What is a Competence Center? Development and management of key competencies in a corporation: world experience

ARIS platform, many years of experience in the field of process approach

Description

At the same time, the larger the enterprise becomes, and the more departments it acquires, the more important is the creation and implementation of software products that take into account its industry specifics.

What tasks will the creation of competence centers help solve?

Due creation of unified centers of competence timely response to external changes and the possibility of implementing solutions that improve the efficiency of the business process in accordance with them are achieved.
Our experts have more than 15 years of experience in creating unified centers of competence in companies responsible for the development, implementation and monitoring of performance standards, implementation systems approach to the management and continuous improvement of the company's processes.
The creation of competence centers means a set of services and solutions, including also consulting on the management of an enterprise and its divisions, as well as the development of an effective methodology for interacting with partners through process automation and industry distribution.
One of the most important goals of developing competency centers in enterprises is to reduce operational risks. This term refers to any erroneous actions of internal departments and specific employees, leading to waste of the budget and the occurrence of losses.

Reducing operational risks is the key to improving business security

Reducing operational risks as part of the introduction of unified centers of competence is the strict delimitation of functions when conducting transactions with internal and external customers. Thus, the competence center gets the opportunity to track actions responsible persons, excluding the possibility of taking any action without notifying other units.

The functioning of competence centers is associated with the daily monitoring of any ongoing operations at enterprises. Modern software products designed for the operation of such centers make it possible to create control environments that cannot be bypassed without confirmation of information.

Reducing operational risks is also achieved through the creation and implementation of action scenarios in unforeseen situations. The development of such scenarios is carried out on the basis of the analytics of the enterprise's activities, taking into account the specifics of the business and based on the experience of other companies in a particular segment. Competence centers will systematically monitor operational risks, as well as control the actions of departments and evaluate the effectiveness of their activities.

Solved business problems

The need for a targeted and systematic increase in the efficiency of the company

The need to ensure that company processes meet stakeholder requirements

The need to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the implementation of projects to improve the company's critical processes

The need to improve the company's management system through the use of modern methodology, technologies and management tools

The need to ensure the effective and efficient implementation, operation and development of methodology, technologies and management tools in the company

The need to reduce operational risks in the company's activities by regulating activities and ensuring the adequacy and relevance of internal normative documents

The need for effective and coordinated change management of corporate architecture elements - business processes, internal regulatory documents, information systems, organizational structure

results

reduction of total costs for the implementation of projects to improve and automate the company's activities

the ability to respond to business changes in a timely manner and implement them in business processes

creation of a unified knowledge base about the company's activities

application of a unified methodology for describing and improving processes

systematization of work on the description and improvement of processes

Competence Center(CC) - This is special unit, created in June 2003, ONLY for product testing and information support on technical issues related to printing equipment, consumables and spare parts. Organizationally, the Competence Center is independent from other divisions. This makes it possible to preserve the objectivity of the opinion of the Central Committee, even in the inevitable difficult situations with the products supplied by any company.

At present, the employees of the Central Committee, who are Kyocera, Toshiba, Sharp, HP, Ricoh, Xerox, SCC, daily answer dozens of questions from employees and customers. The range of questions is very wide: assistance in solving problems that arise during the operation of printers, copiers and MFPs; recommendations on the choice of consumables and spare parts; specifications and instructions for use of the supplied products; technologies for high-quality restoration of laser and inkjet cartridges and much more. Close cooperation with leading manufacturers of equipment and compatible consumables allows the CC to always be on the cutting edge modern technologies in the printing industry.

From the very beginning of activity, all information of the Competence Center is accumulated in a structured Knowledge Base, which is now a powerful tool that helps in the current and promising work. Management of information flows with the help of a high-tech software system makes it possible to effectively use the resources of the Central Committee and not leave a single application unanswered.

The Central Committee regularly conducts training technical seminars on the maintenance of printing equipment and cartridge recovery technologies. Much of the content of these seminars was developed by the Central Committee and is unique in its kind.

The Central Committee has at its disposal a modern well-equipped laboratory with high-precision measuring equipment, machine tools and specialized tools, a fleet of printers, copiers and MFPs, numbering more than one hundred units, equipment for cartridge recovery and much more. In this laboratory, the Central Committee conducts hundreds of different tests every year. Test results help in the formation of a range of products that meet the needs of a wide range of customers.

The Competence Center is a certificate holder of the International Committee for Standardized Test Methods - STMC and conducts testing of consumables for laser printing in accordance with these standards.

Every year, the Central Committee conducts hundreds of different tests using high-precision measuring equipment and more than a hundred printers, copiers and MFPs of various models. Tests that go beyond the STMC standards are carried out according to unique proprietary methods.

The staff of the Central Committee has an instructor authorized by the STMC Committee who can train specialists of companies involved in the restoration of cartridges, correct application standardized testing technologies for laser printer cartridges and help them pass the certification process to obtain their own STMC certification.

This site is intended to provide various technical information from the Competence Center to PrintSmart customers. The content of the site is regularly updated. Follow .

On December 15, 2017, the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation prepared. It is aimed at creating an institutional environment for the development of research and development in the field of the digital economy, as well as technological reserves and competencies.

December 18, 2017 the plan was approved government commission on the use of information technology to improve the quality of life and business conditions.

Tasks

The action plan includes 6 main tasks. This is an analysis of supply and demand for research and development in the context of the use of "end-to-end" technologies, the formation of mechanisms and measures to support participants in the Digital Economy program, the definition of criteria and the formation of a procedure for selecting leading research centers(LIC) for the development of "end-to-end" technologies. In addition, the tasks include the implementation of the mechanism for the selection and functioning of LICs, the formation of programs in the field of education and advanced training in the field of the digital economy, as well as the formation and successful functioning of at least 10 leading companies.

Results and quantitative indicators

As a result of the implementation of the action plan, the following results should be achieved:

The sectors of the economy with the highest potential for the commercialization of solutions based on "end-to-end" technologies in the field of DE have been identified.
The digital transformation of sectors of the Russian economy and its individual subjects has been launched.
Created demand for products Russian origin in terms of "end-to-end" technologies from a wide range of economic entities.
Protection of technological solutions of foreign origin necessary for the development of priority "end-to-end" technologies in Russia has been ensured.
Developed and approved activity programs for selected leading organizations
The conditions for the development of international scientific and technical cooperation (ISTC) of leading organizations in the priority areas of "end-to-end" technologies of the digital economy have been formed, and the implementation of projects within the framework of the ISTC has begun.
An ecosystem has been created that stimulates the development of leading companies in the digital economy markets.
Leading companies provide a significant contribution to the implementation of the digital transformation agenda of the economy Russian Federation according to the goals of the Digital Economy program.
The principles and tools for the development of the digital economy (digital transformation) have been brought to the attention of the leadership of leading state-owned companies.
The demand for research and development in the field of "end-to-end" technologies of the digital economy has been intensified.
At least 3 graduate and master's schools have been created in each area of "end-to-end" technologies on the basis of leading universities and scientific organizations.

The plan includes quantitative indicators to be achieved between 2018 and 2024. In particular, by 2020, 2 competence centers should be formed for each of the areas of "end-to-end" technologies. The number of international centers of excellence that are partners of digital platforms for research and development should increase from 15 to 30 from 2019 to 2024. Number Russian organizations involved in the implementation of major projects ($3 million) in priority areas ISTC in the field of the digital economy in 2024 should reach 10.

Dramatically, from 3 in 2018 to 100 in 2024, the number of participants in digital R&D platforms should increase. The number of technological leaders competitive in global markets should increase to 10 by 2024. From 5 in 2020 to 30 in 2024, the number of implemented projects in the digital economy with a volume of at least 100 million rubles should increase.

The number of created postgraduate and master's schools in the areas of "end-to-end" technologies on the basis of leading universities and scientific organizations should reach 50 by 2024. By the same date, the number of specialists in the areas of "end-to-end" technologies, trained abroad and returned to Russia, should increase to 500.

Expected effect

The expected effects from the implementation of projects for the development of "end-to-end" technologies include:

Creation of the first national system of intelligent video analytics based on one of the most advanced face recognition algorithms with a proven accuracy of about 95%.
Improving the efficiency of speech programming and speech recognition systems
Improving the quality of oncodiagnostics, including in the preclinical period of pathology development
Further development of technologies based on neuromorphic computing algorithms and neuromorphic chips; " neural network"for enterprises, aimed at increasing production efficiency
Creation of tools based on neurotechnologies and artificial intelligence for the development of digital medicine
The basis for the creation of a national communication network on the domestic element base. Creation of the necessary infrastructure base for the further development of 5G class networks.
The key core of the "smart factory" and (partly) "smart city". Multiple increase in energy efficiency
Creation of a full-fledged superconducting quantum computer, an optical quantum computer and a quantum computer based on neutral atoms.
Ultra-sensitive sensors for nuclear power plants, military, medicine, etc.
Creation of absolutely secure communication lines for law enforcement agencies, banking and corporate sectors.
And other achievements.

Creation of competence centers: Rosatom and Rostec

At the end of August 2017, the first meeting of the government subcommittee on the digital economy was held, dedicated to organizational structure program implementation. For each area of the digital economy program, competence centers were identified that need to be created, and leaders of working groups elected from business representatives.

Among the centers of competence that should be created is "Formation of research competencies and technological reserves." They are assigned to Rosatom and Rostec. As part of the work of these centers, action plans should be prepared to improve the quality of life and the conditions for doing business in the selected technological areas.

Neurotechnologies and artificial intelligence;
Distributed ledger systems;
Components of robotics and sensors;
Wireless communication technologies.

The activities of the center at Rosatom include:

New production technologies;
Quantum technologies and communications;
Technologies of virtual and augmented reality.

Responsible enterprises in the contour of Rosatom:

New production technologies - and

The CROC Competence Center was established in early 2003. Today there are 4 joint Solution Centers with global ICT manufacturers, 5 innovation centers for certain classes of solutions and over 10 technology laboratories.

Laboratories are technological platforms for getting acquainted with the most effective infrastructure solutions and the latest trends in the IT market. As part of the Competence Center, CROC experts develop, test, optimize, and support solutions based on products from foreign and domestic manufacturers, as well as open source solutions.

The competence center offers customers optimal and reasonable solutions to specific problems, taking into account the specifics of the industry and the characteristics of the organization. CROC's experts have the ability to reproduce the software and hardware infrastructure of a particular organization in order to simulate various scenarios for its optimization and development. This allows customers to minimize the cost of deploying computing power and creating their own pilot zones for testing new technologies.

CROC Solution Centers

In 2012, CROC opened Russia's first solution center based on Hewlett Packard Enterprise software technologies, thanks to which CROC helps build a bridge between business and IT. The Hewlett Packard Enterprise Solution Center is a demo site with a wide range products that automate the activities of the IT department: from monitoring the performance of business applications to management life cycle information, data center infrastructure, cloud services.

The Robotics Center, opened at CROC in the summer of 2013, offers solutions based on unmanned aircraft used for aerial photography, video surveillance, sounding the earth's surface, surveying territories and scanning the air using specialized sensors.

In the center information security customers can get acquainted with the products of leading world and Russian developers to protect against all modern threats. These are situational security centers, protection against DDoS attacks, countering fraud and leaks important information, network security, spam, virus protection and more.

The stands deployed solutions from Siemens, Thermoflow, Engineering Consultants Group, OSIsoft and other manufacturers. They allow you to manage production, optimize energy consumption, monitor the status of equipment and prevent emergencies. Representatives of energy and manufacturing companies, heavy industry, metallurgical and petrochemical industries can model their infrastructure and find out the real effect of technologies of interest, taking into account the specific characteristics of their enterprises.

CROC experts offer to test business applications from the world's leading vendors: solutions for supply chain optimization, transport logistics and demand management, banking analytics, collection and analysis of big data arrays (Big Data), etc. Here, customers can personally get acquainted with the products of Oracle, SAP , Jive, as well as with open source solutions (Talend, the Hadoop technology stack).

The laboratory contains solutions that allow you to establish effective management IT infrastructure and personnel involved in the provision and support of IT services. Visitors have access to software products for organizing Service Desk, IT monitoring, asset management and inventory of the company's IT infrastructure. The list of vendors whose developments are presented in the laboratory includes HP, BMC, Omninet, Symantec, SevOne, etc.

The laboratory deployed equipment for automation, security and service systems. It includes a Rittal secure room, two uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), an energy-saving experimental area and other equipment on which solutions are pre-commissioned before implementation at the customer's site. CROC provides an opportunity to inspect systems that support the life support of an office building: a diesel generator set, a control room, an electrical switchboard, supply and exhaust ventilation, a refrigeration and pumping station, air conditioning systems, a central heating unit, and so on.

Human knowledge and skills are the most demanded and scarce resources at the same time. After all, it takes decades to grow a specialist. Many industries now require multidisciplinary approaches, and large projects are often carried out by more than one organization. All the more understandable is the value of the company's own experience and useful lessons learned in joint projects. Collect and accumulate all this knowledge can be in the center of competence of the enterprise.

What is a competence center

The modern economy is characterized by processes that require the optimization of the use of knowledge - a specific resource of production and a source of innovation. Therefore, knowledge management as a special type of management is increasingly interested in company leaders.

Knowledge created during projects is often lost when the team is disbanded, employees move on to other tasks, or are fired. Sometimes it happens that time and money are again spent on "reinventing the wheel", which has been in the organization for a long time, only they forgot about it. To solve these problems, it is necessary to systematically collect the most important knowledge of the company, organize their exchange among specialists, and ensure their reuse in new projects. In this way, many Western companies reduce production costs, increase its efficiency and retain key workers.

Creating a center for the collection and dissemination of knowledge is one of the challenges faced by the organization, where they decided to identify and describe such a resource as knowledge. A competence center is a special structural unit of an enterprise that controls one or more areas of activity that are important for the company, accumulates relevant knowledge and looks for ways to get the most out of it.

This idea is not new, and to one degree or another it is embodied by departments of scientific and technical information, archives, standardization and quality groups, etc. In the current conditions, it is rather about the integration of processes, knowledge, experts, about quick access to these resources and effective IT communications, which is important both for the company's management and for specialists, customers, partners. And here it is not the information itself that matters, but the connection of people who create knowledge, the joint result of their activities. Knowledge centers are somewhat similar to libraries, but their peculiarity is that knowledge here is embodied mainly in people, and not in documents or computer systems. Therefore, one of the main functions of the competence center is to provide specialists with communication with each other and provide access to the necessary information.

What type of competence center does a company need

The most famous are four types of competence centers designed to improve processes in a company whose branches can be scattered around the world (today such work is impossible without the use of IT). The essence of the activity of the center of each of these types is determined by the main function.

Accumulation of excellence

The main task of this division is to collect, formalize and distribute best practices in the enterprise and its branches. Center specialists define and describe general processes, draw up technical recommendations and standards for their use, develop change management programs in the integration process. It can be effective methods sales, work with clients, provision of consulting services, product development processes, project management, use of information and other technologies.

This type is considered the easiest to develop and run, although collecting and describing the most valuable knowledge for an enterprise and creating a convenient and simple infrastructure for their use is not an easy task. However, impressive examples are known when, based on the introduction of best practices, product development time was reduced by 30-40 times, and new factories were put into operation with the saved money that could be spent on “reinventing the wheel”. Companies that have achieved a well-functioning center of excellence reuse 60-65% of the accumulated intellectual resources in new projects.

Development of technological standards

The relevant department also collects knowledge, but the emphasis is on the technical component - the development software and choice computer equipment. Specialists standardize processes on a single technological platform, link repositories for metadata exchange, develop the best experience for using the chosen platform. However, in this model, there is no exchange of technological resources or expertise between projects.

Distributed service

The task of this unit is to optimize the use of resources by the teams involved in the project. This type of competence center is considered more complex than the previous two. The staff supports numerous knowledge management initiatives, including product training, technology benchmarking, metadata management, software evaluation. This model is one of the most used in Western companies.

Centralized service

This division manages the integration of processes and data, has its own budget and cost recovery methods. The Center accompanies many projects, ensures the development of resources, data quality, develops requirements and standards for information and technical subsystems, facilitating the exchange of knowledge in the enterprise and their reuse in new projects. In the future, the development of this type of competence center can be sold outside the organization.

When choosing this process integration model, it is recommended to carefully diagnose the organizational culture of the enterprise, evaluate existing policies and procedures. This model is also quite often used in Western companies.

Each of the listed centers performs its task, and the enterprise can evolve from task to task. For example, an organization decides to first create a center of excellence, and if successful, move to full control of processes across the firm, including branches and subsidiaries. Their main differences are in the degree of control over processes, in the level of investment and cost recovery. Each model requires personnel with special skills. Competence centers can employ from five to one hundred or more people, depending on how many centers exist at a given enterprise.

Competence centers can also be designed for special purposes. In the early 90s of the last century, the consulting company Ernst & Young created three competence centers. The Business Innovation Center was supposed to accumulate new knowledge in the course of research. Business Technology Center used existing knowledge to develop special methods and related tools. The business knowledge center was required to accumulate internal and external knowledge and informational resources. The services of the latter eventually included a library, a call center for answering consultants' questions, and databases of consultants' professional skills. The managers of this center identified the knowledge and sought key experts in subject areas business.

Basic Creation Steps

Goal, strategy, model selection

Each type of competence center has its advantages and disadvantages, so before deciding to create one, it is necessary to clearly articulate the goals and expectations for the work of this unit, and then develop a strategy. Sometimes a center of competence arises as if spontaneously - on the basis of all the previous work of communities of practice, interest groups and other formal and informal structures in the process of their development.

One of the recommended approaches involves a top-down strategy led by an executive manager - the person who will "move" the project towards the goal. Although an integration strategy has many dimensions, it always focuses on people, processes and technology. This strategy should be reviewed regularly, in particular with regard to its relationship with the enterprise's business, financial policy, outsourcing strategy, partner support, choice of standards.

There is no single answer to the question of which model is optimal for an enterprise. Each type of center of excellence must meet its intended goals, support the chosen strategy, and allow for growth and renewal.

Possible difficulties

The following list of possible difficulties in the course of creating and operating a competence center will help determine how ready an enterprise is for solving this problem.

Lack of time. Many experts complain that they are overwhelmed with current work (routine or regular fire rush) and do not have enough time to collect or share knowledge.

Lack of resources. The staff of many competence centers notes that there are not enough resources for trainings, participation in conferences and IT implementation.

Lack of proper attention from managers. Competence center employees indicate that their managers' knowledge of the state of affairs in the center is limited. Managers are only concerned with achieving their operational goals.

internal competition. As a result of this situation (and it is almost inevitable), barriers arise in the exchange of knowledge between experts from various departments of the enterprise. Of course, there is a way out: you can organize many communities of practice, in which enthusiasts will work, introducing knowledge to others.

An aging workforce. The age of many key specialists at enterprises is approaching retirement age. The same applies to competence centers, where there may be very few young employees or not at all. Two main difficulties are seen here: a) the continuity of competencies is questionable, since the expert will retire in a year or two; b) lack of enthusiasm and new perspective, limited in the perception of fresh ideas.

Lack of training and development opportunities. In certain situations Scientific research - the only way acquire new knowledge and master new technologies. However, insufficient resources for self-development limit the ability of competence centers to master new technologies.

Outdated knowledge. In some cases, the expertise collected by the competence center concerned a technology that was supposed to disappear in a few years. The center existed in order to accompany the old products purchased by the company's customers. Ultimately, this led to the degradation of the unit.

Benefits and Benefits

The center of competence reflects the requirements of the organization to itself, the standards of its work. This division collects key knowledge and does not allow the expertise to disperse to the people and groups of the project. Cost savings can be achieved by eliminating duplication of processes and functions, reusing knowledge, optimizing project execution, resource use, and management. Thus, the time of experts for consultations is freed up, and the company can provide services much more clients.

Western experts point out that enterprises close their libraries or reduce their activities to a minimum, and then hire third-party consultants for a lot of money. Naturally, the number of consulting firms is growing. Many companies are missing out on significant value because they themselves could sell their knowledge to others. Who will collect their own knowledge and expertise - unique strategic resources that distinguish this organization from others?

How to collect the best experience

The accumulation of best practices is one of the first steps towards the implementation of larger knowledge management programs. Most often, the concept of "best experience" is defined as the most effective method to do a specific job or achieve specific knowledge, however, is concentrated in people, not in documents, so the easiest way to adopt this knowledge is something like: "Learn from others and try to do it yourself."

At the start of work, analyze the organizational culture of the enterprise and ways to motivate employees. The successes and difficulties of the proposed project are largely determined by the type of organizational culture and the established practice of teamwork.

Main functions

The competence center performs tasks related to the accumulation of knowledge and the exchange of knowledge in the area of business where the company has an advantage. The center can:

reflect Current state knowledge management of the organization (drawing up knowledge maps, corporate "yellow pages" indicating experts and their specialization, processing internal and external requests);
convert hidden, individual knowledge of experts into formal documents, accessible to most employees;
constantly improve the quality of expertise and maintain a leading position in the market in this area;
timely notice changes in technologies and global trends;
coordinate the description of knowledge based on the results of projects, transform them into a suitable formal document (database, best practices, success stories, etc.);
manage enterprise knowledge bases, catalog and index them;
disseminate the knowledge collected by the center in other divisions of the company;
ensure effective communication between experts and specialists;
create, use and protect the intellectual property of the enterprise;
take care of the generational change, systematically train young employees, transfer experience from experts to newcomers.

Of course, every company has its own priorities. But despite the differences in experience, goals, areas of activity, companies are gradually coming to understand the value of intellectual assets. After all, practice shows that business without intelligence is possible, but short-lived.

Renowned consultant David Skyrme suggests such a framework for collecting best practices.

Determine the requirements of potential users. What exactly needs to be collected will be prompted by employees and customers. The enterprise may have units with low labor productivity, the work of which is difficult due to the lack of necessary knowledge among employees.

It is necessary to determine who will benefit most from this knowledge, how to ensure access to it and how best to apply it.

Find examples of the best experience. There are many methods for identifying best practice. You can, for example, analyze and determine who in the company has best performance work. Then you should evaluate which particular skills (methods, technologies, etc.) should be considered the best experience. This can be said by colleagues, partners, independent consultants. Don't limit yourself to finding the best experience within your own organization. Many useful things can be obtained from other enterprises in the industry or related to it.

Document the best experience. Description of best practices is usually stored in databases in a standard way. Its format usually includes the following items:

heading - short title with annotation, author's surname, keywords;
content - several sections describing the purpose of the method (technology), as well as its constituent processes, functions;
application - where the method or technology should be used, what tasks are solved with their help;
resources - what resources and skills are required to master this method (technology); necessary tools;
evaluation - whether there are measurements of its effectiveness associated with this experience; description of implementations;
lessons learned - difficulties in mastering this experience; what the specialist would do differently if he had to master this experience from the very beginning;
useful links - literature, contacts, working documentation, videos, workshops related to this practice.

Rate the best experience. A practice can be considered best or good only when there are demonstrable results of its effectiveness. Required Feedback with colleagues or clients to establish how fruitful this experience is.

Share and apply the best practices. Although databases are one of the possible ways fixing experience, many organizations practice the direct transfer of experience from person to person. This is where value is added. Communities of practice, quality groups, training seminars, knowledge days, etc. also serve as other ways to transfer experience.

Develop a supporting infrastructure- usually part of a broader knowledge management strategy.

You will need a team that will handle this project, content management staff, technical means to support communications.

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