Why Should Agencies Respond to Drupal Business Survey?

Over a decade ago, Janne had the idea to host a dinner for Drupal business leaders at DrupalCon Prague 2013. The dinner was a huge success, sparking the idea for the Drupal Business Survey, which is now in its ninth triumphant year. 

In this interview with Alka Elizabeth, sub-editor at The DropTimes, Janne Kalliola, the Chief Growth Officer and Founder of Exove, delves into the origins and evolution of the Drupal Business Survey, which he co-initiated in 2016. Janne is a distinguished leader in the Drupal community with extensive experience in building and leading software development organizations, Janne has implemented flexible software development processes that consistently deliver high-quality results. He is also the originator of the Carbon Neutrality symbol and criteria by the Code from Finland association.

The discussion covers the motivation behind the survey's inception and the key players involved, including Michel van Velde and Imre Gmelig Meijling. Supported by the Drupal Association, the survey has become an essential tool for gathering insights about Drupal businesses and agencies worldwide.

Janne elaborates on the benefits the larger Drupal community derives from participating in the survey, emphasizing the importance of widespread participation from organizations and individual developers. The conversation also explores the survey's methodology, criteria, and topics to ensure it captures the most relevant insights for the Drupal community.

As the interview progresses, Janne shares significant changes and improvements made over the years, reflecting on major milestones and turning points that have shaped the survey's current form. He reveals impactful insights and trends uncovered in recent years and discusses his expectations for this year's survey. Janne also touches on plans for the survey, hinting at new features and areas of focus that promise to keep the Drupal community engaged and informed.

Please read on.

TDT [1]: What is the Drupal Business Survey? What motivated you and your team to start it, and who were the key players involved in its initiation?

Janne Kalliola: The Drupal Business Survey is an annual survey that gathers information about the state of Drupal businesses and agencies worldwide. The first survey was published in 2016, so the current survey is already the ninth.

The survey was initiated by Michel van Velde and me. Back at the first DrupalCon Prague (2013), I invited a number of Drupal business leaders to dinner together in a sort of extempore fashion. The dinner was surprisingly entertaining, and getting peer support from other business leaders was good. People enjoyed it and thought it was worthy of a tradition. The next year, DrupalCon was in Amsterdam, and I asked Michel van Velde to help me organize dinner; we have had such dinners at all European DrupalCons since then.

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We thought that the network of business leaders we had assembled would be a good source of information about the Drupal business community, which at the time was not very engaged with the technical community—except to pay their salaries and think about the future of Drupal as a business. A survey was a natural solution to this need, and there would be an immediate benefit to all respondents, as they would gain valuable knowledge about the state of Drupal business to plan their actions.

In 2023, Michel and I invited Imre Gmelig Meijling to join the organizers. He has been active in Drupal business matters, and we knew him to be a good guy in every respect. In addition to the three of us, the Drupal Association helped spread the word about the survey and its results. This year, we have gone a step further with the DA and Tim Doyle: they are now hosting the survey to ensure the anonymity of respondents as we ask more direct questions about revenues and profits.

TDT [2]: What benefit does the larger Drupal community derive from participating in it? Why is it important that more organizations and individual developers should take part in the survey?

Janne Kalliola: The main benefit is that we collect data and provide information that is not available anywhere else. The results show how Drupal has performed over the past year, what people expect from the next year, what the biggest challenges and successes have been, what the job market looks like, etc. Based on this information, Drupal agencies can benchmark their performance in the market and plan their next steps.

We will write an analysis and a set of recommendations based on the data and make this information available to everyone free of charge. The analysis will be presented at the Drupal CEO Dinner on Wednesday of DrupalCon Europe week and, as a new approach this year, at a BoF session on Thursday.

It is vital that as many agencies as possible complete the survey. The more data we have, the better the results.

We have good coverage of the European and North American markets, but the Global South and Far East would benefit from more responses from those regions.

TDT [3]: What were the primary goals and objectives when you first started? Were they met?

Janne Kalliola: Our primary goal back then was to understand the needs of the Drupal business community and to bring them together. We all compete for the same business, but the platform also unites us. The Drupal platform does well when we do well, and vice versa. So, it was important for us to understand and share the pulse of the emerging business community.

I think we achieved that goal with flying colors. People are anticipating the survey, and we are getting quite a few responses immediately after the launch. Of course, we have to remind a few people, but that is understandable, as business leaders have a lot on their plates.

TDT [4]: What key criteria and topics are considered in the survey to ensure it captures the most relevant insights for the Drupal community?

Janne Kalliola: The survey is divided into several sections, such as General Information, About Your Business, Business Outlook, Client Projects, Collaboration and Community, and Talent Needs. In each section, several questions approach the topic from different angles. For example, in the business outlook section, we ask about the company profile, services provided, revenue for the last 12 months, and Drupal's share of total revenue.

In the analysis, we looked at the agencies' age vs. size, growth prospects and business outlook in general, market situation, industries served, contribution, and job market.

TDT [5]: How has the Drupal Business Survey evolved since its inception? What significant changes or improvements have been made over the years? Can you maybe discuss some of the major milestones or turning points in the survey's history that have shaped its current form?

Janne Kalliola: Yes, we collect feedback from respondents to understand if something is missing or if we are focusing on things that are not important. We combine this with our analysis of the previous year and make changes accordingly. The core of the survey has remained largely the same over the years. We have got better at writing the questions and making sure we get good answers.

This year, we have made the biggest changes. Firstly, we decided to collect fiscal information in real numbers rather than just growth indicators. As we have our own agencies, we did not want to get into a situation where someone decided not to answer for fear of leaking information to their competitors. On the other hand, we knew that monetary figures would make the data much more accurate and valuable. So, we agreed with DA and Tim Doyle that DA would run the survey on our behalf, and we would only get anonymized results.

The other change was to reduce the length of the survey to make it more focused and to split it into two parts: general questions and topical questions. The general questions will be the same every year, and the topical questions will be different. This year, in the topical section, we are asking about Drupal and AI, Project Starshot, and legacy versions of Drupal. These are all relevant right now, and it will most likely be something else next year.

TDT [6]: The act of the Drupal Association, which was involved in and later took ownership of the survey that had once started as an independent community project, hints at the benefit of such surveys for the community at large. Could you comment on what might have prompted the DA for this diligence?

Janne Kalliola: The Drupal Association has been our partner from the beginning, and we are very grateful for their support of the survey. I do need to correct one thing, though. They do not own the survey; they are helping us run an anonymized version of it.

We have been sharing the raw data with the DA for a number of years and have written press releases or blog posts together. Tim Doyle is very interested in the health and prospects of Drupal agencies. He has helped us quite a bit during his two-year tenure, and I expect to continue a fruitful working relationship with him.

Other surveys are being conducted in certain regions that may better cover local businesses than our global survey. We and the DA would like to see all these surveys use the same set of questions in the same format so that the results can be compared for even better analysis.

TDT [7]: How have the responses from previous years influenced the Drupal community and the broader open-source ecosystem? Can you provide some specific examples?

Janne Kalliola: I think the results will help Drupal agencies be better at what they do, have more weapons in the fierce competition with the other CMS and DXP platforms, and understand the strengths and weaknesses of the platform. 

One of the key messages we have been trying to convey is that we need to grow. In the early years of the survey, many agencies were happy to stay at the same revenue and headcount year after year. Now, we have more agencies with solid growth plans because they understand that if the market is growing and you are not, you are actually shrinking. Drupal, as a platform and community, cannot tolerate shrinking in order to remain a relevant choice for the market.

Another practical example from a few years ago was our question about diversity in hiring. We asked about it and also about the number of non-male employees. I was later approached by a director of a large Drupal company who said that this was a wake-up call for them, and they have made profound changes to their recruitment processes to ensure a better gender balance in the future.

As I said, we shared the results and analysis with the DA, but also with Dries. Some of the results have been published in the Driesnote for the whole community.

The benefit to the wider open-source ecosystem is a pretty big question, and I would be too modest to say that we have made our mark there. But again,

...diversity of choice is very important, and so keeping Drupal strong as a choice among CMSs will benefit open source as a whole. We are an important player, and we should do everything we can to maintain that position.

TDT [8]: How did the maker ecosystem contribute to the success of this survey? Were the agencies receptive and ready to amend their business plans and outreach based on the results?

Janne Kalliola: The agencies have been receptive to our messages. As I said, growth was one of the key themes, and it is happening. Of course, as an impatient executive, I would like to see more results faster, but I am happy with the results.

I don't know about the business plan changes and so on because, at the end of the day, I am the CEO of a potentially competing company, and those plans are none of my business. During and after the Drupal CEO Dinner, I hear a lot of comments and anecdotes from other business leaders, and many of them are grateful for the survey and our analysis.

TDT [9]: What have been some of the most impactful insights or trends revealed by the survey in recent years?

Janne Kalliola: I think the most powerful insight we ever had was during COVID-19. We decided to do a special COVID survey to understand how companies saw the situation, the outlook, and their own survival because there was a lot of fear and uncertainty. The vast majority of companies said that they would be fine and would probably come out of the pandemic stronger. That was very important news for everyone that despite the uncertainty, everything was likely to be all right. The following year's survey showed that the pandemic actually boosted a lot of Drupal businesses, as companies were offering solutions for distributed working and were also quite used to remote and hybrid working.

The most touching moment for me personally was after the Ukrainian war broke out, and we got the results from the Ukrainian Drupal companies. Despite the unimaginable hardships they faced, they decided to continue their business and serve their customers in Ukraine and abroad as well as humanly possible.

This year, I am curious to understand how the slowdown of the IT markets, especially in Europe, has affected the future prospects of agencies. We have been warning companies for the past two years that the winter is coming, and they need to prepare for the impact. It will be interesting to see how the situation has evolved and whether there are major differences between the regional markets.

TDT [10]: You mentioned that "Drupal marketing, both in global and local contexts, needs more effort." How does the survey enhance Drupal's marketing efforts and create a positive cycle of growth and awareness? How can businesses leverage the insights from the survey to enhance their marketing efforts and better engage with their target audience?

Janne Kalliola: The survey is internal to the Drupal business community, so in that sense, it does not directly help with marketing. However, it should create a need for marketing, as companies that want to grow would benefit from marketing activities—sort of like raising the water level instead of a single boat.

In terms of results, the served industries are probably the best place to start thinking about marketing activities, both community-led and owned. There are underserved industries that would benefit from Drupal, while we as a business community tend to serve the usual industries such as education, government and NGOs.

The perceptions of Drupal by agency clients also provide valuable insights into how to target and refine marketing messages.

TDT [11]: What are your expectations for this year's survey? Are there any new areas or trends you are particularly interested in exploring?

Janne Kalliola: I am excited about it, especially with the changes in terms of fiscal figures and topical questions. We will be covering new areas with the survey and it will be interesting to see the results.

The questions on AI and Project Starshot are particularly forward-looking and should provide valuable insights. Personally, I would be very interested in understanding the green and sustainability aspects of Drupal as a platform and community, but I think the current topical question sets are the right ones at this time.

TDT [12]: What are your plans for the future of the survey? Do you plan to introduce any new features or areas of focus?

Janne Kalliola: The survey is here to stay. It has been a tremendous help to many companies and executives alike, so there are good reasons to continue. The exact content of future surveys is open, as we do not know what the issues will be next year. 

The new survey structure allows us to keep the core questions the same from year to year, allowing us to draw conclusions from several years of data while still being able to discuss issues of current interest.

I do not know what those issues will be, which is part of the appeal of the survey.

We will also continue to share the results at the Drupal CEO Dinner, along with our analysis and recommendations. The fables we have used at the end of the analysis to highlight certain key themes will continue, although it is getting harder to find new fables that fit the message. For example, we have used Goldilocks, ants, and a grasshopper, and "Who moved my cheese?" with a twist to emphasize the importance of protecting your position, preparing for the hard times, or focusing on the things you can control.

Speaking of dinner and a fable, there is a new one coming up on Wednesday 25^th September in Barcelona. Registration will open soon. Hope to see you there. In the meantime, take part in the survey at https://bit.ly/DrupalBusinessSurvey2024