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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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Italy Sep 25, 2025 Invitation Only Physical italian

Innovation in Balance: governing the power of data and automation

Nel percorso verso l’AI e la trasformazione digitale, dati e automazione sono gli elementi centrali di ogni strategia tecnologica. Ma senza una governance chiara, rischiano di diventare non solo fonte di inefficienza, ma anche di rischi e incoerenza.   Come garantire che i dati siano completi, accessibili e affidabili? Come automatizzare le operation IT e i processi aziendali mantenendo controllo, compliance e sicurezza?   Durante questa roundtable esclusiva, organizzata da CIONET Italia e IBM, affronteremo:   La governance come abilitatore di dati affidabili e automazione sicura. Come prepararsi a un’adozione dell’AI realmente scalabile. Il ruolo di controllo, resilienza e gestione del rischio nell’innovazione.

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Belgium Oct 16, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english

CIONET Round Table - Rethinking AI

AI isn’t just another tool. It changes how we work, how we think, how we organise ourselves.Yet most organisations still approach it like a digital upgrade, deploying assistants, automating workflows, testing use cases inisolation.The results are predictable. Short-term wins. Long-term confusion.Effort spent. Value unclear.Many companies can’t connect AI to their actual strategic goals,and the promised ROI never materialises.At the same time, something deeper is shifting.AI can now reason, decide, adapt. Not just mimic processes butcontribute to them.The technology is evolving, but the way we implement it hasn’tcaught up.If your AI still fits inside a single department, you’re likely solvingthe wrong problem.If it works only for individuals, you're missing how your teamsactually deliver value.If it replaces people instead of supporting them, you're buildingfor today, not tomorrow.The next step isn’t more AI. It’s the right AI.Built for your business, your teams, your way of working.Not a tool to add but a structure to build around.Are we ready to treat AI as a shared capability, not a scatteredexperiment?Can we move beyond individual efficiency and build systems thatcollaborate, learn and adapt with us?Those are the questions we’ll explore at the round table.

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Poland Oct 17, 2025 Invitation Only Physical & Virtual Polish

IT EXECUTIVE MASTERCLASS 5

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Germany Oct 28, 2025 Country Members Physical german

Köln: Powershift

Am 28. Oktober lädt CIONET CIOs und Digital Leaders nach Köln ein: hier stellen wir reale Anwendungsfälle vor, in denen KI-Agenten Aufgaben autonom übernehmen, Prozesse beschleunigen und Entscheidungen vorbereiten – mit messbarem Nutzen für das Business.

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France Nov 4, 2025 Country Members Physical french

Maîtriser la souveraineté numérique: du réseau à la donnée

À l’ère des mutations géopolitiques et réglementaires, l’établissement d’une souveraineté numérique est devenu un élément stratégique essentiel pour les entreprises. Ce dialogue stratégique mettra en lumière le rôle fondamental du réseau dans la mise en place du contrôle, de la confiance et de la résilience. Nous explorerons comment une infrastructure moderne et résiliente permet d’appliquer des politiques de gestion des données et d’assurer la continuité opérationnelle. Ce dialogue stratégique, réservé à un groupe restreint de pairs, est conçu pour permettre aux leaders du numérique d’échanger sur l’un des enjeux les plus urgents aujourd’hui. Nous discuterons des réseaux « sovereign-ready » et débattrons des préoccupations croissantes autour de la souveraineté des données, qui motivent l’adoption de politiques de confidentialité et de protection des données de plus en plus strictes à l’échelle mondiale.

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Netherlands Nov 10, 2025 Public Physical english

Reis mee: CIO Innovation trip Web Summit 11 nov 2025 Lissabon

CIONET Nederland vertrekt met een groep Nederlandse CIO's en digital leaders 10 t/m 12 november 2025 voor de geheel verzorgde CIO Innovation Trip naar de Web Summit in Lissabon, Portugal. Reis jij mee of neem je collega(s) mee!

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Recent Cases

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Digitally transforming Coventry Building Society’s customer and employee experiences

Better service and improved experiences for employees and customers. Achieved with a new contact centre and integrated telephony solution.

Overview
A smooth move to cloud to enhance experiences 
Customer experience is a make-or-break issue for today’s consumers – 80% of consumers say they buy more from organisations that offer excellent customer service. As a business that prioritises delivering an outstanding experience and maintaining trust with its 2m members, Coventry Building Society knew its planned contact centre and telephony transformation needed to be seamless and effective. The only outward sign of change would be an even better experience for customers and employees. With our Genesys Cloud Contact Centre solution as well as integration of cloud-based enterprise voice into Microsoft Teams, together with our ongoing service wrap, we were able to support the building society’s ambitious goals for service and customer experience.

The challenge
Moving to a future-ready infrastructure
Following a strategic review, The Society decided to move away from their existing on-premises contact centre solution in an effort to reduce their data centre footprint. Their intent was to move beyond traditional fixed infrastructure and create a more flexible set-up that was fit for future growth.

They wanted to enhance how they delivered their services to provide more personalised experiences, with easy routing or escalation between channels, and greater employee collaboration. They realised this would require unprecedented integration and visibility between their corporate telephony and contact centre platforms.

With significant in-house expertise and clear objectives, The Society’s leadership team weren’t looking to simply buy in services and outsource all management control. Instead, they were seeking a partner who’d work collaboratively with The Society and market-leading vendors, bringing innovative solutions to the table that would give the business a competitive edge.

The migration required careful management due to its scale: approximately 1600 users across eight different business areas had to be migrated onto one single platform. Deadlines were tight, so the pressure was on to deliver a rapid migration that was smooth, painless, and efficient – all without disrupting any core operations or services. As well as keeping all their existing contact centre capabilities, The Society particularly wanted to improve their Interactive Voice Response (IVR), introducing facilities such as better, authenticated escalations to live agents. The Society wanted a platform and partner that could support future transformations involving artificial intelligence, improved resource management and enhanced reporting and analytics.

After evaluating The Society’s business needs and requirements, we recommended our Genesys Cloud Contact Centre solution, widely known for its market-leading reliability and scalability. Alongside this migration, The Society wanted to move their 3,000 strong workforce onto a telephony platform that incorporated voice into Microsoft Teams, giving them a single workforce management platform. The business was new to using Microsoft Teams, so the migration would involve introducing the collaboration tool from scratch. The priorities throughout were protecting the employee experience and enabling better service to the building society’s customers.

The solution
A seamless migration to a next-generation model
Our starting point was to draw on our long-standing partnerships with Genesys and Microsoft to create a tailored and detailed transformation roadmap that met every one of Coventry Building Society’s goals and had them fully migrated in less than five months. By bringing the Genesys Cloud Contact Centre and Teams migration plans together into one change programme, we’re able to provide native integration between the platforms while maximising the benefits of one supplier and a single service wrap. Plus, every aspect of the programme complies with financial services and The Society’s own cloud governance processes.

There was also a focus on making sure The Society could deliver a seamless experience for their customers. Genesys Cloud Contact Centre takes a digital-first approach, and it’s provided The Society with the access to capabilities such as authenticated webchat and the option to escalate interactions from chat to voice. The platform also allows for predictive engagement and proactive two-way messaging – so once The Society deploy these features, they’ll be able to share relevant information with customers at the right time, keeping them well informed and reducing the strain on agents.

Genesys Cloud Contact Centre provides rich features within a truly omnichannel environment. Its wide range of APIs and standard connectors will help The Society easily link its contact centre into other systems, including Microsoft Teams. These solutions support the latest developments in natural language technology, predictive engagement capabilities, biometrics, security, PCI compliance and analytics. This is ideal for customers who want to be ready to meet future market demands and consumer expectations.

Introducing enterprise-grade voice from our global network through Microsoft Teams combines the intuitive collaboration features of Microsoft Teams with crystal clear call quality. The Society will also benefit from end-to-end service management, which will continuously monitor and optimise experience, from the beginning of a voice call right the way through to their Teams tenant environment.

With BT, we migrated our contact centre and telephony systems to the cloud, creating a more flexible infrastructure that’s future-ready.

Dominic Woodall

Head of Portfolio, Coventry Building Society

The result 
All together, better for the future
Today, The Society’s new, evergreen contact centre environment delivers easy customer interactions. With newly automated IVR routing and cross-channel integration, customers are always securely escalated appropriately, and agents are free to focus on the most complex, sensitive enquiries. Through this transformation, the building society have boosted customer satisfaction, reduced call times and increased operational efficiencies.

Across The Society’s entire workforce, the new workforce management platform is improving cross-department collaboration, so employees can work together, better. The strong integration between the Genesys Cloud Contact Centre and Microsoft Teams makes internal collaboration easy, while shared contacts and directories lead to smooth workflows. Plus, our tailor-made service wrap manages all servicing requirements, proactively monitors and maintains the solutions and our reporting tools support smart decision-making.

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

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