Choosing between in-house and outsourcing quality assurance is a big decision for many businesses. This choice often comes down to wanting direct control and supervision versus needing specialized skills and saving money. Studies show that going for QA outsourcing can cut costs by up to 40% in some cases, while also giving access to worldwide talent and the latest technology. This method not only makes better use of resources but also boosts product quality.

However, outsourcing quality assurance comes with challenges, such as differences in communication styles, understanding project requirements, and integrating with existing workflows. This article addresses these issues, offering guidance on selecting a trusted QA outsourcing partner and integrating them effectively into your existing system.

1. Comparison of In-house vs. Outsourcing Quality Assurance

It’s hard to choose between in-house quality assurance and outsourced QA services as one wrong move can make or break your goal. For first-time decision-makers, this can feel far more daunting. However, both the in-house QA team and outsourced QA team cater to different needs and requirements.

outsourcing quality assurance

The following comparison evaluates crucial aspects like cost, control, scalability, and communication between the two,  offering insights to guide your decision.

Cost

  • In-house QA Team: Maintaining an in-house team often entails higher costs due to salaries, training, equipment, and infrastructure. The upfront and ongoing expenses can be significant.
  • Outsourced QA Team: Outsourcing quality assurance can lead to cost savings. Companies benefit from reduced overhead and can leverage the cost efficiencies of their partners, who might have economies of scale or lower cost bases due to their location.

Control

  • In-house QA Team: Companies enjoy greater control over in-house teams. They can directly oversee projects, tailor processes, and quickly adjust to changing needs.
  • Outsourced QA Team: Control over outsourced teams is less direct. Companies must rely on contractual agreements and effective communication to guide the QA process, which can sometimes lead to challenges in alignment.

Scalability

  • In-house QA Team: Scaling an in-house team can be slow and costly, requiring recruitment, training, and additional resources.
  • Outsourced QA Team: Outsourced QA teams offer high flexibility. Companies can scale their QA efforts up or down quickly, depending on project needs, without long-term commitments.

Communication

  • In-house QA Team: Communication is more straightforward, with opportunities for immediate feedback and adjustments.
  • Outsourced QA Team: Communication with outsourced teams can be challenged by time zone differences, language barriers, and cultural differences, requiring more structured processes to ensure clarity and alignment.

Focus on Core Areas

  • In-house QA Team: Managing an in-house QA team requires significant resources, which might divert attention from core business activities.
  • Outsourced QA Team: Outsourcing quality assurance allows companies to concentrate on their primary development and innovation activities, potentially leading to greater business growth and product innovation.

In the end, if your project needs very close management, follows strict rules, or you want to work closely with the team every day, having your own QA team is a good choice. But if you want to save money, need to change how big your team is quickly, or want experts without hiring them full-time, then hiring an outside QA service might be the way to go. The right choice depends on what your project specifically needs and what you’re aiming to achieve.

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2. Pros and cons of Outsourcing Quality Assurance

2.1 Benefits of outsourced QA services

Cost Savings

By outsourcing your QA team, you can save money as hiring offshore QA engineers is often more cost-effective than hiring locally. This helps especially if there’s a tech talent shortage in your country, as you can get skilled testers at a lower cost. Moreover, avoiding delays in fixing errors can prevent additional expenses in the long run.

Improved Product Quality

An offshore QA team can help enhance the quality of your final product by running comprehensive quality assurance tests before the release date. This ensures that your product meets customer demands and expectations, resulting in higher customer satisfaction.

Faster time to market

Outsourcing QA testing allows you to meet deadlines more effectively by detecting errors before the product’s launch date. With an independent QA team, you can ensure that all deliverables are critically tested, meeting client requirements without delays.

Access to Expertise and Fresh Perspective

Hiring a dedicated QA team in one location provides access to highly experienced testers who can offer a fresh perspective on your project’s quality. They can identify potential risks and areas for improvement, leading to timely results and a better final product.

Delegating Tasks and Ensuring Implementation of Development Life Cycle

By outsourcing QA testing, you can delegate core testing responsibilities to QA experts while allowing software developers to focus on their specific tasks. This ensures efficient implementation of the software development life cycle stages, leading to cost savings and shorter production times.

Benefits of QA Outsourcing

Benefits of QA Outsourcing

2.2 Drawbacks of outsourcing quality assurance

Communication challenges with QA outsourcing team

One of the significant drawbacks of outsourcing QA is communication challenges. Working with a remote team, especially if they are in a different time zone or speak a different language, can lead to misunderstandings and delays in project progress.

Effective communication is crucial for conveying project requirements, discussing issues, and providing feedback. Without clear and timely communication, there is a risk of misalignment between the outsourcing company and the QA team, which can impact the quality and timely delivery of the project.

Dependency on QA outsourced team

When outsourcing QA, companies rely on the performance and availability of the external QA team. Any issues or delays on the part of the outsourcing partner can directly impact the project timeline and quality.

Additionally, changes in the outsourcing company’s priorities or business circumstances may affect the availability of resources or the continuity of the outsourcing partnership. This lack of control over external factors can introduce uncertainty and risk into the project management process.

3. Roles in Outsourcing Quality Assurance

QA Tester is the general term for different roles in software QA outsourcing. They are the people who check everything in the software to make sure it works right. This group includes many experts like QA engineers, test analysts, test architects, test managers, and QA team leads.

In an outsourced quality assurance team, each role plays a critical part in ensuring that the software you get is of the best quality, free from bugs, and works well. Here’s a closer look at these roles:

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QA Engineer

A QA engineer is the one who tests the software to find any mistakes and make sure it meets the high-quality standards we expect. They work closely with the people who make the software to fix any issues they find.

Test Architect

The test architect is the master planner who designs the testing world. They come up with the best ways to test the software, making sure we can find bugs efficiently without wasting time. They know a lot about the software and figure out smart ways to test it.

Test Analyst

A test analyst handles the paperwork side of testing. They pick what parts of the software need to be checked and keep detailed notes on the testing results. Their work helps make testing faster by using computers to repeat tests automatically. They also make sure to tell everyone involved how the testing went.

Test Manager

The test manager is like the captain of the ship, steering the testing project towards success. They watch over the testing process and decide what everyone should work on. They keep the testing on track and make sure all the team’s efforts are focused on making the software the best it can be.

QA Team Lead

Lastly, the QA team lead is in charge of the team. They hire new people, do interviews, and sometimes jump in to help with the testing. But mostly, they make sure everyone is moving forward together and that the team works well as a unit.

why outsourcing quality assurance

Key Roles in Most QA Teams

4. Quality Assurance Outsourcing Services

4.1 Manual QA Testing

Manual testing involves human testers executing test cases without the use of automation tools. Instead of using fancy tools or machines, a human tester clicks around the software, looking for any problems or bugs. This approach is good because humans can think creatively and catch things that automated tools might miss, like if a button is hard to find or if something just doesn’t feel right when you use it.

But, it can also take a lot of time because someone has to do all the clicking and checking themselves, which means it might not be the best option for big, complex software projects where there’s a lot to test.

4.2 Automated QA Testing

Automated testing involves using software tools and scripts to execute predefined test cases. This can be really fast and efficient because the computer can do the same tests over and over again without getting tired. It’s great for checking things like if a website still works after a change or if a new feature hasn’t broken anything old.

But setting up these tests can take a bit of work at first, and sometimes they might miss things that only a human would notice, like if something just doesn’t look right on the screen.

 

Two types of QA testing

Two types of QA testing

4.3 Hybrid QA Testing 

In practice, many organizations adopt a hybrid approach that combines both manual and automated testing to leverage the strengths of each method. Manual testing can be used for exploratory testing, usability testing, and ad-hoc testing. Automated testing can be applied to regression testing, performance testing, and API testing.

By combining manual and automated testing, teams can achieve comprehensive test coverage and improve the overall quality of software products.

5. Outsourcing Quality Assurance Cooperation Models

4.1 A dedicated team of software testing experts

A dedicated team cooperation model is suitable for you if you are looking to hire a team of software testers that will be integrated with your in-house team. Companies choose this model in case they have a fully operational software development team, but need to outsource QA services for their project’s success.

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4.2 Staff Augmentation

In this quality control outsourcing model, you can hire individuals or small groups of experts from an outsourcing company. These experts become part of your team, and you manage them directly. It’s like borrowing a few super-smart people to fill in the gaps in your team. This works well when you only need a few extra hands and not a whole team.

6. Top Outsourcing Quality Assurance Companies

InApps Technology

Founded in 2016, InApps is a software outsourcing and QA testing company with more than 8 years of experience in the market. Awarded by Clutch in Vietnam and Southeast Asia for exceptional quality and customer satisfaction, InApps has steadily grown into a trusted partner for businesses worldwide. They boast over 200 successful projects, a remarkable 98% customer satisfaction rate, and a team of over 100 in-house talents. Their services encompass manual testing, automated testing, performance testing, and security testing.

With a focus on edtech, healthcare, e-commerce, fintech, and more, InApps delivers customized QA solutions to address specific business challenges. Whether you want a single QA engineer or an entire team of software testers, InApps will satisfy your needs. By choosing one of their QA packages, you will be sure that your project will be thoroughly tested and debugged.

Utor Team – Remove bottlenecks with outsourced QA testing

The next top outsourcing quality assurance company is Utor Team. With over 6 years of experience, an impressive satisfaction rate of 4.8 and over 150 positive reviews on listing platforms, Utor team has 60+ skilled testers and engineers, to help you succeed. They’ve completed over 46 projects and set up more than 60 QA departments from scratch, earning us recognition as one of the best software testing outsourcing companies.

TP&P 

TP&P Technology is a leading software development company specializing in software development, IT consulting, and outsourcing quality assurance testing.

Their QA testing services are

  • Functional Testing: Thorough testing of software functionalities to ensure they meet specified requirements.
  • Performance Testing: Evaluation of system performance under various conditions to identify and address potential bottlenecks.
  • Mobile App Testing: Testing of mobile applications across different devices and platforms to ensure optimal performance and user experience.
  • Web App Testing:  They make sure your web applications operate smoothly across all browsers and devices as expected. Their QA testing team will check the application functions, and evaluate its interface with different web browsers to provide you with the highest quality product.

ScienceSoft – Enjoy quality software thanks to QA outsourcing 

ScienceSoft excels in testing thanks to its experienced team of over 75 QA professionals. Plus, they’re certified by the International Software Testing Qualifications Board (ISTQB), meaning they follow top-notch testing practices. ScienceSoft’s teams are also great at managing themselves, making sure testing happens smoothly and any issues get sorted fast.

They’ve got a quality management system certified by ISO 9001, and when it comes to keeping your info safe, ScienceSoft has you covered with their ISO 27001-approved security system. They use modern tech and have expert staff to ensure your data stays secure. Plus, they’re flexible with different testing methods like Waterfall, Agile, and more, making sure they fit your needs perfectly.

QASource – Deliver Quality Control Outsourcing On Time

QASource is a leading provider of outsourcing quality assurance and software testing services. With a reputation for excellence, QASource collaborates with a wide range of partners, such as Amazon, Adobe, IBM, Oracle, etc. Their services include:

  • API Testing Services
  • Artificial Intelligence Testing Services
  • Automation Testing Services
  • Blockchain Testing Services
  • Cloud-based Application Testing Services

>> Read next: WHEN DO YOU NEED TO HIRE A PROFESSIONAL SOFTWARE QA TEAM?

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I am a dynamic Tech Explorer and Writer for InApps Technology. With a background in software engineering and a knack for writing, my content brings a fresh and insightful perspective to the tech scene. I love making their content not just informative but also incredibly engaging for both tech novices and aficionados. Join me on a journey through the ever-evolving digital landscape, where I decode complex concepts into captivating stories.

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