Case Study
From waterfall to agile—How an insurance giant's QA transformation accelerated delivery and elevated quality
OUR CLIENT
Founded approximately 150 years ago, this global insurance provider specializes in property, casualty, and life insurance for businesses and individuals. With a presence in over 200 countries, the company employs around 60,000 people and delivers innovative risk management solutions while emphasizing sustainability and customer-centric services.
THE CHALLENGE
Rigid development model and disjointed quality assurance slowed defect detection and project delivery
With rising customer expectations and market demands, the client needed to overhaul its development processes to remain competitive. Its traditional waterfall software development model lacked the agility for rapid iteration and continuous improvement, impeding efficient project delivery. As new product lines and services emerged, adapting systems and workflows became increasingly challenging.
The disconnect between development and quality assurance (QA) teams further exacerbated delays. With testing treated as a separate phase, defects were often discovered late, requiring significant rework and extending project timelines. Without an integrated, agile QA approach or CI/CD pipeline, there was little alignment on priorities, causing QA to become a bottleneck instead of a continuous, collaborative process.
As the company scaled, the need for automated testing and efficient, cross-functional collaboration grew. However, its existing framework could not support these demands, limiting its ability to innovate and respond to customer feedback. To achieve faster, high-quality product delivery and reduce time to market, the company required an agile transformation that would integrate development and QA processes, enable scalability, and improve operational efficiency.
THE TRANSFORMATION
Agile QA strategy integrates customized methodologies and automated tools
UST delivered a comprehensive agile maturity consulting and testing solution that revamped the client’s development and QA processes. This solution included a custom QA methodology fully integrated with agile automations, embedding quality checks into every phase of the development cycle. This approach enabled continuous testing, facilitating early defect detection and improving efficiency while reducing rework.
UST introduced a full stack certification program to enhance collaboration, empowering developers and QA engineers to work across all application layers and enabling proactive issue resolution. UST also used open-source QA automation tools to build scalable testing frameworks, decreasing manual effort and allowing the client to focus on more complex testing scenarios.
By establishing a CI/CD pipeline and streamlining feedback loops, UST improved testing coverage and operational efficiency. This allowed the client to handle multiple projects simultaneously while meeting lofty standards.
As a result, the client now benefits from automated testing, improved test coverage, and enhanced efficiency, enabling faster, high-quality delivery and real-time, data-driven decisions.
THE IMPACT
Enhanced product quality and reduced time-to-market with scalable QA operations and agile collaboration
Following UST’s agile QA strategy implementation, the global insurance technical teams were able to adapt to changes quickly, respond to customer feedback efficiently, and handle complex projects with ease. The company realized these remarkable outcomes:
- Enhanced product quality—ensuring more reliable deliverables by identifying and resolving defects early in the development cycle
- Reduced delivery cycles—contributed to the accelerated release of new features and updates to help meet customer demands and maintain a competitive edge
- Lower operational costs—by minimizing manual efforts through automation and enabling more efficient resource allocation
- Enhanced collaboration between development and QA teams—fostering better communication and proactive problem-solving for complex projects
- Ability to scale QA operations—allowing the client to manage multiple projects while maintaining high-quality standards effectively
- Greater agility and flexibility—enabling teams to adapt to changes quickly, respond to customer feedback, and handle complex projects more efficiently
Enhance product quality, reduce time-to-market, and drive efficiency with agile automations. Contact us to transform your operations with UST’s agile QA strategy.