4 Ways to Build an Effective Center of Excellence

In today’s tech-driven world, digital transformation is key to building better customer relationships and future-proofing your business. But there’s a catch. Most of these projects don’t hit their goals due to hurdles like misalignment, technical debt, siloed teams, and a “one and done” mindset.

In fact, firms spend $1.3 trillion on digital transformation programs annually with the goal of driving efficiency. And yet those initiatives have a failure rate of up to 90%. Moreover, many organizations capture less than one-third of the value they expected from recent digital transformation initiatives.  

So, how do you beat these odds and make your digital transformation a success? That’s where a Center of Excellence comes in. 

What’s a Center of Excellence? 

A Center of Excellence (CoE) is a centralized team within an organization that manages all aspects, including leadership, best practices, research, and support and training, of a specific technology platform. For example, a CoE’s main goal would be to ensure that Salesforce aligns with their company’s strategic objectives, enhances productivity, and continuously evolves and innovates to meet the business’s changing needs.

A CoE helps organizations transform how they work by establishing governance, building internal capabilities, and creating a culture of continuous improvement. Partnering with your business and IT stakeholders, your CoE provides focused leadership and expertise for your digital transformation to help you:

• Define governance strategy and best practices
• Drive cross-platform accountability
• Speed up project delivery
• Increase platform optimization

Once you’ve established a CoE, your organization can define a streamlined governance framework that enhances your agility, improves customer satisfaction, reduces costs, and increases revenue. Focus on the following areas to build a CoE that ensures long-term success.

Skill up your workforce to create change 

Building an effective CoE starts with having the right people in place, ensuring everyone knows their roles and responsibilities, and equipping your team with the skills needed for implementing governance practices. This involves three components: 

• Define roles: Set your team up for success by providing clear expectations for your new governance framework and outlining each person’s role. With this clarity, your employees can respond quickly to changes in the market, customer needs, or regulations.
• Build a knowledgeable team: Keep your team current with the skills needed to put the latest governance practices into place. By upskilling the talent you already have‌ — ‌and hiring people with governance experience‌ — ‌you can be sure your framework gets implemented effectively.
• Communicate clearly: Share updates about governance changes across multiple channels to create a culture of communication and compliance. By getting everyone on the same page, your team can respond to situations more quickly. Plus, they’ll be able to deliver more reliable customer service, building trust, satisfaction, and loyalty.

By creating the right team and providing clear roles and responsibilities, the CoE acts as a catalyst for organizational transformation and is a vital driver of continuous improvement, innovation, and strategic alignment. 

Facilitate change management and new ways of working

Once you have the right people in place, you’ll need to focus on the process. This is how your CoE will standardize procedures and drive adoption. At first, employees might resist new processes because they fear disruptions to their routines. You can make this transition easier by creating change management programs that demonstrate the benefits of your governance framework. Here are a few different ways to achieve this:

• Emphasize education: Encourage continuous learning through regular training and programs. This will help employees understand the purpose of the framework and how it can directly impact their work. By educating employees, you can increase buy-in for new processes. 
• Collect feedback: Involve employees in the change process to create a smoother transition. This creates a sense of ownership from employees, while tailoring the framework to your organization’s unique needs and challenges. As a result, your CoE will position your organization to achieve its strategic goals.
• Implement reporting: Track the success of your framework and share the results. This ensures accountability, shows employees how their work impacts the organization, and helps identify any issues. 

With the right programs in place, you can ease the transition and drive adoption of your new framework. Plus, these programs will not only help employees embrace the governance framework, but also ensure accountability and alignment with your organization’s goals. 

Evaluate and adopt new technologies 

To make the most of your technology investment, your CoE should plan for ongoing advancements, ensure system compatibility, and focus on cybersecurity. Some best practices include: 

• Build technology roadmaps: With technology always evolving, keeping up and maximizing its value requires being proactive. Using your CoE to develop technology roadmaps can help you plan for future upgrades, guide decision-making, and ensure technology initiatives align with business goals.
• Ensure effective security measures: Cyber threats are more sophisticated than ever, posing risks like legal penalties, financial loss, and reputation damage. Stay ahead of threats by building strong cybersecurity protocols and conducting regular audits to identify vulnerabilities.

Ultimately, a CoE empowers your organization to use technology as a competitive advantage and position itself for successful transformation. By building these best practices into your CoE, you can ensure seamless technology integration, robust security, and continuous improvement that drives sustainable growth. 

Maintain data quality to drive decision-making

The final prong for building a CoE is focused on ensuring your data is accurate, secure, and effectively integrated. To get the most out of your data: 

• Ensure data quality: Inaccurate, incomplete, or duplicated data can lead to poor reporting and decision-making. Regular data audits, data standards, and cleansing processes can identify and fix inaccuracies, duplications, and outdated information. By maintaining high data quality, your organization can ensure accurate reporting and make better strategic decisions. 
• Enhance data integration: Data stored in isolated systems limits collaboration and integration. Platforms like Salesforce Data Cloud➚ can help by removing data silos and creating one platform for all enterprise data. Standardizing data formats, tools, and technologies can also facilitate seamless integration.
• Create a data governance framework: Keeping up with constantly changing data regulations can be challenging, and failing to comply can result in severe penalties and reputation damage. Developing clear governance policies can ensure compliance with regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

By integrating these guidelines into your CoE, your organization enhances data integrity, encourages more teamwork, and enables smarter decision-making. This puts your organization in a position to use data strategically and create more long-term success. 

Build a Center of Excellence that drives ongoing transformation

Creating a strong CoE involves harmonizing your people, process, technology, and data. By following the best practices above, you can build an effective CoE that drives ongoing digital transformation throughout your organization.
Salesforce Professional Services works with you to elevate your capabilities as you become self-sufficient with Salesforce across each component of your CoE. We help you embed leading governance best practices, improve experiences and adoption, and continuously realize value. Let’s work together to ensure you make the most of your Salesforce investment.