Quality Engineering Across the Board: A Strategic Contributor to Business Success
By 
Welcome to the ever-evolving world of modern businesses, where software quality management has undergone a remarkable transformation. Advocating for quality engineering has been a pivotal aspect within my professional journey. The convergence of technology, innovation, and quality now feels like witnessing an anticipated evolution unfold.
An organization’s success is defined by the quality of experience it is able to deliver to the customer at every touchpoint. Consider the case of digital pioneers such as Airbnb, Netflix, Amazon, Tata CLiQ, Spotify, Uber, and Revolut. Their success is rooted in understanding what I call ‘Chemical Q.’ This essential element enables these companies to release updates more quickly, making quality a fundamental, everyday component that reduces friction and facilitates smooth, reliable user interactions with software.
These digital-first business models have propelled quality engineering (QE) into the spotlight. QE is no longer confined to mere troubleshooting or preventing deployment delays; it influences the future of business success, reshaping how organizations operate. Service-oriented architectures and web service interfaces demand a holistic approach to quality to enable the launch of customer-centric products.
This progression has led to the emergence of a new role: the Chief Quality Officer (CQO). The CQO acts as a visionary, bridging the gap between technical details and broader business implications. Their key responsibilities include:
- Strategically contributing to business goals by prioritizing quality
- Addressing every facet of the customer experience at every touchpoint
- Influencing decision-makers to integrate quality into the business strategy
- Envisioning products from their inception and ensuring fail-proof reliability
- Overseeing organization-wide maintenance of product and service quality
Thus, CQOs have become the linchpin in the modern digital paradigm, steering organizations toward meeting evolving user experiences, driving innovation, and architecting a robust quality culture. This requires a shift in perspective, with every department aligning towards value-driven enterprise engineering, product development, and organizational management
About the Author
With over 35 years of experience in Strategy, Engineering, and Consulting in the software quality engineering sector, Chitra specializes in driving end-to-end creation of innovative products and solutions. She has successfully led transformations in top-tier companies spanning BFSI, automotive, pharma, retail, telecom, media & entertainment. Her expertise includes establishing and optimizing QE practices, implementing cutting-edge tech stacks, frameworks, and architectures, and delivering large-scale, data-driven insights for optimal monetization.
