At the recent SOFTEC Asia 2013 regional conference held from 2–5 September at Sunway Resort Hotel and Spa, CIOs were given opportunity to share their views and challenges through a CIO Rountable, which discussed software quality perspectives for C-Level business executives and its ROI propositions.
SOFTEC Asia 2013 is the inaugural regional-level conference on software testing organised by the Malaysian Software Testing Board (MSTB) under the auspices of the Malaysia Software Testing Hub (MSTH) initiative. It is a public-private collaboration that aims to develop a new source of economic growth for the nation.
SOFTEC Asia 2013, themed ‘Test the Walk’, was officially opened by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Dato’ Seri Abdul Wahid Omar. The conference featured 25 international speakers and over 40 presentations including keynotes, plenary, tutorial and workshop sessions.
Dato’ Seri Abd Wahid also launched MSTB’s Quality Software Product Certification Scheme (QS), an International Standards-based scheme to certify software products against internationally-recognised quality standards. The goal of the scheme is to help Malaysian software producers to obtain independent and recognised quality endorsement for their product, and consequently enhance their competitiveness internationally.
MTSB is an industry-driven national body that represents the industry’s interest in software quality assurance and promotion of software testing as a profession.
“Countries within the region are having big differences in sophistication of IT configurations, user interfaces, back-end processes, mobile infrastructure, pricing and business rules. Such challenges result in regional CIOs having to spend a lot more time and attention on testing to make sure these challenges are managed and to ensure that the business is not impacted by failure in software functionality”, shared Mastura Abu Samah, President of MSTB.
“Furthermore, the rapid pace of change in mobile computing is also forcing CIOs to increase investments in testing to make sure the business software runs seamlessly across multiple platforms”, added Mastura.
According to Professor Dr Jasbir Dhaliwal, Chair of CIO Roundtable at the SOFTEC Asia 2013, the ROI is often seen to be a complex scenario of both tangible and intangible costs and benefits. Many business executives do not see the ROI of software testing efforts.
Many C-Level business executives, peers of CIOs, do not understand the value of the cost of investments in software quality. This in turn creates challenges for CIOs to justify the cost for such investments.
Jasbir reiterated that companies should be more proactive in terms of software testing and software quality, and not only react when a problem arises.
Meanwhile during the launch day, it was revealed that the Q-Laboratory (Q-Lab), an advanced software testing facility in Malaysia, is set to join the ranks of globally recognised top-level testing laboratory with its impending Level 5 certification by the TMMi Foundation. Pending the official certification, the Q-Lab will be the only third software testing facility in the world to be certified at Level 5.
Held at national level since 2008, SOFTEC will hold its future national- and regional-level events in alternate years.
