Sometimes getting new software adopted within your company takes time and usually it needs management approval depending on the level of Capex or Opex spend.
The most common question that gets asked is – What is the potential return we can expect if we make this investment?
Introducing a new Test Automation solution into your organisation is no different. The value to the business needs to be clearly demonstrated.
So how do we measure this?
We all know that testing is a critical function for any ERP team that is implementing an Enterprise Solution or applying any application update. With the right testing strategy in place, your organisation minimizes the risk of business interruptions from unexpected issues.
Let’s dig a little deeper here.
Are you using automated testing to make the process faster and more effective? We sometimes hear objections about taking on an automated testing solution, like being too busy to implement it or wondering whether it will truly resolve persistent productivity issues. Is it worth the investment in both time and cost to onboard a new process? Some teams believe they can handle automation tasks themselves, even when past experience shows this might not be the case.
The truth is, testing automation brings a wide range of benefits to address the points above and more. Here are the top reasons why testing automation is a smart investment, followed by tips for measuring the business value of testing automation.
Enables DevOps
For the benefit of those less ‘Techy’, DevOps is a set of practices combining software development with IT operations. It aims to shorten the software development lifecycle, making it faster to develop and deliver new digital solutions.
Within the DevOps framework, manual testing is often the biggest hurdle to successfully rolling out new upgrades and updates. Manual testing is notoriously slow and error-prone, plus it creates a risk of business interruptions that slow down your organisation’s daily work.
In particular, automated testing takes the pain out of Oracle updates. Hundreds of test scripts run quickly and continuously provide a more comprehensive approach, providing reassurance that daily activities will continue to function smoothly.
Keeps pace with ERP vendors
Testing automation helps protect an enterprise resource planning (ERP) investment by keeping your organisation ahead of new software updates. If your team typically struggles to keep up with the frequency and depth of Oracle upgrades, this can be enormously helpful. Reach out to your testing teams and help identify repetitive tasks that could potentially be replaced by automation.
Automation allows the testing of all processes in a shorter period of time. End the guesswork of manual testing and speed up your updating procedures considerably.
See how much you could save
with our ROI calculator that can help to present your specific business case.
Reduces risk
Downtime is extremely expensive. Every moment your company can’t operate creates a risk of lost connections, contracts, partnerships, and other valuable aspects of doing business.
A Gartner study found that 98% of companies estimate the cost of IT downtime to be between £80,418 and £435,537. In a similar study, the Uptime Institute found downtime costs have risen sharply in the past few years, with 60% of outages now costing more than £80,000 per hour and 15% costing a staggering £800,000-plus per hour.
Automation minimizes these costs by supporting business continuity. When you switch from manual to automated processes, you ensure proper test coverage by prioritizing testing for high-risk business processes and preventing unnecessary losses.
Saves time
Test automation creates a tighter feedback loop between the development of the code and the testing process. As a result, it takes less time to identify and resolve bugs.
Saving so much time helps to justify the investment in testing automation when your company’s leaders question the cost. You’ll be able to show that your testing investment eliminates labour-intensive, time-consuming, repetitive tasks typically needed for regression testing.
Our research shows automated testing lowers organisational risk by 90% and results in an overall cost savings of approximately 65%. By relying on automation rather than by-hand testing, it detects bugs earlier, works more thoroughly, and prevents expensive system issues from ever occurring.
Non Economic Benefits
I think we can all agree that there are some benefits that are impossible to put a price tag on.
Here are some of the “soft” benefits that clients speak of when they implement WinfoTest.
Opportunity Cost: This is the cost of pulling your key resources off other critical tasks to help with testing. We heard from one customer who had a resourcing challenge around Black Friday, one of their busiest times of the year. They had to pull staff from the day-to-day order processing to help with testing a quarterly update from Oracle. This had a direct impact on sales and very disruptive for the team.
Staff Motivation: Let’s face it, sometimes manually executing the same tasks over and over can be a little repetitive and can demotivate employees. We get it – you would prefer them to engage on higher level work. The good news is that our software robot (WinfoTest) is happy to execute countless test scripts, emulating a real user and report back on any bugs it encounters. It is also happy to run 24/7 without any breaks 🙂
Reducing Risk: It is really hard to put a value on this but the biggest concern for any ERP support manager is the potential for major business disruptions caused by bugs not caught during testing. For many companies the system is the beating heart of operations so having it go down is not an option. Hershey’s famously lost $100 million in sales due to insufficient ERP post-implementation testing so no-one wants a repeat of that!
Upgrading to automated testing is about more than just money and time savings. It’s also about seizing the opportunity to modernise your business by leveraging productivity gains and freeing people to focus on higher-level activities.
New efficiencies come with these new cloud applications, helping your organisation stay current with software, security, and technology. Instead of staying bogged down with manual testing, your team can readjust their focus to high-value activities and other in-demand projects that have languished without attention under the manual model.
How to show testing automation ROI with WinfoTest
As you can see, the value of automated testing is clear. WinfoTest’s automated testing solution is expertly designed to work with Oracle Cloud applications and the latest Oracle products. It also works seamlessly with Oracle legacy applications like Oracle E-Business Suite.
If you’d like more proof of its value, try our ROI Calculator to determine how WinfoTest could benefit your company. Our clients typically experience 70% cost reductions and 90% risk reductions after WinfoTest implementation.
