Quality Unleashed: Building the Business Case for Quality Engineering

Why Efficiency Alone Misses the Mark

The default argument for investing in new testing tools or platforms often centers

on efficiency: reducing manual work, saving time, cutting costs. But that’s a

narrow lens, and one that risks underselling the real, strategic value of quality engineering.

The better question is:
What information does quality engineering provide and how can we improve it?

Quality as an Information Engine

At its core, testing and quality engineering are not just about finding bugs. They

are about delivering decision-making information:

• Are we building the right product?
• Are we on track?
• Will this work in real-life production conditions?

This information supports a wide range of stakeholders, from product teams

to senior leadership, especially in release decisions and continuous deployment pipelines.

A Broader Perspective on Value

When evaluating testing investments, consider how they:

✅ Expand coverage across applications, business processes, and data variations
✅ Increase depth of testing in critical workflows
✅ Accelerate delivery of insights for release or deployment

✅ Enable responsiveness to change, with timely and actionable feedback
✅ Support automation pipelines with machine-consumable quality signals

Put simply, modern testing tools and practices must help your organization move faster with confidence.

The Strategic Case: From Cost to Contribution

A compelling business case goes beyond cost analysis. It connects testing investments to strategic, tactical, and operational goals, such as:

• Reducing risk in high-stakes releases
• Improving time-to-market without sacrificing reliability
• Enabling business agility with faster feedback loops
• Ensuring that quality signals are accurate, relevant, and timely

Framed this way, quality engineering becomes not a cost center, but a core enabler of innovation and delivery.

Conclusion: Elevate the Conversation

Investments in quality engineering should be evaluated based on how well they improve information flow and decision-making, not just efficiency metrics.

So next time you’re asked to justify testing spend, flip the narrative:
You’re not buying tools, you’re investing in confidence, speed, and strategic insight

Bart Vanparys

Head of Portfolio & Solutioning

• Connect