Outsourcing QA activities makes better economic sense than opening an internal QA department.

Depending on the scope and frequency of your testing needs, it is often more time- and cost-effective to partner with an independent team of QA professionals for your QA needs. This spares you from unreasonable or unexpected costs and saves the time you would otherwise spend to set up and maintain a skilled team of QA engineers.

Along with the obvious costs of maintaining a QA department, there are also hidden expenses that influence the overall price tag of the QA process. Below are inherent costs that will be in your budget if you are to run an internal QA team. They indicate how competitive A1QA's rates are in comparison with the fixed charges of keeping an in-house QA organization, as you only pay for the actual work and A1QA covers everything else:

• Salary costs (regular salary, employer contribution (FUTA, Medicare, SUI), employer tax,  vacation and sick leave, 401(k) plan, workers' compensation insurance).
• Employee benefits (medical and dental care, life insurance).
• Administration and management costs (management, hiring, reception, accounting, payroll, employee advertising and referral, employee evaluation).
• IT and infrastructure costs (computer, fax, software (incl. licenses), Internet, network infrastructure, help desk, repairs, phone lines, long distance calls, email and web hosting, voice mail, etc.)
• Training costs (internal, external training, tuition reimbursement).
• Office costs (office space, common areas, parking, furniture, personal property tax, personal property insurance, liability insurance, refreshments, office supplies, paper, toner, etc.)

Contact A1QA today and find out how you can benefit from working with professional QA experts at A1QA!

Independent QA (from development team) vs. Dependent QA (within development team).

There are two natural options to implement the software quality assurance (SQA) function - to have it independent from the development team (in which case the independent QA team reports directly to the customer), or [delete rather] to include it as a part of the existing development team (in which case the QA team reports to the development project manager, who has the final say on all questions).

Industry experience clearly indicates that independent QA teams deliver better results and that the customer always gets an accurate software quality picture. In addition, independent QA is clearly focused on revealing all issues as early as possible. This is in contrast to the dependent QA scenario, when the development project manager may be overly optimistic on the current status of the project. This results in hidden problems, which may be revealed only at final stages of product development or even after product release.

If you have never tried independent QA, working with the team of professionals at A1QA is the easiest way to start and to evaluate the possible benefits for your business.

How can outsourcing software quality assurance help me to achieve better results?

SQA is a complex discipline that requires proper process organization and experience. First of all, the right people should be involved. To think that the same people who are skilled at developing software, are also good at performing QA activities is a common mistake that will cost dearly. The development and QA processes are totally different and require different skills and competencies, which are usually not held by a single person.

Moreover, only an independent QA team has the capability to develop all of the necessary skills and competencies. This is achieved by the testing of many products, by the continuous improvement of QA processes and procedures and through acquiring the required tools. Such an approach allows one to get the best results from the very beginning of the project, with no need to wait for the development and growth of an internal team.

A1QA continuously invests in process improvement and personnel training in order to provide the highest quality of service, to maintain our company's reputation as a reliable testing and QA vendor and to select the best tools available on the market.