Quality assurance key concern among firms considering blockchain, web3 deployment

There is significant optimism around the impact of emerging technology such as blockchain, the metaverse, and other Web 3.0 applications. However, companies continue to struggle with various facets of quality engineering and testing (QE&T), according to a new study. 

Quality assurance is focused on ensuring that a product achieves and maintains a certain level of quality. While all companies and industries include at least some quality assurance processes between the creation of a product and its distribution to the consumer, Web 3.0 and Blockchain for quality assurance processes become even more important in order to increase consumer safety and trust. That’s because, these technologies create a permanent record and can be referenced much more quickly and with greater confidence, than traditional records in the event of an emergency. Say, during a public health emergency caused by contaminated food, it enables companies to better recall faulty goods before the consumer is put at risk. 

Based on these assumptions, the 14th edition of the World Quality Report 2022, published today by Capgemini, its brand Sogeti, and UK-based IT firm Micro Focus, finds that organisations are increasingly looking at QE&T to support the deployment and success of new technologies such as blockchain and Web 3.0 and to address associated business challenges in the fields of customer experience, time to market, security, and cost.  

Greater reliance on quality assurance 

The report finds that awareness is growing on how quality strategy can (speedily) offset various risks associated with deploying new technology – from pure testing to actual quality engineering practices. For example, 88% of respondents agreed they were at medium to high risk of losing market share to a competitor and 90% agreed that they face the risk of increased costs for the deployment of new technology solutions without a QE&T strategy. 

The research also found that organisations are reporting significant improvements by adopting agile development, as 64% of respondents cited on-time delivery as the biggest improvement, while others focus on reduced cost of quality, followed closely by improved customer experience. 

Challenges to overcome 

But there are certain barriers they need to address. For example, while executives (89%) believe that robust data validation capabilities can improve decision making, efficiency, and improve bottom line, only 20% of respondents have a fully implemented enterprise-wide test data provisioning strategy. Many organisations have serious challenges with the implementation of an effective data validation strategy; 42% see implementing data validation as a time-consuming exercise, while 47% of respondents said that having multiple complex databases itself acts as a challenge. 

The research also found that organisations continue to struggle to implement agile development across packaged applications and enterprise systems due to the complex practicalities involved in breaking down enterprise resource planning (ERP) workflows and end-to-end business practices into a single backlog. 

The importance of cybersecurity strategies to counter the risk of cyber-attacks also emerged in the research, as 96% of respondents believe they would face medium or high risks of cyber-attacks without a quality strategy in place for emerging technologies, said the study.