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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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How the world’s largest ad company optimizes FinOps

WPP, the world's largest marketing services company, faced skyrocketing cloud costs due to sprawl across multiple platforms. The Challenge: Gaining visibility into cloud spending and optimizing resource usage. The Solution: Implementing IBM Apptio Cloudability for cost transparency and IBM Turbonomic for automated resource management.

 
Seeking greater visibility into cloud sprawl and spend
 

If you’re one of the approximately 120 million people who tune in each year for the Super Bowl—or at least for the commercials—you’ve seen WPP’s work. If you’re an employee at a Fortune Global 500 corporation, your company has likely worked with WPP.

With more than 2,000 offices under its ownership, WPP is the world’s largest marketing services company, running a global enterprise that produces high-end work spanning the full marketing spectrum, from advertising campaigns, social media management and influencer marketing to commerce solutions, app development, CRM implementation and more. It’s a massively data-centric business.

In recent years, as WPP shifted its IT to a hybrid, multicloud model to gain critical IT and application agility, costs skyrocketed. “We went from paying a fixed bill every month for a set amount of physical assets, to being charged for resources literally by the minute,” says Paul Cocks, WPP’s Director of Global Technology Services. With thousands of disparate organizations building in the cloud for their own needs, WPP faced major cloud sprawl.

 

“We really didn’t know how much we were spending,” says Ananta Manandhar, WPP’s Head of FinOps. “We had hundreds of accounts across all major public clouds. A key objective was consolidated visibility.”

 

On the technology side, Mr. Cocks and his colleague, Cost-Optimization Lead Alan Burnett, recognized the potential for saving millions of dollars by eliminating underutilized computing resources. They wanted to master the art of right-sizing and make the cost dynamics of cloud work in the company’s favor.

 

30% reduction in yearly cloud spend

 
 

Up to 1,000 automated resizing actions every month

 
During the POV, it would have paid for itself ten times over. 
Paul CocksDirector of Global Technology ServicesWPP
 
 Gaining spend visibility and optimizing cloud usage
 

WPP created a well-rounded, efficient FinOps practice by applying two technologies: IBM Apptio™ Cloudability (link resides outside of ibm.com) and IBM® Turbonomic®. The Finance team uses IBM Apptio Cloudability to see exactly how much WPP is spending, and where, across all companies and all cloud platforms. The Operations team uses Turbonomic to expedite savings by efficiently optimizing resources by way of AI-driven sizing recommendations and automated resizing actions.

IBM Apptio Cloudability came first. After evaluating it against a third-party offering, WPP implemented the IBM solution and quickly achieved spend visibility across 99% of its cloud landscape, including AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). “It just worked,” says Mr. Manandhar. “It has very good APIs for integrating across the environment. We onboarded hundreds of billing accounts and mapped the usage to stakeholders. It showed us an actual dollar view; an invoice view; a usage view, including anomalies; and an amortized view. And when we compared it with data directly from the cloud suppliers, it was very accurate. That helped rapidly build trust in our recharging ops with our users.”

Next, Mr. Cocks and Mr. Burnett engaged IBM for a Turbonomic proof of value (POV) that revealed enormous savings potential. Mr. Burnett, who’d gained extensive optimization experience in a previous role at another major enterprise, deployed Turbonomic in one of WPP’s Azure tenants and let the solution generate resourcing recommendations. Mr. Burnett selected from the recommendations to execute 1,100 resizing actions, many through Turbonomic automations.

“During the POV, it would have paid for itself ten times over,” says Mr. Cocks.

WPP has now officially deployed Turbonomic in its Azure environment and will phase it into its other clouds. “It’s revealed massive right-sizing potential and a lot of unused resources—too much to scale down manually,” says Mr. Burnett. On his Turbonomic interface, he views thousands of autogenerated sizing recommendations in addition to the cost impact they would have. The Operations team breaks the host of recommendations into manageable chunks and engages with users to identify which actions make good business sense.

Then, the team can resize with great efficiency using the bulk actions functionality in Turbonomic. They’ve basically doubled the pace they achieved in the POV, now taking approximately 1,000 actions every one to two months. “We got rid of 500 unattached disks in one weekend, saving a quarter of a million dollars,” says Mr. Burnett. “You can’t do that without automation. It enables a pace that really helps bring cloud costs under control.”

 
We got rid of 500 unattached disks in one weekend, saving a quarter of a million dollars. You can’t do that without automation. It enables a pace that really helps bring cloud costs under control. 
Alan BurnettCost-Optimization LeadWPP
 
 
 Significant savings and a new culture of optimization
 

In just the first three months of using IBM Apptio Cloudability, WPP achieved about USD 2 million in savings. Since supercharging FinOps with both IBM Apptio Cloudability and Turbonomic, the company is saving about 30% on its yearly cloud spend.

Now the focus is shifting, according to Mr. Manandhar, “from making it efficient to keeping it efficient, going from campaign mode to regular operations mode.” His team uses the live dashboard feature of IBM Apptio Cloudability to monitor costs and trends and generate monthly reports of ongoing savings potential—setting up targets for Turbonomic as the Operations team applies it first to GCP, then to AWS.

With such clear visibility into costs, usage and waste, WPP is instilling a culture of FinOps in the enterprise. “When you demonstrate that volume of optimization opportunity,” says Mr. Burnett, “it just makes everybody much more aware of how we can drive costs down rather than accept what we’ve got.”

“Because we’re tracking it, people are starting to budget it. They’re actively supporting the overall optimization,” says Mr. Manandhar. “It’s bringing about a cultural difference, creating a much closer partnership between business, finance and the engineering team.”

 
It’s bringing about a cultural difference, creating a much closer partnership between business, finance and the engineering team. 
Ananta ManandharHead of FinOpsWPP
 
 
About WPP
 

WPP plc  owns many prominent agencies in communications, experience, commerce and technology & data. In total, the organization employs approximately 114,000 people in 100 or more countries and works with more than 300 Fortune Global 500 companies. WPP is headquartered in London.

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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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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“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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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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