Paragon – it’s all about scaling to ensure the value of a brand isn’t compromised

Let’s be completely honest here. In the previous article published here in NonStop Insider we wrote of how Paragon has served more than 600 clients in 90 countries, with many of our customers being the leaders in their part of the payments’ ecosystem. How many were really surprised to read this? And how many readers were aware of just how prominent role Paragon plays when it comes to automated, continuous, testing, across the payments processing industry?  Furthermore, we reiterated that it is very important for any current or potential NonStop users to know that Paragon has the products to automate the testing cycles across the whole lifecycle of credit and debit card payments – from concept through pilots and rollout to full production deployment automated testing ensures nothing is left unchecked.

There have been numerous surprises this year. One most unlikely-to-succeed movie, as predicted just a few years ago, had to be Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Smashing box office revenue targets it was the talk of the industry through the summer. However, when it comes to guardians, it is another type of custodian that holds much more importance for financial institutions running payments solutions on their NonStop systems – the brand custodians. And one key group responsible for the brand today are the  QA and test teams.

“There’s also the evidence of transformation within QA and testing as a function and that growing acceptance of its role as a brand custodian,” wrote Hans van Waayenburg, Capgemini Group Executive Leader, Testing Service Line, in his introduction to the Capgemini World Quality Report 2017 – 2018. Being the custodian of the brand, it is the “software quality, then, has emerged as a lever of differentiation in the marketplace.” Furthermore, “Test automation presents the potential to combine quality with speed.” With our NonStop heritage, we must also add scale and the ability to scale up alongside quality and speed – there is no upside to being the brand custodian if there is no capability to support a business’s desire to grow.

This was the focus of a recent post to the Paragon Edge Blog, GROWTH IN ALL DIRECTIONS OUTSTRIPPING ABILITY TO INSURE QUALITY TESTING. Scaling to meet the testing challenges that come with rapid growth and innovation necessitates the need for integration and the use of automation.  Without these advancements, shortages of skilled personnel will become apparent all too quickly, eventually throttling down the growth curve that might have otherwise been realized. “It’s not just about scaling to meet demand as a business grows; companies also have to scale for change,” said our  CEO, Jim Perry. “In order to be successful tomorrow, companies need to do things differently.  Just adding more hardware or more physical resources will not work anymore.”

There was also an observation by Raffi Margallot, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Application Delivery Management, Micro Focus, included in the Capgemini report. When it involves our business partners and their end users, “They demand delivery of new capabilities faster than ever, and they expect applications to be highly available, reliable, and secure. They simply have no tolerance for IT solutions that fail to function, fail to load and perform, lack security, or fail to deliver an engaging user experience.” To which we can easily add, no matter how many users the business attracts or how many additional features are introduced.

As our Mr. Perry observed, “Scaling to meet both the transactional demand being generated by growth, as well as the equally demanding challenges that come with the deployment of new technology, leaves few alternatives other than to automate the testing process, end to end, and have it coupled with whatever change management in place so that it is launched every time changes to any processes are made.” For more on the topic of the importance of scale, you may want to check out the post already referenced above. However, whether we view oversight by a guardian or a custodian, the quality of our applications and their ability to deliver a quality experience every time there is client interactions, is of paramount importance to every business. Damage the brand through lack of quality and the image of the business suffers and in today’s increasingly complex world of IT, these custodians – our QA and test teams – just have to be able to access an automated test platform such as that provided by Paragon.

Should you require additional information about the product offerings from Paragon please feel free to call us or drop us an email.

Written by the Paragon Team and we can be reached at:

World Headquarters:
326 Raleigh Street
Holly Springs, NC 27540

Phone: +1-919-567-9890
Email: info@paragonedge.com