What a CCoE can do for an organization
The intended outcomes from a CCoE can be categorized as external-facing or internal-facing:
External facing – In transformational or advisory roles, CCoE team members advise their own customers on how to set up a CCoE or AWS practice, by sharing their industry thought leadership and internal experience.
Internal facing – CCoE team members create accelerators, and they evangelize AWS internally with field, support, and delivery teams.
Note that you can adopt a hybrid approach, sharing best practices and culture transformation inside and outside of your organization.
How a CCoE can help your organization achieve its goals
It's important to understand your organization's goals so that the CCoE can play a crucial role achieving those goals, especially in the context of cloud adoption and digital transformation. Before you set up a CCoE, consider the following:
An organization needs to be selective and strategic in deciding where to focus time, resources, and efforts to ensure it's aligning with the long-term strategic goals and objectives. It means that you need to analyze that what your organization does really well. What differentiates you from others, and where do you want to invest to further differentiate yourselves from your peers? The answer can be based on market dynamics, customer needs, and emerging trends. As an example, some organizations differentiate themselves by staying at the forefront of technological advancements. For other organizations, providing exceptional customer service and experience can be a significant differentiator.
Ask yourself, or your organization, why you want to build a CCoE. Is it to prepare your organization internally to accelerate the cloud journey, to help a customer, or both?
Tip: If you currently are limited in scale or experience, start with an internal transformation. In an internal transformation, you have the most control of the inputs and outputs. You can then share what you learn externally with other customers.
Most often, you are not starting from scratch. Rather, you will be building on an existing foundation. For example, you might already have personnel with expertise in cloud technologies. You might have existing training and development resources for enhancing the cloud knowledge and skills of your workforce. You also might have existing relationships with external consulting or technology organizations that can contribute to cloud-adoption and CCoE activities. Use a strategic approach that maximizes existing assets and resources while adapting to changing market dynamics at the same time:
Understand business goals – Where does your business see the biggest opportunity for growth? This can be based on your expansion plans, market research, inputs from the field (Sales), and other sources.
Assess locations at the regional and global level – Explore opportunities to enter new markets or expand within existing markets. This can involve targeting new customer segments or geographic regions where there is untapped potential.
Use existing resources and skills – Look at what skills your organization currently possesses. Your organization can use the assets, knowledge, and infrastructure already in place. This includes your customer base, brand recognition, technology, and people resources. Seek out fearless innovators who want to increase their positive impact on the business. Seed the team from within your organization, and supplement it by upskilling. Finally, use on the hiring of new resources to fill any gaps.
Tip: Cloud Readiness Assessment
and AWS Learning Needs Analysis are good starting points. Your account-management team can provide more information on these AWS offerings. Details are also mentioned in the Reference section. Assess job market conditions – Skills that are hard to source coupled with notice periods and unreasonable candidate expectations can lead to hiring challenges. Hiring challenges are common, but proactive and strategic approaches can help organizations overcome these obstacles and secure the talent they need to achieve their goals.
Identify a sponsor for the CCoE. You might have country, geographical, technology, or business unit–specific priorities that inadvertently compete with one another. When choosing a sponsor, consider the following:
Identify a leader or sponsor who has sufficient influence and is empowered to make decisions. The leader should have authority to mandate the suggested changes. A sponsor with no authority can't ensure that actions will be taken to reach your goals. The sponsor plays a critical role in championing the initiative and ensuring that it aligns with your organization's strategic objectives.
Identify the scope, including geographical boundaries, and the limitations of your CCoE.
Modify the charter of your CCoE to define the scope. The sample charter can be referenced from the one mentioned in the section Summarizing the steps for establishing your CCoE. After you have updated the charter, replicate the success across the organization.
After setting up of a CCoE, measure the results:
Set balanced expectations – Expectations for quick results from a CCoE can be understandable. However, it's essential to balance the speed that you want with the realities of cloud transformation and to scope your CCoE accordingly.
Define short-term and long-term goals – Clearly outline objectives to help stakeholders understand what to expect in the immediate future and over the long haul.
Measure progress – Define key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the impact of the CCoE's initiatives. It's important to keep goals realistic. A CCoE takes time to build and deliver. It's important to establish a governance process to track and communicate progress to stakeholders regularly.
Remember that while stakeholders want quick results, a successful CCoE focuses both on immediate gains and on building a foundation for sustained cloud excellence, cost-effectiveness, and agility in the long term. Balancing speed with a strategic and measured approach is key to achieving lasting success in the cloud.
When setting up a CCoE with a focus on delivering both internal and external outcomes, consider a diverse range of personas to ensure that the CCoE can effectively meet its objectives. Here are some example personas for a CCoE with dual internal and external goals:
Persona considerations:
External outcomes:
Customer-facing cloud evangelists
Sales and marketing specialists
Customer success managers
Partnership and alliances managers
Solution architects (for external clients)
Internal outcomes:
Executive sponsor
CCoE leader
Practice leaders
Cloud architects and engineers
Finance and procurement specialists
The personas are covered in more detail in the CCoE functions section.
Balancing internal and external outcomes within a CCoE requires clear alignment with the organization's overall business strategy. Each persona needs a comprehensive definition of its specific roles and responsibilities related to internal and external goals. The personas should also support the ability to collaborate effectively across these dimensions to drive success.
Skill considerations:
External outcomes might require resources with a management consulting background.
Internal outcomes might require resources with a higher focus on technology consulting.
