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Belgium 21-4-26 Invitation Only Physical english

From Victim to Victor: Cyber resilience is a means, providing Business Continuity the goal

In an era where every outage, audit, and cyberattack is a test of organisational survival, resilience has become the new currency of trust. While traditional perimeter security with: firewalls, intrusion detection, and scanners, remains essential, it is no longer a sufficient guarantee against modern threats that bypass these layers to penetrate your core systems. Today, enterprises require security and continuity that are built-in, not bolted-on. This CIONET roundtable focuses on the shift from reactive disaster recovery to proactive Business Continuity. Together with experts from HPE Zerto, we will explore how organisations can transform their recovery strategies into seamless continuity models.

Belgium 23-4-26 Country Members Physical & Virtual english

CIOFEST BELGIUM: Leadership in the Agentic Era

AI is no longer confined to supporting human tasks. We are entering the agentic era, where autonomous systems act on behalf of people and organisations. These agents can gather information, make decisions, negotiate terms, and even complete transactions. The implications extend well beyond technology; they touch the very foundations of business models, governance, and leadership. For CIOs and their peers, the rise of “machine customers” and autonomous partners poses new questions: Market impact: How do you compete and create value when some customers and suppliers are machines? Governance: What trust, compliance, and accountability structures are needed when AI acts independently in financial, procurement, or customer-facing processes? Leadership: How should CIOs guide their organisations in redefining roles, responsibilities, and decision-making when agents take over parts of the value chain?Business strategy: What opportunities emerge for new revenue models, platforms, and ecosystems shaped by autonomous interaction? This session shifts the focus from the mechanics of AI agents to the decisions that will shape leadership in the next decade. It is a call for CIOs to prepare for a future where relationships, markets, and strategies are no longer limited to human-to-human interactions, but also extend to human-to-machine and machine-to-machine interactions.

Belgium 29-4-26 Invitation Only Physical english

Building Future-Ready Application Ecosystems in the Age of Intelligent Automation

This CIONET workshop is a collaborative deep-dive into the practicalities of"rewiring the building" while it’s still occupied. Drawing onKyndryl’s deep heritage in mission-critical infrastructure and their latestresearch, we will dismantle the "hidden costs" of legacyenvironments. The conversation will focus on the transition from static,monolithic structures to composable architectures that allow intelligent agentsto operate seamlessly across hybrid landscapes.

May 12, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical english

Product-Centric IT 2.0: Blending product and project thinking

Everyone says they’ve gone product-centric. In reality, most organisations live in a hybrid world where projects, products, and platforms overlap. Teams manage releases while still chasing deadlines, and governance still thinks in milestones rather than outcomes. The shift is underway, but the mindset hasn’t caught up.

May 19, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical english

AI vs AI in Cybersecurity: When defenders and attackers both use AI

The game has changed, clearly. Attackers have AI, defenders have AI, and both sides are learning faster than anyone expected, or maybe the attackers are just a bit faster. What used to take hours now happens in seconds, and detection windows close before alerts even appear. It’s adaptation beyond automation, and no one gets to sit still.

May 22, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical english

Managing Vendor Lock-In: Balancing dependence, cost, and control in strategic partnerships

Every vendor swears their platform is open, flexible, and built for freedom. Then comes the renewal date. The price goes up, migration looks painful, and “strategic partnership” starts to feel more like dependency. Most organisations don’t get trapped overnight, they walk into it one contract at a time. Broadcom, anyone?

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Helping FCA Automotive Services bring its contact centre in-house

A simple, affordable solution for a global finance powerhouse

Overview
When FCA Automotive Services UK needed to set up an all-new financial services operation, Moiz Sheikh had the challenge of setting up a contact centre from scratch. But partnering with us and using Cloud Contact made the process a breeze.

Cloud Contact doesn’t need onsite hardware or software. This makes it fast and straightforward to set up – and, because it’s pay-as-you-go, it requires no capital expenditure either. Moiz can increase or decrease the service instantly, so he gets the exact contact centre his new business needs.

The challenge
FCA Automotive Services UK offers a huge range of finance options for vehicles from Fiat Group Automobiles, as well as other household names like Jaguar Land Rover. It focuses on three areas: contract hire for personal and business customers, dealer financing to provide working capital for vehicle stock, and customer financing for personal contract purchase or regular hire purchase.

Until recently, FCA Automotive Services outsourced its customer financing operation to a large financial services company. But as the financial climate changed, it decided to bring the operation in-house. Moiz Sheikh, IT Services Manager at FCA Automotive Services UK, explains: “Insourcing our customer financing operation meant building a new business from scratch, finding accommodation, and recruiting around 80 people.”

FCA Automotive Services chose serviced offices to house the new team, which meant it needed a contact centre. The centre had to be robust enough to deal with the company’s existing 120,000 customers, and be scalable for potential business growth. With Fiat Group’s worldwide contract already sitting with us, it made sense for FCA Automotive Services to work with us, too.

Moiz Sheikh continues: “Initially we thought we’d build and run our own physical contact centre and I looked at various solutions including those in use by Volkswagen and Citroen. But ultimately we chose BT Cloud Contact. As a hosted service it enabled more rapid deployment and helped conserve our capital.”

BT gave us the guidance we needed to get our business up and running quickly. BT Cloud Contact was the most cost effective solution.”

Moiz SheikhIT Services Manager, FCA Automotive Services UK

The solution
Available worldwide, Cloud Contact is a web-based contact centre that can support over 1,000 agents. It has full multimedia capability, so incoming voice calls can mix with email, web chat, co-browsing, and call-back requests in one seamless queue.

There are no hardware constraints and it doesn’t need physical infrastructure or software on site. With Cloud Contact, agents can literally be anywhere – a company site, at home, or on the move. The only equipment agents need is a PC with a headset or laptop with an internet connection.

Cloud Contact has a range of advanced features, like interactive voice response for customer self-service. Enhanced call steering and skills-based routing direct customers to the best qualified agent, wherever they are. It can also integrate with other back office systems via an open API (application programming interface).

FCA Automotive Services has paired the capability of Cloud Contact with a range of Inbound Contact freefone and non-geographic numbers for different customer segments. We also supplied One Voice Featureline fixed line centrex voice services for contact centre agents at the new office. As well as IP Connect wide area network connectivity for corporate network and internet access under our global agreement with Fiat Group.

We delivered an initial 30-agent package on schedule. And we gave new users and administrators on-site training. “BT Cloud Contact is proving to be perfect for us,” confirms Moiz Sheikh, “as it’s hosted we didn’t need to do anything internally. It was very fast to set up and the flexible commercial terms give us the business agility we require. You can move it anywhere and add or even reduce the number of agents connected – and you only pay for what you need.”

The result
Thanks to Cloud Contact, FCA Automotive Services have been able to quickly bring its customer financing operation in house, using an agile multimedia contact centre to provide customer service excellence. And they did it all without spending a lot of money or taking on a big business risk.

Cloud Contact’s multimedia capabilities will continue to support the business as it grows and evolves. Plus, the transportable nature of the contact centre platform has also allowed FCA Automotive Services to become more resilient and plan for the future – safe in the knowledge that their agents can work from anywhere.

“BT Cloud Contact has met our expectations in every way,” sums up Moiz Sheikh. “It’s been straightforward to deploy, it’s easy to use, it’s proving to be simple to administer, and it gives us the information we need to manage our business.”

FCA Automotive Services has already extended the contact centre to around 60 agents – incorporating its dealer financing and contract hire businesses, as well as supporting two other Fiat Group operations. We’re now discussing using Cloud Contact for FCA Automotive Services in Italy.

CIONET Business Circles

Cyber Circle

CIONET’s Cyber Circle: a new three-event programme exclusively focusing on the most urgent, complex, and high-impact challenges in cybersecurity today. Launched in 2026, this initiative brings together CISOs, CIOs, and senior IT executives with a strong interest in cybersecurity for three curated gatherings each year. As part of CIONET’s trusted executive community, the Cyber Circle provides a confidential, peer-driven environment to exchange insights, share real-world experiences, and address evolving cyber threats. Each session is designed to foster strategic dialogue, strengthen resilience, and elevate cybersecurity as a core driver of business value.

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.