Do you know who wrote the software in your blender?

Outsourcing increasing the need for test automation

Nearly 50% of our respondents to our 2009 Embedded System Engineering survey reported the outsourcing of one or more engineering tasks to external companies for current projects.  This rate is a substantial increase over our 2008 survey results in which less than 40% of respondents cited engineering work being outsourced.   

   

Moreover, software application/middleware development/test – arguably the most important discipline for end product differentiation – was cited by our survey respondents as the most frequently outsourced engineering task, underscoring the importance of establishing and/or enhancing software testing practices going forward.

Well before the early signs of an economic downtown began tightening R&D budgets, leading embedded system manufacturers had begun embracing outsourcing in greater numbers and frequency as a means to tap into cheaper labor markets, reduce operational expenses, and improve organizational agility.

The sophistication and complexity of embedded software requirements have also continued to rise at the same time as these other cost and time-to-market demands already strain project teams’ available bandwidth and productivity.

The ability to effectively manage software component quality can only become more important going forward as a greater portion of engineering work is outsourced to third parties.  We expect that this continued growth in outsourcing will similarly augment growth in the commercial automated test and verification tool market as OEMs look to mitigate some of the risks associated with work performed by engineers unfamiliar with legacy code bases and dispersed across multiple geographies and time zones.