Something I've always believed, and my experience with shipping multinational software on a schedule that has severe drop-dead dates confirmed: If you are contractually obligated to deliver a product that does x, y, and z correctly? QA is the only way to do that seriously. If you don't have QA, you don't care about testing full stop.

This only compounds when you have to comply with safety regulations in every country, completely setting aside the strong moral obligation you should feel to ensure you go far above & beyond mere compliance given the potential for harm. This compounds again when you are reliant upon deliverables from multiple tiers of hardware and software suppliers, each contract with its own drop-dead dates you must enforce. When one of them misfires, and that is a "when, not if", they are going to lie through their teeth and you will need hard proof.

These are not small fines, they are company-killing amounts of money. Nobody profits in this situation. I've been through it twice, both times it was a herculean effort to break even. Hell, even a single near-miss handled poorly is enough to lose out on millions in potential future work. The upsides are quite nice, though. I didn't know it was possible to get more than 100% of your salary as a bonus until then.

Don't take my word for it, though. Ask your insurance agent about the premiums for contractual liability insurance with and without a QA team. If you can provide metrics on their performance, -10-15% is not uncommon, this discount increases over time. Without one? +15-50% depending.