This article provides a perspective on CoE from therelevance of IT Industry and business which is ideally seen in today'scompetitive world


What is CoE?


In today's world, the Centre of Excellence (CoE) applies toany organization who wants to create and use excellent state of art andshowcase its technological, service and business oriented capabilities to theentire world in a competitive environment. CoE is the combined effect ofemerging business model and technologies.


Centre of Excellence (CoE) refers to creation of assets foran organization and reaping maximum business benefits from the usage of suchassets. The objective of creating CoE for any organization is always customercentric and is meant for providing unique solutions to their customers.


The Centers of Excellence (CoE) trend very recently hasgained traction within the IT department of large organizations. In fact, theMETA Group refers to the model as "the next step in IT evolution" (Source:The Application Center of Excellence, META Group, 2003).


IT organizations of all types and dimensions are embracingthe CoE model as a practical way of consistent and continuous ally improvementof their business operations. Industry analysts also support the move to theCoE model.


A CoE is an organization, focused on optimizing applicationor service characteristics such as quality, performance, or availability. Itprovides management an automation platform for processes, consulting, andsupport services, leadership as well as advocacy to optimize these attributes.


In IT world, CoE acts as a central point of contact tofacilitate collaboration between the lines of business, enterprise architects,database administrators and application developers. It helps in speed adoption,improve knowledge sharing, lower the Total Cost of Ownership (TOC), and broadenthe reach and context of enterprise application deployment, migrations,consolidations and upgrades.


CoE Brings together a dedicated team of appropriate domainexpertise and enables the organizations to identify core patterns ofintegration, share best practices, leverage skills and standard tools acrossthe enterprise.


A CoE provides a central source of standardized products& services with expertise, and best practices. It can also provide the entireorganization with visibility into quality and performance parameters of thedelivered application and support functions, helping them to keep everyoneinformed and keeping the applications and services aligned with businessobjectives.


The strategy and roadmap for CoE are required to launch andsustain the business needs. Without a COE, you will lack the necessaryecosystem and opportunity to optimize resources, funding, competencies, andgovernance structure, hence the ideology of the CoE should be insynchronization with the philosophy of the organization business imperative.


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About the Author


The authoris Principal Consultant in Quality Consulting Group (QPRIME) of Satyam ComputerServices Ltd. He has over 24 years of experience in IT and Mfg organizations.His expertise lies in process consulting and project/program management,outsourcing, knowledge management, competency building, strategic initiativesand Quality Function Management.