Jose Luis Antón, Head of Sogeti Spain.
The transition to the digital economy is taking longer than expected in our country. To what extent is quality engineering (QE) delayed as a result?
J. L. A.: A higher rate of implementation was really expected and, therefore, that the transition to the digital economy would be a reality already implemented by now. However, due to the context that we have been living in in recent years, we see that there has been a recess and quality engineering (QE) is being delayed as a result. It is important that we all join efforts to accelerate this transition: both service providers, small businesses and, of course, by large companies, such as banks and commercial chains.
However, and although as I said that change is slow, it is extracted from this year’s World Quality Report, that both in Spain and in Italy progress is being made in quality assurance and testing of mobile applications.
Agile and DevOps approaches are gradually being adopted, but for many, the default development environment remains waterfall-oriented, especially for strategic projects. Only among the most advanced teams, those using agile and DevOps approaches, do we see QA being built in, rather than operating unobtrusively.
What role does agile methodology play in achieving real value in quality engineering?
J. L. A.: The maturity of this type of methodology in organizations in southern Europe is in the process of consolidation. Around 60% of the work groups have quality engineers among their staff and have managed to improve the reliability of the systems thanks to the automation of tests.
By contrast, quality and testing are less centralized today. They are currently being managed by teams, but it is fair to say that the public sector is still very oriented to the waterfall model, and many organizations are struggling to change it to the agile approach. This new approach implies a commitment to hybrid models with a sometimes integrated quality guarantee that leads to irregular results.
What do you think the future of emerging technologies like blockchain, metaverse and other Web3 applications will look like?
J. L. A.: In general, organizations are increasingly turning to Quality Engineering and Testing (QE&T) to support the implementation and success of new technologies such as blockchain and Web 3.0.
Thus, more than 80% of those surveyed for our report choose blockchain and Web 3.0 as a priority for their IT strategy when it comes to addressing business challenges associated with various aspects such as customer experience, time to market, safety and cost. To ensure a smooth experience for end users, new technology needs to be verified in a different way than before, with a different approach, types of testing, and quality validation.
Focusing on blockchain and Web 3.0 as priorities would warrant a change in how test environments and data are traditionally managed. A less decentralized approach could solve some of the current challenges, however it would also introduce new complexities. Whatever the outcome, this is an interesting space to pay attention to.
To what extent does quality engineering contribute to the environmental aspect of sustainable IT?
If organizations aspire to be environmentally sustainable, they need to learn how to use available resources optimally. A greater strategic focus on quality is the way to go. 72% of organizations think that QE&T could contribute to the environmental aspect of sustainable IT, and quality must be a fundamental part of the strategy to drive it forward.
In addition, at Sogeti, as part of the Capgemini Group, we are very committed to sustainability matters when it comes to helping implement them for our clients. For this reason, we have new long-term net zero emissions targets in the Group where we want to achieve a 90% reduction of all carbon emissions throughout our value chain by 2040.
In what way and how is it perceived in the strategy of an organization that including this type of sustainable and ecological engineering allows to improve aspects as important as the classification of the value of the brand and customer loyalty?
J.L.A.: Respondents are optimistic about the benefits of green engineering as part of their sustainable IT strategies, with 47% citing improved brand value ranking as the most important benefit, followed by close by increased customer loyalty (46%).
When organizations rank the benefits of having sustainable quality engineering as part of a sustainable IT strategy, there is no one benefit that ranks above the rest. We can say that the value of the brand and the loyalty of the clients are in the first positions, and the rest of the benefits such as the improvement of the total income or the motivation of the employees follow closely behind them. It should be noted that improving customer satisfaction is not perceived as one of the most important.
With more data being hosted in the cloud and integration with third-party applications increasing, how can organizations balance offering users peace of mind regarding access and visibility of their data and the increasingly frequent security breach? ?
J. L. A.: Provision of test data is an essential part of the software testing life cycle. Over the years, with stricter regulatory and security requirements around data, organizations have become more focused on provisioning test data securely.
When applications are migrated to the cloud, both functional and non-functional aspects of the application must be tested to ensure overall functionality and performance remain as required. In our report, we ask if organizations include cloud and infrastructure testing as part of their development lifecycle. The data is very positive, with about 96% of all respondents mentioning that cloud testing is included as part of the lifecycle, but only 57% have included it in most projects and 39% only in some.
We strongly recommend that this trend continue and that cloud infrastructure testing be included as a mandatory phase in the lifecycle.
According to this report and taking it to the national data, what are the challenges facing organizations associated with customer experience, time to market, security and cost?
J. L. A.: These continue to be the main objectives that pursue quality as a practice. In fact, in many organizations there is a change in improving the time to market of business applications in terms of putting business solutions into production. Some organizations are even moving from agile quality engineering to application or solution reliability engineering.
Experts and quality teams play a fundamental role in the transformation towards the digital economy, but in our country this process is taking longer than expected.
Agile and DevOps paradigms are being adopted gradually, and therefore not with the required maturity. For example, in the expected levels of automation, establishment of Quality Gates, etc. This translates into results that are not efficient enough, which ultimately translates into higher costs in the software development process. For this reason, the greatest challenge is found in reaching the levels of maturity required in the adoption of these paradigms and with sufficient levels of quality, which guarantees not only a reduction in time to market and cost, but also with the security and CX levels required by the business areas of the organizations.