Why does Quality cost so much?

AndersenSoft · 31-08-09

Every year in a software development branch of IT business, significant amount of money is spent on quality. Why is quality so expensive? Is quality so important? Why do companies spend money on Quality Assurance and Software Testing Departments maintenance?

When I think of it I come to conclusion that software quality verification sometimes is even more expensive than software development itself.

Sometimes the quality of software means everything. There are a lot of examples of such systems: the software for railway and air transportation, banking and financial software, healthcare. If something is done wrong in this kind of systems, and if it is not found and corrected on time, it may lead to serious problems in healthcare, or even result in numerous casualties. Often a number of testers taking part in project implementation is more than a number of developers. But every found bug will eventually save money or a company’s reputation.

I took part in this kind of projects. The team had been working on software for medicine distribution for 2 years. There were 9 people who tested the project and only 4 programmers. The price of drugs was rather high, thus a testing team spent much time carrying out their tests with precise care in order to find all the defects that could affect the system. The main requirement for such systems is high accuracy of calculations. And testing engineers repeat the same actions again and again to make sure that everything is correctly calculated. If system had a bug, patient would have received an overdose and possibly died.

That’s why system and corporations use every possibility to make their products of high quality and spend money on keeping software testing engineers’ army. And it’s only one example of healthcare software importance. So, the quality costs much money, and it’s reasonable to pay for it.

On the other hand, we should remember that there are no products without bugs; sometimes it is impossible to find all of them. Taking this fact in consideration, there are Customers, who do order software development in our company but… refuse software testing services. They think that they can save money this way. But I would like to say “A Miser Pays Twice” and the best way is to verify software carefully even if it requires additional efforts.

In the times of financial crisis this truth is especially topical, because company’s reputation and brand name becomes an essential guarantee of products reliability and sustainability.

AFashionableLife · 01-09-09

Hi Andersen,

I think that this extends to so much more than just software development.
I think quality of product / service is more vital now than ever before.
Customers have all the power at the moment. Business' have to compete harder than ever for less money than ever.
The GFC has been a boon for consumers/ buyers, but a tragedy for business ever where!

Cheers,

AndersenSoft · 12-09-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by AFashionableLife

Hi Andersen,

I think that this extends to so much more than just software development.
I think quality of product / service is more vital now than ever before.
Customers have all the power at the moment. Business' have to compete harder than ever for less money than ever.
The GFC has been a boon for consumers/ buyers, but a tragedy for business ever where!

Cheers,

Thank you for your post!
Yes, you are right. Quality now is something that company can oppose to the current economic situation.
And the key idea of my entry is as follows that it's reasonable to pay for the quality. But now we have a project for Hospitality Industry. it's a large Web Portal created specially for Hospitality exhibition.
Customer refused all testing services. And now programmers test their code by themselves. I don't think that it's good but Customer's desire is a law....

elitebag · 18-01-12

Usually the better the quality is ,the more we need pay .Every product is same not just software.

SmithMikes · 31-01-12

Quality work need guilty i hope you understand

lancejeffersons · 31-01-12

It is much better to pay big for a quality service or product rather than paying less for a cheap service or product..