India Software Inc. sees lucrative market in software testing

Defective software has the potential to wreak havoc. However, in a highly competitive industry and in the rush to meet deadlines, most software companies developing a product or service have often overlooked this crucial aspect. But as security awareness rises and vendors realise that paying for testing products today is better rather than risking business failure tomorrow, the software testing industry has come into its own, says Srikanth R P

V Lalitha says that Polaris’s strategy in software testing is to build on the expertise the company has built up in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) space

Time-to-market has always been the most important factor for a company developing a product or delivering a service. The longer the time taken to get the product/service to market, the greater the chances of someone else beating you to it. Unfortunately, in the rush to meet deadlines the end result is nothing short of disastrous as software code testing is often rushed or overlooked. Some smart Indian software companies have rightly sensed this booming opportunity and have started forming independent practices to address the emerging space of software testing. And in terms of credentials, India, with the largest number of SEI-CMM Level 4 and 5 certified firms, is perhaps best equipped to take advantage of this opportunity.

Apart from pure-play players like RelQ, large companies like Infosys and Polaris are eyeing this booming opportunity. RelQ has emerged as one of the biggest players, with around 500 employees focused on the software testing space. Like the outsourcing concept, which advocates outsourcing of an organisation’s non-core areas of work, even software companies are realising the need for outsourcing the activity of testing to domain specialist players like RelQ.

Says Shrikant S, director and co-founder, RelQ, “Few software companies can afford to set up and keep up with the competencies required for a state-of-the-art software test centre. MNC companies have realised this and have developed processes to outsource to best-of-breed vendors. With time, as software service companies develop a focus, they will eventually outsource the testing of their critical software to professional testing companies.” There has also been a recent trend of more and more MNC companies who outsource to multiple development vendors in India to involve an independent software verification and validation partner to ensure quality of software—and independent vendors like RelQ fit the requirement perfectly.

Additionally, with India becoming a big base for software development, it makes sense for global product vendors to undertake testing of a product in India to save costs in terms of logistics and time. The potential that exists in the software testing space is more or less the same as what the offshoring model offers. With the entry of the Internet, computers and software are no longer restricted to the role of internal decision-support tools. Given this situation and the criticality of software for different functions, the thoroughness of testing becomes critically important for both the vendor and the customer.

Infosys and Polaris have set up specialised groups to address the software testing space. Infosys offers software testing services as part of its Independent Validation Solutions (IVS) offering. The IVS practice was set up as a separate group, consisting of test engineers, analysts and specialists with multiple years of experience in testing.

Says Arun Ramu, associate VP and head of Independent Validation Solutions, Infosys Technologies, “We realised the importance of software testing at a very early stage and launched our testing division in 2001. Over the last few years, the market for software testing outsourcing has mushroomed and we have been able to take advantage of this growing trend.” Infosys believes that its global delivery model would prove to be a competitive advantage in the software testing space too.

Since few software companies can afford to set up a state-of-the-art software test centre and as software service companies develop a focus, they will eventually outsource testing of their critical software to professional testing companies, says Shrikant S

Key drivers

With time-to-market being key in the industry and a lack of players offering specialised services like software testing, Infosys believes that the need for outsourcing of software testing would come even from software service companies. Additionally, most organisations are also gradually realising that software testing is an independent professional discipline. Infosys currently offers independent test services like functionality, performance (reliability, availability, stress, load and volume), security (application and network), usability and even certification. The company has also set up a state-of-the-art testing lab, which can test thousands of users on most available browsers, hardware and software platforms with a variety of standard test automation tools. Even companies in the software service space can take advantage of this lab for outsourcing their software testing requirements.

Another Indian major, Polaris, has been offering software testing services as early as 1997. The company formed an independent unit called PACE (Polaris Application Certification Enterprise) to handle in-house as well as third-party software testing. Today, it is one of the fastest growing divisions within Polaris.

Says V Lalitha, vice president, PACE, “The potential for testing is great, as more and more companies realise the importance of independent testing. Our strategy is to build on the expertise we have built up in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) space. We now have more than 1,500 person years of experience in independent testing. Moreover, deliveries to some of our major clients for their

mission-critical applications directly roll out to the market without any further testing.” While traditional Indian software service players have concentrated on the BFSI domain, pure-play players like RelQ have gone way ahead and have started addressing multiple segments like BFSI, wireless, mobile, embedded systems (medical electronics, aerospace) and software games.

According to Arun Ramu, over the last few years, the market for software testing outsourcing has mushroomed and Infosys has been able to take advantage of this trend

Future

With more and more consumers demanding that software vendors be held responsible for the security vulnerabilities in their products, the demand for testing of software products and certification is bound to grow. While testing has always been an integral part of any software development process, customers and even vendors are keen to get their software tested by a company that has not played a part in the development process. With well established credentials on the quality front, India surely has the potential to emerge as the leader in a space that has not yet appeared on the radar screen of most countries.

srikanth@expresscomputeronline.com