A Center of Excellence (CoE) is defined as a dedicated team or function within an organization that focuses on developing and promoting best practices, driving innovation, and enabling consistent, high-quality execution in a specific area of expertise.
The pressure is on for beverage teams. Persistent supply chain disruptions, a growing emphasis on localization, the rapid influence of social media and digital trends, and a constant influx of new product introductions have all intensified the competition for shelf space. From regional assortments to complex merchandising and countless store formats, space planning teams are being pushed to deliver.
Additionally, beverage companies operate in one of the most complex and demanding retail categories. Their category management and space planning teams must navigate highly localized assortments, intricate merchandising requirements, frequent product innovation, and a wide range of fixtures and formats across different retailers and store types. These challenges require not only strategic foresight but also operational excellence.
To meet these demands, space planning teams often work long hours, including nights and weekends, to deliver localized planograms that align with each retailer’s unique standards. The pace is relentless, the expectations are high, and the margin for error is minimal. These teams are essential to ensuring that products are placed correctly and efficiently in stores, driving both shopper satisfaction and sales performance.
The companies that have proven most resilient in this environment are those that support their category management teams with a Center of Excellence, also known as a CoE. A CoE provides the structure and governance needed to drive speed, consistency, and innovation across planning and execution. It ensures that best practices are not only developed but consistently applied. Just as importantly, it safeguards institutional knowledge during times of turnover, helping maintain high performance and continuity even as teams evolve. This strategic foundation enables category teams to stay agile and competitive in a rapidly changing market.
Checklist to establish a Center of Excellence
Building a Center of Excellence is a strategic initiative that requires careful planning and execution. Here are the key pieces to the puzzle:
- Assess your people: Evaluate the skills, roles, and capacity of your current team to identify strengths, gaps, and opportunities for development. Leading CoEs are investing in cross-functional data enablement – ensuring not just analysts, but also marketing, finance, and sales roles can engage with retail data. When every department understands how to act on key insights, teams become more agile and aligned. This kind of organizational literacy is a key trait of high-performing, scalable teams.
- Assess your processes: Review current workflows and decision-making practices to uncover inefficiencies, inconsistencies, or areas lacking standardization. Look for redundant steps, unclear ownership, and manual workarounds that could be streamlined. A well-documented process is the backbone of consistent execution and a key pillar of any CoE.
- Assess your technology: Take stock of the tools and systems in use to determine whether they support your goals or need to be upgraded or replaced. Additionally, consider how AI might play a role in your technology strategy. Tools that accelerate execution, reduce manual effort, and surface smarter insights are becoming essential to modern category management teams.
- Determine return on investment: Estimate the potential value of a CoE in terms of time savings, improved accuracy, scalability, and business impact. Factor in not just immediate efficiencies, but also long-term benefits like reduced onboarding time, better vendor collaboration, and improved adaptability across formats and assortments.
- Define goals to measure success: Set clear, measurable objectives that align with business priorities and provide a way to track progress and performance over time. These might include improved speed-to-shelf, reduced planogram errors, better space utilization, or faster seasonal resets. Not sure where your team stands? Take our Leading or Lagging quiz to see how your team compares and where there’s room to grow.
- Document best practices and standards: Create a centralized repository of guidelines, templates, and procedures to ensure consistency, efficiency, and knowledge sharing. When building your CoE playbook, it helps to separate core systems from “nice-to-haves.” As Crisp outlines in their CPG tech stack guide, essentials are the tools that directly impact your ability to execute across teams. A clear, shared understanding of your tool stack prevents misalignment and drives operational focus.
- Upgrade or procure new software: Identify and implement the right tools to support advanced planning, automation, analytics, and collaboration. Think beyond current bottlenecks. What will your team need to succeed at scale? Prioritize tools that integrate well, reduce manual work, and align with your broader technology strategy.
- Provide advanced training: Equip your team with the skills and knowledge needed to lead, support, and scale best practices across the organization. Space management training programs can help teams build capability and confidence faster. Teams benefit when every role is empowered to work with data — not just technical users.
- Implement change management strategies: Prepare the organization for change by communicating the vision, securing leadership support, and guiding teams through the transition. Consider appointing internal champions, creating feedback loops, and rolling out training in waves. Change is more successful when it’s collaborative and well-paced.
Building a high-performing beverage team doesn’t happen by accident. It takes structure, intention, and support. The most resilient companies are those that treat people as a strategic asset, not just a resource. By establishing a Center of Excellence, they create the foundation for consistent execution, faster onboarding, smarter decision-making, and long-term scalability. Whether your team is large or lean, investing in skills, workflows, and role clarity can unlock better results across the board.
In part two, we’ll break down how retailers and beverage suppliers can improve alignment around resets, supply, and shared execution.