EPAM, a leading provider of product development and software engineering solutions, today announced winning the “Best Agile Project” category at The European Software Testing Awards (TESTA) which recognizes the best use of an agile approach in software testing.

TESTA is an independent awards program established by Test Magazine, designed to celebrate and promote excellence, best practices and innovation in the Software Testing and Quality Assurance community.

“This award validates the significant investment EPAM has made in driving the adoption of agile principles and defining best practices for testing within agile software engineering,”

said Gino Marckx, Director, Agile Competency Center.

“More than 60% of EPAM’s client projects use our Pragmatic Agile approach in their development, testing and Business Transformation programs. EPAM won the award for demonstrating an advanced Agile approach to QA and testing that is both operable and sustainable. Our client needed to deploy six new applications spanning multiple channels – stores, call centers and online – and enable an integrated sales order, finance and distribution process to increase customers loyalty and satisfaction. Leveraging Agile engineering principles underpinned by rigorous testing and quality assurance was key to maintaining business alignment with users while rapidly delivering responsive applications.”

Screwfix, the UK’s leading multi-channel supplier of trade tools, hardware, DIY supplies, plumbing and electrical equipment has been utilizing EPAM skills since 2007. One of the key principles implemented by EPAM’s 70+ engineers and business analysts at Screwfix distributed between the UK, England and Ukraine was the adoption of Behavior Driven Development (BDD).

This facilitated collaboration in creating scenarios and specifications and provided a unified approach to ensure all business needs were met. “These scenarios are used to create automated tests which allow us to test the code base while it is being developed rather than post-delivery.

These tests are utilized to examine subsequent changes to business functionality, setting a baseline and raising visibility, successfully creating a sustainable test stack. This is one fantastic example of how incorporating a true top-to-bottom Agile approach brings significant benefits in reduced remediation, rework and allows faster deployments with business users getting what they asked for the first time,” said Sam Rehman, EPAM CTO and long-time Agile evangelist.

EPAM’s team of highly skilled professionals worked seamlessly with the Screwfix team, collaborating real-time and using specialized communications tools and an advanced “distributed agile SDLC” that bridged both time and distance barriers.

This also harmonized the program requirements between the business and IT functions delivering real time results analysis, performance statistics and KPIs for the distributed teams. With this approach, EPAM and Screwfix could identify and resolve production issues ahead of deployment, while the applications continuously increased user visits minimizing disruption. The result has been an increased volume of purchasing decisions and the deployment of 350 in-store applications, a number that continues to grow.

Since 1993, EPAM has focused on a superior product-centric approach to Quality Assurance and Testing. EPAM’s leadership position in the Agile Services arena was further recognized this week by yet another independent research leader, Forrester, who in their December, 2014 report: “Market Overview: Agile Development Service Providers” included EPAM as a “Primary Agile Services Player”, stating ‘EPAM leverages its engineering Agile training, services capabilities, and accelerators of its product development practices to expand its Agile capabilities in the IT industry’.

The company has aggressively invested in Agile and built one of the largest testing organization in Central and Eastern Europe, providing a broad range of related services from consulting to user experience testing and from enterprise test automation to EPAM’s Testing Center of Excellence solutions. Today, EPAM’s technical expertise and domain focus enables effective execution of these services for clients in Financial Services, Retail and Distribution, Travel and Hospitality, Healthcare & Life Sciences, and Media industries.

For more information, please read the case study.

About EPAM Systems

Established in 1993, EPAM Systems, Inc. (NYSE: EPAM) is recognized as a leader in software product development by independent research agencies. Headquartered in the United States, EPAM serves clients worldwide utilizing its award-winning global delivery platform and its locations in 19 countries across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. EPAM was ranked #6 in 2013 America’s 25 Fastest-Growing Tech Companies and #3 in 2014 America’s Best Small Companies lists by Forbes Magazine.

Forward-Looking Statements

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