Putting IoT to the test

IoT is, of course a wide concept applicable to so many aspects of IT usage. 

It wasn’t so long ago that the phrase the Internet of Things barely registered on companies’ radar; then, a media and PR bombardment of all things IoT ensured that an increasing number of organisations in various sectors felt it was important to investigate and, where deemed operationally and financially prudent, to set about putting IoT concepts into action.

However, it would appear that many business operations are at some risk due to companies being ill-equipped to deal with IoT workloads. Global consultancy, Capgemini, together with and Sogeti, its Technology and Engineering Services subsidiary, recently released the World Quality Report 2016, published in conjunction with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), which examines the state of application quality and testing practices across multiple industries and 32 countries. 

The report reveals that despite 85% claiming that IoT products are a part of their business operations, over two thirds (68%) of organisations in which IoT plays a role do not currently have a test strategy for this specific aspect of IT.

It would appear that organisations under pressure to deploy new digital products and services are finding it tough to strike a balance between quality and speed of development; particularly when it comes to deploying IoT technology. 

This year’s share of the IT budget devoted to quality assurance (QA) and Testing has dropped to 31% after a significant and worrying increase from 18% to 35% during the preceding four years. Despite this year’s reduction, there is an overall prediction that spending will increase to 40% in 2019.

This year’s World Quality Report finds that many companies are turning to machine-based intelligence to help cut costs and drive efficiency across the organisation. Apparently, the growing adoption of digital technologies is consuming large amounts of budget and businesses are finding it challenging to balance innovation with cost; with 48% failing to meet the contrasting demands of handling multiple test environments. To combat this, the report calls for greater investment in intelligence-driven QA to identify and predict quality issues before they occur.

The report also reveals an increase in the adoption of agile testing methodologies and DevOps to help businesses roll out new products and services at greater speed. However, 44% of businesses are reluctant to include testing teams in the initial planning phase believing it will inhibit release speed, inadvertently putting the security of the business at risk. 

The report finds that DevOps implementation challenges go far beyond issues with QA and businesses risk isolating the benefits of DevOps if they are unable to break down business silos. In a bid to balance the additional costs of these new technologies, 40% of businesses are adopting predictive analytics in order to automate as much of the testing pipeline as possible.

As IoT takes an increasingly important role in business operations, Capgemini believes every enterprise should adopt a risk-based test strategy that creates a secure test ecosystem. To do this the report recommends that businesses invest in as-a-service solutions for testing environment management, data management and test execution, as well as higher overall levels of engineering in their testing teams in order to maintain their system integrity and help boost innovation.

It’s time to really put IoT to the test.

This year’s World Quality Report interviewed 1600 respondents from 32 countries to analysing application quality and testing trends. The findings are based on analysis of six respondent groups: CIO, VP application, IT director, QA/Testing manager, CDO/CMO, and CTO/product head.