Into the Enterprise: Getting Drupal Past the Gates

Drupal 8 is getting ready for the enterprise, but what do you do if the enterprise is not ready for Drupal?

From the business side you will hear the perspective of UNFI’s Digital Solutions Architect Robert Burson who played a key roll in bringing Drupal into UNFI. UNFI (United Natural Foods Inc.) is a Fortune 500 company and the leading distributor of natural, organic, and specialty foods within the US. Robert was also involved in bringing Drupal into Hasbro, ABC, and Disney. From the agency side, Senior Technology Consultant Tom Martin will discuss the approaches and tactics that Metal Toad has employed as they explore how Drupal can benefit their enterprise partners.

In this session we will explore some of the difficulties commonly faced when bringing Drupal or any other open source technology into a large corporate organization. While large businesses have a tremendous amount to gain by embracing open source technologies, there are hardened attitudes, misconceptions, and legal challenges that show up in various stages of the procurement process.

Many corporate legal & IT departments, even CIOs, have an allergic reaction to community-built software and licensing. The legal department will start using the word “indemnification” in most sentences. As you go into this environment, you need to be prepared to face these arguments head on with clear and thoughtful responses.

Businesses have serious (and valid) concerns around topics such as licensing, scalability, organizational support, compliance, data security, and analytics. As a quick and nimble ambassador of the Drupal community, you have to be prepared to approach these topics and many more if you are to invoke change within a slow moving organization.