Cognizant 20-20 Insights

Integrated Mobility QA: A Strategic

Business Enabler for Enhancing End-user
Experience Across Digital Channels
As smartphones and tablets enter the market at breakneck speed,
organizations need to develop sophisticated testing capabilities and
provide cross-platform support in order to deliver proper application
quality and business assurance.
Executive Summary
Enterprise mobility is transforming the end-user
experience, creating new value for businesses that get it right. Already, forward-thinking
companies are leveraging enterprise mobility for
competitive differentiation.
The mobile apps landscape has grown exponentially, fueled by the emergence of new platforms,
diverse technologies and devices, all requiring
seamless integration for widespread adoption.
Ensuring impeccable quality and usability of apps
is the key for organizations that seek to stay
ahead. This is easier said than done, as a fullyformed and functional enterprise mobility quality
assurance (QA) strategy continues to elude most
IT organizations.
Premium-priced solutions address only the
system testing phase of the mobile QA lifecycle;
however, they often do not account for strategy
definition, nor do they cover mobile nonfunctional
testing requirements, which is extremely critical
for ensuring a satisfactory user experience. Most
often standalone, these solutions do not integrate
with standard test management platforms.

cognizant 20-20 insights | january 2014

Therefore, an integrated, cost-effective, comprehensive mobile QA solution that addresses the

end-to-end testing lifecycle will go a long way
toward ensuring not only the quality but also the
usability of enterprise apps, internally and with
customers and partners.

Mobility QA: Driving Business Agility

Mobility is a lever that needs to be aligned with
business objectives. Activating that lever is
becoming increasingly challenging as the mobile
ecosystem expands from mere telephonic devices
to smartphones, smart devices, tablets and
phablets (devices that include characteristics of
both conventional laptops and tablets). To get
the most bang for the buck, mobile apps must be
compatible and run seamlessly across all of these
platforms.
As new platforms are introduced into the enterprise mobility landscape, new support requirements will emerge, with refined features that
need to be accounted for. Conventional testing
methodologies, which typically begin later in an
apps lifecycle, are rendered inadequate because
enterprise requirements for leveraging new

Convergence of QA is inevitable as enterprises struggle to manage multiple development frameworks, mobility priorities and
key variables, such as relevant technologies,
networks and geographies (see Figure 1).

business capabilities pivot around accelerated

time to market. As such, three interrelated challenges have emerged:

Changing

QA mobility priorities. Mobile QA

requires a unique combination of business
knowledge, design thinking and service
maturity. It transcends functional validation
and encompasses interoperability, performance and security issues, shifting the focus
from traditional testing
Organizations struggle to quality engineering.
as BYOD (bring
to strike a balance Moreover,
your own device) becomes
between setup costs commonplace within many
for a dedicated and organizations, a compreQA strategy that
exhaustive mobile hensive
encompasses
multiple
testing infrastructure platforms (including iOS
and the limited and Android), devices,
and geographies
coverage that minimal networks
is paramount.

devices might
otherwise lead to.

Lack

of comprehensive lifecycle coverage.

Unlike with desktops, screen dimension and
resolution of mobile devices are not standardized, which increases the complexity of
rendering mobile test automation. Organizations are also limited by the availability of
automated mobile app test tools. Many are
point solutions that, in our view, do not offer
an end-to-end view of the mobile QA lifecycle.
Open source Web tools are cost-effective, but
they often do not support native applications,
and they fail to execute scripts on a device cloud.
Moreover, many of these tools lack support for
automation across browsers and platforms.

High cost of setting up the mobile QA infra-

structure. Organizations struggle to strike a

balance between setup costs for a dedicated
and exhaustive mobile testing infrastructure
and the limited coverage that minimal devices
might otherwise lead to. While on-demand
cloud options are available, device clouds more
often than not continue to be an expensive
proposition for most organizations.

App session times on

tablets run twice as long
as app sessions on smartphones, but apps are more frequently used on
smartphones, according to recent research by
Adobe.1 In order to provide the right end-user
experience, organizations must adopt different
QA strategies to validate functionalities based
on user behavior.

Parameters for Effective Analysis and Outcome

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Frameworks
Figure 1

cognizant 20-20 insights

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Key priorities
Parameters
Framework

Smartly Coupled Solutions

Because of the need for a mobile QA ecosystem, it
is imperative that solutions address the aforementioned challenges and enable end-to-end integration, while also providing flexibility. The term we
use for such solutions is smartly coupled.
Getting Started with Smart-Coupling Mobile QA
Organizations need access to deep experience and industry knowledge to gain a quick
assessment of their mobile QA capabilities and
long-term needs. Leading QA organizations
leverage this experience to build assessment
engines that benchmark application performance
against industry standards and recommend the
optimal device suite, automation, infrastructure
and tools to manage their testing needs.
Key considerations that organizations use to
define their mobile QA strategy include:

Mobile

application development methodologies (Agile, waterfall).

Mobile application technologies (native, hybrid

and Web).

Multiple mobile platforms (iOS, Android,

Windows, BlackBerry).

Infrastructure combinations (BYOD, in-house,

on-demand, emulators).

Execution/deployment methodologies
(B2B or B2C).

Mobile application complexities.

User geographies.
Niche applications (voice-based, Wifi,
Bluetooth, etc.)

Consumer applications (telematics,

smartphone banking, etc.)

Mobility across enterprise apps.

Automation Across Browsers,
Platforms and Tools
Automation flexibility is an integral part of the
mobile quality ecosystem because it enables com-

Quick Take
Banking on a Holistic Approach to Enterprise Mobile QA
When a leading bank wanted to implement an
enterprise-wide mobile rollout of its internal
apps, it required testing of its mobile apps across
various platforms and devices, including testing
between desktop and mobile apps. The client
rejected existing solutions based on a popular
platform because they were expensive, required
a dedicated device cloud infrastructure and had
limited functionality, including limited access to
the latest devices.

The result: App release cycle time was fasttracked by 55%, and QA infrastructure costs were
reduced by over 80%.

In contrast, our proposed solution promised to

significantly reduce costs by introducing QA early
in the development process. We also offered to
conduct a far-ranging strategic assessment to
enable a smooth transition to our proprietary
cloud device testing infrastructure, provisioned
through our integrated platform.

cognizant 20-20 insights

prehensive testing across platforms. The wide

variety of platforms and browsers in use today
necessitates cross-platform validation. However,
the ongoing lack of automation tools to support
cross-browser/platform testing can incur high
costs for organizations that must procure individual tool licenses that only partially meet their
QA needs.
Mobile QA Infrastructure
A limitation of devices provisioned on the cloud is
the small number of provider-recommended automation tools. A platform that can integrate a flexible automation tool suite
device cloud will allow
A platform that can and
organizations to handle
integrate a flexible their QA needs with greatautomation tool suite er agility and reduced cost.
you consider many
and device cloud will When
organizations encourageallow organizations to ment of BYOD through virhandle their QA needs tualization techniques, it
clear that extenwith greater agility becomes
sive coverage of testing
and reduced cost. apps will become a matter
of choice.
An ideal mobile QA solution aims to reduce costs
by leveraging avenues to test mobile devices
on-demand, and easily push devices on and off
the device cloud. This not only accelerates QA
activities, but it also reduces the maintenance
expense of the devices and infrastructure needed
to support these vital activities.

Benefits of an Integrated Solution

Despite the fact that enterprise mobility QA is
seen as a strategic enabler, it is still a work in
progress for many companies. For instance, of
all companies that test their Web sites, only 23%
test their mobile Web site, and only 4% test their
mobile apps.2 An integrated solution that provides
comprehensive QA coverage will support organizations wishing to adopt an enterprise strategy
for their mobile QA needs and provide users with
an enhanced mobile experience.
As such, a high-quality mobile lifecycle management solution will encompass:

A scalable mobile QA infrastructure.

Multi-mobile platform testing.
End-to-end tool set across the testing lifecycle.
App validation for key nonfunctional
parameters.

Geographic scalability for testing.

Device provisioning on the cloud, on-demand.
Looking Forward
The path to mobile consolidation is evolving.
However, organizations that embrace leading QA
solutions can gain the flexibility needed to provide
an integrated mobile test solution that delivers
cross-platform support and flexibility for the
future. Organizations should choose an approach
that enables continuous enhancements to enterprise mobility as devices, platforms and service
providers evolve toward equipping users with a
highly functional and consistent experience.

Footnotes
1

Amy Gesenhues, Report: App Session Times Run Longer on Tablets, but App Usage Is More Frequent on
Smartphones, Marketing Land, Nov. 7, 2013, http://marketingland.com/report-3-64362.

What Users Want from Mobile, Equation Research on behalf of Compuware, July 2011, http://e-commercefacts.com/research/2011/07/what-usrs-want-from-mobil/19986_WhatMobileUsersWant_Wp.pdf.

cognizant 20-20 insights

About the Authors

Ramakrishnan Venkatasubramanian is Cognizants Offshore Head of its Global Mobile QA center of
excellence. He has 14 years of experience in the information technology industry, spanning software
development, product engineering, testing, test automation, mobility and technology consulting. Ram
manages multiple complex mobility engagements, focusing on consulting, delivery and business development initiatives. He holds a post-graduate degree in computer technologies and can be reached at
Ramakrishnan.Venkatasubramanian@cognizant.com.
Rangarajan Rajamani is a Senior Manager of Product Management within Cognizants Quality Engineering & Assurance Technology center of excellence. He has over 11 years of experience, performing
roles such as consulting, business development and program management across multiple industry
verticals. Ranga holds a post-graduate degree in sciences and management. He can be reached at
Rangarajan.Rajamani@cognizant.com.
Vinoth Kumar John Peter is a Senior Manager, New Market Specialist within Cognizants Quality Engineering and Assurance Group. He has over 10 years of experience in the financial, healthcare, supply chain
and automobile sectors, with experience spanning Six Sigma, data mining and analysis, channel intelligence and IT quality assurance. Vinoth holds a graduate degree in international business from University
of South Carolina. He can be reached at Vinothkumar.Johnpeter@cognizant.com.
The authors would like to thank Pradeep Kumar Govindasamy for his contributions to this white paper.

About Cognizant
Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, dedicated to helping the worlds leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in
Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfaction, technology innovation, deep industry
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