Step into the decade of disruption. The best alternatives to hiring internal QA

According to the prognosis of hundreds of economists and business experts, many countries are now entering the era of crisis. Numerous big and small businesses are likely to be forced to cut their expenses and face a rapid decrease in sales volumes. 

These tendencies will surely slow down the recruitment processes. When a company is focused on how to survive in the drastically changing environments, hiring new staff is no longer included in the list of its priorities. Reducing ‘head-count’ becomes a major goal. 

However, most businesses will continue to develop new products and services. Even in crisis periods, the launched products are expected to be untarnished. The QA teams are expected to provide the best quality within the most brilliant solutions. But what should you do in case you need to get more quality assurance professionals but have a limited budget? Fortunately, there are some excellent alternatives to hiring an internal QA. Feel free to discover the best options below.  

Increase the number of tools

There is nothing new that automated testing is an inevitable part of any QA process. Most companies are using various types of automated testing solutions along with manual testing. The fact is that automated web tests can easily speed up testing and provide you with excellent results in minutes. Web testing automation is highly recommended for solutions that require performing hundreds of repetitive tests. In case your tests don’t require rewriting and updating on a regular basis, using automated platforms might appear to be really life-saving. 

Still, it is necessary to keep in mind that using automation is not always the best alternative to maintain the flawless quality of your service. Automated tests will do only what you expect them to do. In case you want to receive a professional viewpoint on your software, get creative ideas on how to make it better, manual testing is still important. 

Moreover, it is necessary to have a clear vision of the company’s plans and strategy.
Automated tools are expensive and require major development resources, so it might appear to be inefficient to purchase these utilities for testing one and only product. Consider purchasing automated testing platforms and utilities as an investment and make sure you will be able to benefit from using it in the nearest future as well as the long-run. 

Pros of purchasing automation tools:

• Faster process of testing
• Reliable – testing is done the same way all the time, thus, there are no human errors 
• Complete – based on what you program to test – you may create a test suite to cover all of your functionalities   

Cons of buying extra tools: 

• High prices
• Requires skilled developers that are hard to recruit and more costly
• Might appear to be inefficient when making a purchase for testing a single product
• Is machine-based and can’t provide you any creative ideas on how to make the product better
• Maintenance time and effort – the product always evolves and so should you automated checks. If you don’t invest in high maintenance you will start getting failures. To keep the test automation up-to-date requires a lot of efforts and resources.   

Hire an outsource remote team 

Software testing outsourcing is another popular alternative to hiring an internal QA specialist. When most of the members of your QA team are working remotely, and in different locations, it might be difficult to manage the entire quality assurance process. Lack of real communication between the experts might cause delays in the production process and other issues. This makes hundreds of companies look for pro help via outsource testing. 

Outsourced QA testing allows receiving the results of the testing efforts within the shortest terms. However, most outsourced companies are usually located in the same country and same location (even if far away from the client). Therefore, they might have a limited number of devices, carriers, and locations to perform application testing. The results you get from the outsourced QA testing might not be enough to ensure the best quality of your product. Many experts believe that crowdsourcing is a better option than outsource software testing. Still, both types of QA services have their undeniable benefits and cons. 

Pros of using outsource remote QA team:

• Can make the entire testing process faster
• In most cases, less costly than in-house QA team

Cons of using outsource remote QA team:

• More difficult to manage the entire QA process
• Delays in the production might occur due to lack of real communication between the team members and the paying customer 
• Limited number of carriers, devices, and location for effective testing

Initiate a partnership with a crowdtesting service

Crowdsourced testing is considered to be one of the most brilliant options when it comes to improving your software QA process. Especially for testing any type of digital product or IoT devices. Crowd testing uses the power of the crowd; hundreds of QA professionals with their own devices all over the world. You can easily get your tests done by experts in any country globally, test your software on hundreds of real devices, carriers, and locations. And there is a bonus – usually crowd testing services are ‘managed services’, meaning you get an assigned project manager to handle the entire testing for you, allowing you to reduce your management overhead significantly. 

Crowdsourced software testing is also famous for its high speed and flexibility. Moreover, you get many useful and handy feedback regarding your software from dozens of industry professionals. All these benefits can be easily obtained without hiring a single new person and making sure your head-count remains low. In case your budget is limited, you can also take advantage of crowdsourced QA testing since it has a cost-effective price. This makes crowdsourcing test options to be the most affordable, fast and flexible alternative during the crisis. 

Pros of using crowdsourced testing: 

• Benefit from using the power and wisdom of the crowd 
• Significantly speed up your testing process (one can start a cycle in a matter of hours) 
• Unlimited number of devices, carriers, and locations to test your app
• Great for localization testing – one can get access to devices and testers from any geography and any language with no extra effort. 
• Real feedback from dozens of experts
• No need to hire new specialists
• Cost-effective prices

Cons of using crowdsourced testing: 

• Confidentiality – it’s sometimes difficult to know who is testing your product and what type of NDA they signed. 
• Communication flow – usually the crowd testing company won’t allow to communicate directly with the testers making the process a “one way street”.  

Hire an offshore QA engineer

Hiring an offshore software testing expert remains to be a sought-after option for many businesses. You can use tools such as UpWork or Freelence.com and find your own individual freelance QA to work for you. The fact is that hiring an offshore QA expert is faster and easier than compared to hiring a local QA expert. You don’t need to spend days and weeks arranging interviews, checking skills, and initiating the standard recruiting process. In other words, an offshore QA professional is ready to help you with your needs much faster. Furthermore, attracting offshore testing professionals is usually cheaper compared to outsourcing in your homeland (nearshore outsourcing). 

However, offshore outsourcers might work in a different time zone and have some communication bottlenecks.

Pros of hiring an offshore QA expert:

• Faster and cheaper compared to hiring a local professional
• There are online tools that make these experts available in one single platform 

Cons of hiring an offshore tester:

• Lack of communication due to different time zones or language barriers might become an issue
• No accountability – you never know what you get. You can trust the recommendations that others provided, but you don’t have any supervising entity to ensure you get the best quality personnel for your exact needs.  

Conclusion 

There are lots of alternatives to hiring an internal QA. Each option has its pros and cons, so it is recommended to choose the most fitting option depending on your needs. However, in case you are looking for an effective and budget-friendly solution, crowd testing is likely to suit all your demands. 

Want to know more about this type of service? Ubertesters is here to help! Contact us at sales@ubertesters.com