Turning Software Testing into a Strategic Business Asset

Introduction

The author reflects on more than ten years of software testing work at Alibaba, summarizing personal experience and discussing the value of software testing while hoping to help teams move beyond current cycles.

What Is Quality?

Quality as a Luxury – In early startup teams, testing is often seen as unnecessary until the business reaches break‑even, after which quality becomes a pursued attribute.

Quality as a Product Feature – For products such as audio/video communication, quality (e.g., audio‑video clarity, latency, stability) is a core differentiator that directly impacts competitiveness.

Industry Perspectives

Comments from users of leading audio‑video products illustrate how quality perceptions affect choice and satisfaction.

Original comments

Z's audio is pretty great though. I don't know how they get around the latency issues...

It's funny how people can hear people differently...

I think that in community work with less able, often low income, computer users I see that available bandwidth has a big effect on user experience...

I was really impressed by Teams video superiority; given that and with the audio being all "pretty good"...

I work with Teams all day long and because of the interaction and collaboration with Microsoft apps it’s the best in my opinion...

For our international organization, the stability, features, and ease of use determine the platform we use...

Why Testing Matters

Testing aims to find defects quickly, verify that software meets requirements, and reduce development and post‑release costs. It also maximizes business and brand value, ensures compliance, and protects revenue‑critical systems such as finance and e‑commerce platforms.

From Quality Assurance to Development Efficiency

Over the past decade, testing teams have expanded from pure quality assurance to building tools and platforms that improve overall development efficiency. However, many testing products lack long‑term sustainability compared with mature foreign frameworks.

How Testing Teams Can Break Through

Treat quality as a business: deliver measurable value to survive and grow.

Business quality – gaining recognition from product owners.

General quality capabilities – developing reusable engineering solutions.

Experience quality – linking quality to user‑experience NPS.

Innovation includes applying large language models to generate automated test scripts, making automation more accessible.

Future Outlook

Quality may become an advanced work mode similar to industrial quality culture (Kaizen, Poka‑yoke). As internet products mature, quality could become a strategic differentiator for companies.