SOFTWARE testing is a critical aspect of IT project implementation that should be given top priority. Failure to do so can lead to technology and business risks, says Hewlett-Packard (M) Sdn Bhd’s country sales director, software Chong Wai Tuck.

According to him, software testing is about making sure that what the IT department builds is in accordance with what the business wants.

“This means the IT department needs to test all the software they bought for a certain IT project to see whether they will work accordingly when put together as a system and meet business specifications.”

Currently, software testing is not widely adopted among Malaysian enterprises due to lack of awareness and skills, Chong pointed out.

There is also insufficient training and development on software testing locally, he said.

“This is why we need to look into providing more training programmes to ensure we create the skill sets. As it is, we are still hiring IT experts from outside (the country) to do software testing.”

But having the right training and skill set is not enough because there is also the need to automate. One way is through business technology optimisation solutions, which help companies automate software testing.

Based on a recent study conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit on behalf of HP, more than half of the companies surveyed do software testing manually for their IT projects. More than half of them also said they do not use any standard framework within their organisation.

As a result, most said up to half of their IT initiatives over a three-year period have failed to deliver the intended business outcomes.