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CIONET - What's next

Connecting ambitious digital leaders and businesses around the globe.

Catch up on the upcoming CIONET Events

             
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Germany Sep 9, 2025 Country Members Physical german

Frankfurt: AI Driven Logistics

Vom ersten Use Case zur strategischen Neuausrichtung CIONET lädt bereits zum vierten Mal zu einem exklusiven Roundtable für CIOs und Digitalverantwortliche aus Logistik und Handel ein. Im Mittelpunkt des Abends steht die Frage, wie Unternehmen ihre KI-Initiativen erfolgreich skalieren und aus ersten Use Cases echten strategischen Mehrwert schaffen. Microsoft 365 für Frontline Worker: Moderne Tools, die Mitarbeitende im Tagesgeschäft entlasten ServiceNow für Prozessintegration: Automatisierte End-to-End-Workflows – vom Schadensfall bis zur Retourenabwicklung KI-gestützte Disposition und Planung: Mit smarten Algorithmen zur optimierten Supply Chain Digitale Lieferketten und letzte Meile: Transparenz, Effizienz und Kundenzentrierung durchgängig gedacht

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Belgium Sep 13, 2025 All Members Physical english

CIONET Cycling Event

Join us for a wonderful ride. The ride is accessible to all levels of riders and doesn't require extensive technical skills. More information will follow soon. Looking forward to ride together!

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Germany Sep 17, 2025 Country Members Physical german

München: Cyber Security Fatigue

Cybersecurity ist längst kein reines IT-Thema mehr – sie betrifft das gesamte Unternehmen. Doch während die Bedrohungslage zunimmt, geraten viele Security-Verantwortliche an ihre Belastungsgrenzen: zwischen 24/7-Verantwortung, wachsenden Anforderungen und dem ständigen Innovationsdruck.

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Germany Sep 17, 2025 Country Members Physical german

Köln: CIO & CISO, das Rezilienz-Power-Duo

IT-Betrieb und Cybersicherheit stehen heute unter extremem Druck: steigende Komplexität, wachsende regulatorische Anforderungen (NIS2, DORA, KRITIS), chronische Ressourcenknappheit – und gleichzeitig eine Bedrohungslage, die keine Verzögerungen duldet. Trotzdem agieren viele IT- und Security-Teams noch immer in Silos. Die Folge: ineffiziente Abläufe, Tool-Wildwuchs, langsame Reaktion auf Vorfälle und unklare Verantwortlichkeiten.

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Germany Sep 18, 2025 Country Members Virtual german

Online: Nachhaltige IT - CIDO Priorität

Nachhaltigkeit ist für CIOs nicht nur ein „Nice-to-have“, sondern eine strategische Priorität – sie beeinflusst direkt die finanzielle Performance, die operative Effizienz und die langfristige Wettbewerbsfähigkeit.

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Belgium Sep 18, 2025 Country Members Physical french

Les Rencontres: La dette technique : Un défi stratégique pour les entreprises

La dette technique est comparable à la négligence des réparations d'une maison. Ignorer un toit qui fuit peut faire gagner du temps aujourd'hui, mais cela pourrait conduire à l'effondrement du plafond plus tard. Pour remédier à la dette technique, il faut trouver et réparer ces fuites dès maintenant et mettre en place un plan d'entretien de la maison afin qu'elle soit prête pour les extensions futures. Pour résoudre ces problèmes, il faut définir des priorités stratégiques, communiquer clairement avec les parties prenantes et établir une feuille de route à long terme pour la modernisation. Cet événement se déroulera entièrement en français.

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Recent Cases

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Picanol Group finds flexibility and faster time to market with Azure Stack

Picanol - the Belgian manufacturer of weaving machines provides weaving technology for the textile industry and beyond. The group launched its Factory 4.0 strategy and adopted Microsoft's Azure Stack HCI infrastructure with Azure Arc support to achieve centralised management, flexibility and faster time-to-market.

We wanted to manage our whole environment with a single solution. That’s what we got with Azure Stack HCI—the flexibility to run workloads in the cloud or on-premises and decide at each moment where we want our resources. 

Marc Colman: IT Infrastructure Manager - Picanol Group

 

Factory 4.0

With production facilities in Belgium, Romania, and China, Picanol Group is evolving its manufacturing capabilities to foster innovation. Its Factory 4.0 strategy promotes tighter integration between IT and operations to deliver smarter, technology-led solutions that help drive the business. Marc Colman, IT Infrastructure Manager at Picanol Group, states, “Our robotics produce a lot of data, which we can use to make smarter decisions about how our machines should work and how to better manage storage and shipping. We always want to know where we can automate or do something better, faster, and with fewer errors, and that’s where IT and the business go hand in hand. We’re trying to do as much as possible driven by IT to make the new Factory 4.0.”

A loom with a view 

To enhance innovation, Picanol Group needed flexibility within its digital infrastructure. Its environment consisted of on-premises Hyper-V plus an Azure Stack Hub cloud implementation, which the group added to run services required by the business but unattainable through aging, on-premises hardware. Picanol Group needed to retain and manage on-premises workloads because it could not risk dropped connectivity at its production facilities, which would leave 1,500 workers idle, and some of its vendors only ran on VMware. But the group also needed a solution that offered the versatility of the cloud. Azure Stack HCI is Arc enabled infrastructure that uses hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and is delivered as an Azure service. 

John Debersaques, Senior System Engineer at Picanol Group, says, “We buy manufacturing equipment that lasts for 30 years, and the vendors usually aren’t willing to invest in upgrades. We use Azure Stack HCI so that we can run those legacy workloads on-premises.”

Also, Picanol Group’s hybrid state required separate management for each of its environments. Establishing unified visibility across its infrastructure would help the group make smart decisions faster. Colman recounts, “We wanted to manage our whole environment with a single solution. That’s what we got with Azure Stack HCI—the flexibility to run workloads in the cloud or on-premises and decide at each moment where we want our resources.”

Less management, more innovation

Through its Azure Stack HCI implementation, Picanol Group manages a 12-node cluster in Belgium with 670 terabytes on SSD storage and a 4-node cluster in Romania with 84 terabytes on SSD storage. It runs more than 200 virtual machines (VMs) between both locations. In its Microsoft Cloud environment, Picanol Group has deployed Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 Customer Service, along with Microsoft 365, including SharePoint and OneDrive. In addition to these services, Picanol Group runs all its Hyper-V virtual machines on Azure Stack HCI.

In terms of security, Picanol Group has completely separated its on-premises and cloud environments, which allows it to take advantage of Microsoft security features for its Azure implementation. Debersaques states, “We really benefit from the ability to just go to the Azure portal and get a clear idea of what’s going on in our cluster at any moment, like checking for security alerts and available updates.”

Using Azure Stack HCI makes it easier for Picanol Group to manage its hybrid environment and find the flexibility it needs to meet its business innovation requirements. Debersaques continues, “Azure Stack HCI with its native integration with Azure Arc, helps us bring new Azure services, like Azure Logic Apps, to our on-premises workloads and move managed databases between on-premises and the cloud. And because Azure Stack HCI is a managed environment, we get continuous updates and the ability to build new features.”

Weaving future opportunities

Picanol Group’s new centralized management through Azure Stack HCI gives its employees greater visibility and assurance with less effort. “We’re a company of 2,500 people spread across the world, with 1,500 production employees depending on our IT systems—and an infrastructure team of 5,” says Debersaques. “It’s incredibly important to have that single-pane-of-glass visibility with Azure Stack HCI, so we can manage our environment proactively.”

These operational improvements translate to significant business benefits. Picanol Group now does more, faster. Colman states, “We’ve improved our flexibility, time to market, and costs. With Azure Stack HCI, we can build up quickly in the cloud and then move workloads back on-premises depending on cost.” This helps Picanol Group offer lightning-fast time to market to support key business initiatives and puts the group in the driver’s seat with the power to move workloads between the cloud and on-premises as cost and business priorities dictate. “With Azure Stack HCI, we have the agility to provide what the business wants and needs and to move faster to market,” says Colman.

Picanol Group has positioned itself to make the most of technology advancements as they become available. The group can evaluate Azure feature enhancements and other new developments on an ongoing basis and shift to a continuous improvement and DevOps approach. Indeed, Picanol Group’s infrastructure team is already fielding requests for microservices and containers from various development groups.

Having the flexibility required to develop innovative solutions faster to meet business challenges as they emerge is vital for Picanol Group as it pivots into Factory 4.0. Colman concludes, “Our on-premises hardware environment had reached end of life, but we couldn’t fully move to the cloud. We struck the perfect balance with Azure Stack HCI. We have the flexibility we need to move between the cloud and our on-premises environment, and to add the resources we need as we need them, where we want them, and at the lowest cost, to best serve the business.”

With Azure Stack HCI, we have the agility to provide what the business wants and needs and to move faster to market. 

Marc Colman: IT Infrastructure Manager

Picanol Group

Checkout our CIONET COOKBOOK

cookbook

Embark on a culinary journey through the ever-evolving world of digital leadership with our third edition of the CIONET Cookbook: Recipes for Digital Success. Unveiling the intricate trilemma faced by today’s Master Chefs, our trailblazing European CIOs address a challenge at the nexus of customer interests, digital transformation strategies, and IT modernisation. Their secret? Synchronising the gearing between customer, business, and technology to create a frictionless movement through the digital landscape.

The CIONET Cookbook uses the analogy of a five-star restaurant to explain the importance of optimally integrated technology, with the CIO as Master Chef. In order to provide the best service to its customers, a top restaurant must have the right atmosphere, an inviting menu, a well-equipped kitchen, talented and committed front-of-house and kitchen staff and smooth-running processes that ensure an enjoyable experience for diners.

CIONET TV

 
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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

CIONET Reports

 
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Cybersecurity in critical infrastructure

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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HDS - From Hype to Reality Navigating the Challenges of GenAI

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Integration In An Era Of AI: Challenges And Opportunities

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Anna Kopp

Head of IT Germany and Regional Office Lead Munich, Microsoft

“The CIONET App allows us to learn from eachother and and find the courage to be authentic by hearing stories from others! Thanks to Tobias and the whole team for bringing us together:-) ”
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IT Director, IT Thinker

“The main things that I would like to get from our community of Digital Leaders are: networking, share experiences, share best practices and successful cases, and comments and recommendations about providers.”
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Vice president IT & Compliance, VisionaryRCM (A Carlyle Grp Company)

“The CIONET app provides a really cool platform to network and share insights.”

About CIONET

CIONET’s mission is to help IT executives become more at ease and above all more successful in their jobs. So they can do more than just keep up with change but ultimately define it. CIONET opens up a whole new universe of opportunities in IT management.

With the largest membership of corporate digital leaders across Europe, Latin America, US and Australia, CIONET has the expertise and pioneering vision to solve or address any IT management challenge.

Why join CIONET?

From our local and global events, from our publications and research to our executive education programmes, everything we do is aimed at making sure digital leaders maximise their potential.

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with digital leaders who share your interests, who face the same challenges, who care about the same topics.

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stories, experiences, and ideas around our shared mission.

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from our exclusive events, publications and research.

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inspiration, thought-provoking conversations, expert perspectives and exclusive first-hand content each and every day

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and make better, more well-informed decisions on how to lead your digital business.

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About CIONET

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We'd love to welcome you as the newest member of our CIONET community where Digital Leaders unite. 

You can either send us a registered handwritten letter explaining why you'd like to become a member or you can simply talk to us right here!

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