How is your organization including Drupal strategically in your digital transformation?

Day 2, Keynote - Monique J. Morrow - DrupalCon Vienna 2017. Photo by Dominik Kiss

Digital change is coming. Some companies have been ahead of it for a long time, others are in the midst of change – and some are still clinging to established practices. No matter which path is taken, everyone can learn from each other. And that's what DrupalCon Barcelona and especially the Client & Industry track are all about: How can the digital transformation be a success for your company – and what role can Drupal play in this. We are looking forward to your questions and your answers in order to become better together.

Organizations globally are incorporating open source methodologies into the way they develop their own software. Open source software like Drupal plays an important role in keeping the web open, and has become a top enterprise-class CMS for its reliability, interoperability, scalability, security and ease of customizations and integrations. Companies such as Pfizer, Nestlé, NASA, Habitat for Humanity, DHL and Wilson are already using Drupal to deliver content across all their channels.

Another advantage of open source is the people behind the software, in the case of Drupal a community of more than 1.3 million members, where we can connect and share best practices and lessons learned for managing large complex projects and pushing innovative boundaries using Drupal. With a whole community innovating, we often get new features before we know we need them.

At DrupalCon Barcelona 2020, the Client & Industry Track Day on Tuesday, December 8 will cover such a broad range of case studies and experiences by representatives of the organisations specialized in choosing for the Open Web, including speakers using Drupal strategically like CMO’s, CTO’s, digital managers and business/site owners. The key intention is to show how Drupal can adapt to fit projects of all shapes and sizes, across all industries.

The sessions are targeted to digital managers and executive decision makers using Drupal or considering to use it as their next digital experience management platform. Agency leaders, product owners, and tech leads can also benefit from the showcases in this track.

The showcases will add more business value if told by project owners from the companies themselves, or with the agencies alongside their clients. By sharing your journey using Drupal in your digital transformation, you will help existing and potential Drupal users (clients) learn innovative ways to improve Drupal, from Drupal users themselves.

We are looking for submissions in the following 6 sub-themes of the Clients & Industry Community track:

• General Open Web & Drupal Digital Experiences

The web was built for everyone. Today, proprietary platforms and data privacy issues put our freedom in communication and collaboration at risk. For the web to remain open, we need policy makers, academics, activists, and practitioners to work together. 

One interesting use case is Foraus, who is using Drupal as a forum to shape Swiss foreign policy. A crowd innovation feature was built on top of their platform to convert ideas and collective community knowledge into viable solutions with built-in voting and feedback mechanisms. 

This sub-theme accepts sessions and workshops which will help us explore how we can continue to advocate for our ability to access and publish on the open web and allow engaging and meaningful digital experiences.

• Community Platforms

Traditionally, community platforms have been powered by closed source software, which raises considerable concerns around privacy. Drupal’s collection of easy-to-use modules and distributions facilitate easy collaboration and engagement amongst its members, offering variety and alternatives.

As an example, at Innovation Roundtable Online, over a thousand innovation executives from large multinational corporations are using the Drupal 8 based platform to connect, learn and share. With open source, the organization was able to avoid licencing costs and vendor lock-in.

In this subtheme, we are looking for case studies that showcase how Drupal is used to build engaging and intuitive community platforms.

Community Summit at DrupalCon Vienna 2016. Photo by pdjohnson

• Digital Transformation

Using open source software requires a cultural shift. An organization needs to encourage knowledge sharing and contributions within the different teams in an organization and also with the greater open source community. New ways of working and collaboration need to be established to take full advantage of adopting open source for an enterprise.

One relevant case study on this is from This Old House, a multi-platform home enthusiast brand. When a new management team purchased the brand from Time, Inc., they needed to move their site in just four months and also upgrade it from the existing outdated CMS Vignette. With more than 75,000 pieces of content and heavy video usage, they also needed a performant system. Drupal allowed them to breathe new life into the brand’s digital experience with a new responsive design, provided more flexibility for complex editorial workflows and customizations, and enhanced ad-serving and analytics systems. As a result, they achieved a boost in site speed and engagement, increased ad revenues by 200% and surpassed their organic search results rankings. 

Brainstorming session at DrupalCon Barcelona 2015. Photo by gut-man

In this sub-track, we are looking for case studies that showcase agility, standardization, masterization, and implementation of new governance processes for Drupal projects that promote digital transformation and innovation within an organization.

• e-Commerce

Drupal is quite possibly one of the best options for open source content and ecommerce on the market today. 

For example, Drupal enabled the transformation of well known eCommerce retailer, Wilson, into an experiential purchasing platform. Their previous solution housed product information, but did not fully showcase their diverse family of products, or support the content that connected customers to the brand. The powerful use of content connected to ecommerce established Wilson as a distinctive digital player in the highly competitive sports marketplace.

In this sub-track, we are looking for examples that showcase how Drupal serves as the foundation and stepping stone for building an integrated Commerce, Marketing, CRM, and ERP platform and delivering integrability, flexibility, and scalability at a reasonable cost.

• Education

Drupal is far and above the most used CMS in higher education – 26% of all .edu domain sites are in Drupal, including 71 of the top 100 universities. For Princeton University Press, Drupal provided a flexible and scalable CMS that could handle a large number of pages, content types, and permission levels, while providing flexibility for users and editors alike, a single platform that can handle different functionalities, integrating third-party technologies, and a robust editor workflow solution.

In this sub-track, we are looking for success stories that showcase how Drupal has been extended to support a multifaceted institution and empower disparate editorial teams.

• Government

Drupal is a popular framework for governments such as the European Commission and United Nations due to its versatility, usability, scalability, and low total cost of ownership. The open source code can be leveraged easily by other departments. For example, Mass.gov, created for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the US, ended up forming the basis of OpenMass, an open source Drupal 8 distribution for state governments.

In this sub-track, we are looking for similar case studies that showcase reuse, cost savings, productivity efficiencies, and innovative customizations.