Katalon and KMS Technology Survey Highlights Skills Gap and Changing Requirements as the Biggest Obstacles to Software Test Automation Adoption
The study also found that training/documentation, high-quality test reports and licensing/support costs were high priorities when selecting a test automation tool.
Atlanta, Georgia (June 5, 2018) – Katalon and KMS Technology, two companies focused on the software testing market, announce the results of a survey of nearly 2,300 software testers and QA managers regarding software test automation adoption. According to the study, organizations are confronted with numerous obstacles in test automation, including requirements that change too often, the expense of commercial testing tools, and tools that require too much experience and expertise to use properly. As background, Katalon was incubated and launched by KMS Technology in 2015.
As the emphasis on rapid, continuous software development has increased within enterprise organizations, so too has the need for automated testing. Commercial testing tools support this process by handling the creation and execution of tests while minimizing manual steps. These qualities are important as software has become a strategic asset for companies and the complexity of applications has grown along with user expectations. The global test automation market is expected to grow from nearly $16 billion in 2016 to $55 billion in 2022, according to Zion Market Research.
According to the KMS Technology / Katalon survey:
- The top priorities when selecting a test automation tool are: training, documentation, tutorials, guidelines; good test reports; level of programming skills required; licensing and support costs; level of skills and experience required
- The top challenges in applying test automation are: requirements change too often; lack of skilled and experienced test automation resources; difficult to integrate different automation tools together; do not have the right processes and methods for test automation; diverse applications and platforms to test
- The top challenges with existing test automation tools are: commercial tools are too expensive; the lack of support for mobile testing; they require too much experience and expertise to operate; they require strong programming skills; difficult to integrate with other software development tools
“Testers must leverage automation tools as enablers to support the demand for continuous testing within teams,” says Mush Honda, Vice President of Testing at KMS Technology. “Having a tool such as Katalon, which presents a minimal learning curve for non-technical testers, allows teams to immediately gain efficiency.”
“Testers and Software development organizations are struggling with the transition from manual testing to automated testing,” says Uy Tran, Product Manager of Katalon Studio. “Automation testing solutions are either too costly or require users to possess programming skills for the transition. We’re pleased to be able to offer affordable products and services designed to help organizations and users to get started on modernizing their testing practices successfully.”
About Katalon
Katalon is the company behind Katalon Studio, a test automation platform developed by KMS Technology as an alternative to both open-source and commercial applications. The free software is simple to set up and use, for both beginners and advanced testers. It includes comprehensive functionality, allowing testers to set up projects, create and run tests, view reports and maintain tests. Katalon Studio was ranked as a top automation tool in 2017 by popular Automation websites and communities. Learn more at https://www.katalon.com/.
