New Delhi : QAI (www.qaiglobal.com), the leading workforce development and consulting organization has recently partnered with IBM to launch Certificate Program in Functional Testing, a five day training program leading to dual certifications: Certified Software Tester (CSTE) from QAI and Rational Functional Testing (RFT) from IBM. The partnership endeavors to encourage education in the field of Software Testing by launching this program focused on both Software Testing and Functional Testing skills. IBM and QAI are promoting this program as a subsidized offering to the Software Testing community in the first phase.

India currently has approximately over 132,000 professionals working in the Independent Testing Services Business, out of which approximately 65% of the work done, is in the field of Functional Testing. Over the past decade, numerous organizations have been adopting skill building programs and certifications for gaining a competitive advantage in their respective line of businesses through their workforce. Increasing functionality coupled with numerous customer configurations and integration options have further added to the complexity and fueled a spurt in demand for Functional Testing.

Process and Tools are major investments for all organizations involved with Functional Testing and no combined certification is available focusing on both the aspects, Process and Tool in the Functional Testing domain, hence the launch of this certification is indeed well timed. Organizations on their part have started taken initiatives to ramp up their existing workforce in-line with client demands. Many organizations have comprehensive induction and orientation programs for new team members. Mentoring and training is imparted to them through international certifications.

The five day training course focuses on providing a thorough hands on of the concepts on the usage of Rational Functional Testing (RFT) and a reference to the best practices from the Common Book of Knowledge (CBoK) for the CSTE program. The program has been designed as a mix of case driven, instructor-led and self paced learning, to enable participants learn, experiment and implement the concepts involving Functional Testing – the process, methods and the tools for doing it more efficiently and effectively.

Announcing this partnership, Mr. Himanshu Goyal, Country Manager, Career Education, Academic Initiative, DeveloperWorks and Globalization – IBM India/South Asia said, “When we look at our customers and their investments in developing software, we have observed that organizations having a firm commitment on quality and testing can actually accelerate development, reduce costs, and continue to add new features with less investment. Whereas organizations that have less focus on quality and do limited testing, whether for internal use or for sale, are always looking backward, spending time and money on fixing defects in “finished” products. This primarily can be addressed by educating the leaders in Quality teams and empowering them with the right set of skills. Quality teams should take benefit from this association with a leader like QAI in this area, as any development organization should not minimize the importance of testing and this is the best packaging they could get for enhancing their skills”.

Commenting on the partnership, Mr. Navyug Mohnot, CEO, QAI said, “QAI has always been dedicated to addressing the need for workforce development and competency building across the globe in various business critical skill domains. Given the gap in the Software Testing industry particular to the Functional Testing domain, for a combined certification with dual focus on Process and Tools, QAI, in association with IBM, endeavors to address it. Over the past years, QAI has increased its focus on bridging the existing skill gap in the industry. QAI will extend it’s expertise and body of knowledge in software testing to complement IBM’s functional testing tool in an effort to fulfill the need for a combined certification.”

IBM and QAI plan to successfully launch the program in the tier one cities covering Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, New Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Mumbai and Pune, in the coming months.

Certifications provided by QAI have increasingly been adopted by large organizations to give their employees global recognition. Infosys and TCS both have over 4000 professionals each certified on various domains, which is testimony to the increasing trend of adoption at the organization level.

Over these past years, QAI has trained over 140,000 professionals and certified over 40,000 professionals worldwide.