Crowd Testing Vs QA outsourcing: What to choose?

Quality assurance continues to be an inevitable part of any software development process.  Not only companies need to detect bugs and errors in the apps, but get a detailed user feedback view on their product from the client’s perspective. At the same time, a software testing company needs to plan various test cases and checklists, determine the most fitting tools to use, and perform an advanced inspection of all the required features and parameters within the shortest terms. The process is becoming even more challenging when it comes to meeting strict deadlines of application testing and release. This makes many companies wonder how to choose the best QA services with impressive experience and qualifications. 

Many businesses hire their own internal QA experts to ensure their process of quality assurance will be done smoothly. However, this strategy often appears to be insufficient. Therefore, most companies start looking for external professionals to get the testing job done. It is much more cost-effective and convenient for both big and small enterprises. Still, the question about picking up the right alternative remains to be answered. Which one is better – outsource testing or crowdsourcing testing? Let’s find out the undeniable benefits of both options. By the way, we’ve split the features to compare it into different groups for your convenience.

Outsourcing Vs. Crowd testing: the basics 

Before diving into the benefits of using each type of service, it is necessary to come up with the basic principles of each alternative. When it comes to outsourcing, you will need to signup with an outsourcing company (offshore or nearshore) that will provide you with a remote team of QA experts. The remote team will work from a single remote location and provide services to fit your particular needs. Usually this is done in a “full time” position and for a longer term agreement. As a rule, you are to delegate some functions to another company that specializes in your field. In other words, you hire or “rent” a team from the other company for your needs for a certain period of time. 

As for crowd testing, here you are able to use the power of the crowd but not a certain predefined team. The crowd testing company has a global community of QA testers, using their own devices/PCs, and usually it comes with an assigned project manager. This is a more flexible solution when you have changing needs that require you to scale the QA efforts. In this case, all the challenges your company faced with will be performed by the crowd – a number of skilled and experienced QA experts that reside in different countries and allow you to test on different devices, OSs, carriers, or even unique demographics.  

Management 

The key to ensuring the top quality of a service is to use industry standards, advanced instructions, and indicators of the results of QA processes. The work in a group of professionals should be well-organized and conveniently manageable.  

On one hand, software testing outsourcing companies have a perfect system of management, where each project has a dedicated manager to suit the needs of the client. Further, the team of QAs are usually based at the same location, and are usually the same people, thus, easier to set physical meetings when needed and to know the true professional level of each tester. On the other hand, crowdsourced testing has a more diverse approach to testing efforts with handy management and an assigned dedicated project manager. Furthermore, with today’s online tools for group chat, video online meetings and project management tools – even a large global team is easily managed. Therefore, both alternatives get the highest scores for this feature.

Security 

It is important to keep your technologies, concepts, ideas, an intellectual property during the process of software development in full confidentiality. It is obvious that your competitors shouldn’t have a chance to discover any data about your application or features. As for the QA processes offered by outsourced qa testing and crowdsourcing test, both options have strict confidentiality rules. However, outsourcing gets better points for this feature, because its team members are not freelancers but are employed by the company and can be better monitored. 

By the way, if you would like to test a product that is already present on the market and is used by the clients, confidentiality is less of the concern. Both outsourcing and crowdsourcing are great for regression testing. 

Predictability 

Another factor that leads any company to success is its ability to predict expenses for developing each product, as well as the time needed to hit the market. This means that the QA process should be also taken into account when planning the business activity. So, which option is it better to choose when it comes to QA? 

Outsource software testing is usually a pricier alternative that might make you face with failure to meet the deadlines. Also, you have a specific team of QA resources working for you and it’s difficult to address the changing needs of testing. It might take an outsourcing company several days before they can add more resources to your remote team.  Crowdsourcing has a more transparent system. Also, it is much more flexible and allows you to scale your QA resources in a matter of hours. Crowd testing allows you to get the results of the QA process much faster, in any required level of requirements and it is easily managed. 

So the issue of predictability shows an advantage to the crowd testing model. 

Flexibility and working hours

Outsourcing companies are usually available during the same working hours. As a rule, this is a traditional 8-hour working day, with fixed days off and holidays. In case you need to reach the experts out of hours, you will need to wait for business hours. 

Crowdtesting offers much more benefits here. The service is available 24/7, so you can contact your testers anytime. Moreover, the QA professionals can work at nights, on weekends, and even on holidays. They are not tied to office hours and are more reachable compared to outsourcing alternatives. Therefore, crowdsourcing is a better option, when it comes to flexibility. 

Efficiency

Every company is looking for top-notch and precise results of software QA. When it comes to outsourcing companies, the testing is likely to be performed by one remote team that is very familiar with the tested product, with the help of similar test cases. This way, some bugs and weaknesses might be unnoticed. 

On the contrary, crowd testing has a more advanced approach to the process of testing. Allowing professional QAs from all over the world to test your application. This is a non-biased team of curious QA individuals that will provide you with dozens of various views on the strong and weak points of your solution. Therefore, crowdsourcing gets an extra point for efficiency.

Qualification and talent

Software testing outsourcing usually requires finding a perfect QA who will take care of your product. However, in case you fail to find the right one, you will need to start looking for a true professional from the very beginning. This will surely take you some time and effort. This is quite similar to recruiting your own in-house professional. The ‘cost of mistake’ is quite high. Further, because the decision to change a resource has a toll, sometimes companies settle for lower quality people just so that they don’t need to go through the hassle of recruitment again.  

Fortunately, crowdsourcing welcomes you with wider opportunities. The community of expert testers in different countries is constantly growing, making the crowd testers more and more skilled and experienced. Moreover, clients can choose the type of characteristics they need from QAs. For example, it is possible to select a certain location, carrier, device type, as well as unique demographics of testers, including age, gender, hobbies, and other particular features. 

By the way, in case you deal with a large number of professional testers, you are likely to get more talented experts to test your application. 

Pricing 

Costs spent on the QA process is one of the most important factors to consider when choosing a testing solution. Outsourcing companies will add many ‘fixed costs’ items to the quote they provide. The client has to pay for what the resources are using such as the office space, the devices, food, travel, social benefits, etc. All these factors are incorporated into the pricing. In crowdsourced testing there are no overhead costs. The testers are all freelance testers, using their own devices. When it comes to comparing the prices, crowdsourcing leaves its main alternative far behind. It is a much more affordable, cost-effective and easy-to-use service. 

Conclusion 

In the modern economic environment, both outsourcing and crowdsourcing are excellent alternatives for performing effective testing. Still, crowdsourcing offers a flexible, faster, and more productive way to scale the QA testing efforts. It also has the advantage of a more affordable price and ability to go ‘global’ with specific demographics.

Want to know more about the advantages of crowd testing? Feel free to contact us at sales@ubertesters.com