Loss of money – This can include losing customers right through to financial penalties for non-compliance to legal and customer requirements.

Damage to reputation – If an organization is unable to provide service to their customers due to software problems then the customers will lose confidence or faith in this organization.

Injury or death – It might sound dramatic but some safety-critical systems could result in injuries or deaths if they don’t work properly e.g. anti terrorist equipment & its software, traffic control, be it air or ground traffic.

Here are few reasons why we need to test software?

• To avoid user detecting problems
• To prove that the software has no faults
• To learn about the reliability of the software
• To avoid being sued by customers
• To ensure that product works as user expected
• To stay in business
• To discover defects early, which helps in reducing the cost of defect fixing?
• To improve quality