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Belgium 10-3-26 All Members Physical english

The Composable Enterprise: Engineered with AI

From modular business design to AI-driven pipelines, architectures, and operationsA composable enterprise is built on modular processes, API-driven ecosystems, low-code platforms, and cloud-native services. It promises speed and adaptability by allowing organisations to reconfigure their capabilities as conditions change. However, modular design alone does not guarantee resilience; the way these systems are engineered and operated is just as important.This is where AI is beginning to make a difference. Beyond generating snippets of code, AI is already influencing how entire systems are developed and run: accelerating CI/CD pipelines, improving test coverage, optimising Infrastructure-as-Code, sharpening observability, and even shaping architectural decisions. These changes directly affect how quickly new business components can be deployed, connected, and retired.In this session, we will examine how CIOs can bring these two movements together:Composable design is the framework for flexibility and modularity.AI-augmented engineering is the force that delivers the speed, quality, and intelligence needed to sustain it.The pitfalls of treating them in isolation: composability that collapses under slow engineering cycles, or AI that only adds complexity without a modular structure.The discussion goes beyond concepts to practical implications: how to architect organisations that can be recomposed at speed, without losing control or reliability. The outcome is an enterprise that is not only modular in design but also engineered to adapt continuously under real-world conditions.

Belgium 12-3-26 Physical english

The Third-Party Risk Reckoning: How far can you trust your vendors?

Tomato! Tomato! Tomato! Get your tomato now! Every vendor sells security. And every company depends on vendors, partners, and suppliers. The more digital the business becomes, the longer that list grows, and so does the attack surface. One weak link, and there is always one, or one missed update, and trust collapses faster than any firewall can react. What used to be a procurement checklist has become a full-time discipline. Questionnaires, audits, and endless documentation prove that everyone’s “compliant,” yet incidents keep happening. So it’s clear: the issue isn’t lack of policy, or maybe a bit, but mostly lack of visibility. Beyond a certain point, even the most secure organisation is only as safe as its least prepared partner (or an employee who hadn’t had their morning coffee). So how far can you trust your vendors? How do you check what you can’t control? And when does assurance become theatre instead of protection? Does it come at a different cost? Let’s exchange what works and what fails in third-party risk management: live monitoring, shared responsibility models, contractual levers, and the reality of building trust in a chain you don’t own. A closed conversation for those redefining what partnership means when risk is shared but accountability isn’t.

Belgium 19-3-26 Country Members Physical french

Vendor Detox: La consolidation vaut-elle le risque ?

Moins de Partenaires : La consolidation vaut-elle le risque ? Le problème est la prolifération des fournisseurs : trop d'outils causant de la complexité, une taxe d'intégration paralysante et de la redondance. La Taxe d'Intégration est le coût caché (en temps, en échecs et en ressources) d'essayer de faire fonctionner ensemble des systèmes disparates. Cet échange se concentre sur des stratégies éprouvées pour simplifier de manière agressive le parc technologique, consolider les fournisseurs et élever certains fournisseurs clés au rang de partenaires stratégiques.

March 12, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical english

The Third-Party Risk Reckoning: How far can you trust your vendors?

March 24, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical english

Killing Zombie Projects: Knowing when to stop, restart, or quietly let go

Every organisation has them, projects that keep running long after their purpose has faded. No one remembers who asked for them, but shutting them down feels riskier than keeping them alive. And eventually, people stay assigned, budgets stay allocated, and energy drains into work that no longer matters. Inertia at its finest.

March 26, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical english

Measuring Value in AI Initiatives: Defining ROI, accountability, and measurable outcomes in complex environments

AI projects continue to multiply, but proving their value remains difficult. Most organisations can track activity, not impact. Dashboards count pilots and models, yet few translate to measurable business outcomes. The result is familiar: success stories without clarity on what they actually delivered.

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National Express drives into the future with webMethods.io Integration in the cloud

National Express UK is a leading British public transport operator with bus and coach services. It is part of Mobico Group, which operates in 12 countries and its 51,000 employees help millions of people get to work, to their loved ones, and beyond—safely, and on time—365 days a year.

New Challenges

Need for an omnichannel approach
Dynamic pricing and consistent travel options
Third-party, integrated journeys and sales
Creating a unified Mobility-as-a-Service with API

Key Benefits

Integrated all systems for a single source of truth
Built reusable microservices and rich APIs
Scaled new cloud-powered revenue by 1600% in one year
Increased website revenue from 60% to 80%
Prepared for Mobility-as-a-Service

Software AG Solutions

webMethods.io Integration and API Management

“Mobility-as-a-Service is the future, and we intend to be in the driver’s seat. We value the genuine partnership with Software AG that is helping make our journey possible.”

- Alan Brooks | CTO | Mobico Group

"One platform" for every journey

Since its founding in 1972, National Express UK has embraced technological innovation both online and off. As a result, the company’s website was already driving 60% of group revenue by 2013. However, being in the fast lane online while also having legacy kiosks, on-transport operator sales and call centers, led to disparate systems, siloed data, and vendor solutions that required a workaround approach to communicate.

“Aside from increasing costs and complexity from running half a dozen walled-off systems,” says Alan Brooks, CTO, Mobico Group, “the most troubling part was that a customer not only saw drastically different, non-targeted prices across channels, but he or she actually encountered different routes and journeys depending on the channel. That was a major problem.”

The solution? Build fully integrated, omni-channel capabilities. The way to do it? With webMethods.io Integration — on-premises and in the cloud.

By creating what Brooks and his team nicknamed ”one platform” internally, National Express unified its data and integrated it across all channels to deliver targeted, dynamic pricing and consistent, seamless journey options that not only made customers smile—but boosted third-party integrated revenue by as much as 16x in just one year.

The secret ingredient

“Software AG and webMethods.io Integration are absolutely the glue that brings it all together for us,” says Brooks.

For instance, in the coach business at National Express in the UK, logic for rules governing customer journeys, price ladders, price points and more is embedded in microservices, with webMethods supporting rich APIs so that everything is built on a fully-integrated, unified foundation. These microservices are highly reusable across all channels and capacities. So once a payments microservice was developed for the web—it could also be used in kiosks, call centers and everywhere else that National Express accepts customer payments.

But reusability doesn’t end there. Beyond its coach business, National Express is responsible for the overwhelming majority of urban bus trips in the UK’s West Midlands, buses and coaches for Premier League matches and special accessibility transportation, so everybody has access to mobility no matter their physical situation.

Cloud super-scaling

“Our industry advantage as one of the first users of webMethods in the cloud was huge,” says Brooks. “Easy, flexible, fast cloud-based scalability opened a major new channel for us to offer exclusive coach journeys directly via the largest online retailer of train tickets in the UK, seamlessly with their own journeys. Since we didn’t know what kind of volume we’d encounter, the cloud was the way to go.”

Best of all, webMethods.io Integration in the cloud has made it possible for National Express to keep adding new vendors and expanding across borders. Our integration to transport aggregation platforms has enabled travelers from Europe to purchase our services easily before they even leave the house, all thanks to webMethods and its cloud-based, super-scaling ability.

Mobility-as-a-Service

A single smart-card, ticket or app powering any form of local transportation in a seamless experience is the future of urban and regional transportation. And instead of waiting for a Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) platform to come to National Express, letting someone else shape how it looks—the company is harnessing webMethods to build its own MaaS platform, providing APIs other transportation companies can integrate.

Not only does this ensure that National Express doesn’t have to rely on someone else’s timelines, but it gives the company powerful access to data that can drive critical decisions in the future.

“Mobility-as-a-Service is the future, and we intend to be in the driver’s seat,” says Brooks, “but the truth is that such an agile, flexible, forward-looking approach is only possible when you’re working with a real partner, not just another vendor. I’ve had plenty of opportunities to look at alternatives, but what keeps me coming back to Software AG is our partnership. It’s something you cannot buy.”

Technologies

Software AG API management - WEBMETHODS.IO Software AG Application Integration - WEBMETHODS.IO

Partners

CIONET Business Circles

Healthcare Circle

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?

Telenet Business Leadership Circle

The 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.

Les Rencontres

Découvrez 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 !

Female Leadership Circle

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. 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.