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Kalman Tiboldi - CTO & Founder at GemOne-TVH - Simplify or Die: Why Complexity Is the Real IT Challenge
Germany Oct 20, 2025 Country Members Virtual german
Die Realisierung des Potenzials von KI und datengesteuerten Strategien stellt nicht länger nur einen Wettbewerbsvorteil dar, sondern ist Heute auch entscheidend für den langfristigen Erfolg eines jeden Unternehmens. Unsere Wissensaustausch-Briefings "AI & Data Knowledge Transfer" zielen darauf ab, CIDOs und Senior Digital Leaders praktische Anwendungen aufzuzeigen und umsetzbaren Erkenntnissen von Fachexperten zu vermitteln, die den Weg für die transformative digitale Reise ebnen und beschleunigen.
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Belgium Oct 21, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english
In today's competitive landscape, customer expectations have never been higher. They demand a personalised, seamless experience at every touchpoint, from initial marketing contact to post-sale service. Unified data is at the heart of creating engaging customer experiences and is meant to fuel the 360 profile. However, for many organizations, a complete picture of the customer is fragmented, with critical data scattered in disconnected systems and departments. This exclusive roundtable will bring together Digital Leaders active in multiple industries to discuss a critical challenge: breaking down data silos to build a true 360° view of the customer. We will explore how to solve the complex integration challenges that prevent a unified view, and how to transform disparate data into a single source of truth. Join us to: Discover how to overcome the technical hurdles of integrating critical business systems, such as ERP and CRM platforms, to unify customer data. Explore real-world case studies on how organisations have successfully created unified customer insights to enhance personalisation and boost commercial and operational efficiency. Discuss best practices for turning fragmented data into actionable insights that can anticipate customer needs, drive revenue growth, and foster long-term loyalty. This is a unique opportunity for Digital Leaders who are ready to transform their customer engagement strategy and unlock the full potential of their data.
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Spain Oct 22, 2025 Country Members Physical spanish
Descubre cómo las organizaciones están utilizando la tecnología para impactar en el negocio a través de casos reales de uso y aprendizajes clave en áreas como ciberseguridad, automatización o data, contados por los protagonistas. Un espacio diseñado para inspirarte, conectar con expertos y potenciar la innovación en tu organización.
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Belgium Oct 22, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english
Enterprises are questioning whether private networks and stacked firewalls are still worthwhile investments. A newer approach operates on the open internet with Zero Trust, eliminates perimeter complexity, and reframes cybersecurity as a business performance metric for boards and audit committees. This is a closed-door, peer discussion, not a lecture. We’ll examine the promise and its pitfalls: Are the promised savings significant, or are they too good to be true? What risks do you introduce? How does this collide with your installed base, legacy OT, entrenched processes and team competencies, and how do you overcome that without breaking operations or credibility with the board? Two senior leaders from global companies will spark the dialogue with lived experience: Kurt De Ruwe, CIO AkzoNobel Frank Bolata, CIO Syensqo
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Poland Oct 23, 2025 Invitation Only Physical Polish
Cloud UP! ’25 to miejsce spotkań managerów, którzy chcą świadomie i skutecznie rozwijać swoje organizacje, wykorzystując najnowsze technologie. Nieformalnym hasłem tegorocznej edycji jest “Chmura gotowa na AI” - będziemy rozmawiać o tym, co sztuczna inteligencja naprawdę potrafi oraz pokazywać, jak wdrażać ją w praktyce. Wspólnie z ekspertami przeanalizujemy, jakie warunki muszą zostać spełnione, aby wdrożenia AI były zarówno skuteczne, jak i bezpieczne. Zerkniemy za kulisy najnowszych rodzimych produktów AI-owych, by zobaczyć ich możliwości, a także poznamy najciekawsze wdrożenia z wykorzystaniem Agentspace. Po raz kolejny spotkamy się w formule Share.Explore.Execute. Stawiamy na wymianę wiedzy i doświadczeń zdobytych podczas realizacji projektów. To one stanowią punkt wyjścia do odkrywania, testowania i skutecznej implementacji najlepszych rozwiązań w organizacjach. Cloud UP! ’25 to cztery ścieżki tematyczne, na które złożą się prezentacje, rozmowy, sesje live-demo oraz pogłębione dyskusje w formule roundtables: AI: Beyond the Hype Data Mastery Resilience & Regulatory Advanced Practitioners Dołącz do liderów chmurowych innowacji w Polsce i spotkaj się z nami już 23 października w Event Hall w Fabryce Norblina.
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Belgium Oct 23, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english
How to lead responsibly when technology can deceive better than a human? AI’s ability to shape our perceptions and create new realities is becoming increasingly sophisticated. While it opens significant opportunities, it also carries risks. What happens when AI goes beyond data and algorithms to influence - or even deceive - our senses? How does this change not only our understanding of reality but also the foundations of trust, creativity, and truth in business? AI isn’t just transforming business, it is altering how we experience and interpret everything around us. From AI-generated deepfakes to personalised experiences designed to influence behaviour, the line between truth and illusion is increasingly blurred. This event combines a roundtable discussion among peers with a hands-on sensory workshop, where you will experience illusions through sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch. Through these experiments, we will confront the ethical dilemmas that arise when AI has the power to fabricate realities and influence decisions.
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E.ON Italy cuts costs by 50 percent and gains insight with Azure SQL Database Hyperscale
E.ON runs its data and analytical workloads mostly in the cloud, distributed across different data service backends. In 2017, E.ON Italy aimed to modernize its on-premises data estate by moving all data to Azure SQL Database.
Over time, the data volume, data processing needs, and analytics requirements grew as E.ON needed to ingest, process, and analyze more and more data from its growing user base. Looking for ways to scale well beyond its current data volume without restrictions on storage and compute to stay “fit for the future,” E.ON decided to modernize once again. It upgraded its database service and analytics platform to Azure SQL Hyperscale service tier. Azure SQL Database Hyperscale provides dynamic accommodation for storage space (up to 100 terabytes) as well as analytics and transactional support for both internal users and customers.
The important thing for us is that we have an open mind not just for technology, but for innovation. Every new solution is a way to find the best options, to learn the most about how we can improve our operations. Enrico Lapel: Data & Analytics manager - E.ON Italy
Power is a vital part of modern life, and to many customers in Europe, E.ON is the company powering their homes and businesses. E.ON started in Germany but has spread across the continent, with each of its national branches choosing the technology and database solutions that work best for their specific needs, all with the goal of providing reliable and sustainable energy across Europe.
For E.ON Italy, it was clear that cloud computing was the future as far back as 2017. The company invested in a move to the cloud on Azure SQL Database that year, immediately improving data accessibility for the company. But as the years went by, E.ON Italy found that moving its Data Insights Platform (DIP) onto the server along with more data meant they were consistently running out of space.
The DIP provides customers with access to historical data regarding usage and rates while also giving the company a clear picture of energy usage, customer history, and anticipated spikes in demand. Its analytics are crucial to E.ON Italy making the best decisions for its customers and the company as a whole. A lack of space on the backend and potential slowdown in analysis could negatively impact operations.
To provide the best service for around one million contracts on the Italian peninsula, E.ON Italy needed to advance its technology. So the company turned to the Azure SQL Database Hyperscale tier to solve its data growth challenges and storage space issues while remaining centered on the cloud. The Azure SQL Hyperscale tier allows companies to easily and automatically scale up and down as necessary, with optimized pricing for the processing used and higher overall performance and speed for large data projects. E.ON Italy estimates it’s saving nearly 50 percent in costs per year and is achieving a 30 percent native performance increase for online transactional processing.
For E.ON Italy, working with Microsoft was an opportunity to incorporate new technology with an expert provider. “Microsoft gave us the right advice at the right moment, and they married a deep tech knowledge with an understanding of our vision for the future,” says Enrico Lapel, Data & Analytics manager at E.ON Italy. The company migrated the server by having the existing database running concurrently with the Azure SQL Database Hyperscale database, ensuring that the new solution was stable and could handle the necessary data bandwidth. Only once E.ON Italy felt satisfied with the performance of the new Hyperscale Service tier over several weeks, it fully moved live operations onto the new Azure SQL Database service tier.
From a financial standpoint, the cost benefits for E.ON were felt immediately. Even without the performance advantages considered, the new database service costs half as much as the original implementation. But with up to 100 terabytes of data storage, the new database also ensures that E.ON Italy has a significantly larger amount of space available to produce a longer history for customers and general operational data. “The wonderful thing about scaling on Hyperscale is that it’s easy. I don’t have to care about scaling up, it just handles it, and so I can focus on important data,” says Lapel.
It also frees additional space up for the DIP to provide more detailed analyses of larger data sets. E.ON Italy is using Azure Machine Learning and Power BI as part of its data projects, providing a holistic view of energy needs and consumption, sales churn, and next-best actions for future upselling. Having faster access to more reliable data means that E.ON Italy is capable of greater insight and its data scientists can deliver better guidance for future developments.
The speed of E.ON Italy’s move to a better solution has ensured that the customer-facing side of the business never has to deal with performance or reliability issues anymore. Instead, customers can simply enjoy a smoother and improved journey with the help of the company’s new technology.
As a forward-looking company, E.ON Italy is not content to rest on its laurels when it comes to the technology foundation established by using the Azure SQL Hyperscale database tier. Already the company is planning additional analytics projects along with improved data governance and potentially incorporating Microsoft tools such as Power Apps.
The team is looking into how to improve sustainability efforts via this added insight. Greater access to data means providing a better view of how customers are using energy and how to better manage their needs. That can both reduce necessary energy consumption and improve the overall impact of E.ON Italy’s operations by cutting down on wasted energy use.
As the team at E.ON Italy sees it, it’s all about the journey. “The important thing for us is that we have an open mind not just for technology, but for innovation,” says Lapel. “Every new solution is a way to find the best options, to learn the most about how we can improve our operations.”
E.ON Italy is still moving forward and innovating, showing what can be done with scalable and dynamic data & AI services in Azure to both improve internal operations and customer journeys. Whatever new innovations are put forth in the future, it seems fair to assume that the company will be looking ahead and investigating how new technology can offer innovative solutions.
The wonderful thing about scaling on Hyperscale is that it’s easy. I don’t have to care about scaling up, it just handles it, and so I can focus on important data. Enrico Lapel: Data & Analytics manager - E.ON Italy
Kalman Tiboldi - CTO & Founder at GemOne-TVH - Simplify or Die: Why Complexity Is the Real IT Challenge
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Isabelle Droll - CIO for Airline, Corporate, Hotels & Resorts and Sustainability at TUI - Data, Diversity, and Destinations
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Sharon Prior - CIO in transition - How Great Tech Leadership Begins with Business Thinking
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José Antonio López, Group CIO at TOUS - Jewels, Data & AI: Inside the Digital Transformation of TOUS
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Tom Tanghe - General Manager ITC EMEA at Daikin Europe - Reinventing the CIO Role
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CIOFEST 2025 - From Order Taker to Proactive Disruptor
The role of the CIO has evolved from managing systems to shaping outcomes: growth, resilience, and competitive edge are now won or lost in the technology arena. Today ’ s CIOs must balance stability with innovation, control costs while attracting scarce talent, and modernise legacy infrastructure while adopting emerging technologies.
As AI transitions from a specialised tool to an all-pervasive force, understanding its profound implications for our human lives is no longer merely academic but an urgent imperative for social well-being and strategic preparedness.
Geopolitical tensions have dominated the headlines for over two years now. In this context, the cyber threat landscape is also evolving rapidly. The protection and security of critical infrastructure – both physical and digital – is becoming increasingly important.
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