ROI on Test Automation

In today's world, there is ongoing pressure to bring out products that are better, faster, more powerful, and flawless. Time to market is critical. However, today's test environment's often cannot support those demands. Faced with continuous product upgrades, patches, new features, diverse equipment for different tests, manual processes, isolated repositories and an 8 hour day, a positive ROI is not easily achieved. In fact, testing costs threaten to overwhelm profitability. The risk of cutting corners and spot checking is that defects may slip through the cracks.

Automation can be applied to many types of testing, but the most common candidates for automation include daily smoke testing, regression testing, load and performance, installation and configuration, soak and endurance, and usability testing, to name a few.

Automated testing improves overall business results by reducing time to market, decreasing product development times, and improving product quality through more thorough and effective testing. The negative costs of incomplete or inaccurate testing can be staggering, and may include lost revenue, lost customers, service outages, and possibly liability costs.

Typically, automated testing requires a costly upfront investment for a project, with the promise of reduced OPEX and CAPEX costs and improved efficiency sometime in the future. The costs include hardware, software and licenses, training, and time to produce and execute test cases and scripts. The benefits are calculated by determining efficiency improvements such as the reduced time to execute tests, improved time to market, and the ability to test 24 hours a day over a period of time.