ISG Provider Lens™ Next-gen Application Development & Maintenance (ADM) Services - U.S. 2020 - Continuous Testing - Midmarket and Expert Consulting
Next-gen ADM
Application development and maintenance (ADM) services continue to evolve, led by changing customer preferences and the adoption of digital technologies. Digital technologies adoption is driving the need for rich user interfaces, dynamic applications, responsive features and speedy updates and releases. The portfolio of available next-generation ADM services can transform and streamline the application estates of enterprise clients to meet these dynamic customer requirements.
At an overall level, ADM services have primarily focused on three areas for clients – portfolio optimization, modernization and enablement of the digital transformation journey – while application maintenance has focused on reducing their maintenance footprint. A proactive and predictive approach for application maintenance services has been gaining momentum and is fueled by the need for greater visibility on KPIs and metrics. This has led to use of cognitive technologies, bots, robotic process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) throughout the ADM lifecycle. Using these technologies helps to simplify and minimize coding efforts, leading to a faster application development release. These technologies also help in error detection, code refactoring, interpreting business rules (often written in arcane coding languages) and bug fixes. IT service providers are also looking to increase their presence to offer more of a full stack. In the U.S., we observed service providers taking a vertical industry-specific strategy for digital transformation and DevOps.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to developments on various fronts in ADM services. Enterprise service providers quickly regrouped to ensure business continuity, resilience, cost optimization and security in their services. Against this backdrop, remote working, mobile connectivity, security mechanisms in IT infrastructure and virtual collaboration through communication tools for employees came to the fore to ensure uninterrupted services for clients. ADM practices adapted swiftly to the changed reality. This adaptation was reflected in several areas, including agility and the mode of its delivery. There was increased use of collaboration tools to achieve scale, productivity and tighter integration with best practices such as offshore, distributed Agile capabilities. A few service providers also extended their capabilities by coming up with solutions and services to remotely serve client needs in supply chain and logistics.
The use of automation in ADM, along with development of proprietary tools, intellectual property (IP), frameworks and methodologies, continues to grow across IT service providers. They remain focused on creating virtual learning and knowledge-based vehicles to train employees on various technical areas and increase their certifications base to be business ready. The focus on cloud-native applications and their adoption has led to APIs, microservices architecture and low-code development slowly becoming norms. Security has found tighter integration, both in terms of protecting intellectual property and of applicability in the testing value chain across areas such as nonfunctional tests.
Application Maintenance Services – Midmarket / Niche
Services offered within application maintenance services (AMS) can be broadly categorized into the areas of run and build. The services in these two areas broadly comprise application operations, support, maintenance, enhancements, change management and process improvement. Operational services, functional enhancements, data support, assessments, security, reporting and dashboarding are some of the other AMS service areas that service providers offer. Enterprise clients’ AMS needs include reducing their maintenance cost footprint, increasing the transparency of business outcomes through automation, improving stability, gaining AMS templates, enabling knowledge transfer and acquiring tools and checklists. Service providers offer support and maintenance services for both legacy and greenfield applications. Some of the common and key services that providers offer in their AMS portfolios include 24x7 support, incident management, problem management, monitoring and other support.
Frameworks such as IT Information Library (ITIL) are being leveraged to achieve services standardization to establish reliability and accountability in AMS. Enterprise clients look forward to robust and cost-optimized services spanning multiple geographies and time zones, supported by a skilled workforce for various software portfolios for customer applications, business applications and domain-specific software (e.g. SAP, Peoplesoft and others). Most service providers have a dedicated proprietary AMS solution to serve both production support and application enhancements. Most of these services are directed to ensure application availability and stability. Service providers are using proprietary assets composed of tools and IP to leverage the benefits of AI in AMS. The use of AI helps in providing insights on business processes, metrics and asset maintenance. Zero maintenance is emerging as the next level of progression in AMS. With this in perspective, providers are taking various routes that include developing an exhaustive understanding of the application landscape, detailed documentation and excellence in operations. Chatbots, tools and AI are being used in transition, task automation, IT service management (ITSM), cost optimization and ticket management tasks to enhance productivity for clients. Service providers are also using AIOps, which leverages machine learning (ML), natural-language processing (NLP) and robotic process automation (RPA), for self-healing, automated provisioning, problem management and defect pre-emption.
Agile Development
Service providers are accelerating their efforts toward building an agile organization. Some of the aspects of this drive include focus on roles, collaboration, change management, tools, strategy and investments in resource enablement. Some of the areas service providers are targeting for enabling an agile workforce are skills assessment, coaching, leadership development and global online learning strategies. They are also emphasizing training teams and resources to embrace Agile by enabling learning through external content. From a collaboration perspective, virtual elements are being included in collaboration and team onboarding. Some of the collaboration and workspace initiatives include conducting hackathons, creating ideation platforms, Agile pods, collaborative spaces for idea brainstorming and dashboarding. With a focus on value stream mapping, training and cultural aspects, a gradual shift can be observed from a process-oriented approach to a culture-led approach.
An Agile operating model is another key element of focus of service providers to achieve scale. They are focusing on this aspect in their overall Agile strategy. An Agile playbook, which offers best practices to set up a distributed Agile model for clients across geographies, comes as an extension to this operating model. Service providers are also focusing on expanding their resources trained on Design Thinking, Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming (XP) and their variants to accelerate Agile maturity. They are also driving initiatives to gradually inculcate an Agile mindset across their organizations by creating customized frameworks, practices, templates, estimation guidelines and case studies. Distributed and scaled Agile has gained prominence as a delivery model. The COVID-19 pandemic has further increased the relevance of distributed and scaled Agile. Some of the measures being undertaken include carrying out inclusive Agile ceremonies across time zones and enabling seamless collaboration and communication using tools such as Microsoft Teams, Slack and others.
Providers continue to offer Agile delivery led by their proprietary frameworks and tools. They also are partnering with bodies such as Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and automation tool providers such as Docker, Ansible and Jenkins and getting certifications from Scrum Alliance, Scrum.org, SAFe and Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) to create an Agile workforce. Creating an Agile mindset across the growing resource base remain a focus, along with skills management and standardizing Agile delivery.
Continuous Testing – Large Accounts
Continuous testing is being impacted by several factors related to ADM. Some of them include resiliency, stability, security, move to hybrid cloud, automation, customer experience and modernization. Talent, especially to ensure skilled resource availability across tools, is another important area IT service providers are addressing. Continuous testing has become an integral part of the service providers' Agile and DevOps delivery mechanisms, and security is being integrated with it. Its importance can be gauged by the increasing use of shift-left and shift-right practices by IT service providers.
Some of the leading services delivered by providers as a part of their continuous testing portfolios include test planning, test environment setup, functional tests, test-driven development (TDD), behavior-driven development (BDD), performance testing, nonfunctional validation and reporting. Automation is being embedded within the continuous testing lifecycle across test case management, automation engineering services, proprietary tools and intellectual property. Service providers are also embedding automation within continuous testing to accelerate application release and enhance efficiencies by reducing and removing repeatable tasks. The roles of analytics, AI and ML have also gained prominence over the last year. AI is also being used in testing platforms to improve agility and predictability across various phases. Intelligence is increasingly getting embedded within the testing lifecycle in test script generation, self-healing, test automation, test data generation, test selection, diagnostics, defect diagnostics and performance prediction.
Given the multitude of tools (open-source and others) available in the testing domain, integrations and the flexibility to leverage them for clients in a timebound manner become important for service providers. While a few service providers include popular tools from other providers in their proprietary testing platform, for flexibility, clients also look for connectors and integrations for a large base of tools. So, service providers are increasing their partnerships with players in the testing tool ecosystem to pass on the benefits of a skilled and trained workforce to clients. The large volume of test data generated from these multiple tools in the continuous testing lifecycle makes improving visibility and deriving insights into areas of importance for clients. Hence, service providers are incorporating visualizations within their dashboards to infer insights onto a single pane to help correlate information and make it measurable for clients.
Continuous Testing – Midmarket And Expert Consulting
Continuous testing services are led by demand for application resiliency, stability, security, moves to hybrid cloud, automation, improved customer experience and modernization. Some of the tenets required by clients include consistent, reliable and standardized testing services along with automation to manage dynamic testing requirements. Clients also look for a broad base of testing services that extends to mobile and other form factors. Within continuous testing, service providers are offering the use of shift-left and shift-right practices led by an Agile and DevOps model. Enterprise clients are looking for deep-seated testing expertise and a dedicated, trained workforce composed of Software Design Engineers in Test (SDETs) and quality engineers to deliver testing engagements.
Metrics measurement, governance and security are some of the salient aspects of the continuous testing services delivered by service firms. Test planning, test environment setup, functional tests, TDD, BDD, performance testing, nonfunctional validation and reporting are some of the leading services delivered by service providers as a part of their continuous testing portfolios. Analytics, AI and ML have taken more prominent roles within continuous testing over the last year. Automation is being embedded within the continuous testing lifecycle across test case management, automation engineering services, proprietary tools and intellectual property creation. AI is also being used in testing platforms to improve agility and predictability across various phases.
Given the multitude of tools (open-source and niche) available in the testing domain, preparedness and availability of a trained workforce available for client engagements in a timebound manner becomes important for service providers. While a few service providers include popular tools from other providers in their proprietary testing platform, clients also look for connectors and integrations for tools in the testing ecosystem. So, service providers are increasing their partnerships with players in the testing tool ecosystem to pass on the benefit of a trained workforce to clients. Service providers are also investing to create proprietary intellectual property and other assets. They are increasing their focus on training and learning initiatives by certifying resources on tools such as Selenium, UFT, SmartBear and others. Reporting and dashboarding of metrics from such tools has emerged as an important area for process improvement and business insights. Service providers leverage the data generated by these tools and create effective visualizations in their dashboards for a unified view to streamline processes in a single pane.
DevSecOps Consulting
DevSecOps covers the three key areas of people, process and tools for continuous delivery of software development. With the objective of improving speed and time to market in software development, culture, roles, teams and operating model have become important from a people perspective within DevSecOps. One more element has become integral to DevOps: security. It now occupies center stage and is integrated within the DevOps lifecycle by most service providers. The process elements within DevSecOps, which involves Agile, continuous integration and continuous development (CI/CD), continuous feedback, shift-left and workflow management, contribute to accelerated software development and delivery.
DevSecOps has gained substantial traction in recent years, and this is evident in the thin boundaries it shares with Agile development. DevSecOps growth is being led by the need to deliver agility in business. Service providers are basing their DevSecOps services on the key tenets of people over process over tools, amplified feedback, Lean management, auto-gating, chaos re-engineering, continuous integration and continuous delivery. Culture (to adopt DevSecOps practices), automation (for code generation), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) practices for visibility, and tools usage (open-source and proprietary) are some of the other key drivers that have an impact on DevSecOps delivery by service providers.
Service providers leverage their proprietary assets composed of tools, accelerators, frameworks and other IP, to deliver DevSecOps. These assets broadly cover the lifecycle stages of plan, build, test and deploy. Many tools, both open-source and niche, are available in the ecosystem. Service providers are increasing their partnerships with tool vendors to introduce more flexibility in their client engagements. Several service providers also offer centers of excellence (CoEs) for DevSecOps to facilitate sharing of best practices along with IP creation. Talent enablement for DevSecOps is another focus area for service providers, which have launched dedicated learning initiatives for technologies and tools.
Access to the full report requires a subscription to ISG Research. Please contact us for subscription inquiries.