Case Study
How Galp Energia Transformed Quality and Operational Efficiency with Sauce Labs
Discover how Galp Energia improved scalability, efficiency, and software quality with Sauce Labs. By adopting continuous quality practices, they accelerated testing, expanded device coverage, and delivered seamless app updates, aligning towards their digital transformation goals and boosting user satisfaction.
Galp Energia is a Portuguese multinational energy corporation and a significant player in the global energy market. Headquartered in Lisbon, Galp is involved in the exploration, production, refining, and distribution of oil and natural gas, while also operating a network of fuel stations across Portugal and Spain. With a workforce of 6,000 employees, Galp has a strong presence in over 10 countries, particularly in the Iberian Peninsula, Latin America, and Africa. The company is focused on digital transformation and innovation to enhance operational efficiency and drive sustainability.
“Sauce Labs provided us with a single source of truth for mobile application testing, independent of the project, team, and technology.”
Paulo José E. V. Matos
Challenge
Before adopting Sauce Labs, Galp encountered key challenges that impeded its digital transformation and innovation initiatives. As they began developing new applications, strong mobile testing support became critical. However, the high operational costs and logistical challenges of acquiring and managing mobile devices for each project—such as maintaining version control, cleaning devices after use, and dealing with device security—diverted their resources from crucial product development/ innovation work.
The rapidly evolving tech landscape exacerbated the challenges, as the frequent release of new devices and operating systems made it unsustainable to keep up with in-house devices. This situation limited their testing coverage and restricted access to the mobile devices that were most relevant to their users. Importantly, limited automation and difficulties in sharing test results and data across teams increased testing bottlenecks, resulting in slower testing cycles.
Benchmarking proved difficult due to isolated testing data, which obscured insights into the functionality of different app versions and hindered access to crucial logs. Limited device access, inability to replicate tests, and fragmented test results reduced team productivity and created a lack of visibility into how internal testers used various mobile devices, including the specific apps and OS versions installed.
Ultimately, the risk of not changing was significant: simply adding more testers, tools, and resources without achieving improvements in key objectives, such as speed and efficiency, would have hindered their strategic focus on operational efficiency and innovation.
Solution
Galp sought a vendor that could support their drive for digital transformation and innovation through a unified testing platform and eliminating testing bottlenecks. The key reasons for why they chose Sauce Labs include:
Centralized Testing for Improved Efficiency: Sauce Labs provided a unified testing platform that streamlined their processes, offering end-to-end visibility for mobile testing through a single source of truth for test results, analytics, and quality signals.
Cutting-Edge Apps with Access to the Best-of-Breed Infrastructure: With the most extensive range of iOS and Android device models and operating systems, Sauce Labs enabled Galp to keep their apps up-to-date and compatible with device/ OS versions adopted by their users in the target markets. Accelerated Testing Cycles and Automation: By increasing test automation and offloading device and infrastructure management to Sauce Labs, Galp significantly shortened testing and release cycles. This included faster identification and resolution of bugs to mitigate risks before they reached production.
Accelerated Testing Cycles and Automation: By increasing test automation and offloading device and infrastructure management to Sauce Labs, Galp significantly shortened testing and release cycles. This included faster identification and resolution of bugs to mitigate risks before they reached production.
Seamless Workflows Integrations and Intuitive User Experience: Sauce Labs platform's ease of use minimized disruption and enabled teams to achieve value quickly. Sauce Labs provided integration with Galp’s central Test & Defect management platform and tools like XRAY/ Jira, which their team already used, ensuring that all stakeholders have easy access to test results through video recordings and corresponding logs.
Integration with Test Automation Tools: The integration with Galp’s Test Automation Tools and integration with their existing CI/CD allowed the rapid implementation of automated test cases and their execution in the CI/CD pipelines in a shift-left approach.
Expert Support for Continuous Improvement: The world-class support and test expertise from Sauce Labs helped accelerate Galp’s automation journey, facilitating quicker resolutions to developer issues and empowering teams to explore new projects (such as retail apps).
Robust Security and Compliance: The Sauce Labs platform ensured stringent security measures and compliance with industry standards, which was critical for Galp.
By choosing Sauce Labs Real Device Cloud, Galp not only elevated their testing game but also drove significant improvements in operational efficiency and scalability, aligning with their higher-level business objectives.
“Sauce Labs is boosting Galp’s digital transformation by empowering our teams to focus on what truly matters: executing essential tests on the right devices without the hassle of managing and maintaining them.”
Rui Miguel
Results
Galp has been using Sauce Labs for over two years, to achieve and scale continuous quality and has experienced remarkable improvements that align with their focus on digital transformation and innovation.
185% Increase in Device Coverage: Over two years, the average annual number of devices tested increased significantly, (they are using more than 35 different models of mobile devices each week) ensuring seamless performance across diverse Android and iOS models, operating systems, and screen sizes. This enhanced product compatibility and reduced user experience risks.
352% Increase in Different App Builds Tested: This increase over a year, demonstrates Galp’s ability to identify issues across multiple application iterations, allowing for rapid version updates. This resulted in greater confidence in deployments and minimized post-release defects, leading to more reliable software releases.
2000% Increase in Test Runs/Month: This surge over a year dramatically expanded test coverage, helping validate a broader range of scenarios and use cases to deliver the best possible customer experience (They are executing more than 1.500 executions by week).
“At Galp, we are committed to expanding our focus on mobile testing to ensure all teams can fully leverage its benefits.”
Ricardo Silva
These results demonstrate how making Sauce Labs an integral part of its continuous quality journey has empowered Galp to respond to the demands of its growing business and diverse user base. The partnership with Sauce Labs has enabled Galp’s Release and QA teams to elevate the quality assurance processes, ensuring faster release cycles and improved user satisfaction.
