<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=2528533714139722&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
New call-to-action
https://4295993.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/4295993/INT_CIONET-International/VIDEO/CIONET_HM.mp4
CIONET - What's next

Connecting ambitious digital leaders and businesses around the globe.

Catch up on the upcoming CIONET Events

             
Banner

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

Read More
Banner

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!

Read More
Banner

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.

Read More
Banner

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.

Read More
Banner

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.

Read More
Banner

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.

Read More

Recent Cases

Please Log In with your CIONET account first

AT&T embraces intelligent automation at scale

Six years into its robotic process automation journey, AT&T has implemented more than 3,000 bots, developed an automation center of excellence, and realized a 20x return on investment.

For CIOs riding today’s rising wave of robotic process automation (RPA), leading-edge adopters whose mature implementations have paid off can provide invaluable lessons about how to make the best of the technology and where its use can lead.

Telecom titan AT&T is one such enterprise, having began RPA trials in 2015 to reduce repetitive tasks for its service delivery group, which had a large volume of circuits to add at the time, as well as various services in play for provisioning networks, says Mark Austin, vice president of data science at AT&T.

“These things would come in large batches, and they would have Excel files and people were literally typing these things in individually into the systems because they weren’t set up for batch,” Austin says. “We heard about RPA at the time, and we started trying it and all of a sudden we were able to automate one process and then the next process and it kind of grew from there.”

With the technology in its early days, the first thing AT&T IT did was go to its compliance and security experts for guidance on governing RPA, which helped the team make its automation tools stable and secure. The next step was to win the battle for hearts and minds within the company by turning skeptics into believers that automation could make employees’ lives better. Initial efforts focused on addressing unpopular, monotonous tasks such as order entry.

 
 

The pilots helped demonstrate how automation could fit into daily operations and workflows.

Within a year, AT&T had implemented 350 automation bots. More than six years into its RPA journey, AT&T has implemented more than 3,000 automation bots. Austin says RPA has helped AT&T recognize hundreds of millions of dollars in annualized value, saved 16.9 million minutes of manual effort each year, and shown a 20x return on investment.

 

Taking RPA to the next level

 

Mark Austin, vice president of data science, AT&T

MARK AUSTIN, VICE PRESIDENT OF DATA SCIENCE, AT&T

 

With RPA ingrained in its business process DNA, AT&T opted to combine automation with data science and the chief data office because it believes the future is in smarter bots that leverage AI functionality, such as OCR or natural language processing (NLP), an emerging strategy often referred to as intelligent automation.

“Tying those things together is pretty powerful,” says Austin, who runs AT&T’s data science, AI, and automation group.

By way of example, Austin points to what he considers one of the company’s biggest RPA successes: a bot his group has created that uses OCR to scan vehicle registration documents and NLP to understand those documents and any necessary actions AT&T must take in support of more than 10,000 technician vehicles, one of the largest vehicle fleets in the US. If payments are required, the bot can also trigger the payment process.

 

Being able to create automation bots such as these was invaluable when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit, Austin says.

“There were a lot of customers that were calling and saying they wanted to move the charges from this org to that org in their company,” Austin says. “Someone might call up and say they wanted to move 5,000 lines. What we do now is we have them interface with [interactive voice response (IVR)]. The IVR detects what they want to do and then it triggers a bot to send them a secure form to fill out. They fill out the form, submit that back, and we run the bot to automate the process to get it going.”

The company has also rolled out bots to help customers avoid overage charges. One such bot monitors usage of AT&T’s integrated voice, video, messaging, and meeting services, more than 21,000 records per minute, looking for overage charges above a pre-set amount. If it encounters one, it automatically notifies the customer and the assigned AT&T sales rep.

 

Codifying RPA best practices

After the first year of pilots, with demand for RPA spreading rapidly through the business, AT&T created an automation center of excellence (COE) to accelerate implementation.

“When you’re the size of AT&T, and you’ve had so many mergers and so many systems, there’s just lots of manual processes,” Austin says, explaining why it was essential to create a COE that could focus on implementing automation throughout the organization.

The centralized automation team now boasts 20 full-time employees and some contractors as well. Austin notes that the real secret to successfully scaling automation is spreading RPA knowledge throughout the organization. The COE helps develop, deploy, manage, measure, and enable automation projects across AT&T. More importantly, it seeks to educate subject matter experts in automating their own tasks and processes.

 

“Pretty early on, we figured out that if you really want to scale, you’ve got to move to training others how to do it, teach them how to fish, so to speak,” Austin says. “Ninety-two percent of everything we do with the 3,000 bots is done outside of my team. If you’re not an IT person, it’s maybe 40 hours of training.”

The company has trained more than 2,000 citizen RPA developers who have built the lion’s share of AT&T’s 3,000 automation bots. To support them, the company has created a “Bot Marketplace” where citizen developers can “shop” for ready-to-use tools and support to get their automation solutions up and running. The marketplace stores and shares low-code and no-code automation solutions and tools. It now adds roughly 75 new blueprints of reusable automation components every month.

As RPA knowledge has spread, Austin says the lines of business have started forming their own automation teams, creating a hybrid model in which the COE provides tools and support, while front-line teams in the lines of business implement automation.

 

“They even have some new job titles popping up,” Austin says. “We’ve got a couple process automation managers and automation developers that we’re seeing out there. On our team, we’re continuing to move to automate the process, the platform, and then tie in the data science side.”

When it comes to lessons learned, Austin has some advice for others out there who may be starting their RPA journey. First, start small and get some wins. Second, don’t try to keep things centralized. While the center of excellence has been essential to AT&T’s RPA journey, just as important has been democratizing the effort to scale the proliferation of automation within the company. Finally, evangelization is important. AT&T has created an internal automation summit where groups can present their automation projects to the rest of the company, show off their successes, and help spark new ideas.

Partners

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

 
Banner

Kalman Tiboldi - CTO & Founder at GemOne-TVH - Simplify or Die: Why Complexity Is the Real IT Challenge

Banner

Isabelle Droll - CIO for Airline, Corporate, Hotels & Resorts and Sustainability at TUI - Data, Diversity, and Destinations

Banner

Sharon Prior - CIO in transition - How Great Tech Leadership Begins with Business Thinking

Banner

José Antonio López, Group CIO at TOUS - Jewels, Data & AI: Inside the Digital Transformation of TOUS

Banner

Tom Tanghe - General Manager ITC EMEA at Daikin Europe - Reinventing the CIO Role

Banner

CIOFEST 2025 - From Order Taker to Proactive Disruptor

CIONET Reports

 
Banner
Get your copy

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.

Banner
Get your copy

HDS - From Hype to Reality Navigating the Challenges of GenAI

Banner
Get your copy

Integration In An Era Of AI: Challenges And Opportunities

Join over 10.000 digital leaders worldwide

in our exclusive CIO community

Latest CIONET News

Join your local CIONET community

Discover the CIONET app

Staying ahead of trends and connecting with other CIOs was never easier.

In our new app, our members connect with other digital leaders from around the world to find better solutions to their challenges.

Connect with digital leaders like you

Share ideas, best practices, and new resources

Experience inspiring and thought-provoking content and conversations you can’t find anywhere else

Make better, more well-informed decisions about the topics that are most important to you

Anna Kopp (1)

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:-) ”
Mauricio Amaro

Mauricio Amaro

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.”
Vijay Anand

Vijay Anand

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.

Connect

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

Share

stories, experiences, and ideas around our shared mission.

Learn

from our exclusive events, publications and research.

Find

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

Grow

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

Maximise

your potential. Realise your ambitions.

About CIONET

Join CIONET

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!

Contact us

Would you like to know more about CIONET, membership or partnership opportunities? Do you have feedback or any other question? Send us a message!