Vendor Analysis
published on Jan 29, 2019
Report Overview:
IBM provides most of its software testing services through its IGNITE Quality & Test (Q&T) unit. Q&T is a horizontal service line that falls under GBS. It was launched in 2007 and mainly draws on personnel from GBS Application Management Services (AMS) and Application Integration Services (AIS).
The practice provides testing services to external clients as well as for internal needs, both for IBM Software products and for internal applications.
Q&T has positioned its software testing capabilities around digital and DevOps/continuous testing, with an emphasis on test automation. An important element of this strategy was the creation in 2017 of its IGNITE Quality Platform (IQP). With IQP, Q&T has grouped several of its IP and accelerators in a central tool. Essentially, with IQP, Q&T wants to automate the full testing lifecycle, from the requirements to test optimization, test case generation based on BDD, and automated scrip creation execution. This automation is largely achieved with some human element intervention for creating Gherkin-based test cases.
Another important element of its next-gen testing offering is around mobile testing, notably thanks to its alliance with Apple on iOS mobile apps.
A final element of Q&T's strategy lies around creating AI-based use cases: in 2017, IBM complemented a statistical approach (combinatorial testing/pairwise) to optimizing the number of test cases by an NLP approach (STAM/ combinatorial testing). Since then, Q&T has expanded its number of AI use cases to another four, showing continued investment.
Also, IBM GBS provides testing services through other units, such as its ERP/SAP/Oracle practice and other COTS. In total, NelsonHall estimates that GBS has ~25k career testers across units.
Who is this Report for:
NelsonHall’s Software Testing Vendor Assessment for IBM Global Services is a comprehensive assessment of IBM Global Services’ next-gen testing service offerings and capabilities designed for:
- Sourcing managers monitoring the capabilities of existing suppliers of IT services and identifying vendor suitability for software testing services
- Vendor marketing, sales and business managers looking to benchmark themselves against their peers
- Financial analysts and investors specializing in the software testing sector.
Scope of this Report:
The report provides a comprehensive and objective analysis of IBM Global Services’ next-gen testing service offerings, capabilities, and market and financial strength, including:
- Analysis of the company’s offerings and key service components
- Revenue estimates
- Identification of the company’s strategy, emphasis and new developments
- Analysis of the profile of the company’s customer base including the company’s targeting strategy and examples of current contracts
- Analysis of the company’s strengths, weaknesses and outlook.
Key Findings & Highlights:
IBM provides most of its software testing services through its IGNITE Quality & Test (Q&T) unit. Q&T is a horizontal service line that falls under GBS. It was launched in 2007 and mainly draws on personnel from GBS Application Management Services (AMS) and Application Integration Services (AIS).
The practice provides testing services to external clients as well as for internal needs, both for IBM Software products and for internal applications.
Q&T has positioned its software testing capabilities around digital and DevOps/continuous testing, with an emphasis on test automation. An important element of this strategy was the creation in 2017 of its IGNITE Quality Platform (IQP). With IQP, Q&T has grouped several of its IP and accelerators in a central tool. Essentially, with IQP, Q&T wants to automate the full testing lifecycle, from the requirements to test optimization, test case generation based on BDD, and automated scrip creation execution. This automation is largely achieved with some human element intervention for creating Gherkin-based test cases.
Another important element of its next-gen testing offering is around mobile testing, notably thanks to its alliance with Apple on iOS mobile apps.
A final element of Q&T's strategy lies around creating AI-based use cases: in 2017, IBM complemented a statistical approach (combinatorial testing/pairwise) to optimizing the number of test cases by an NLP approach (STAM/ combinatorial testing). Since then, Q&T has expanded its number of AI use cases to another four, showing continued investment.
Also, IBM GBS provides testing services through other units, such as its ERP/SAP/Oracle practice and other COTS. In total, NelsonHall estimates that GBS has ~25k career testers across units.