Gunter Van Craen - CDIO at Bekaert - Embracing Digital Transformation

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Poland 5-12-25 Invitation Only Physical Polish
Liderzy biznesowi pokładają ogromne nadzieje w agentach AI, widząc w nich szansę na zbudowanie przewagi konkurencyjnej. Rzadko jednak pada zasadnicze pytanie: czy cyfrowy fundament organizacji – dane, integracje, systemy – jest na to gotowy? Czy obecna strategia integracji wspiera ambicje biznesowe, czy je spowalnia? Podczas naszego biznesowego śniadania CIONET, organizowanego we współpracy z Digia (Finlandia) i Savangard, przyjrzymy się trendom, które dziś definiują architekturę i integracje w Europie i w Polsce. W gronie ok. 20 liderów IT porozmawiamy m.in. o tym: Czy strategia integracji danych i aplikacji powinna uwzględniać przyszłe zastosowania AI? Jak przekształcić kluczowe dane w powtarzalne „data products”, które przyspieszają dostarczanie wartości biznesowej? W jakim kierunku ewoluują platformy integracyjne – iPaaS i API Management? Cloudification - jakie lekcje wynoszą firmy, które przeszły takie transformacje z legacy do nowoczesnej integracji w chmurze? Jak zorganizować „integration core team”, który wzmacnia rozproszone i coraz bardziej niezależne zespoły technologiczne? Spotkanie odbędzie się w kameralnej atmosferze Centrum Praskiego Koneser (CHPTR) i będzie prowadzone w formule dyskusyjnej – z myślą o praktykach zajmujących się modernizacją architektury, integracją systemów i przygotowaniem IT na kolejne lata.
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Poland 8-12-25 Invitation Only Physical Polish
W wielu firmach monitoring wydaje się działać poprawnie, dopóki nie spojrzymy na to, czego nie widać: luki między narzędziami, brak wspólnego obrazu usług, opóźnienia między zdarzeniem a decyzją. W takiej sytuacji trudno wcześnie wykryć degradację, oszacować wpływ incydentów na klientów czy przewidzieć ryzyka, które uderzają w biznes, zanim IT zdąży zareagować. Podczas CIONET Executive Roundtable, którego partnerem jest Spluk, porozmawiamy o tym, ile organizacje tracą na rozproszonym monitoringu i jak wiele można zyskać, gdy staje się on spójnym systemem, a nie zbiorem narzędzi. Zastanowimy się, jak połączyć dane z aplikacji, infrastruktury i biznesu w jeden obraz, który realnie wspiera szybkość reakcji, stabilność usług i jakość decyzji.
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International 9-12-25 Public Virtual english
The CIONET Awards 2026: Part 1, the premier celebration of excellence in digital mission and leadership. During this event the spotlight falls on two of the most critical arenas in modern enterprise: Applications & Architecture and Data & AI. Prepare for a dynamic session where each nominee will present their groundbreaking achievements.
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Brazil 9-12-25 Country Members Physical portuguese
Cerimônia de Premiação CIONET BRASIL 2025.Reconheceremos as Empresas Líderes em Excelência Tecnológica em Projetos e os Líderes Digitais do Ano 2025.Quando?09 de Dezembro de 2025A partir das 18:30Onde?Sheraton São Paulo WTC HotelInscrições online: https://www.cionet.com/pt-br/events/pr%C3%AAmios-cionet-brasil-2025
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Netherlands 9-12-25 Invitation Only english
At this exclusive CIONET Executive Roundtable, hosted in partnership with It’s Value, we will explore how Technology Business Management (TBM) principles can help CIOs and IT leaders make data-driven financial decisions that drive measurable business value.
Read MoreNetherlands 9-12-25 Invitation Only Physical english
Digital transformation and ongoing economic uncertainty are intensifying the pressure on IT leaders to do more with less. In this environment, gaining precise control over IT costs—while continuing to deliver effective, efficient, and innovative technology operations—is more critical than ever. At this exclusive CIONET Executive Roundtable, hosted in partnership with It’s Value, we will explore how Technology Business Management (TBM) principles can help CIOs and IT leaders make data-driven financial decisions that drive measurable business value. Key Discussion Themes Turning data insights into smarter IT investment decisions Setting priorities for cost optimisation and maximising ROI Quantifying and communicating the business value of IT initiatives Evaluating the principles of FinOps and the implications of public, private, and hybrid cloud environments for cost management Embedding effective change management to drive adoption and alignment Achieving tangible business outcomes from AI initiatives while maintaining fiscal discipline The evening will also feature a fireside chat with Sunil Anand, Global Head of Technology Business Management at National Grid. Sunil will share practical lessons and key milestones, retracing the National Grid cost management journey. This dinner offers a unique opportunity to: Exchange experiences with peers facing similar challenges Gain insights from TBM experts and industry practitioners Reassess your own IT financial strategy in a relaxed, collegial setting Join us for an evening of insight, discussion, and connection—designed to help you strengthen IT’s role as a true business value driver.
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Belgium Dec 4, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english
CIONET is committed to highlighting and celebrating female role models in IT, Tech & Digital, creating a leadership programme that empowers and elevates women within the tech industry. This initiative is dedicated to showcasing the achievements and successes of leading women, fostering an environment where female role models are recognised, and their contributions can ignite progress and inspire the next generation of women in IT.
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International Dec 9, 2025 Public Virtual english
The CIONET Awards 2026: Part 1, the premier celebration of excellence in digital mission and leadership. During this event the spotlight falls on two of the most critical arenas in modern enterprise: Applications & Architecture and Data & AI. Prepare for a dynamic session where each nominee will present their groundbreaking achievements.
Read More
Netherlands Dec 9, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english
Digital transformation and ongoing economic uncertainty are intensifying the pressure on IT leaders to do more with less. In this environment, gaining precise control over IT costs—while continuing to deliver effective, efficient, and innovative technology operations—is more critical than ever. At this exclusive CIONET Executive Roundtable, hosted in partnership with It’s Value, we will explore how Technology Business Management (TBM) principles can help CIOs and IT leaders make data-driven financial decisions that drive measurable business value. Key Discussion Themes Turning data insights into smarter IT investment decisions Setting priorities for cost optimisation and maximising ROI Quantifying and communicating the business value of IT initiatives Evaluating the principles of FinOps and the implications of public, private, and hybrid cloud environments for cost management Embedding effective change management to drive adoption and alignment Achieving tangible business outcomes from AI initiatives while maintaining fiscal discipline The evening will also feature a fireside chat with Sunil Anand, Global Head of Technology Business Management at National Grid. Sunil will share practical lessons and key milestones, retracing the National Grid cost management journey. This dinner offers a unique opportunity to: Exchange experiences with peers facing similar challenges Gain insights from TBM experts and industry practitioners Reassess your own IT financial strategy in a relaxed, collegial setting Join us for an evening of insight, discussion, and connection—designed to help you strengthen IT’s role as a true business value driver.
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Italy Dec 10, 2025 Invitation Only Physical italian
Questa roundtable esclusiva offrirà a CIO, CISO e Leader di ITOps/Engineering un confronto diretto per individuare le migliori strategie di Innovazione che, attraverso l'observability, ottimizzino il Return of Investment.
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Belgium Dec 11, 2025 Country Members Physical english
Imagine being able to monitor, simulate, and optimise an entire city, factory, or supply chain in real time. Next-generation digital twins are making this vision a reality, transforming how we manage and understand complex systems. By creating dynamic virtual replicas of physical assets and processes, digital twins allow organisations to predict issues, optimize performance, and make data-driven decisions with unprecedented accuracy.This event will explore how digital twins are being used across industries to revolutionize the way we operate and maintain large-scale, intricate systems—whether it’s the infrastructure of a smart city, the efficiency of a factory floor, or the resilience of global supply chains.Examples of Digital Twins in Action:Smart Cities: Urban planners can use digital twins to simulate traffic flow, monitor energy usage, or predict the impact of weather events on infrastructure. This enables cities to optimize resources and improve the quality of life for their citizens.Factories of the Future: Manufacturing plants are leveraging digital twins to monitor equipment in real time, prevent downtime, and optimize production lines. With predictive analytics, factories can avoid costly breakdowns and improve overall efficiency.Supply Chain Management: Complex supply chains, spanning continents and industries, can be modeled as digital twins to track shipments, simulate disruptions, and optimize logistics. Businesses can reduce inefficiencies and respond faster to market demands.Key Themes:Real-Time Monitoring and Simulation: How digital twins provide real-time insights into complex systems, allowing for dynamic response and optimization.Predictive Power: Leveraging AI and data analytics, digital twins help organisations predict and mitigate issues before they happen, from equipment failures to supply chain bottlenecks.Scalability Across Ecosystems: Digital twins aren’t limited to individual assets—learn how they can be scaled across entire ecosystems like smart cities or global supply chains for maximum impact.Building Trust and Security: With digital twins handling critical infrastructure and sensitive data, what are the security and governance frameworks needed to ensure trust in these virtual systems?Why You Should Attend:Next-generation digital twins are no longer just a concept—they are revolutionizing industries by offering a new way to manage complexity. Whether you’re looking to optimize a city, factory, or supply chain, this event will provide practical insights into how digital twins can transform your organisation’s operations and drive future innovation.
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Netherlands Dec 11, 2025 Invitation Only Physical dutch
Navigating tommorrow's threatscape: Cybersecurity insights for digital leaders. Op 28 november in de 3D Makers Zone in Haarlem.
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Belgium Dec 4, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english
CIONET is committed to highlighting and celebrating female role models in IT, Tech & Digital, creating a leadership programme that empowers and elevates women within the tech industry. This initiative is dedicated to showcasing the achievements and successes of leading women, fostering an environment where female role models are recognised, and their contributions can ignite progress and inspire the next generation of women in IT.
Read More
International Dec 9, 2025 Public Virtual english
The CIONET Awards 2026: Part 1, the premier celebration of excellence in digital mission and leadership. During this event the spotlight falls on two of the most critical arenas in modern enterprise: Applications & Architecture and Data & AI. Prepare for a dynamic session where each nominee will present their groundbreaking achievements.
Read More
Netherlands Dec 9, 2025 Invitation Only Physical english
Digital transformation and ongoing economic uncertainty are intensifying the pressure on IT leaders to do more with less. In this environment, gaining precise control over IT costs—while continuing to deliver effective, efficient, and innovative technology operations—is more critical than ever. At this exclusive CIONET Executive Roundtable, hosted in partnership with It’s Value, we will explore how Technology Business Management (TBM) principles can help CIOs and IT leaders make data-driven financial decisions that drive measurable business value. Key Discussion Themes Turning data insights into smarter IT investment decisions Setting priorities for cost optimisation and maximising ROI Quantifying and communicating the business value of IT initiatives Evaluating the principles of FinOps and the implications of public, private, and hybrid cloud environments for cost management Embedding effective change management to drive adoption and alignment Achieving tangible business outcomes from AI initiatives while maintaining fiscal discipline The evening will also feature a fireside chat with Sunil Anand, Global Head of Technology Business Management at National Grid. Sunil will share practical lessons and key milestones, retracing the National Grid cost management journey. This dinner offers a unique opportunity to: Exchange experiences with peers facing similar challenges Gain insights from TBM experts and industry practitioners Reassess your own IT financial strategy in a relaxed, collegial setting Join us for an evening of insight, discussion, and connection—designed to help you strengthen IT’s role as a true business value driver.
Read More
Italy Dec 10, 2025 Invitation Only Physical italian
Questa roundtable esclusiva offrirà a CIO, CISO e Leader di ITOps/Engineering un confronto diretto per individuare le migliori strategie di Innovazione che, attraverso l'observability, ottimizzino il Return of Investment.
Read More
Belgium Dec 11, 2025 Country Members Physical english
Imagine being able to monitor, simulate, and optimise an entire city, factory, or supply chain in real time. Next-generation digital twins are making this vision a reality, transforming how we manage and understand complex systems. By creating dynamic virtual replicas of physical assets and processes, digital twins allow organisations to predict issues, optimize performance, and make data-driven decisions with unprecedented accuracy.This event will explore how digital twins are being used across industries to revolutionize the way we operate and maintain large-scale, intricate systems—whether it’s the infrastructure of a smart city, the efficiency of a factory floor, or the resilience of global supply chains.Examples of Digital Twins in Action:Smart Cities: Urban planners can use digital twins to simulate traffic flow, monitor energy usage, or predict the impact of weather events on infrastructure. This enables cities to optimize resources and improve the quality of life for their citizens.Factories of the Future: Manufacturing plants are leveraging digital twins to monitor equipment in real time, prevent downtime, and optimize production lines. With predictive analytics, factories can avoid costly breakdowns and improve overall efficiency.Supply Chain Management: Complex supply chains, spanning continents and industries, can be modeled as digital twins to track shipments, simulate disruptions, and optimize logistics. Businesses can reduce inefficiencies and respond faster to market demands.Key Themes:Real-Time Monitoring and Simulation: How digital twins provide real-time insights into complex systems, allowing for dynamic response and optimization.Predictive Power: Leveraging AI and data analytics, digital twins help organisations predict and mitigate issues before they happen, from equipment failures to supply chain bottlenecks.Scalability Across Ecosystems: Digital twins aren’t limited to individual assets—learn how they can be scaled across entire ecosystems like smart cities or global supply chains for maximum impact.Building Trust and Security: With digital twins handling critical infrastructure and sensitive data, what are the security and governance frameworks needed to ensure trust in these virtual systems?Why You Should Attend:Next-generation digital twins are no longer just a concept—they are revolutionizing industries by offering a new way to manage complexity. Whether you’re looking to optimize a city, factory, or supply chain, this event will provide practical insights into how digital twins can transform your organisation’s operations and drive future innovation.
Read More
Netherlands Dec 11, 2025 Invitation Only Physical dutch
Navigating tommorrow's threatscape: Cybersecurity insights for digital leaders. Op 28 november in de 3D Makers Zone in Haarlem.
Read MoreCarrefour Responds to Security Threats 3x Faster With Splunk Cloud Platform
Discover how Carrefour strengthened its global security posture and accelerated digital innovation by adopting Splunk Cloud Platform. By centralizing data and security monitoring across multiple regions, Carrefour’s Security Operations Center (SOC) now detects and responds to threats three times faster ensuring customers enjoy a safe, reliable, and connected shopping experience across all channels.
What happens when digital growth outpaces legacy defences?
As one of the world’s largest retailers, Carrefour is trusted by millions of customers across Europe, South America and Asia. Yet with every new online store, app feature and “click and collect” service, the pressure on its ageing infrastructure grew. To protect its expanding digital ecosystem and maintain customer trust, Carrefour turned to Splunk Cloud Platform transforming its approach to security, insight and innovation.
With Splunk, Carrefour’s Security Operations Centre (SOC) now detects and responds to threats three times faster, all while freeing up resources to enhance the customer experience.
“Splunk Cloud Platform allows us to refocus on our most important task: ensuring customers always have a safe shopping experience.”— Romaric Ducloux / SOC Analyst / Carrefour
Carrefour’s ambition to deliver a unified, multi-channel shopping experience brought with it new layers of digital complexity. Customers expected the same convenience whether shopping online, via mobile or in store but behind the scenes, security data was fragmented across legacy systems and regions.
The SOC team spent hours maintaining infrastructure and stitching together alerts from disconnected tools. Each system spoke a different language, making it difficult to detect, prioritise or investigate threats in real time.
“We had plenty of data, but not enough visibility,” recalls Ducloux. “Our analysts were managing systems instead of protecting them.”
Carrefour chose Splunk Cloud Platform to unify its global security operations under one intelligent, cloud-based system. Splunk now ingests and analyses logs from every corner of Carrefour’s environment from antivirus software to endpoint detection and response tools automatically raising alerts and opening tickets when anomalies arise.
“Splunk Cloud Platform handles all our logs it’s the cornerstone of our security operations,” says Ducloux.
By moving to the cloud, Carrefour offloaded the management of infrastructure to Splunk, allowing its SOC analysts to focus on higher-value tasks such as threat analysis, forensics and prevention. The result: a more agile, proactive and resilient security posture.
With Splunk Cloud Platform, Carrefour has redefined how it protects its customers and its business.
Three-times faster incident response through centralised, automated alerting.
Real-time visibility into security events across all channels and markets.
Smarter decision-making, powered by actionable data and analytics.
More time for innovation, enabling Carrefour to enhance digital services securely.
The SOC team can now intervene before incidents escalate and, when they do occur, understand precisely what happened and how to prevent a recurrence.
“We get so much value from Splunk,” says Ducloux. “It helps us learn from every incident and strengthen our defences continuously.”
Splunk’s intuitive language and powerful analytics make it accessible not just to technical experts but also to business users. This shared visibility means the entire organisation can act swiftly and independently during a security event.
Using Splunkbase apps, Carrefour easily integrates new data sources and SaaS tools, supporting its ongoing digitisation strategy and its ambitious plan to triple e-commerce sales to €10 billion by 2026.
“Splunk gives us the confidence to innovate, to launch new digital features knowing our security foundation is strong,” adds Ducloux.
Carrefour’s partnership with Splunk has turned its security operations from reactive to predictive. With greater speed, scalability and insight, the company is now better equipped to protect its expanding digital ecosystem while continuing to deliver seamless, trusted shopping experiences worldwide.
“We’ll know we’ve succeeded when customers feel safe and confident wherever and however they shop,” says Ducloux.
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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.
The role of the CIO has evolved from managing systems to shaping outcomes: growth, resilience, and competitive edge are now won or lost in the technology arena. Today ’ s CIOs must balance stability with innovation, control costs while attracting scarce talent, and modernise legacy infrastructure while adopting emerging technologies.
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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Head of IT Germany and Regional Office Lead Munich, Microsoft
IT Director, IT Thinker
Vice president IT & Compliance, VisionaryRCM (A Carlyle Grp Company)
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