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Kalman Tiboldi - CTO & Founder at GemOne-TVH - Simplify or Die: Why Complexity Is the Real IT Challenge
Germany Sep 29, 2025 Country Members Virtual german
Unsere Wissensaustausch-Briefings "AI & Data Knowledge Transfer" zielen darauf ab, CIDOs und Senior Digital Leaders mit praktischen Anwendungen und umsetzbaren Erkenntnissen von Fachexperten zu vermitteln, die den Weg für transformative digitale Reisen ebnen.
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Germany Sep 30, 2025 Country Members Physical german
Von der Theorie in die Praxis: Erst Business, dann Bier.Unstrukturierte Daten sind das verborgene Kapital vieler Unternehmen – und zugleich eine der größten Herausforderungen moderner IT. Gemeinsam mit CIOs, CDOs und CTOs der CIONET-Community sprechen wir zuerst bei WeWork München über Strategien, Technologien und echte Use Cases, um dieses Potenzial zu heben. Danach geht's weiter auf die Wiesn – für den offenen Austausch in bayerischer Atmosphäre.
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UK Sep 30, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english
This exclusive Jefferson dinner, hosted by Mendix and CIONET, brings together a hand-picked group of senior executives and digital leaders from across the UK financial sector.
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Netherlands Sep 30, 2025 Invitation Only Physical dutch
Alleen op uitnodiging. Mastering Digital Sovereignty Control, trust and resilience in an era of geopolitical and regulatory shifts. From the Network to the Data.
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Belgium Oct 1, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english
In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, organisations face a critical challenge: how to modernise their legacy systems while managing costs, maintaining security, and ensuring operational continuity. This exclusive round table discussion brings together CIOs, CTOs, and Digital Leaders to explore best practices for legacy and lifecycle management. Key topics include extending the lifespan of existing systems, mitigating cyber security risks, optimising costs, and integrating legacy platforms with modern technologies. We’ll also delve into sustainability, workforce challenges, and future-proofing IT infrastructures to navigate technological obsolescence.
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Germany Oct 7, 2025 Country Members Virtual german
Alle nutzen KI, aber keiner weiß wie effektiv! Im Jahr 2025 sind wir als IT-EntscheiderInnen gefordert die Wünsche der Fachbereiche an Künstliche Intelligenz zu managen. Welche KI dient als Copilot für unsere Mitarbeitenden, inwieweit hat diese Zugang zu Firmenwissen und könnten wir heute bereits sinnvoll einen KI Agenten in die IT Systemlandschaft einbinden? Unser Business Partner Scheer PAS spricht als Anbieter einer Process iPaaS Plattform mit hunderten Unternehmen jedes Jahr über IT-Integration. In dieser Online-Session besprechen wir erste Reifegradmodelle zu KI, wo der deutsche Mittelstand sich befindet und wie wir die nächste Innovationsstufe erreichen. Wir teilen praktische Erfahrungen aus dem Marktumfeld und planen unsere nächsten Schritte in der Adaption von KI.
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Facilitating Better Business Decisions with Azure
Facq is a Belgian provider of sanitation, heating and renewable energy distribution services for the construction sector. The company wanted to make better decisions based on the right data. To do this, they partnered with element61 and built a business intelligence platform based on Microsoft Azure.
As the IT and Quality Director at Facq, Nicolas Van Caster faced an interesting challenge. He wanted to develop a business insights solution that empowered the company’s point-of-sale (POS) team leaders — without removing any of their accountability to make decisions. In short, he wanted to gather more targeted insights from the data available to these leaders and enable the data-driven mindset that Facq has championed throughout its 140-year history.
To meet this goal — and set his company up for future success — Nicolas partnered with element61, a data analytics provider and Microsoft Advanced Specialization Partner based in Belgium. Together, the companies have developed a business insights tool powered by Microsoft Azure.
We needed a solution that could help our point-of-sale leaders make the right decisions at the right time. Azure and PowerBI facilitates that by bringing the data to where it’s needed in real time.Nicolas Van Caster: IT and Quality Director - Facq
Facq is a Belgium-based provider of sanitary, heating, and renewable energies distribution for professionals in the construction sector. They operate a B2B model, serving installers and plumbers across the country through 46 points of sale, 16 showrooms, and three warehouses.
Across this significant sales network, one of the biggest challenges was managing stock and inventory at each point of sale.
Up until recently, the company’s POS team leaders would receive monthly reports from the head office with various data points around their inventory levels — and it was up to them to review these reports and make decisions from them. However, there were three primary challenges with this model:
Instead of this fairly unstructured approach, Van Caster and his team realised that they needed a cloud-based solution that could help them deliver more actionable insights — and someone that could help them build it. That’s where element61 and Microsoft Azure came in.
Facilitating data-driven decision making
Together with the team at element61, Facq has developed a business insights platform that empowers their POS team leaders. They started by establishing performance and operational indicators, understanding that while the first helps identify problem areas, the second is key for identifying the potential solution to that problem.
They then built the platform using a modern data platform approach, powered by Azure. At the front-end, users engage with a Microsoft Power BI dashboard that’s easy to use and simple to understand. This was not a one-and-done process. For Van Caster and element61, iteration and collaboration with the end users was key. As such, the build process was made up of various two-week sprints, where they requested feedback and inputs from the POS team leaders and other key stakeholders. This level of collaboration gave these employees a sense of ownership of the product before it was even fully deployed.
Today, POS team leaders have access to a simplified dashboard that surfaces the right data at the right time, giving them the information they need to replenish stock in a proactive manner. Not only does it present problems that need addressing, it also automatically provides the suggested steps needed to remedy those problems. For these employees, the change has given them more ownership and accountability for making decisions that improve how the business operates.
In addition, the company is also seeing benefits at the business level. Now, when competitors don’t have enough inventory, installers and plumbers are turning to Facq, driving up sales and revenue as a result. Plus, each POS is able to be more agile in responding to seasonal fluctuations in demand, which are common in the construction sector. It’s a true testament of how connecting the dots between operational performance and business strategies can deliver true value.
The business insights solution has become an important tool for Facq’s POS team leaders — but the team isn’t stopping there. According to Van Caster, Facq and element61 are currently working on expanding the cloud-based solution for their warehouse teams to show them real-time KPIs in a centralised dashboard. Even further ahead, the team plans to find ways to adopt automation and machine learning capabilities to optimise operations, while still empowering their employees with ownership and accountability.
From the very beginning, element61 showed initiative in wanting to know our business. When we discussed performance and operational indicators, they asked us to show them what that looked like in practice — and that’s the kind of partner we needed for this project. - Nicolas Van Caster: IT and Quality Director Facq
Kalman Tiboldi - CTO & Founder at GemOne-TVH - Simplify or Die: Why Complexity Is the Real IT Challenge
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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
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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