How Defects Impact Your Business Negatively
By Ray Parker
Have you ever imagined how a small error or defect in a software application can cause inconvenience to customers and negatively affect a business? Well, it is not as simple as it sounds. There are numerous cases where app failures have affected businesses of all sizes and across all industries. It normally happens because users find issues in the software app. Sometimes, the impact is almost minimal but there are cases where businesses have faced significant losses due to a small software glitch. Thus, businesses invest in good defect management software to stay on the safer side and produce quality apps.
Let’s have a look at how slight issues in a system had huge impacts on businesses:
Brand Image Adversely Affected
In the Agile and DevOps era, the demand for quality apps has increased while focusing on speed delivery too. People are getting used to high performing apps and have high expectations, otherwise, they tend to switch from the current app to a competitor. Thus, making the software development process more complex and challenging than ever. Since developers no longer work in isolation and are part of the development team working with various software testers, they need better solutions.
According to Google Statistics, 48% of app users think that a poorly performing app means that the business does not care. They believe that if the software does not work as per specifications, users will churn. It also states that there are almost 72% of users who complain during the first 90 days of app download. Additionally, they also tend their experience with friends, family, and acquaintances via social media. In September 2018, a photo API bug in the most popular social network, Facebook, affected 7 million accounts. It exposed their photos including users who never completed the process of sharing at Facebook. Software testers took 12 days to fix the glitch and affected the brand image a great deal.
Monetary Loss
Similarly, a study at Carnegie Mellon University stated that 60-80% of the cost of mobile app development is spent on fixing defects. It also takes time to identify the bugs and causes loss to the business but to the app users as well. In December 2014, Amazon faced huge losses due to a bug in the software. The cost of a few goods on the site dropped to one penny due to this bug. Also, Amazon's automatic delivery and services on various products were shipped before sellers could even cancel the purchases. This bug caused losses to several businesses and some even appeared on the threshold of bankruptcy.
Thus, the importance of defect management in the software development life cycle cannot be ignored or denied. When building apps and software products it is essential to pick a defect management software carefully that is integrated with other top software testing tools. The current market demands and quality assurance can only be achieved by always staying ahead of these defects/bugs and making the best efforts to ensure quality.
Author Bio:
Ray Parker is a senior marketing consultant with a knack for writing about the latest news in tech, quality assurance, software development and testing. With a decade of experience working in the tech industry, Ray now dabbles out of his New York office.