Perfecto by Perforce Releases 2021 State of Test Automation Report

Survey of over 700 leading digital enterprises reveals misalignment between leadership and practitioners, with C-Suite and VPs overestimating automation rates.

MINNEAPOLIS, January 26, 2021 — Perfecto by Perforce, market leader in cloud-based automated mobile and web application testing solutions, today announced the release of its 2021 State of Test Automation Report, which outlines trends in testing, automation rates, and testing concerns and priorities for 2021.

To better understand web and mobile app testing today, Perforce surveyed over 700 DevOps professionals across industries.

Equipped with the data from this survey, along with expert insights and recommendations from Perfecto, the 2021 State of Test Automation Report takes a pulse on test automation — including automation rates, the importance of mobile in testing strategies, how testing is done, the adoption rate of “shift left,” and top challenges faced by leading organizations today.

Misalignment With Leadership Hinders Innovation

The survey revealed a surprising misalignment between practitioners and leadership. Practitioners reported lower levels of test automation than estimated by C-Suite and VPs. Closing this gap will be key in 2021.

“The focus for 2021 will be aligning all testing practitioners with leadership so teams can innovate with confidence,” says Eran Kinsbruner, Chief Evangelist of Perfecto.

“To improve the discrepancy in automation rates, teams will rely more on scriptless and intelligent test automation tools. These tools can help teams fit test automation within the build process, which we discovered was a significant challenge in the survey.”

Not only do these tools improve automation rates, but they also enable cross-team collaboration by allowing more team members to contribute to test automation efforts.

With improved alignment and increased automation, teams can avoid time-consuming testing backlogs, expedite feedback loops, and deliver apps with fewer escaped defects.

Key Findings From the 2021 State of Test Automation Report

• Leadership and practitioners are not on same page. C-Suite and VPs believe they are more automated than practitioners report.
• 2021 will be the year of intelligent test automation, with over 40% of respondents expressing interest in using scriptless/smart automation solutions this year.
• The survey found that teams are focused on increasing automation and test coverage. However, despite link to faster releases, half of respondents automate fewer than 50% of tests.
• 70% of teams struggle to fit test automation within the build process, which deprives them of fast feedback and slows down the entire testing process.
• As DevOps matures, testing teams are transitioning from a center of excellence model (COE) into smaller and more focused teams.
• Shifting left is correlated with faster releases, and larger organizations lead the pack in adoption of this testing practice.
• Top performers with higher levels of automation within the release cycle are addressing the automation skills gap with BDD and scriptless solutions.
• Leadership and practitioners are not on same page. C-Suite and VPs believe they are more automated than practitioners report.

For more information and to download the full report, please click here.

Additional Resources

Chief Evangelist, Eran Kinsbruner, will lead a webinar to discuss the results of this survey along with other testing reports, and will provide actionable insights for organizations looking to improve their test automation.

Reserve your seat for this upcoming webinar, Testing Megatrends: We Analyzed Every ‘State of Testing’ Report (So You Don’t Have To).

• Date: Wednesday, February 24th
• Time: 2 p.m. ET

Register for the webinar here.

About Perforce
Perforce is a leading provider of enterprise-scale software solutions to technology developers and development operations (“DevOps”) teams requiring productivity, visibility, and scale during all phases of the development lifecycle. Enterprises across the globe rely on its Agile planning and ALM tools, developer collaboration, static code analysis, version control, and repository management solutions as the foundation for successful DevOps at scale. Perforce is trusted by the world's most innovative brands, including NVIDIA, Pixar, Scania, Ubisoft, and VMware. Perforce has offices in Minneapolis, MN, Alameda, CA, Mason, OH, Boston, MA, the United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden, Germany, India, and Australia, and sales partners around the globe. For more information, please visit www.perforce.com.

About Perfecto
Perfecto by Perforce enables exceptional digital experiences and helps you strengthen every interaction with a quality-first approach for web and mobile apps through a cloud-based test platform. comprised of real devices and real end-user conditions, giving you the truest test environment available. Our customers, including 50 percent of the Fortune 500 companies across banking, insurance, retail, telecommunications, and media rely on Perfecto to deliver optimal mobile app functionality and end-user experiences, ensuring their brand’s reputation, establishing loyal customers, and continually attracting new users. For more information about Perfecto, visit perfecto.io.