, if your team is developing an API for your CRM to connect with your customer service platform, this project will barely last a few weeks before it’s launched. All you need is a testing team to check if the API works properly, but you don’t have the talent.

Instead of using resources to interview, hire, and train new testers, you can simply get an outsourced software testing team. Once they’re done with your project, they are free to go, and you will be under no obligation to keep them on the payroll for projects they aren’t needed for.

Getting a fresh perspective is always helpful, especially when you’re working on an ongoing project. As your team works on a project for weeks, it may be too involved to determine its flaws. Your team members know how the application should work and how the end-users should interact with it. This may result in complacency and a few bugs being left out.

This is one of the best scenarios to get an outsourcing team. Since they weren’t involved in the development process, they can see the application with a fresh perspective and recognize useability and functionality loopholes. They may also come across bugs that result in user behavior unpredictability.

If you opt for outsourced QA testing, here are a few best practices you can follow to ensure a seamless outsourcing experience.

Would you hire a candidate for your development team without checking their background? Probably not. Similarly, it should be a rule of thumb for you to check a company’s reputation and credibility before choosing to outsource software testing. You can visit their website to check client reviews and previous projects’ track records, and even check their team members on LinkedIn to get more insights. A reputable outsourcing company will have thorough test documentation, references, and case studies for prospective clients.

Even if a company has a stellar reputation, it will always have certain limitations. They may be a new QA company that lacks the proper array of testing tools or an old one that doesn't offer the latest testing technologies. Thus, you must first evaluate your project requirements and determine what you need for testing before choosing QA outsourcing. Ultimately, you need to strike the right balance between cost and quality to ensure you get comprehensive all-round quality assurance support from the outsourcing company.

After you’ve chosen outsourced QA testing services, it’s always recommended to regularly assess the company providing these services. A systematic and regular evaluation will help ensure your company gets the quality of services it’s paying for. Some of the assessment criteria you can use for this include: -

• Defect description quality
• The number of missed bugs
• Whether the testing efforts and outcomes correlate
• Test documentation quality
• Resource availability and capacity
• Efficiency of the testing tools the company uses

Let’s say you’re building a finance app for a bank so that its customers can easily access their accounts and bank facilities through the application. If you employ a QA team that does not know about testing financial applications and the regulations they must adhere to, your investment will yield no results.

Technologies, timelines, risks, and software vary by industry. Therefore, if you’re building a solution or product that’s industry-specific, it would be better to outsource software testing to a team with prior experience working in that industry.

At last, you must make it a point to provide KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to the outsourced software testing team. Irrespective of their expertise, the team can’t offer you the best possible service if they don’t know the objectives or goals to work towards. Some common KPIs to check for software testing include:

• Automated tests - You must decide on a benchmark for the number of tests you’d like automated. You can start at 20% of the automated tests and increase the threshold as you gain more experience on what works best for you.
• Active defects - This KPI helps to track the number of defects currently open, fixed, or new and waiting to be re-tested. For this, you can set an acceptable defects number after evaluating your previous projects or the industry your application will roll out for.
• Tests executed - This KPI will help monitor the various tests you finish, including automated and manual.

In today’s aggressive tech market, it’s become non-negotiable for companies to outsource software testing. It allows business leaders to adopt a cost-saving solution and channel resources to other strategic tasks. Moreover, it helps businesses maintain agility and stay on track with product rollouts.

Having said that, the entire process of choosing an ideal outsourcing company would require you to spend at least some time and effort. With Turing, you can skip that, as we provide deeply-betted remote software testing teams aligned with your business goals. Our AI-powered Talent Cloud uses 20,000+ ML signals to source and deeply vet professionals, ensuring that you get top talent to scale your business.

Once you share your requirements with us, we’ll provide you with a dedicated software testing team within 2 weeks. Plus, you can use our zero-risk two-week trial period to check the team’s performance before committing to them.

Today, over 900 large-scale companies, including Johnson & Johnson, Amazon, Disney, Pepsi, and Dell, are building their boundaryless development teams on Turing. Join them to shift to the Talent Cloud at the push of a button.