Belgium 25-9-25 Invitation Only Physical english
As AI shapes our future, the time is now to address and correct its inherent biases. Join leading female voices in tech as we explore how to undo past mistakes, champion neutrality, and feed AI systems with inclusive, unbiased data. This conference is a call to action for female leaders in AI and tech to ensure the next generation of intelligent systems reflects fairness, diversity, and equity. Together, let’s set things right and redefine the future of AI.
Read MoreBelgium 25-9-25 Invitation Only Physical english
On 25th September, during the Red Hat Summit: Connect 2025 in Brussels, CIONET is hosting an exclusive, invitation-only round table for leading CIOs, CTOs, and digital leaders. While the Summit offers a broad programme, this CIONET session is a separate, distinct event, conducted in its own dedicated room with private catering, ensuring a focused and confidential peer-to-peer discussion. This round table will delve into why certain cloud-native techniques offer undeniable benefits, irrespective of where your applications are deployed, be it on-premise, in a hyperscale cloud, or a hybrid environment. Even outside public clouds, these modern, modular architectures consistently deliver increased agility, enhanced scalability, and quicker time-to-market. The real power behind these advantages lies in automation. When done properly, automation significantly boosts team efficiency, improves system quality, and drastically cuts risks from slow systems or downtime. However, achieving truly effective automation comes with its own set of challenges, which we'll address head-on. Key Discussion Points Include: "No-Regret" Cloud-Native Pillars: We'll try to pinpoint essential techniques every organisation should adopt, such as microservices architecture, containerisation (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes), API-first design, stateless application design, and immutable infrastructure. Why are these crucial for modern applications, no matter the deployment location? Strategic Vendor Lock-in: How to judiciously manage vendor lock-in. For new innovations and applications with a relatively short life expectancy, leveraging the latest unique features of a hyperscale cloud might be beneficial. For long-lived applications (expected to be live for decades), the focus might shift to limiting exposure by utilising generally available technologies. Automation Anywhere: How can organisations effectively implement automation strategies to unlock the full potential of cloud-native initiatives across diverse infrastructures? What are the biggest hurdles, and how are leaders overcoming them? This CIONET round table offers a unique and intimate setting for digital leaders to gain critical insights, exchange perspectives, and shape the strategic path towards application modernisation that truly offers no regrets.
Read MoreBelgium 30-9-25 Squad Only Virtual english
Everyone has technical debt. The question is what to do with it. Refactor now? Wait for the next feature? Build on it and hope it holds? If you’re tired of debating whether to clean up or move on, this session helps you frame the debt conversation in a way that supports both speed and stability.
Read MoreSeptember 30, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Virtual english
Everyone has technical debt. The question is what to do with it. Refactor now? Wait for the next feature? Build on it and hope it holds? If you’re tired of debating whether to clean up or move on, this session helps you frame the debt conversation in a way that supports both speed and stability.
Read MoreOctober 2, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Virtual english
Architecture doesn’t happen in diagrams. It happens in minds, seasoned, curious, sharp minds that understand how the pieces fit. But who’s shaping these minds? Who’s growing the next generation of digital architects? If you’re responsible for complex systems, and for the people designing them, this session is for you.
Read MoreOctober 14, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Virtual english
Agile delivery often collides with inflexible infrastructures. One team wants to release weekly. Another is waiting six months for a new test environment. Sounds familiar? If your infra team is tired of being the bottleneck, and your devs are tired of waiting, this session opens a path forward.
Read MoreAB InBev GCC Uses Azure Synapse Analytics and Power BI for E2E Automation and Increasing Efficiency
Anheuser-Busch InBev is the world’s largest brewer.For AB InBev, quick access to data and conclusions is crucial. Because the current platform is overloaded, the Command Center team created a short-term automated solution with Azure Synapse for Power BI to access data while migrating from the existing platform.platform, allowing stakeholders to still have access to their critical information.
Creating an Automated Foundation for Reporting
Since AB In-Bev was already using Power BI, choosing Azure Synapse to support their data platform made the most sense, as Synapse seamlessly integrates with Power BI and the rest of the Microsoft ecosystem.
The Command Center team used Azure SQL sandbox methodology - a method that allows the BI team to use the performance of SQL Sandbox for data transformations & calculations and use Power BI only for the visualization.
When building out the interim Azure SQL Sandbox solution, the first step was consolidating the data. To prevent the increase in manual work, a high priority was given to automate the movement of Excel files. Users across the organization upload their Excel files to a SharePoint drive. To ensure files were standardized before being used, an automated process via Logic apps, VBA validates the file format, file size, upload time, and more. Once all these features are validated, the file is posted to a new, restricted-access SharePoint folder. This ensures that data can't be moved or removed without proper access.
Figure 1 – High-level overview of AB InBev’s data flow
Once data is properly processed in the SharePoint folders, it’s temporarily moved into Azure Blob Storage’s high performance file system automatically using Azure Logic Apps. From there, Azure Synapse pipelines trigger stored procedures using dedicated SQL pools. This helps offset some of the loading time and improve Power BI performance. A SQL script is then run to create a final table of data and subsequently notify admins via e-mail that the table is ready. Based on a successful notification trigger, Power Automate will automatically refresh Power BI on the node and an automated email will be sent out to the SME to approve release of the Dashboard.
By using Azure Synapse pipelines, AB InBev’s Command Center team was able to automate what before was a very time-consuming part of their ETL pipeline and reduce refresh times by 91%. Synapse effortlessly works with tools like Logic Apps, Power Automate and Power BI to easily bring together all their data sources and ensure the data which users rely on is high-quality and accessible.
Bringing Real-Time Insights to All Corners of AB InBev
With this new data platform and pilot, the team was able to take this solution forward for all complex reporting while they waited for long term data migration to be completed. For AB InBev, Power BI fit their organizational needs by handling different data sources, providing increased efficiency, and reducing operational costs.
One of AB-InBev’s most used dashboards is the Rate & Mix dashboard. The Rate & Mix dashboard tracks the mix of Brand, SKU, Variant and Price. Volume metrics highlight how many products were sold and the Rate highlights the price at which product was sold and whether the product was discounted or not. With this product, the Commercial, FP&A and Revenue Management teams can use these metrics to understand how products are performing in the markets. The products has multiple tabs that enable deep dives and further analysis.
Figure 2 – The Rate Mix Waterfall View provides a general overview of which Mix is driving maximum results and which ones are not performing well
The ease of use with Power BI visuals has empowered individuals across AB InBev to easily access insights to aid decision making and help react to the market quicker.
Building an Insight-Driven Future
Adoption of Power BI across AB InBev involved gradual growth lead by a top-down approach. While many individuals were hesitant to learn a new tool, advocacy from leadership and seeing the effectiveness of Power BI convinced users of the value of Power BI and how it could improve their daily workflow. With the influx of Power BI users, AB InBev built a Power BI Center of Excellence to build products enabling insights across the AB InBev ecosystem.
AB InBev is looking to bring together all their data into one data lake within the next 3-5 years. By consolidating their data pipeline, they plan to fully automate their data flow and improve performance even more. AB InBev is constantly growing and as a result, the organization is always pushing to build a single source of the truth and bring disparate data sources and tools together. Unifying all their data into one data lake will set AB InBev up for easy data integration.
With an automated back end supported by Azure Synapse and Data visualization supported by Power BI, AB InBev has the powerful, competitive edge that empowers users to focus on decision making and react to the market even quicker.
Disclaimer –This post represents the personal views and opinions of the team members involved, based on their experience, and does not necessarily represent the view and opinion of AB InBev. No Warranties, Promises and/or representations of any kind, expressed or implied, are given as to the nature, standard, accuracy or otherwise of the information provided in this article nor to the suitability or otherwise of the information to your particular circumstances. AB InBev is not liable for any loss or damage of whatever nature (direct, indirect, consequential or other) whether arising in contract, tort or otherwise, which may arise from your use of the information in this article, which is provided as is and without any warranties.
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Digital Transformation is redefining the future of health care and health delivery. All stakeholders are convinced that these innovations will create value for patients, healthcare practitioners, hospitals, and governments along the patient pathway. The benefits are starting from prevention and awareness to diagnosis, treatment, short- and long-term follow-up, and ultimately survival. But how do you make sure that your working towards an architecturally sound, secure and interoperable health IT ecosystem for your hospital and avoid implementing a hodgepodge of spot solutions? How does your IT department work together with the other stakeholders, such as the doctors and other healthcare practitioners, Life Sciences companies, Tech companies, regulators and your internal governance and administrative bodies?
Read MoreThe Telenet Business Leadership Circle powered by CIONET, offers a platform where IT executives and thought leaders can meet to inspire each other and share best practices. We want to be a facilitator who helps you optimise the performance of your IT function and your business by embracing the endless opportunities that digital change brings.
Read MoreDécouvrez la dynamique du leadership numérique aux Rencontres de CIONET, le programme francophone exclusif de CIONET pour les leaders numériques en Belgique, rendu possible grâce au soutien et à l'engagement de nos partenaires de programme : Deloitte, Denodo et Red Hat. Rejoignez trois événements inspirants par an à Liège, Namur et en Brabant Wallon, où des CIOs et des experts numériques francophones de premier plan partagent leurs perspectives et expériences sur des thèmes d'affaires et de IT actuels. Laissez-vous inspirer et apprenez des meilleurs du secteur lors de sessions captivantes conçues spécialement pour soutenir et enrichir votre rôle en tant que CIO pair. Ne manquez pas cette opportunité de faire partie d'un réseau exceptionnel d'innovateurs numériques !
Read MoreCIONET 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. Our mission is to shine the spotlight a little brighter on female role models in IT, Tech & Digital, and to empower each other through this inner network community.
Read MoreWould you like to know more about CIONET Belgium, membership or partnership opportunities? Do you have feedback or any other question? Send us a message!
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!