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February 10, 2023

The role of quality engineering as the ‘big bets’ of emerging technology gain ground will remain critical in the coming years, according to this year’s World Quality Report.

The pace of technology change is unrelenting. From blockchain, Web 3.0 and digital twins, to 3D printing, quantum computing and, of course, the metaverse, emerging technologies are steadily gaining relevance, and this has a direct impact on quality engineering.

The technologies cited above are the current ‘big bets’ for IT leaders, with more than 80% of this year’s World Quality Report (WQR) survey respondents picking blockchain and Web 3.0 as a priority for their IT strategy. Both of these suggest a theme of decentralization for the future although, as the report points out, the concept of Web 3.0 is still being defined.

Improving the user experience

For the world of quality engineering, the impact of these technology evolutions begins at the end – with the user! Some 66% of the survey respondents said a seamless user experience across the digital and physical realms would be among the top three quality outcomes of emerging tech. A big improvement in managing test data and environments was cited by 61% of respondents, followed by velocity without compromising quality at 59%.

Understandably, the ability to test and assure the quality of emerging tech will demand new skills as the technology evolves. Blockchain skills were cited among the top three by 50% of survey respondents, closely followed by cybersecurity skills (47%) and cloud computing (45%). The human aspects of quality engineering will remain important as strategies, frameworks, and approaches continue to be built in the coming years.

Interestingly, artificial intelligence and machine learning skills were far lower in the pecking order at 39%. The WQR suggests this could be because they are no longer deemed ‘emerging’ but are already embedded.

Clear quality engineering strategies

The strategic value of quality engineering remains irrefutable. Even from prototyping. When asked to rate the enterprise risk of not adopting a quality engineering strategy for emerging technology, 96% of the survey respondents ranked cyber-attack as a high risk. It’s no wonder that we firmly believe quality engineering embedded in DevSecOps will gain greater importance in the years ahead as these emerging technologies mature into real-world implementations.

90% of organizations believe that the cost of deploying new technologies will be higher without a clear quality strategy. Quality Engineering will have a critical role to play toward implementing technologies for real world use cases, no matter what the technology bets are. This is good news for the quality engineering discipline and for those enterprises making the emerging technology bets that will garner success in the future. Of course, as we point out in the WQR, this will demand clear quality engineering strategies for these technology bets, even during the prototyping phase.

Get in touch

If you’d like to hear more about our approach to quality engineering and DevSecOps for emerging technology, please get in touch.

Jeba Abraham

Jeba Abraham

Practice Leader, Quality Engineering & Testing, Sogeti US

World Quality Report

The latest World Quality Report (WQR) from Capgemini and Sogeti, in partnership with Micro Focus, is a reflection of the rapid pace of change in the software development and release cycles.