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The very question above is a bit misleading since the scope of a project determines whether it would require the use of Drupal consulting or not, while Drupal consulting services can deal with quite different aspects of a project, ranging from project costs to user friendliness to defining required and desired software modules to be implemented. Apparently, a small-scale project to manage an online site , usually a personal blog or a small-business corporate website, could be implemented by the means of Drupal core, the basic release of the free and open-source web content management system (CMS). Design and development of an advanced business system, like a business knowledge sharing software, would require the use of specialized Drupal consulting where requirements gathering must transform into a comprehensive description to be used by professional Drupal software developers. Drupal provides the benefits of a free CMS platform and web application development framework, nevertheless Drupal core can rarely meet the need of a sophisticated business system, requiring further customization and integration of additional software module. Those software modules could be readily available or custom-developed but a reliable Drupal consultant is needed to assess all aspects of a business software system and then provide an affordable and reliable solution, or the ways such a solution could be developed and implemented. That said, free and open-source platforms like Drupal provide great advantages but organizations can barely hope that an advanced online system can be designed relying only on Drupal core and the numerous free contributed modules available through Drupal's official site. Expert advice is required and a minimum involvement of Drupal consulting to determine whether a particular system can be built using the available set of free software modules and add-ons, what customization is required, and how to make custom and readily available modules work smoothly as expected. These basic principles of gradual project progress, which are in fact best practices, are applied by virtually each and every large organization but a good number of small and medium sized corporations prefer to mobilize entirely in-house resources in the planning and requirement gathering project development stages. While it is justified in terms of cost efficiency, sometimes such an approach can cost dear in the long run due to the lack of expertise in certain fields that are crucial for the uninterrupted functioning of the system, or for the successful realization of the required functionality. For example, different software modules could be interoperable on the surface but in practice their interoperability to be achievable only through expert customization of both those software modules. A real-life system rarely works as planned and designed on 100%, and avoidance of eventual software failures is among the primary objectives of a professional Drupal consulting service. The use of Drupal consulting services is, of course, also a matter of project's budget framework, but one should bear in mind that Drupal consulting can help avoid much of the common mistakes made by organizations which, by the very fact that their core business is not in the field of software design and development, tend to underestimate the complexity of software development. Author Bio Bob Knuth Samuelson is involved in Drupal consulting to small and medium sized enterprises as an independent software expert. He graduated as software engineer in the United States but has also provided services to European organizations following his relocation to Europe. Richard also works on projects by leading India-based software consultancies, trying to establish better ties between North America and the Asia/Pacific nations in the field of Drupal consulting services.
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