[Host walks on stage]

Host:
Good… afternoon.
Welcome back for Day Two, second session and a second and a half here. And it’s the first session in Track One.
Are you guys still…?

[Audience applause and cheers]

Host:
Excited? Great.
So, last year, we heard how NASA runs its website with WordPress.
So today’s session is a panel discussion about how WordPress can better serve the needs of Enterprises.

To moderate this session, we have Petya Raykovska.
Petya is the Director of Agency Operations at Human Made. In her many years, she has been involved in software projects, events, and community management.
Petya has been an active member of the WordPress community since 2011 — volunteering, organizing events, supporting the global WordPress polyglots team as a translation editor and global translation community member.

So I want to invite Petya Raykovska to the stage to invite the other panelists.

[Applause]

Petya:
Hello, everyone!

Okay, so last year, before WordCamp Asia 1 in Bangkok, we hosted a meetup. A small gathering of about a hundred people, that we called the WordPress Enterprise Gap.
And the CEOs of several big WordPress agencies sat together to discuss:
Why is it that WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world, but it is not showing anywhere in prominent reports around Enterprise adoption?

A year later, there’s quite a lot that has been said and done on the topic. But I’m very happy to be bringing this topic here on the main stage of WordCamp Asia, to the broader community for a broader discussion.
And hopefully… more insights from a really great set of experts, who are bringing unique perspectives, Asia-Pacific perspectives and Enterprise experience perspectives, to the subject.

So, without further ado, I’m going to introduce my panelists.

Petya:
My first panelist is an award-winning global senior executive. She’s got more than 25 years of experience in sales and marketing within the area of Enterprise.
And she led a team of more than 160 sales professionals at Thomson Reuters.
Originally from Australia, she’s a long-time Hong Kong resident and has vast experience leading Enterprise organizations.

Please welcome the General Manager for Eos at Newfold Digital — Kimberly Cole.

[Applause]

Petya:
My next panelist, plenty of you will know really well.
He is from Pune, India, and is the founder and CEO of one of the best WordPress Enterprise agencies, rtCamp.

It’s a global Enterprise agency delivering to enterprise clients for years. He’s also well known within the community, having contributed to various WordPress teams.

Please welcome, Rahul Bansal.

[Applause and intro music]

Petya:
My last panelist is on stage for the first time, so be very gracious!
She’s from Singapore and is the Senior Account Strategist at Human Made for the Asia-Pacific region.
For the last five years, she’s been battling big, multi-faceted departments at one of our biggest clients, a financial institution.
And she knows all about working directly with clients within the enterprise.
She’s got experience in business management and business intelligence, and brings quite a lot of sophisticated design thinking into the process of interacting with enterprise clients.

Please welcome Lauren Lim.

[Applause and intro music]

Petya:
Thank you so much for being here. And thank you, everyone, for kind of battling the after-lunch slumber and being with us right now.
I also know there’s a really intriguing session happening in another hall, so we really appreciate that you’re here.

All right, let’s… let’s go.

Petya:
Kimberly, Enterprise can be a little hard to define.
As somebody who comes from a multitude of Enterprise organizations and is new to the WordPress community, can you kick us off?
Give us, like, a little bit of a definition — what is the difference between an Enterprise client?
And maybe then you can share a little bit about how the WordPress community seems, and the WordPress project teams, from the perspective of Enterprise?

Kimberly:
Sure.
Thank you very much for including me on the panel, Petya. So, as you said, I’ve worked for one of the largest news agencies in the world — being Reuters — and then sold to a range of big global financial institutions, as well as very global corporates across the world.

And I think when — when you’re thinking about those customers — it’s a lot about the process and procedures that they use.
And their buying processes can be quite complex.
You have to deal with, you know, procurement teams.
There will be a lot of box-checking.
And there’s a lot of checks through legal, through compliance, that you have to deal with.

And I think that’s what you need to think about — as to how we’re going to present WordPress and the solutions that make up the WordPress community to those customers.

Petya:
Right. Okay.
And — and from somebody coming from Enterprise — how do you perceive kind of the way that we sell to an Enterprise buyer? How does this work?

Kimberly:
I mean, I think some of it is making sure that the — the products themselves have the right, you know, scale and capabilities for the — for the WordPress — for the Enterprise users, sorry.
So that’s — that’s really important — is to sort of start to think in a more specialized… and maybe think holistically through the way Enterprises work, the way they collaborate.

that’s certainly something we’re thinking about from a — from a Yoast perspective — is that, the workflow that exists in an Enterprise that you may need to address.

and you asked me — coming to the WordPress community. So I’m less than, a year into my role at — at Yoast.
And so WordPress and the — and the project is still a relatively new phenomenon to me.
Even though I have been a WordPress user for years, I didn’t realize kind of exactly how the open-source community operated.

 and I think from an Enterprise perspective, sometimes that could appear a little chaotic.
And difficult to hold people accountable — which Enterprises like to have someone that they can really hold accountable for — for what it is that they have bought or that they are using.

Petya:
Okay. All right.
Um — so, thank you.

Lauren, WordPress is a consumer software with a mission of democratizing publishing.
One of its selling points to end users is usability — kind of ease of installation, kind of out-of-the-box, uh, you set it up yourself.

The traditional WordPress user is somebody that creates their own blog.
But the Enterprise buyer is not a WordPress user.

So at Human Made, you manage the relationship with, like, a very big financial institution.
What would you say matters the most to Enterprise — compared to the end user?

Lauren:
You’re — you’re fine? Yeah, okay.
  so, I think it’s difficult to narrow it down to, like, one single most important thing because, for Enterprise clients —, if they were to change CMS,  the — the whole change management is — is very costly.
And they don’t want to do that. So the decision-making is a lot more considered.

So there are, like, a lot of factors that you need to think about.
, definitely one key one is,  — the brand.
Brand reputation is super important. Revenue is important. So they need it to be, performant.
It needs to be scalable. It needs to be, you know, reliable.

the people who are using the system — they have to be able to do their jobs.
There are, like, so many people in the company — they have to be able to do their jobs, uh, easily and quickly, um, all the time. So that’s important.

— scalability, extensibility , functionality-wise, that is also very important.
Because they’re thinking a lot more long-term, like:
“When my business grows, what are the other things I need to do? I need to be able to do it on the same platform and have that longevity.”

yeah — so usability, also very important. Just that they have a lot more users.
So I think also the complexity with a, Enterprise client is, being able to not just empower and enable the users to do what they need,
but also to balance that with control — and not have, like, you know, people going rogue and doing whatever they want.

Um — so I think that is how you differ from a general user.

Petya:
Yeah. Yeah.
does anybody want to add to that?

Rahul:
Yeah, I think — um — apart from these things, like these are all valid things…
Uh, security also plays a big role.

And — when we say security, it’s, not just the — like, the code, but also the the IT team.
Usually these large Enterprises have something like single sign-on,  and they have different integrations, for auditing, logging…

So the WordPress also need to play very well with these.
And we can argue WordPress can provide all of that — but, regardless, when we go and pitch, uh, it feels like we lose to the big players.

We don’t even — there’s not, like, a large, WordPress adoption among Enterprise.

Petya:
So — when you pitch to Enterprise clients, um — what, uh, platforms do you — do you mostly kind of lose those pitches to?
Uh — if you don’t get that — like, who are the competitors that most likely, are most likely to kind of, win against WordPress?

Rahul:
So, like — there are many reasons.  like, the buying process of every Enterprise is very complex.
Yes.

So the — the few, uh, platforms that keep showing again and again — one of them is Adobe Experience Manager.
  I think sometimes Sitecore, and sometimes Drupal.

Personally, I don’t mind losing to Drupal — because they’re open source.

 in other cases, I think, like — so this…
With other, , solutions, like the proprietary ones, the Enterprises have this, streamlined flow. Like, uh, they know who is responsible for what.

And  with WordPress, the decision-making,has… it’s not like …

So the decision-making starts from minus one.
Like, they first have a lack of clarity — like, how to approach.
Whether they should talk to the hosting company, they should talk to agency first, or they should talk to plugin or other players first.

But then — this is where I see the opportunity.
Because, in the earlier case — like, with the AEM and all —, what they’re looking at basically is a single point of failure.

And as the concept of composable DXPs or composable solutions grows — I feel like the tide will turn,  in favor of WordPress.

And I hope the — these publications, like Gartner, also start taking composable solutions seriously.
Because, what they do, uh, kind of, creates a lot of bias against WordPress.

Petya:
So — what are the common misconceptions?
Uh, what are the — the common misconceptions?
Maybe you continue, and then Lauren and Kimberly — you can bring kind of the outsider perspective.
What are some of the misconceptions that you have to work against,  when you’re trying to sell, um, WordPress?

Rahul:
So the — the number one is: “WordPress is not secure.”
And that — sometimes it comes from, like, really dumb assumption.
That because  we can — if everybody can read the source code of WordPress, then it must be easy to hack.

But what they don’t understand is that it’s the opposite.
If everybody’s reading source code of WordPress — or Linux, or any open-source software — that means there — there are so many eyeballs on that software, and, uh, security issues are very hard to sneak in.

So, so that — security is the first thing. Then, they usually have heard, like, things like:
“Such and such plugin got hacked” and “that plugin got hacked,” but they don’t understand — okay — this is not the core.
If a particular plugin company, uh, has, like, missed some security issues — that is not a reflection of core.

And then they can work with specialized hosting companies and agencies which will take care of — of patching these things well in advance.
So — something like that. Those are the extra things we need to clarify.

Petya:
Lauren, do you have anything to add?

Lauren:
Yeah.
I think definitely security is a huge one. The biggest one that I — I see also dealing with customers.
And, surprisingly it’s also coming even from technology teams — security teams — which, like, I would think that they are experts in this area.
But they are also, you know, having questions.

So just imagine, like, — other stakeholders in the business who — who are even more removed from the technology and — and all that.

Um — and that is really difficult to navigate because you have to convince all the stakeholders and the different departments — not just one decision maker.

So yeah — definitely security.

 the other one, I think, is — I think I can quote a client saying:
“Oh, you know — users are telling me that WordPress is irrelevant.”
So I think there is a perception that’s quite old.

And with technology especially, people always want the new and shiny things.
People want exciting things.
And WordPress is just like, “Oh, I know. I heard of it before. It’s a blogging software.”
Nothing — nothing exciting.

And —  — what we see also is that there are big companies out there who are very good at sales and marketing.
They have the salesperson going to the offices, presenting new solutions — innovative things — every day.

And so it’s like:
“Oh, it seems a bit quiet on our side. Like, what’s going on?”

And the messaging is maybe very fragmented.
So there could be a lot of innovations going on — with plugins and in the space — but there is no, um, targeted way to have that reach the end — the Enterprise clients — in a way that is filtered and relevant to them.

— so I think that misconception is not really helping.
Because it’s so saturated, and — and there’s no clear one messaging for the clients.

Petya:
Yeah.

Kimberly:
Yeah, I think they’re all excellent points.
I’d probably just, add — scalability and performance are obviously really key, um, you know, uh — drivers for Enterprise buyers.

And I guess,— from a product perspective — we need to think about what makes a solution really Enterprise-grade.
And how do we,  architect for that — — maybe in a different way — uh, to ensure that we do have the scalability, the security still, and the performance.

Yeah.
and then I agree with — uh, uh, Lauren — you’ve got to think about how we’re really marketing, and how do we go to market with the solutions.

Petya:
From a product perspective — if you’re creating a WordPress… extend — um, you know, a product extending WordPress — then this is kind of easy… easier to do, maybe.

In terms of core — do you think that the core — the core project is, uh, suitable, to be extended in that way?
Does it provide what Enterprise needs?
In other words — when they choose us, why do they choose us?

Maybe start with Rahul again?

Rahul:
So — first thing is, um — like — many companies are realizing the benefit of open source.
the cost advantage. The ownership advantage. So definitely that awakening helps us.

Then — sometimes I pitch some of the so-called disadvantages of WordPress in favor of WordPress.

For example — “It’s just a blogging tool. It started as a blogging tool.”
So I kind of — as a salesman — I kind of convince them:
Then there must be people in your corporation who already know how to use WordPress.

So isn’t it a good idea that — that will reduce your training cost, or it will ease the adoption of the new software within your organization?

So yeah — so these are, like, things.

And then the ecosystem. Like, this huge ecosystem. So they have choices.
Um — no single vendor lock-in.
If they don’t like one particular agency, they can swap them out with another agency — without touching their hosting platform.
Likewise, if they like the agency and they don’t like the hosting company’s new pricing policy, they can move to another hosting platform — keeping the agency on board.

So — those are the things.

Petya:
Okay. Lauren?

Lauren:
Yeah, I think I echo what Rahul said.
Um — the — without the licensing fees, the starting investment maybe is smaller.
— and that is really attractive.

And I think they see it as good value.
Value for money. Value for investment.
Because they can spend the money on — on the customization.

— really adapting the functionality — which is very flexible — , to the specific business requirements.

So I think a lot of that tweaking, high degree of control over  — what they get out of it for the amount of money that they give — I think is what,, sets it apart.

Um — yeah.
And I think, — uh — having an internal champion also, we see, is quite a big thing.

When somebody in the organization has worked with — I think Rahul brought that up — maybe we were having a discussion the other day.
— when there is somebody who is familiar with WordPress and knows how good it is, and is — and is invested and able to kind of convince everyone else — and jump through the different hoops that we need to in order to have that adoption of WordPress — that tends to really be helpful in choosing WordPress.

Petya:
Yeah.
In fact, there is quite a lot of survey data that suggests that Enterprises are happy with WordPress.

Uh, the most recent report — Enterprise CMS report, WordPress report — shows this, like, really curious statistic.
Where organizations that were surveyed were really happy with it — but, like, more than 62% of them have been using WordPress for more than five years.

And only — I think it was less than 5% — had adopted it in the last two years.

Which is a bit contrary to the fact that WordPress has been very rapidly modernizing towards more flexible and scalable solutions — especially around the block editor.

So, uh, it’s interesting.
And maybe we come again to the packaging question.

Like — how do we make sure that Enterprise realizes the innovation that is going on within the project?
And kind of the more scalability that it provides?

What do we need to do better to kind of make that point stronger?

Kimberly:
Yeah, I mean, I think — uh — Noel covered some of this yesterday, in terms of the disruption that’s happening and just the — the S-curve and where we are in the maturity cycle.

Um — I think you can use the maturity and the,  — you know, the penetration of WordPress on the web — of 43% — is very,, reassuring… uh, elements.
And I think, you know, the project itself has obviously done an amazing job at how it has grown that — that usage and that capability.

And I think really it comes down to then having much more of a focus specifically around the Enterprise.

So — all of these things that we’re saying that the Enterprise really demands and needs — we need to think about:
How do we organize ourselves to achieve some of those things?

And I think the — you know — the project and the community has done well at organizing around a whole range of different things.

And so the ability to then look at the Enterprise space and consider:
How do we grow that? And really focus and,  develop — you know — specialized solutions that meet that Enterprise, objective…
I think is — is really key.

Petya:
Yeah.

We talked a little bit about how one of the key strong points of WordPress is, like, the availability of vendors and people and service agencies able to provide that sort of service.

But is that really true?

Like — Rahul — from your point of view as an agency CEO:
Are the majority of WordPress agencies ready to meet the demand of working with an Enterprise client?

Can you tell us a little bit about your experience entering into that world — how is it different than, uh, servicing kind of the average client?
And are we ready to meet that demand?

We know it’s way more complex working with an Enterprise.

Rahul:
Yeah — definitely. It’s complex.

For example  — initially, we didn’t want to be an Enterprise agency to begin with.
And we didn’t realize when we became one.

So the only thing I remember was that:
Who are these clients? Like, why are they asking so many questions?
Why so much paperwork?

And like — like — why are they taking so much time to sign the deal?

Like, it’s — like, we were used to working with small businesses, who will just give the approval over email, send 50% over the PayPal…

And in three months, you can ship the entire site from start to beginning.

And here — like — three months are just going in paperwork.

So yeah — this Enterprise market is small.
It’s tough to crack.

But — but as we grew, we found — these are worth it.
Like — these projects pay well. They are, uh, quite satisfying in terms of the engineering work you do — like, the kind of solutions you build.

So over time, we shifted our focus to the larger projects.
And it has been, like, a positive experience.

Like, that’s why many of the agency friends & the other CEO friends — I kind of, like, keep convincing them to go upmarket.
Try to sell WordPress to the larger client.

And — uh — these days, like, we are — we have, like, quite a precedence.
Like NASA, the White House.

These are the big names — so selling to enterprises is easier compared to the older days.

Petya:
Okay, all right.

Lauren — would you like to kind of outline for small agency owners out there:
What are — what are the monsters that you need to battle in Enterprise?
And what do they need to be prepared for?

Lauren:
Yeah, yeah.

I think, um — Kimberly mentioned, like, legal and compliance and all — it’s like, I feel it, ‘cause I deal with it every day — my, my, my role.

— yeah, it is really, extensive.
And I can also see that it can be costly for a smaller agency to kind of tackle these things.

Um — even, like, compliance, legal — it’s not cheap.
— there are a lot of things you have to get ready to be able to kind of,, assure clients — enterprise clients — that you’re ready, — especially for them.

— risk assessment is a huge thing, right?

So even working with a — a small, uh, vendor — to them, that is very scary.

— so there’s a lot of work that needs to be done on that front.

 and the long sales process that is involved…
— it takes six months, a year, more…

And, a lot of back and forth.
And — and within that time frame where you are waiting for approvals to be done, people to be convinced…
People are changing roles.
People are, like, leaving the company.
And then it’s like:
“Ahh — where do we go from there?”

 so I think navigating all of this is definitely quite challenging, um, and needs a lot of, like, documentation…
Good handover, so you can, like, service the client well over that period — in order to close the sale.

Petya:
Yeah, right.

In fact, my colleague Sheng gave a really good talk yesterday about what it means to catch your first whale.

And I remember talking about that — and we talked about how important it is not only to win your first Enterprise client, but to be able to kind of get them on board.

So yeah — it seems like it’s quite a lot more challenging than working with a small business owner or the, um, marketing exec.

Petya:
Okay, so…

I’m looking at some data here…

Um — so how do we do it?
How do we package WordPress better?
What do we need to stress on?
Uh, how — how do we, — how do we make sure that the right message gets to Enterprise?

Kimberly:
I mean, I guess it was sort of what I was saying before in terms of, uh, the focus around — what is it that the Enterprise needs?

Um, I guess the way we’re thinking about it at Yoast as well is — how do we specifically, you know, develop solutions that are, really optimized for the Enterprise?

And some of that will be how we architect our solutions.
Some of that will be how we think about individual, elements that we API — that will potentially help agencies as well — to almost be able to pick and mix the kind of key elements that you will need.

Because every Enterprise is not necessarily going to have a one-size-fits-all requirement around things.

So I think there’s a number of things that, you know, could be done in terms of how you — you know — create the potential technology stack or solution that Enterprises need.

But I think the number one thing really is — how do we focus?
And how do we think about how we grow that Enterprise market as a whole?
And how do we market and promote it?

Which I think Rahul had some good examples of — how that was done in India.
It’d be good to hear from.

Rahul:
Yeah, so I was — we were discussing about the Scale — that, um, agency consortium we set up recently.

And, there was a precedent in India.

Uh, so — few years back in India — people used to put their savings mostly into gold and real estate.
— stock market and other things were, like, quite scary.

And then, there came this product: mutual funds — which was very new and very unknown.
And since it’s a financial product, people were very nervous.

So — like what we — the WordPress agencies are doing in Scale — uh, a bunch of banks or the financial institutes — they created a collaboration.
They created this kind of consortium.

And, they pooled all the funds — like probably a billion dollars.
Like — and they hired all top Indian celebrities — like, everybody. Like the top cricketer, top TV star, movie star — everybody.

And they ran a huge TVC campaign — billboards, print ads — which only created awareness about mutual funds as an industry.

They didn’t mention any single company’s name.
The idea was to grow the pie.

Because if WordPress wins, eventually WordPress agencies will also win.

And that was the hypothesis they started with:
If people started trusting mutual funds,, eventually all the people — or sorry — all the companies selling mutual funds will eventually get some clientele.

And then they will compete against them: better fees, better app, better software, better terms — blah blah blah.

So — but initially, nobody — and until today — like, that campaign never talked about a single agency — or, in their case, a single corporate house.

They only talked about “mutual fund is a good investment option compared to the other options.”
So it’s more of an awareness campaign.

And I think — like that — um, we are also working to, like, create awareness around WordPress.
Uh, so I hope it will work better.

Petya:
Well, the mission of the Scale Consortium —, who, if you have not heard of, you should check it out — just Google “Scale Consortium WordPress.”

Uh, there is a really great website that highlights the mission, which is to raise the profile of WordPress — to grow the pie.
And it’s, the most prominent WordPress development agencies gathering together to actually help package WordPress a little better to Enterprise…

And kind of create this account — accountability scale layer.

Petya:
So yeah — let’s, um… it’s — it’s really great that this happened in the last year, uh, and it’s very curious to see how this investment of time and effort actually helps with growing the WordPress profile.

But it’s kind of related to my last question, which is to all three of you again:
Who is responsible for marketing WordPress to Enterprise?

Is it WordPress businesses?
What is the role of, WordPress.org and the core project, uh, in these initiatives?

Uh — what do you think?

Rahul:
I think it should be, like, — the more ownership should rely on the WordPress agencies.

the reason being — that’s the core philosophy.

— if it’s not for the 80% or something users, then it should not be part of core.

So — like, talking — like, if you look at the software perspective, the Enterprise segment is very small.
So the WordPress.org shouldn’t — it’s like, they shouldn’t, but, like, they have other priorities to put their resources on.

  and, uh, we — we agencies — now we have a consortium.
We can collaborate together faster, and eventually — whatever good ideas we come up with — um, we can make a proposal to the core to accept them.

But the major effort should be — like, the most resources should come from agencies.
Be it financial resources, be it technical expertise.

Because, uh, Enterprise is still, like, a very small part of that 43%.
I think we are not even 3% in that 43%.

Petya:
Of course. Well, I mean — we have the — the largest, the largest share of the pie when it comes to user, um, to user adoption.

So, — there’s quite a lot to catch up with there.

Lauren — what do you think?

Lauren:
Um — yeah. I agree, Rahul — about how,, the businesses,, have maybe more resources.
And probably also have more —  — finger on the pulse.
Being closer to the, uh, Enterprise clients — to kind of understand the, the… the challenges —, what they’re looking for, what the gaps are — to be able to drive and steer the change.

So — definitely that.

 but maybe it’s a combination of both?
— definitely, yeah — WordPress.org would be, involved.

Because I think it’s a bit confusing to people who are not from the space.
Like — WordPress.com, WordPress.org… and it’s like, agency also WordPress?

Like — what exactly is WordPress?

— so I think we band together.
The most important thing is to have a bit of a voice of authority.

So — I don’t know where that comes from.
Whether it’s, like, the Scale Consortium — a combination of that and WordPress.
  — but have a voice of authority that people can trust.

Like — how with the mutual fund — it’s like, you recognize that thing.
And it’s — you know — you can trust.

Um — and no matter what other, um, articles you see online about how “WordPress is not secure,” “WordPress is only a blogging tool,” “It’s not Enterprise-ready…”

— there is something that’s reliable, that you can trust, and you know that that is the right choice.
So maybe a combination of both.

Kimberly:
Yeah — thank you.

I think it’s going to require a lot of coordination and collaboration.
Um — so therefore it’s going to involve a lot of different areas of the community — from the agencies to the organization.

And I think, you know — realistically — you have to make data-driven decisions as well.
And so access to some of the data that would, help, uh, firms create the solutions and, you know — make things more scalable, performant, and all of the things that we need to be — will also be very important.

Petya:
What do you think about the progress that has been made so far with the messaging?

— you know, how does the Scale Consortium look from the point of view of the product company?

Kimberly:
Well — I think the Scale Consortium is a good idea.
Because you are then, bringing together a whole group that can represent that sector —, and the Enterprise needs — more holistically, which is very important.

So I think that’s very useful.

And, um — as a product company — certainly from a Yoast perspective, we’ve been thinking about that Enterprise space.
And I sort of see it as a — as an arc — as I call it — from, you know, novice to Enterprise users.

— and I think, it’s a great opportunity. So I think so.

Um — good.

I guess, you know — for me, it’s always:
How do we move faster? And how do we, you know, get to where we need to quicker?

— so that would be the — the thing that I would like to see — is, you know, coordinating a bit more.

Petya:
Perfect. Thank you.

Petya:
And at this point, I’d like to open the questions to the floor — uh, to all of you.

— yeah, I see that there’s a question there.

Audience Member #1:
Hello.

— firstly, just want to thank you. The insights you gave here have just been fantastic.

And I think a lot of us here in the audience have been dealing with this on a daily basis — trying to bring WordPress into the Enterprise.

I guess my big question is — and I had a big discussion with one of my colleagues about this this morning — is:

Do we need to bring, uh, WordPress…
Do we have to, like, almost create a different version of WordPress for the Enterprise?
Like they do with Acquia and Drupal?

Or can we bring WordPress as it is — and make it Enterprise?

Petya:
Who would like to take that?

Do we need to create a different version of WordPress for Enterprise — like some of the other open-source CMSs do?
Or is it okay to, uh, use the current version for the use of Enterprise?

Rahul:
Personally, I think, — the — we can have the single version.

Like, earlier we used to have separate multisite project — um — that’s now part of the standard WordPress setup.

So — out of the box — like, WordPress itself is quite pluggable.

So maintaining two versions will create more issues down the lane.

— whatever — if, like, something’s holding us back, that is — those are the proposals we can make to the core.

But if we maintain completely different version, then it will eventually create issues for the plugin and other, uh, modules.
They might need to do extra work to support two different WordPress versions.

Petya:
I guess a part of this question is answering:
What is the current version of WordPress lacking that the Enterprise desperately needs?

And what, uh, does the current version of WordPress, um, have that Enterprise doesn’t necessarily need?

And, maybe, Lauren?

Lauren:
Yeah — I have a thought.

I think maybe — not just WordPress, but the ecosystem.
Like — right now it’s, like, a huge ecosystem with so many, many things flying.

It’s hard for — for people to — Enterprise clients to navigate.

And if we could create a subset — um — like a WordPress Enterprise ecosystem — like all the things that are only relevant to Enterprise — that would help make, I think the decision-making and understanding WordPress, a lot easier for Enterprise clients.

Because there’s so much out there that is, let’s be honest, irrelevant to them.

And then — looking at the whole, the journey…

‘Cause I think it was mentioned — uh, what is it — accountability?
Accountability is one thing, right?

— also if you look at it from a client journey perspective — it can be very disjointed.

‘Cause you’re dealing with so many people, when you’re working with WordPress — rather than just one company.

So I think that whole experience — I don’t know how you can… can make that a bit more distinct and a bit more cohesive across.

Petya:
So is it a matter of, — which business creates the perfect Enterprise package — more than actually changing the core itself?

So this whole thing can be a bit more distinctive from — from what we currently see as WordPress, which is a whole big thing?

Kimberly — from a product company perspective — do you have, like, a specific product tailored to an Enterprise that is a variant of, uh, the general user product?

Kimberly:
Uh — not at the moment, we don’t.
But that’s what we’re — we’re working on.

So that’s what I was sort of saying in terms of the — how we may architect the — the solution.

— how we, you know, API certain areas.
And then that would give a lot, more options in terms of what we — what we can provide.

Petya:
So would that be your answer for WordPress core itself as well then?

Kimberly:
I don’t think I’m technical enough to have a comment on that.

Petya:
Okay. Thank you.

This — I would defer to my lovely colleagues in the front row here.

This is a really good question. Thank you for that.

Anybody else?

There’s a question over there?

Audience Member #2:
thank you for the panel. Very informative.

my question  — oftentimes we will have — and this is perhaps really good for Rahul — but oftentimes we’ll talk to Enterprise companies, etc., about using WordPress as part of their stack.

And one of the questions that does come up quite frequently — especially from, like, engineering teams, etc. — is:

Obviously with something like, Adobe Experience Manager or Sitecore — um — that is, as Lauren you said, it’s “one throat to choke.”
Someone you can point to directly.

But how do you approach the conversation of supportability and maintainability — especially if you’ve created something that’s specific to that Enterprise organization’s needs?

And it might be like a custom theme, plugin, or some sort of tooling?

Rahul:
So we — like, as an agency — we usually — when we are in a project, we always end up creating something custom.
Because otherwise they wouldn’t need an agency to begin with — like in large projects.

So — quite early in the pre-sales stage, we — we tell them what they are signing up for.

Uh — we also educate them:
“Hey — this part is something not the responsibility of the hosting company.”

So it’s more of education rather than the budget.

— in terms of budget,, we kind of guide them — like:
“You are looking at hosting fees, and it’s better — but not must-have or legally required — but you should keep some money aside for retainers.”

Like — some kind of  — like 100 hours over a year.
keep those — that small chunk of money aside for agency.

Because — the hosting company is only responsible for taking care of WordPress core and updates.
Uh — and these things usually fall back on us.

If you want to get maintenance done by somebody else there are some specialized services which offer, maintenance retainers.

So we tell them:
“If you find us expensive, you can try them.”

But — in the end, um — you need some kind of solution.
Like, somebody — more of a maintenance provider.

And it has been okay with them.
Like, that clarity — they need earlier, so that they can budget for it.

So usually it’s a budgeting thing — rather than:
“Hey, we don’t want to pay for you once the project is over” — kind of thing.

And then they usually budget accordingly:
“Okay, this is a hosting line item. This is a retainer line item. These many licenses…”

For example — if you buy five plugins — when…
So — usually most WordPress plugins have this agency plan.

Uh — if we are installing something that has an agency plan, we tell them:
“You don’t need to buy that separately. That’s on us.”

But if that’s not there, we also tell them:
“This is something you need to renew year on year.”

— but, like — in a large budget, — our retainer fees or WordPress license renewal doesn’t affect their decision.

Petya:
It just — it feels like it’s a complicated conversation that you can talk — talk about quite a lot.

Lauren — what are the top tips for selling retainers to Enterprise clients?

Do you have, like, a three-top-things for making them prioritize this very important bit of actually using an open-source project?

Lauren:
Yeah — I think education — definitely super important.

And, um, one challenge I see is  — even when clients have a retainer, you sometimes have competing priorities.

You have, like, the ongoing maintenance and things that need to be done — but that is unsexy.
That is, like, the higher-level business stakeholders may not get it.

Like — “Why do we have to spend so much money on that?”

— and then they are also wanting to build cool stuff— new features, functionality — within that same retainer budget.

So there is always this competing thing.
And it’s more appealing to be focusing on, like, the short-term wins — the new stuff. Once again — new stuff.

— and to neglect the maintenance portion.

I think that’s, uh, one thing to really look out for  — so to be able to set aside money to be able to do maintenance… and then still do new, yeah.

Petya:
Yeah — and to kind of keep those two separate?

Lauren:
I think would be — would be really good, yeah.

Petya:
Thank you. Thank you for your question.

Audience Member #3:
Hi.

You guys brought up a lot of different issues…
Sorry — can you hold the mic in front?

Petya:
Yeah — can hear you.

Audience Member #3:
You guys brought up a lot of different issues…
But when you start combining them all, uh, I’d love to know your perspective from the Scale Consortium point of view.

You know — compliance is one piece of it.

— a lot of customers are asking for a SOC 2 Type 2 compliance, where they might want the agency to be ISO 27001 certified, etc.

Then — you know — WordPress VIP is now FedRAMP certified…
But which dev agencies can work on federal contracts, etc.?

And then — I think it was Lauren who mentioned the large ecosystem…

Enterprise customers — they’re not going to do a separate contract for each plugin and for each agency, etc.
They want one contract.

And you might have to do a subcontract arrangement to drive that value proposition.
But they also can’t do change management across all these different ones at different times.

They need the plugins to all be updated at the same time — which is also updated at the same time as PHP, as WP core, etc.

If it’s on different tracks — they’re not going to do it.

They’re going to turn that plugin off.
Or they’re going to pin it.
And they’re just done.

Right?

Uh — and then that puts them at security risk… or they lack functionality.

So — just tying all that together — how do you, from the Scale Consortium point of view, address all that?

Petya:
It’s a good question.

How do we address the fact that the client wants a one-stop shop — and won’t sign different contracts with different vendors?

Rahul:
So — Scale Consortium is still evolving.

So it would be immature for me to answer on the whole consortium’s behalf.
But I can answer for my agency.

That — that one-contract thing is real.
Like, many clients want it.

So — at agency level, we have this arrangement with hosting companies — that if that situation arises, we are okay to do that — that thing you mentioned — subcontract under them.

So we kind of estimate our efforts and put a number on it and pass it to the hosting companies.
And then the hosting companies add a line item and create a single, uh, purchase order — or proposal — for the end client.

Petya:
So it’s the vendor’s responsibility to take care of packaging that, and kind of providing the client — the Enterprise client — with this ease of use, I guess?

Rahul:
So — in that case, and in many other cases — we take care of the plugin responsibility.

Even, like, paying for the renewal fees.

So it varies.

Like — in that earlier case — like, if the client is very picky on the pricing…

And sometimes clients see that advantage.

Because if they’re paying separately, then they have the control over who to pay and what to pay.

Like — we can say these are, like, small or medium-size Enterprises.

Usually the large ones — the federal ones — we’ve worked with governments in many different regions — they usually want one vendor.
They’re okay to pay extra — but they need more assurance, more guarantees.

And there — we kind of, um, guess it earlier that they won’t be dealing — they don’t want to deal with five plugin companies or anything like that.

So we include that pricing in our budget.

Like — say — when we say:
“Okay, this is going to be a $10,000 retainer fee” — we internally assume that $1,000 of it will go to plugin license renewal budget.

Audience Member #3:
But what about the ongoing management of those plugins, etc.?
— and making sure the upgrades happen at the right times — that they’re all in coordinated fashion — they stay Enterprise-grade and security-grade?

Rahul:
Yeah — so that’s part of the package we, uh, create for them.

Like — so we handle — at agency level — we handle on their behalf.

So the hosting company’s responsibility is to make sure the WordPress core stays up to date, the PHP and all those stay up to date.

And we coordinate among us.

Like, we keep an eye on  — like:
“Okay, this PHP version is going end-of-life.”
Or: “This is the change we want.”

So — well ahead of the time, we create a staging environment where we test their entire plugin updates.

And, we also tell the client:
“Okay, this is a staging instance — we can also give it a shot. All looks good — we can move it in.”

Audience Member #3:
It’s a pricing issue.

So how do you then tie that into compliance needs, etc.?
So — do you find only pieces that conform to their compliance?

And if there’s something that doesn’t — then you have to invent it from scratch yourself?

And then they might be asking for a sustainability report — so:
“What’s the hosting company’s sustainability footprint?”

I — I — we see a lot of asks from Enterprise customers that we never think of in the traditional WordPress space.

Petya:
Lauren — I think we face quite a lot of these challenges ourselves.

Lauren:
Yeah, exactly.

Because they don’t want to deal with the small plugins and all that.

And — and as an agency — you have a master services agreement with the Enterprise client.
Um — you have all these legal stuff that you have looked at already.

And then — actually — oh, there’s also the plugins.

So how do we address that?

Right?

— and — — any discrepancies between, uh, the contractual agreement or, like, terms,, for the plugin versus what you actually have…

If — your Enterprise client… I feel like the risk then gets passed on to you as a vendor.

And — of course — if all things go well, nothing goes wrong, that’s great.

Uh — but in the case that something does go wrong, it’s like:
“Oh — actually I’m not holding up my contractual obligations… or legal, … obligations to the client.”

Then — there’s a high risk.

So — it’s costly to look into all this.

And now I wonder also if, as the Scale Consortium — if every agency has to deal with the same kind of problem… and be doing the same thing over and over…

Is there a way we can kind of,  band together?

And like:
“Okay, these are the common plugins they use.  — we understand the terms, and we make sure that this is Enterprise-ready.”

And — and kind of filling that gap — and make sure you don’t end up, like, you know, replicating the same work — which is very, very costly.

Petya:
I guess that’s probably a good next challenge for the Scale Consortium — and something that we will continue to work on.

Rahul:
So — I just want to add one more thing.

Like, um — when the updates come — we can cherry-pick updates.

For example  if, say, a newer version of a certain plugin adds telemetry or phoning home, which breaks our compliance — we can skip that part of the code.

And — and if they have any security update — that we can cherry-pick.

So that’s what agencies are getting paid for.

Yeah.

So — and in GPL — that’s perfectly legal.

So that’s where the — we have the advantage of GPL.

We can keep our — like — versions like that. It costs, but it ticks the compliance box.

And usually budget is not a concern for companies or, like, federal agencies — which are looking for very high-compliant environments.

So — it fits in their budget.
And we have capabilities to execute it.
It’s a match.

Petya:
Thank you.

Audience Member #3:
Thank you.

Petya:
Thank you for the question. A very good question — nice question.

We’re out of time, so  — thank you, everybody, for being here.
And thank you to my wonderful panelists.

— we’re going to continue the conversation.

And it’s been my absolute pleasure to host this panel for you today.

Thank you.