Test automation firm Opkey has struck a partnership with UK-based technology startup De Novo Solutions to integrate Opkey’s QA platform into several of the latter’s solutions.
De Novo Solutions, based in Langstone in the south of Wales, is a software firm that focuses primarily on banks, financial services firms and other companies in the finance space.
California-headquartered software testing solution provider Opkey said the collaboration will give De Novo Solutions a QA testing boost and should lead to reduced costs and software that can be deployed faster.
“The partnership aims to integrate Opkey’s no-code automation platform into de Novo Solutions’ Testing as a Service offerings and its Odyssea industry cloud solutions, streamlining testing processes for more efficient operations,” the firms wrote in an email to QA Financial.
The companies stressed the collaboration should simplify the testing of enterprise software with intelligent automation, reducing manual effort and minimising human error.
By reducing human intervention and increasing efficiency, the partnership enables users to be more agile in responding to business needs and technology changes, explained Opkey CEO Pankaj Goel.
“We are empowering our clients to achieve unprecedented levels of automation and quality in their software delivery. This partnership not only enhances the agility of our customers but also delivers real, measurable benefits in terms of speed, efficiency, and cost savings,” he claimed.
In addition, Lisa Chamberlain, head of Testing at de Novo Solutions, echoed the sentiment, saying that “by integrating their advanced automation capabilities into our Testing as a Service proposition, we can now provide faster, more trusted software releases, ultimately enhancing digital transformation journeys.”
New platform
The partnership comes only weeks after De Novo launched a new solution that offers automated, flexible and secure software testing capabilities, specifically designed for finance firms.
The firm’s new platform is personalised, data-driven and aimed at testing and monitoring software infrastructure across banks, financial services firms and other companies in the finance space.
De Novo Solutions, which launched in 2021, said its new Testing as a Service (TaaS) practice aims to “redefine software testing by providing automated, flexible, and on-demand solutions designed to accelerate innovation and enhance software quality,” explained Chamberlain.
She elaborated that “by integrating automation into our software testing processes, we simplify the adoption of new features. This integration enables clients to accelerate innovation and significantly reduce testing risks.”
Chamberlain went on to stress that “it also streamlines testing cycles, driving their growth and setting a new standard for quality and efficiency in software testing.”
TaaS approach
By freeing up development teams’ time and resources, TaaS enables them to adopt innovations quickly, Chamberlain continued, as she pointed out that the TaaS platform includes systems integration testing, user acceptance testing, and regression testing.
Other options include collaborating with test practitioners, automated and configurable testing services, managing test process and data reporting.
She claimed that “unlike traditional testing services, this practice enables businesses to collaborate with test practitioners to create bespoke services, eliminating fixed costs and alleviating the burden on in-house resources.”
In fact, “this approach empowers organisations to manage their testing needs effectively with a trusted partner while optimising resources, budget, and time, Chamberlain concluded.
Opkey’s growth plan
For US-based Opkey, which runs an AI platform that enables finance firms to test finance, HR and other resource planning software within its digital ecosystems, it has been a year of growth and expansion, so far.
In August, the company confirmed a major capital injection, as the fast-growing firm said, on the back of customer traction from around 200 enterprise customers, including professional services giants KMPG and PwC, it said it had secured $47 million in fresh funds.
The raise was led by PeakSpan Capital, with new allocations coming from a range of existing investors UST Global, Verica, Vertical and India’s YouNest.
The capital injection was a big step up for Dublin, California-based Opkey, which is seen as somewhat of a rising star within North America’s QA space. Prior to this latest funding round, the company had raised $12 million.
“Opkey’s platform may not be at the most visible end of the enterprise IT stack, but it’s addressing a gap in the market that is critical to how enterprises operate,” stressed Goel.
Goel, who co-founded the company with his childhood friends Avinash Tiwari and Lalit Jain, called cloud architecture and SaaS “at the bedrock of how all new business services are built, but they have also found a lot of footing with more legacy organizations undergoing digital transformation processes.”
They can be faster and cheaper to use and easier to deploy to a user base, but they can also come with a ton of problems, including the fact that any vulnerabilities or inconsistencies between software can take down entire networks.
“This is where Opkey comes into the picture,” Goel continued.
Goel declined to slap a valuation on the firm but did go on to stress that, as companies are experimenting with services like ChatGPT to help workers write memos, answer questions, and much more, yet one of the clearest signs of how much traction AI is really getting in the world of enterprise IT is how often it figures in the more routine applications that organisations use and test.
“Our startup exemplifies that axiom so our [fresh] funding is underscoring that pace of enterprise AI adoption,” he noted.
‘Testing hell’
Goel, Tiwari and Jain are all three ERP industry veterans with experience at big companies like Adobe and Oracle.
Goel stressed that their time there gave them experience in software testing, and it also gave “us a front-row seat” to how disastrous it could be if not done correctly.
“ERP systems typically do not exist in siloes: they integrate with each other to work, which means if one conflicts with another, or is not working correctly, the whole ERP stack can crash,” he noted.
Moreover, “cloud applications are continuously giving updates, which was not the case with traditional software,” Goel added.
“That functionality breaks existing functionality.” He estimates that typically an organisation might integrate seven or eight ERP systems together.
“Any change in the ecosystem and you need to test again. It means a testing hell.”
– Pankaj Goel
“Testing and data hell” are in fact classic use cases for AI-based automation to resolve, something that cybersecurity and DevOps software companies have also come to realise, Goel continued.
In the case of Opkey and ERP, it is continuously tracking areas like integrations, updates, upgrades and something they describe as “user acceptance”, he added, pointing out that this involves how well end users are interacting with new features they are supposed to be using.
Packages and platforms that Opkey currently covers include Oracle, Workday, Coupa, Veeva, Salesforce, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, UKG and Trackwise.
Market growth
Sanket Merchant, the partner at PeakSpan Capital, who led the capital raise, explained why his firm decided to bring fresh funds together for Opkey.
Firstly, he is convinced there will continue to be a very strong funnel of business interest for services like Opkey’s given the way IT is moving.
“For businesses, the most expensive IT spend is related to critical enterprise apps, their ERP apps,” he said, citing figures that say that some $73 billion is spent on ERP software for billing, accounting, people management, software deployment and more annually across both smaller businesses but especially massive, multinational organizations.
These in turn can have dozens of other apps that rely on ERP integrations to work.
“Automated testing is important to drive assurance around that investment, to make sure it behaves as intended. A failed SAP deployment or Workday migration can have a huge impact a business’s revenue, and its brand,” Merchant concluded.
NEXT WEEK IN SINGAPORE
REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN FOR THE QA FINANCIAL FORUM SINGAPORE 2024
Test automation, data and software risk management in the era of AI
The QA Financial Forum launches in Singapore on November 6th, 2024, at the Tanglin club.
An invited audience of DevOps, testing and quality engineering leaders from financial firms will hear presentations from expert speakers.
Delegate places are free for employees of banks, insurance companies, capital market firms and trading venues.
QA FINANCIAL FORUM LONDON: RECAP
Last month, on September 11, QA Financial held the London conference of the QA Financial Forum, a global series of conference and networking meetings for software risk managers.
The agenda was designed to meet the needs of software testers working for banks and other financial firms working in regulated, complex markets.
Please check our special post-conference flipbook by clicking here.
