A global professional services organization needed to streamline and standardize its quality assurance (QA) efforts across multiple business domains. Historically, QA was handled on a project-by-project basis, with each team applying its own methods, tools and test strategies. This decentralized model led to fragmented workflows, duplicated effort and varying levels of success in identifying and resolving defects before production.
To address these challenges, the organization set out to build a QA Center of Excellence (CoE) that would establish unified testing standards, enable consistent automation practices, and deliver scalable QA support across a wide portfolio of internal projects. But success would require more than just documentation – it would require the right staffing model, technical leadership and long-term vision.
Tential was selected as the strategic delivery partner to help stand up and expand the QA CoE, supporting the organization with scalable talent solutions, process alignment and practice leadership.
Staffing Strategy: Tential deployed a hybrid model that combined experienced onshore QA engineers with cost-effective offshore and nearshore support. To round out the talent mix, Tential also launched the “JITA” program – an early-career pipeline that identified and trained recent graduates in QA fundamentals, then deployed them into real-world project environments with oversight and mentorship.
Unified QA Methodology: Working closely with internal teams, Tential helped establish standardized approaches to sprint planning, test case development, regression testing, automation and defect prioritization. This ensured that all QA teams, regardless of project, were aligned to consistent, repeatable practices.
Innovation Enablement: In addition to supporting traditional QA frameworks, Tential helped pilot a next-generation testing initiative built on AI-enabled automation. Using emerging tools and languages such as Playwright, Python and large language models (LLMs), this pilot program laid the foundation for a more intelligent, efficient testing ecosystem across the enterprise.
Flexible Resourcing: The CoE was designed to scale based on project size, scope and budget. Tential provided full-spectrum QA coverage, including onshore leads, offshore contributors, nearshore delivery support and JITA resources – tailored to the specific needs of each initiative.
Cross-CoE Collaboration: To maximize impact, Tential established structured collaboration channels between CoE team members supporting different programs. These channels enabled testers and QA leads to share lessons learned, reusable assets and emerging best practices across initiatives. Improvements made in one project could be rapidly applied to others, accelerating quality gains across the enterprise.
Nearshore Capability: Incorporating a nearshore delivery hub allowed for greater time-zone alignment, faster feedback loops and improved collaboration. The nearshore team played a key role in reducing communication friction, enabling same-day defect turnaround and maintaining cost efficiency without sacrificing quality.
Tools & Frameworks: The CoE leveraged a modern QA toolset, including Playwright, Selenium, Python, Postman, REST Assured, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, SonarQube and AI-enabled test script generation.
Tential’s approach helped the client realize measurable improvements in QA operations and long-term scalability:
The result: fewer surprises in production, improved predictability in planning and a stronger foundation for quality at scale.
Establishing a flexible, centralized QA practice requires more than staffing – it demands a thoughtful framework built for longevity. Through a focus on process refinement, talent development and continuous innovation, Tential enabled the client to simplify complex QA operations, enhance delivery reliability and unify practices across previously siloed teams.
As cost pressures grow and technical landscapes continue to shift, scalable models like this QA Center of Excellence provide a proven path to stronger outcomes. With a hybrid approach rooted in deep expertise and strategic planning, Tential empowers organizations to elevate quality, reduce risk and scale with confidence.
Ready to build your QA Center of Excellence? Let’s start something that scales.
When QA practices were inconsistent across teams, outcomes varied – and not always for the better. By helping build a centralized, standards-based approach to quality assurance, Tential enabled this client to reduce risk, lower costs and bring predictability to complex delivery cycles. The result? A repeatable model for QA success, built to scale with the business.
In simpler terms: Tential brought the consistency that makes innovation possible.