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Our CRM Center of Excellence – Description

Bellow is one of the examples on how CRM Center of Excellence is built. The scope and definition of a Center of Excellence is quite broad and covers not only the ability to deliver and execute projects from an IT perspective but should also provide for strategic business vision while maintaining alignment with enterprise-wide initiatives.

 

 

 

Value of the Center of Excellence

  • Business Scope of the Center of Excellence
  • Technology Scope of the Center of Excellence
  • Roadmap
  • Project Plan Example
  • Library

Value of the Center of Excellence

A Center of Excellence should enable your organization to move beyond a project-by-project approach when implementing CRM initiatives and to leverage existing skills and reusable components. In general, the value of a Center of Excellence and its’ associated processes include:

  • Early identification of issues
  • Reduced release cycle times and delivery costs
  • Knowledge leverage and reuse - defined methods, templates and processes that reduce time to define and execute projects
  • Improved quality of releases due to the re-use of common methodologies to develop and maintain infrastructure and processes
  • Improved accuracy of estimates for future releases using standardized methods, best-practices repositories and common tools
  • Improved perceptions of by clients
  • Improved people and resource management where consistent infrastructure reduces time to analyze and design new solutions

Developing a Center of Excellence should be approached like any other IT project using similar methodology. Initially, you will need to define the vision, goals, objectives and scope of the Center of Excellence.

Once the scope and objectives have been set, analysis and requirement definition can begin to develop the roadmap that will enable the Center of Excellence to fulfill these objectives. Particular attention should be paid to resource needs and defining whether Center of Excellence resources will be dedicated or ad hoc resources.

During the build phase for the Center of Excellence the following list of deliverables should be considered:

Operational
  • Resource model
  • Funding Model
  • Communications Plan

Process
  • Governance Model
  • Project Plan
  • Documentation Standards
  • End-to-End Process

As with any project, a phased implementation approach should be taken. A phased approach can also be taken with roll-out and components of the Center of Excellence can be implemented over time. For example Service & Support and People Management components may be implemented initially and other areas engaged as the need emerges.

Business Scope of the Center of Excellence
The following areas could fall within the scope of a mature Center of Excellence

Strategy & BI Management
Standards, Principles, Analysis Reporting - The CoE should be tasked with assistance with the strategic planning process for enterprise information systems. This area should also be tasked with alignment of the CoE capabilities to enterprise-wide IT initiatives and principles. In conjunction with this effort this competency will have involvement in the identification, adoption and maintenance of enterprise-wide data standards and determining the policies and procedures for data usage and reporting.

People Management
Communication - Consideration of the communication required to users, including for example, release notes, training notifications etc.
Training – Development and coordination of programs for Center of Excellence staff and end users
Vendors – Engagement and coordination of external vendors
Resource Management – deployment and management of internal resources

Process Management
End-to-End Process Management – definition and ownership of end-to-end business process
Business Performance Management – identification and reporting of key business performance measurements and User Adoption

Design Management
Requirements Definition – Identification and management of business/IT requirements. This function is the conduit between the Center of Excellence clients and Center of Excellence Technical team to identify, communicate and realize business requirements
End-to-End Process and Data Design – Design and development of workflow related business process

Technology Scope of the Center of Excellence

Environment Management
  • Change Control - Approval and prioritization of Change Requests and scheduling of releases
  • Performance Monitoring – Monitoring of key performance measures
  • Management of Production and Test environments and co-ordination of training and testing environment requests

Service and Support
  • Help Desk – this function performs the following task and is the “front line” of the Center of Excellence
  • General application and business process related queries
  • Questions and Queries relating to data and reporting
  • Support requests relating to business processes that are being changed or introduced as part of an implementation or change
  • End user follow-up questions following training attendance
  • SLA’s – Liaise with other internal and external service providers to ensure that Service Levels are managed and met

Development & Testing Management
  • Test Management - Development and execution of regression testing and end-to-end testing
  • Change Migration - Management of change migration policies and procedures

Technical Architecture
  • Integration, Application and Data Architecture - development and implementation of technical architecture initiatives in the context of how those initiatives will meet the needs of the organization
  • Technology – Identification and implementation of technology infrastructure
  • Development Standards – Definition and management of configuration standards