'Testing times' ahead mean $16-b opportunity for India
Hindu Business Line, November 26, 2008

Bangalore, Nov. 26 Short-term pain notwithstanding, India is positioned to come out stronger from current global recessionary pressures because of its professional edge in areas such as software and product testing, delegates at an International Software Testing Conference were told.

Dr Sashi Reddi, Founder-Chairman of AppLabs Technologies, one of the largest software testing providers, quoted analysts like Gartner to suggest that Indian players could generate over 70 per cent of the outsourced testing business that was poised to grow to $16 billion in three years. The competition would be very strong in areas like product testing – so Indian players should nurture verticals like security or compliance testing, he added.

When corporates worldwide faced a crunch, it pays to automate as much as possible of the testing process, felt keynote speaker Mr Michel Guez, Managing Director, Smartesting India, the Indian operation of the France-based leader in automated testing. Techniques like model-based testing could lift the degree of automation from around 25 per cent to 80-90 per cent, he suggested: “Add technology, not people”. Organised by global consulting organisation QAI and Edista Testing Institute, the conference , which concluded on Tuesday, attracted over 500 testing professionals.

See the print version

In Testing Times Look To The Young
Asian Age / Deccan Chronicle, November 24, 2008

Nov.24: In software testing, being younger is now proving to be better and safer. As the global downturn takes its toll and demand in certain segments dip, IT firms have been keen on hiring more freshers than seniors with specialisation, experts say. Cost is the primary motive. "Would I sell bodies to keep my boat afloat or should I hire fancy guys?" asks the CEO of EdistaTesting Institute Pradeep Chennavajhula, pointing to the recession psychology of firms. His institute trains and certifies testing professionals.

Although the market for software testing is one of the fastest growing segments of the services market for Indian companies growing at over 50 per cent customer caution now has depressed demand in specialised areas such as security and performance testing. "The dip has occurred because people are conserving cash reserves and has stopped fancy things the sexy, nice-to-do projects which involve infrastructure, tools, purchases and licenses among others. People had started setting up test centres of excellence, which were long-drawn capital intensive projects for three years. Those are on hold," Chennavajhula says.

This, in turn, have ebbed the need for specialist engineers, who come with steeper price tags. "The price tag for a senior level tester today can go as high as Rs 18 lakhs per annum, difficult to imagine in the market today. For a development engineer, it can be justified because the volume is so huge. However, the testing market is a growing area for Indian firms with the industry just about $4 billion in revenues," the CEO says. Since the basic "functional" work required to run an application continues to grow, entry-level hiring is on. This is also a segment where there is a huge demand-supply mismatch with some estimates pegging the shortage at 13,000 testers currently.

While hiring of top-level testing professionals has crashed almost 50-55 per cent compared to last year, the rate of growth at the entry level is 24-30 per cent, he noticed. In other segments of the IT services world, it has been a different story since companies have been hiring top level managers to "do the miracle" — customer acquisition has now become an issue and firms need seniors with enough contacts. In the testing arena, there is some hiring still on for managerial roles but not at the same speed as the entry level. Once the recession clouds clear, things could be back to normal. Most experts remain optimistic about the long-term and see emerging opportunities in the testing business. Founder and chairman of Hyderabad-based software testing firm AppLabs Sashi Reddi sniffs an opportunity in compliance testing where most enterprises would now need to boost spending.

Michel Guez, MD of Smartesting, a French firm that sells automatic test generation tools, feels Europe is a gold mine for Indian firms to explore. "When money is tight, you look at the lowest cost. Continental companies will be looking at good and cheaper ways to develop software projects. There could be an upside for Indian firms if they develop sales teams there," he says.

See the print version

Urgently required: Software Testers!
Times Ascent, December 22, 2008

With the software testing industry gearing up to be one with high growth potential, the demand for software testers has shot up dramatically. According to Gartner, independent testing as a business globally is growing at 50-60 per cent and there is a 35-40 per cent growth in offshore testing services. Software testing market in India is now at 2 billion USD and is pegged to be 4.5 billion USD by 2010.

While testing predominantly was done as part of software development earlier, it has now become a mainstream business in India. This is evident from the fact that all IT majors now have testing centres of excellence and offer independent testing service. “Till a few years back, the average deal sizes in outsourced testing projects were about $50-60,000 requiring a few testers to be on the job. Only certain parts/types of testing were being outsourced to India. Currently, independent software vendor’s (ISV) are outsourcing end-to-end testing projects and the average deal sizes are around 2-4 million USD,” notes Pradeep C, CEO, Edista Testing Institute.

For India, to be prepared to grab a 4.5 billion USD pie of the outsourced testing market, the major challenge is to overcome the shortage of skilled resources. As per estimates, there is a shortage of 18,000 testers and potentially there will be a shortfall of 25,000 more in the years to come. “While Indian IT services is expected to grow around 25 per cent this year, testing is estimated to grow more by over 40 per cent, and is slated to continue to outpace overall industry growth rate for next three years at least,” avers Arun Rao, VP, HR, Applabs.

The Challenge

“The rapid growth has translated into a rise in demand for software testing services professionals across the levels. Our view is that 35,000 testing professionals will be required in India every year for the next few years to support this growth,” adds Rao. In the above scenario, how is the industry planning to tackle the shortage of software testers? Is there enough training provided? Is the salary package offered to freshers lucrative enough?

According to Pradeep, “The current education programs provided by independent training institutes in the market do not meet industry expectations. While the industry ideally looks forward to a resource that is truly industry-ready and with minimal intervention of further training which can be deployed, most programs provide superficial knowledge and do not concentrate on testing skill development, thereby not capable of providing industry-ready software testers.” There are several institutes which claim to create industry-ready resources by training the students for mere 12-16 hours on manual testing. While these programs look very affordable they do not yield the right result for neither the student nor the recruiter. “The challenge is in devising a curriculum that teaches enough and that includes relevant topics that are covered in depth,” adds Pradeep.

The Solution

It’s time stake-holders woke up and took some proactive measures. Citing his firm’s case, Pradeep says, “Currently, we run a Software Testing Finishing school in Bangalore which has supplied more than 100 resources to the industry. We are launching Finishing Schools in Q3 in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and UP. We plan to build enough capacity to supply 1800 resources to the industry by March 2009.”

AppLabs provides an intensive training program – ACE (AppLabs Centre of Excellence) for a fresher. The internship is a rigorous, two-month exclusive training where the freshers get hands-on experience on CMMI Level 5 appraised software testing processes, tools, technologies, and methodologies. Subsequent to program conclusion, the members are inducted in AppLabs as Software Testing Engineers. Considering the present growth and potential in the software testing industry, the opportunities for software testers are enormous. While there is not enough training available to them, the pay package is certainly very encouraging. “Entry level salaries range anywhere between 1.4-3.6 lakhs,” confirms Pradeep.

A career in testing can be as challenging and interesting as a development job. In fact, in a few companies these days, software testers get paid even more than software developers. Customers will want to ensure that software bugs don't eat up their dollar investments, and will demand better testing. With the current industry practices, it is going to be tough to achieve but with a growing focus towards approaches like Rapid Software Testing, Agile Testing, etc. A lot of organisations have started to practice and get prepared for what customers might soon start demanding.

Test Republic Wins Thought Leadership Award
Test Republic, India's first social networking portal exclusively designed for Software Testing professionals has won "Testing Thought Leadership Award" for its contribution in promoting Software Testing with a vision to see a better testing community in India. The award was given by Pure Conferences at the recently concluded Test 2008 Conference held at Delhi from 15-16
October. CIOL | India PR Wire.

STC 2008 focuses on Second Wave of Testing
QAI, the world’s leading operational excellence consulting firm, in association with Edista Testing Institute announced its 8th Annual Software Testing Conference (STC) 2008 to be held at Hotel Leela Kempinski, Bangalore on November 24 & 25, 2008. Industry leaders along with Performance Testing bigwigs would gather to discuss the new wave of opportunities arising in the outsourced testing market, especially in the current global economic scenario. The event, therefore, is aptly carrying the theme “The Second Wave of Testing”. Times Ascent Online..

QAI Launches Edista Testing Institute | EFY Times.com
Edista Testing Institute is set up by QAI as an independent industry – academia collaborative venture, with the focus on training, certifications and assessments in the field of software testing. The institute is designed to operate as a global institute for software testing excellence in the ecosystem. Click here to read more.

QAI Crosses 35k in Software Certifications | CIOL
ORLANDO, US: Quality Assurance Institute (QAI)– Quality Assurance Institute (QAI) (www.qaiworldwide.org) having established the international standard for Software Quality and Software Testing Certifications including the Certified Software Quality Analyst (CSQA) and Certified Software Tester (CSTE) announced that they have certified in excess of 35,000 professionals worldwide in 43 countries including Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, United Kingdom, Thailand, Philippines, United Arab Emirates and the United States. Click here to read more.