Anna Thorsen
Size no longer dictates the success of a business, speed does. Creating real change at speed in regulation-heavy banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) corporations is incredibly challenging and can take decades. But it’s not impossible.
KPMG’s Karim Haji and Nicholas Mead explain that ‘taking practical steps in the short term to build a foundation for a more flexible business model in the long run’ can help businesses become agile.
So how does test automation fit into the picture?
While BFSI companies are facing the full force of digitalization, they also have to amp up their testing capabilities. Testing digital services is critical for regulation-heavy BFSI industries. They are some of the most complex applications on the market, and testing them thoroughly ensures quality, improves user experience and reduces risk.
The shift to no-code automated testing can bring significant efficiency gains to a business, removing the repetitiveness and error-prone task of manual testing, and makes an organization more responsive to change.
In this article, we outline the common challenges of agile in BFSI, and share an in-depth whitepaper on how no-code test automation in software development can help businesses become quicker at responding to new opportunities, with lower risk.
Common agile transition challenges in BFSI
Large businesses are being overtaken by their smaller counterparts who are able to respond quickly to market change and rethink traditional processes that hold businesses back from innovating and moving at speed.
Traditional banking, financial services, and insurers are especially at risk of falling behind. With younger businesses being more nimble, traditional business models need to make real change - not superficial change.
It goes deeper than just saying you’re agile. It requires changing the leadership, the culture, the way organizations perceive risk, and how they utilize modern technology, tools, and data.
Scaling digital development projects
Testing is a core part of BFSI services. Yet it stops digital development projects from scaling if they’re not utilizing the right agile testing tool.
With manual testing, it requires a lot of time. And with code-based automated testing, it requires skilled programmers to script cases plus a lot of maintenance. This prevents businesses’ digital services from evolving at pace.
That’s not to say that automation cannot bring benefits. Rather, it is the type of automation tool used that impacts scalability. For example, a no-code test automation platform that can help you to release 3x more per year.
Information sensitivity and heavy regulation
Because of the high sensitivity of the data being processed by these compliance heavy organizations, errors in post-production are not tolerated, and if they do leak, they’re incredibly expensive. On top of this, any change in structure or regulations can have a huge impact on software development.
Changing the culture
It can be daunting for businesses to update their services because it means their existing revenue streams will take a hit. But these crucial pivots are what sustain businesses in the long-term.
While there is no one-size-fits-all in agile, it still requires a re-wiring of pyramid structures, taking steps like incentivizing risk-taking and rewarding the continuous improvement of processes.
Modernizing processes
With technology changing rapidly, organizations are frequently upgrading and modernizing services. For example, adding machine learning and big data processing capabilities.
However, operating on legacy mainframe IT systems, which is typical for BFSI industries, poses an additional challenge. While mainframe is incredibly reliable, it requires skilled developer resources to operate and - for the most part - to test.
This produces bottlenecks that prevent an agile transformation. Why? Because while mainframe hasn’t necessarily changed, business has. Businesses are operating faster, and the pace doesn’t match mainframe development and testing.
To close the gap, BFSI industries need to modernize mainframe development and testing by utilizing existing technology.
Using no-code automation means more people can participate in testing, test sooner, and increase the speed of release cycles.
Get inspired with use cases that show how organizations just like yours are building and scaling automation with Leapwork
How to overcome agility challenges in BFSI
To meet these heavy requirements, small changes can be made to get an organization one step closer to change readiness.
Read more: How to do Agile Test Automation in the BFSI Industry
Starting on small-scale IT development projects, teams can utilize the tools and processes needed to continuously release high-quality software at speed, and with lower risk.
And by using a no-code test automation tool, you remove the technical barriers that delay software development and widen the pool of people that can participate in automated testing.
You can learn more about reducing risk in BFSI with automation in our webinar. Or check out this detailed whitepaper where we outline how organizations can overcome common agility challenges in BFSI industries to:
- Get to market faster through a testing approach built for business users,
- Bring widespread productivity gains thanks to fast ROI,
- Bring significant risk reduction associated with product development, and reduce costs on multiple fronts.
