QA Outsourcing: Benefits & Risks

When companies decide to use outsourcing testing services, they take into account all the benefits, as well as some negative consequences.

Benefits of Outsourcing

Benefits of outsourcing are evident.

• At first, when transferring the part of tasks to a third-party company, which specializes in the particular kind of testing activity, the organization can increase the quality and reliability of tasks solving, as well as result prediction.
• Secondly, outsourcing part of the work that is not strategically important to the company will not divert its employees on activities not corresponding to their professional aspirations.
• Thirdly, the subcontractor specializing in certain types of work in application development has extensive experience and has replicated solutions for common tasks that cheapens and accelerates their decision.
• Fourthly, such companies have the most advanced technology, because the use of such technologies is a core factor for success.

Risks of Outsourcing

It’s also essential to remember about some negative consequences of transferring part of works on software development to a third-party company.

• At first, when giving projects to another company, the company-developer inevitably confides to another company a share of their confidential data and, more critically, your confidential data of the customer. Sometimes, when managing to outsource, the company needs to hide from subcontractor a factual customer data, information and insights into full app architecture.
• Secondly, efforts should be made to invest in employee training. When starting the project from outsourcing implementation, one needs to perform particular events for a subcontractor being able to execute the tasks entrusted to him. Ultimately, you may realize that investing in your staff would be much profitable.
• Thirdly, there is a risk that your subcontractor can “withdraw” your clients or become a rival to the former customer, thanks to the received knowledge from him. Such cases are not uncommon, and that’s why all the essential parts of the project are not outsourced.

However, some of these risks can be reduced through the adoption of appropriate legal and institutional measures.