Episode 56 – Center of Excellence: Gia Thi Nguyen
Implementing a tool or standing up a new capability can be a complex task. Standing up a Center of Excellence as part of this implementation can help ease the pain for new users. However, it is not always clear what a CoE shall do and how it is integrated into an organization (or where it is located in the org structure). In this episode we are talking with Thi Nguyen about exactly this topic, and he has some interesting -and maybe sometime controversial?- opinions about this topic.
Thi is a Vice President at SAP in Asia and spent a significant amount of time in various positions at Siemens in Vietnam, Germany, the UK, and the Czech Republic – being a CIO as well as a CFO, and leading CoEs.
However, his passion lies in sharing his knowledge and ideas in two shows: “Tea with Thi” and “Differential Hallucinations”.
In this episode of the podcast we are talking about:
- Thi’s background
- What is a Center of Excellence?
- How are they structured?
- What is the business case for a CoE?
- How do you stand up a CoE?
- When do you move on from a Center of Excellence (think a hamster lifespan)?
- Do you need a COE for each technology or each process?
- What’s next?
Thi is very active on LinkedIn with is “Tea with Thi” and can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teawiththi/.
Please reach out to us by either sending an email to hello@whatsyourbaseline.com or leaving us a voice message by clicking here.
Ep. 56 – Center of Excellence (CoE): Gia Thi Nguyen – What's Your Baseline? Enterprise Architecture & Business Process Management Demystified
Additional information
- “Tea wth Thi” can be found on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/@ThiwithTea
- This is the CoE episode that Thi mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP_JykTGrfc
- Here is an explanation / graphic of the S-curve of innovation: https://www.slideshare.net/wright4/double-scurve-model-of-growth
- The cultural web concept: https://www.personio.com/hr-lexicon/cultural-web-model/
Credits
Music by Jeremy Voltz, www.jeremyvoltzmusic.com
- CP1 (Welcome)
- Airplane Seatbelt (Interlude 1)
- Love Won’t Let You Down (Interlude 2)
- South Wing (Outro)
Roland Woldt is a well-rounded executive with 25+ years of Business Transformation consulting and software development/system implementation experience, in addition to leadership positions within the German Armed Forces (11 years).
He has worked as Team Lead, Engagement/Program Manager, and Enterprise/Solution Architect for many projects. Within these projects, he was responsible for the full project life cycle, from shaping a solution and selling it, to setting up a methodological approach through design, implementation, and testing, up to the rollout of solutions.
In addition to this, Roland has managed consulting offerings during their lifecycle from the definition, delivery to update, and had revenue responsibility for them.
Roland has had many roles: VP of Global Consulting at iGrafx, Head of Software AG’s Global Process Mining CoE, Director in KPMG’s Advisory (running the EA offering for the US firm), and other leadership positions at Software AG/IDS Scheer and Accenture. Before that, he served as an active-duty and reserve officer in the German Armed Forces.
