Automation ROI - Industry Data from Bengaluru, India

Software Industry has adopted automated testing widely. The most common method is the automated GUI tests for the functional scenarios to reduce manual testing and increase the repeatability. The idea of reducing execution time for quality provides a rational for the executive management to allocate funds to adopt automation and invest in the setup including people, process, tools to achieve  faster time to market. There are variety of practices like frameworks, tools, methods, procedures, models, technologies that are engaged to achieve automation. Nonetheless the effectiveness in terms of Return on Investment (ROI) is not known though there are various formulas to calculate ROI of test automation. This brings us to a few questions like; How mature is the test automation in today’s practioner’s world? Is it serving the right purpose? Are the right tests being automated? Does the test professional understand and know test coverage? Are the right metrics being measured? bugs found, cost spent, reduction in time to test, reduction of labour etc.? These are some of the questions this paper aims to present results, based on a survey collected from industry professionals.