The enterprise has benefited in innumerable ways through the power of automation. However, businesses seem, on the most part, lacklustre in their uptake of testing and updating for their various systems like ERP and CRM platforms. Many of the reasons behind such a landscape may point to the inability to properly manage these processes. For example, any platform update or code checking will inevitably cause delays due to buggy code, incompatibility between legacy and new architectures, as well as differences in infrastructure.
In this article we take a look at the ways in which such enterprise testing and automation tools help companies become more productive and efficient.
1. Standardization of best practices
Enterprise testing automation empowers companies in identifying opportunities to work on standards that can then be considered as best practices. With newly founded processes and standards, workers can essentially speak the same language by avoiding using their own custom code or poor development practices that would otherwise lead to future problems in compatibility.
2. Reduced risks
Amongst the many benefits of a company’s application development featuring formalized processes and standards is that of significantly reduced risks. Businesses that employ automation in managing their ERP and CRM platforms are seeing tangible reductions in project risks, with fewer expensive and time consuming errors. Moreover, such risks aren’t merely constrained to the potential for downtime and inconvenience. These can also extend to serious business disruption and even major security breaches that are both financially damaging, as well as damaging to a company’s reputation.
3. Faster execution
Application development can very often be subject to demanding project milestones and deadlines, and all too often these are met at the cost of the reliability and robustness of application itself. It then seems that being able to speed up application testing processes is the holy grail that enterprise automation seeks to achieve. For example, a common use case scenario for automation is in ERP testing and upgrades. To cite case studies, a major builder of batteries and lighting products has reduced ERP upgrade duration by 60% and saved $60,000 on outsourcing costs through the use of automation platform Panaya.
4. Wider scope/coverage
Application testing is a demanding process that requires meticulous planning and detail, yet even with the utmost attention to detail companies have previously suffered unforeseen problems due to incomplete or simply poor testing processes. Enterprise testing provides a holistic process that incorporates an extended range of considerations, with testing processes that are highly repetitive. Business process outsourcing and consulting firms often find the need to automate mundane and repetitive tasks to enable their staff to focus on higher-level competencies and processes.
5. Higher accuracy with faster error and bug tracking
Where once companies focused upon quick deployment rather than continual re-use and development, today enterprise automation applications are allowing IT departments to easily scope and accelerate the delivery of any business application changes – such as upgrades, functional releases and patches – while reducing cost and minimizing risk.
This progression of enterprise wide applications, rather than a complete replacement, has led to lower ongoing costs, systems that continually improve and ROI’s that are more attractive than ever before.
6. Automated intelligence
If data forms the backbone of business processes, information intelligence is what truly drives a business forward. Enterprise testing and automation empowers companies by providing the company with invaluable, intelligent insights. Such insights then streamline repetitive tasks, thereby improving processes for both the enterprise, and for its B2B customers directly. It is for this reason that India-based outsourcing giant Infosys has sought to augment its capabilities with artificial intelligence solutions.
7. Unparalleled support across a plethora of applications
In addition to enterprise testing and automation being as employable by application developers as it is by general information technology workers, it additionally spans across applications forms and has a wide array of support for standard ERP and CRM applications.
In particular, quality automation tools focus leverage big data in streamline the maintenance of platforms from industry giants like SAP, Oracle and Salesforce.
8. Automation spans business sizes
Whilst primarily built for the large-scale corporation, enterprise testing also provides SMEs with information and processes guidance that is streamlining business activity. Businesses of all industries and sizes that consistently deal with big data have an imposing and ongoing number of challenges; it seems however that the prospect of enterprise testing can address, solve and in many instances go beyond such common issues.
Technology companies that provide enterprise testing and automation platforms are changing the ways in which businesses view their roles in managing information. Through sophisticated big-data analytics, these platforms provide insights into the needs of application development, and recommending improvements in order to ensure seamless operations.