Almost all businesses are experimenting with or expanding test automation across teams in today’s digital-first economy. However, a startling number still find it difficult to articulate in quantifiable, understandable terms why it is important to the organization. You’re not alone if that sounds familiar. Automation, quicker cycles, fewer flaws, and scalable testing are all alluring. However, leaders frequently find themselves doubting the return on investment if there is no obvious link to business outcomes. Test automation is a business strategy that, when properly framed, can garner executive sponsorship and unlock long-term value. It is not just a QA or engineering concern.
This blog explains how to reframe test automation as a strategic driver of enterprise performance rather than a technical endeavour, and how to effectively convey its benefits in a way that resonates with decision-makers.
What Measurable Business Outcomes Will this Initiative Deliver?
In today’s world, tools alone cannot deliver value. It is essential that businesses purposefully connect their investment automation efforts with their automation objectives. For any business, the moment this connection is established, automation as a cost-sink down a business line and takes form as a highly valued business investment.
In this case, clarity is best achieved by mapping out value.
- What is the cost of not automating processes?
- What is the mission-critical objectives this project must achieve?
- Over a period, how is success defined, and value calculated?
Automatically, this translates automation from a ‘QA only’ concern to a system that enables to overall business the organization’s efforts to deliver value, predictability and achieve influence on customers.
Why this is relevant to the business executive.
Positing test automation to business value realizes positive return of investment of heavily sought leadership engagement. Benefits that derive from this are:
- Stronger sponsorship from the executive that is observable
- Budgets that are secured and resources that automatically align as business demand increases
- Rather than being influenced by siloed objectives, there is alignment with enterprise
When automation results are tied to KPIs that leaders are already interested in, such as increasing overall resilience, decreasing production incidents, improving customer experience, or speeding up release velocity, the story becomes much more compelling to them. In this context, QA is viewed as an enterprise agility driver rather than a cost center.
Usually, there are three intentional steps on the way forward:
- Finding the business issues that automation can directly address
- Outlining the intended business results and the “future state” vision
- Using metrics that appeal to decision-makers to quantify success
If one examines the use of test automation in a business, however, it becomes a little disconcerting when the business is asked:
Test automation is no longer about just test automation. It can be about generating more resilient and faster business automation as well, provided it is correctly executed.
Step 1: Connect Pain Points to Business Consequences
Let’s say the customers are extremely zealous about a specific feature and you have managed to automate this process. In such a scenario, however, automating the schedule, along with the range of sophisticated features which will be needed to achieve the goal will be more critical, and can take months. Engineers will no longer be dissatisfied, and competitors will also be free to innovate their sets of features.
That’s the cost of using inefficient and tedious testing.
Some of the most common issues include:
- Prolonged regression cycles that postpone launches
- Testers exhausted by tedious and tiring work
- QA teams struggling to keep pace with Agile or DevOps
- Bugs that damage customer trust by sneaking into production
QA struggles with these issues, and the rest of the organization struggles with them too. Released products cause missed chances or angry customers. Employee burnout leads to high turnover.
Real world example: One automation provider spent half of the cycle on regression testing. Shifting to a no code automation framework significantly lowered overhead maintenance, enabling the organization to ship more features and improve quality.
The lesson here: Do not present automation as a “nice to have.” Use the business language to highlight the cost of doing nothing.
Step 2: Define What Success Looks Like
Now look from the other side. Instead of concentrating on the current issues, guide the leaders on envisioning a preferable outcome.
For QA teams, success could entail:
- Executing hundreds of tests autonomously during the night, with no extra resource
- Identifying and clarifying deviations in a matter of hours instead of days
- Testers focusing on more creative and complex tasks instead of monotonous button smashing
- Teams constantly delivering stable and dependable builds sprint after sprint
The business this translates into:
- Increased product delivery speeds and staying ahead of competition
- Reduction of costly production accidents that can tarnish the organization reputation
- Higher employee satisfaction which improves productivity
- Stronger readiness for business digital transformation
It’s like upgrading from a hand-operated production line to a fully automated one. The difference is that the end product is produced faster and with more consistency and reliability.
To sum up, an organization’s confidence to move fast and attempt to scale without breaking anything is where the true value of automation lies.
Step 3: Prove Value with Data
Stories inspire, but numbers close the deal. Leaders want to see proof. Board metrics that are popular in the board room:
- Saved time per release (e.g. regression cycles from 10 days to 3)
- Defect volume (number of production bugs)
- Agile development cycle time (code commit to deployment)
- Team morale (retention, satisfaction scores of testers)
- Impact to the customer (fewer support tickets, net promoter score improvements)
Example: One organization provided the automation of business processes to capture new products months ahead of schedule, boosting release cycles and reaping more revenue than they spent due to opportunity-cost orientation, not the other way around.
And here’s the kicker: ROI does not always mean cost-cutting. More often than not, the victory comes from reallocation of resources, as is the case with the testers who no longer need to tedious regression cycles.
From Tactical to Strategic: The Bigger Picture
Test automation is no longer a one-woman affair belonging to the QA. It is, at best, a business capability that, when executed, allows a organization to delight customers with reduced risk while innovating at high velocity.
The discussion should no longer center around tools and scripts. The focus should rather be on the desired results: agility, resilience, enhanced customer experience, and sustained competitiveness.
Next time someone asks, “What is the benefit of usage of automated processes for business purposes?” stall, instead of simply pointing out the amount of time saved to elaborate on much more beneficial factors such as:
- Competition is tough
- Customer-impacting failures are costly, and this minimizes that risk
- People, processes, and resources are channelled towards more productive, and value-adding activities
This is the moment when automation becomes more than just an expenditure on the balance sheet. This is the moment when automation truly becomes integrated into the organization’s philosophy and core strategy.