What is SAP COE?

Centers of Excellence provide business and application expertise to support the effective daily operations and improvement of different business or IT functions. The SAP Center of Excellence (COE) focuses on these tasks for SAP systems and solutions in place at an organization. They provide functions such as implementing new SAP systems, designing new processes, optimizing existing processes, managing projects, providing user support and training, and keeping the SAP landscape running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

What is SAP COE?

Centers of Excellence provide business and application expertise to support the effective daily operations and improvement of different business or IT functions. The SAP Center of Excellence (COE) focuses on these tasks for SAP systems and solutions in place at an organization. They provide functions such as implementing new SAP systems, designing new processes, optimizing existing processes, managing projects, providing user support and training, and keeping the SAP landscape running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Some of the benefits that a SAP COE offers include: a repository of SAP deployment best practices; a central point-of-contact for all SAP-related matters; a place where strong competencies can be developed; a means to enhance the value of SAP solutions; improved SAP personnel retention; and improved service levels. While there is an investment involved in creating a SAP COE, with many organizations running dozens or hundreds of SAP systems there can be a significant organizational benefit to setting up a COE.

Key Considerations for SAPinsiders:

  • Building a successful COE requires planning and investment, both financial and from a resource perspective. According to David Jantzen and Dan Haynes of Deloitte, some of the key steps to setting up a successful SAP COE include: ensuring appropriate leadership, defining how the organization will work, building tight relationships with business and IT teams, and defining appropriate metrics.
  • You can boost the success of your SAP COE by developing and defining the right metrics. Many organizations view their SAP COE as little more than a support organization. However, given the value of SAP systems and the resources invested in the COE itself, this limits the overall value the team can provide. By developing the right metrics it is possible to transform the COE from a support team to a key part of the business. In this article SAPinsider spoke with Ken Grady of Novartis how they appropriately defined metrics to help transform their SAP COE into a valuable part of the business.

1093 results

  1. People in office working

    Achieve Excellence in Sales and Operations Planning

    Published: 24/April/2020

    Reading time: 19 mins

    Sales and operations planning (S&OP) functions live at the tactical level of the planning hierarchy in an environment that synchronizes demand, inventory, and supply plans and considers profit objectives. S&OP has been discussed in multiple forums over the years because of the value it delivers to the organization as whole. In this article you will…

  2. SAP Announces Strong Q1 and Cloud ERP Private

    SAP Announces Strong Q1 and Cloud ERP Private Launch

    Published: 24/April/2025

    Reading time: 4 mins

    SAP reported strong first-quarter 2025 financials with a 28% increase in cloud backlog to €18.2 billion and a 27% rise in cloud revenue to nearly €5 billion, although total revenue grew modestly by 12% to €9 billion.

  3. Test Management for SAP Business Suite on HANA Migration Projects

    Published: 12/December/2013

    Reading time: 47 mins

    Find out what you need to know about test management when you make the switch to SAP HANA. Learn how to assess your company’s readiness, how to prepare the necessary decisions for adequate test tools from SAP and its partners, and the required test management set up and execution activities. Key Concept Testing plays a...…

  4. Revolutionizing the Innovation Experience: SAP Leonardo Experience Centers

    Published: 31/July/2019

    Reading time: 8 mins

    Discover the SAP Leonardo Experience Centers — state-of-the-art centers intentionally designed to help customers rethink and reimagine their business stories, from the outside-in, and innovate on behalf of their customers and employees. With the flagship experience center now open in Walldorf, Germany, and the next location set to open in Tokyo, Japan, in Q3 2019,…

  5. Configure SAPSprint for Secure Server-Based Printing on Windows

    Published: 17/June/2009

    Reading time: 146 mins

    You can have as wide and varied a range of printing needs as you have business needs. Learn about the available SAPSprint options — what they are and what they do — so you can help your organization meet its specific printing needs. Key Concept Secure Network Communications (SNC) integrates an external security product with...…

  6. Profit Center Accounting – Track Internal Revenue and Costs Using Transfer Pricing

    Published: 15/November/2003

    Reading time: 15 mins

    Profit Center Accounting: Track internal revenue and costs using transfer pricing. I’ve been hearing a lot about this question: “What are the possible ways to record the internal sales for an organization?” Let’s say you are required to track the profitability of a certain product. However, the product is sold as a consumption material to...…

  7. Jill Santos SAP Philippines MD

    SAP ANZ Partner Excellence Awards Highlight APAC’s Cloud Transformation

    Published: 14/March/2025

    Reading time: 2 mins

    The 2025 SAP ANZ Partner Excellence Awards recognised the vital contributions of partners in driving cloud adoption and digital transformation in the APAC region, introducing new categories to emphasise faster implementation and customer success while highlighting achievements across diverse sectors.

  8. A Hidden Process in the Routing Helps Assign Activities from Multiple Cost Centers to One Operation

    Published: 15/June/2003

    Reading time: 14 mins

    Using the example of a quality control process in a fertilizer factory, the author shows how to use business processes in recipes to map activities from different cost centers to one operation. The method also applies for mapping multiple costs center to a network activity if you are using the R/3 Project System module. Have...…

  9. Optimize BW’s Data Modeling Capabilities with BPS

    Published: 01/April/2006

    Reading time: 18 mins

    Make the jump from reporting in BW to planning and data modeling using BW’s Business Planning and Simulation (BW-BPS). See how the InfoCubes, attributes, calculated key figures, and dimensions for planning differ from those you use in reporting. Get valuable tips about properly structuring your planning InfoCubes. Key Concept A characteristic is an object that...…

  10. Partner Maturity Award SAP PKOM 2025

    Reading time: 2 mins

    INK IT has been awarded the Partner Maturity Index Award at the 2025 SAP Australia and New Zealand Partner Excellence Awards in recognition of its commitment to delivering exceptional customer value and driving innovation.