The real business benefits of Drupal contribution

This post follows up on my recent talk at DrupalCon Singapore, where I outlined how to supercharge your business by adopting an open source business model.

PreviousNext started like most small independent agencies in 2009. We identified a gap in the Australian market for enterprise-grade services using Drupal as our core technology and started targeting large scale clients. But in adopting an open source technology, we needed to approach things very differently compared to just partnering with a large proprietary technology partner. 

How would we develop the skills in the technology when there were limited training opportunities available? How would the software our business relied on be maintained and innovate? How would customers know about the technology when there was no global product marketing?

As Drupal's project founder, Dries Buytaert, outlined in his original blog post Balancing Makers and Takers to scale and sustain Open Source, we could have easily sat back as a 'Taker' and left it to other 'Makers' to sustain Drupal. In fact, that's what at least 90% of agencies who profess to provide Drupal services in Australia do. They contribute little to no code back to Drupal, only sponsor Drupal events if they can see a direct return on investment for their own business and provide little to no funding to the Drupal Association, the not-for-profit foundation that manages all of the infrastructure to maintain the Drupal project alongside a range of community and market focused initiatives.

As Dries points out in his blog post, Takers from open source projects may consider they have a competitive advantage over Makers by being able to invest the funds they would otherwise spend on contribution into areas they think helps their business' bottom line. Of course, if everyone was a Taker from Drupal, the software their businesses rely on would not innovate to keep pace with competitive products and ultimately cease to exist. Does that sound like a sustainable business strategy?

Having run PreviousNext for 16 years as a company that does contribute extensively to Drupal, I disagree with Dries' point about Takers having a competitive advantage over Makers. Our business fundamentals are testament to that, with our profits consistently quadruple and staff retention triple the industry average. We know this, because as an employee owned company we receive an independent annual valuation that benchmarks us against comparable Australian digital agencies. We are also the top ranked Drupal Certified Partner globally ahead of companies that are literally fifty times larger than us in terms of staff numbers and revenue. 

Of course, anyone who runs their own business would want to know how much this actually costs PreviousNext? An analysis of our accounts over the past ten years reveals we have spent 4% of our gross revenue on the combined expenses of ALL direct salary costs of contribution including sponsoring a Drupal core committer, all marketing, sponsorship and Drupal Association membership fees, attendance at local and global conferences including travel and accommodation costs and all external recruitment fees. This 4% of revenue is just considered operating expenses before we declare before-tax profits that are quadruple the industry average. Do I have your attention yet?

So how does PreviousNext achieve this and how might you apply a similar open source business model to your own company?

1. Adjust your thinking. Instead of considering contribution to open source as a cost to your company, think of it as an investment in your team's expertise in the software your business relies on. By being experts, you can win the best client projects and charge higher rates in line with your expertise and reliability, enhancing your company's profitability.
2. Define a contribution policy. A company's leadership needs to create a policy that all staff clearly understand. The leadership's responsibility is to then ensure that the pipeline of billable work is there to sustain the team's designated contribution approach.
3. Join the Drupal Certified Partner program. In doing so, your expertise is independently verified by the Drupal Association and promoted to potential clients. Who will a customer choose for their project? The Maker that's actively engaged in the open source project the customer will be relying on, or the Taker who's only able to compete on price?
4. Consider the staffing benefits. Contribution plays a key role in staff recruitment, onboarding, professional development and retention. Take a look at your current recruitment and training budgets and the cost of replacing a key staff member when they leave after the industry average of 2-3 years tenure. The PreviousNext experience is our recruitment costs are 0.4% of gross revenue over the past ten years, primarily for non-Drupal roles, and our average staff tenure is 8 years.
5. Play the long game. Sponsoring Drupal events and providing funding to the Drupal Association has long-term benefits. While a typical agency might measure the short term return on investment of these activities in terms of immediate client leads, PreviousNext looks at it through the lens of the long term sustainability and growth of the Drupal market. If Drupal is adopted by more big clients in the long term, our own company will benefit because we'll ultimately win some of those clients.
6. Be open with your expertise. The more Drupal agencies and developers that are highly skilled and contributing back to Drupal will have two huge effects:
   1. Drupal can innovate faster to remain competitive against proprietary alternatives, attracting more customers to Drupal.
   2. Customers assess the ecosystem of qualified vendors when selecting a major software product like Drupal as a key factor in their decision process. While it may seem counter-intuitive, PreviousNext wants to see more high performing companies qualify as Drupal Certified Partners, cementing Drupal's reputation as a trusted and reliable product and expanding the market for Drupal in the process. 

In the spirit of openness, if you run a Drupal services company and want to do a deeper dive into any of this, I'm always happy to chat.