Leveraging Centers of Excellence Can Propel Your Company into a Market Leadership Position

How a Center of Excellence Can Benefit Your Company

COE

This blog is dedicated to educating you on a widely used function of many market leading companies, namely a center of excellence.  Specifically, I cover the following points associated with a center of excellence:

1. Center of excellence definition (a.k.a. competency center or a capability center

2. What benefits are gained by a company that develops & deploys a center of excellence

3. What existing companies utilize centers of excellence

4. What types of centers of excellence are typically setup and utilized

5. Detailed example of the following:

   • Specific benefits of a type of center of excellence

   • The specific functions of a center of excellence

   • Typical services delivered by a center of excellence

   • Sample organizational structure for a center of excellence

   • On-off shore considerations for centers of excellence

Center of Excellence Definition

Above: Center of excellence defined. Another way to think of a center of excellence is as an internal set of expert consultants available to assist you with specific sets of initiatives.

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Simpler Center of Excellence Definition

Above is another, more simple, definition of a center of excellence.

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Center of Excellence Benefits

Above is a few (of many) benefits of implementing a center of excellence.  The most important aspect of a center of excellence is that it facilitates your company to getting ahead of your competitors and increases the chance that the company will attain market leader status.

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Companies That Have Utilized a Center of Excellence

Above is a list of sample companies that utilize centers of excellence. In order to explore the details associated with these companies and their center(s) of excellence, merely Google the company name along with “center of excellence” to find out more. 

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Center of Excellence Applications

Above are the types of centers of excellence that have been implemented by Fortune 500 companies in the past. Recently, I helped a Fortune 500 company implement both a CRM center of excellence (COE) and a Testing COE. We will perform a deeper dive into a testing center of excellence later in this post to illustrate a few details associated with a COE’s setup, operation, functions, etc.

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Testing Center of Excellence Example with Functions and Benefits

The illustration above depicts the types of functions specifically delivered by a testing center of excellence (TCOE) as well as the associated benefits. For example, a TCOE maintains a training and certification function in order to help train other company teams on delivering higher quality testing and associated consumer products/services.

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Testing without a COE

“Hold on a minute you” might say at this point and then ask, “Why would you need a testing center of excellence (TCOE)?” Anticipating your potential push-back, the above illustrates the inefficiencies associated with performing one-off testing in a decentralized basis without TCOE support and oversight.

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Inefficiencies of Traditional Testing Methods

The illustration above lists some specific examples of additional inefficiencies associated with performing case-by-case ad-hoc testing in lieu of having implemented a TCOE.

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Typical Functions Delivered by a Testing COE

What are the functions and/or organizational components of a testing COE you might ask? Above is my viewpoint on the typical organizational components and functions delivered by a TCOE. There are many others, but the above are the most frequent functions delivered by TCOE organizational components.  

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TCOE Delivered Testing Services

The first service typically delivered by a TCOE is to provide testing services to various company team and development initiatives. The above illustrates the types of testing services provided by a TCOE to other company teams/department. 

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TCOE Methods and Tools Delivery

The second service typically delivered by a TCOE is to develop, maintain and deploy testing methods, tools and processes to other company departments and associated testing initiatives. 

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TCOE Expert Services Delivery

The third service typically delivered by a TCOE is to provide consulting style expertise to other company departments and associated testing initiatives. 

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That concludes my overview of what a center of excellence is and what it can do for your company.

If your organization is seeking world-class and experienced assistance developing and implementing a center of excellence or any of the following: associated services:

1. Determining whether there is a viable business case to implement a COE

2. Developing a strategic implementation plan for COE

3. Developing an organizational structure and resource plan for a COE

4. Developing a COE pilot program

If yes, please give me a call, I call help you implement world-class center of excellence that enable you to surpass your competition and bring your organization to the next level of market performance and share.

Lastly, this is just one article of 40+ total I have written on Customer strategy, CRM, marketing, product management, competitive intelligence, corporate innovation, change management – all of which I have significant experience in delivering for Fortune 500 companies.  In fact, my blog is now followed by nearly 160,000 world-wide and was just named one of the top 100 CRM blogs on the planet by Feedspot, alongside Salesforce.com, Infor, Microsoft, SAS, etc. – Reference this informative site here: https://blog.feedspot.com/crm_blogs/

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