— Inland Revenue

How Inland Revenue assures consistent user experiences in a transformed business

Organisation

Inland Revenue

Industry

Public Sector

Solutions

Assurity Cloud
Performance Testing

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About

As it rolls out the $1.8-billion business transformation programme, Inland Revenue (IR) is leaving no stone unturned in the quest to deliver positive experiences for every user of its systems and services. A key component of its quality assurance program is being delivered by Assurity, which is providing a range of services, including performance testing, and fully stress testing all systems before rollout to production.

The purpose of Inland Revenue’s (IR) business transformation is the delivery of real-time interaction to replace traditionally paper-based activities. With over 500,000 logins to myIR on peak days, and hundreds of thousands of accounts interactions with IR systems on a daily basis, IR needed to ensure it has a clear view on how its systems will cope before they go live.

Solution

Assurity provided a “Performance as a Service” testing solution for the IR program, conducting a performance risk assessment to identify actual and perceived risks across all products. This allowed the program to estimate how customers would use the new digital services and assess each service against a set of performance targets. Performance testing was combined with customer experience monitoring, and the results were made accessible to everyone at the IR office. Through this approach, IR has ready access to performance testing assets, reducing the risk of new products and driving down the cost of assurance.

“Assurity’s delivery of innovative performance testing has changed perspectives on the possible. Any failure in any of the new systems and services we’re rolling out will taint public confidence. There’s a substantial reputational risk every time a new service is introduced – and performance testing as a component of a broader range of assurance services is the insurance policy addressing that risk.”

Chris Hourigan, Business Transformation – Testing Lead

Inland Revenue

Results

The performance testing strategy and assets developed by Assurity helped identify and resolve multiple potential issues prior to production, resulting in significant gains in system performance for customers during peak periods. Although some issues were found post-production, they were quickly dealt with due to the approach in place. Another significant benefit of the performance testing strategy was an enhanced understanding of the customer experience of IR products over its existing network. This approach has allowed for a closer examination of the customer viewpoint into IR and what happens to the system when people behave in certain ways.

Performance testing at IR is no longer solely focused on peak volumes, soak tests, and scalability but has also extended to customer experience. With digital systems operating 24/7, it is critical for success that performance testing must span it all.

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