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Belgium 27-8-26 AB Members Physical english

Summer Festival: Advisory Board

CIO agendas are crowded: cost pressure, cyber, regulation, talent, data, AI, vendor dependency, business expectations. Most organisations are trying to do too much at once, and the “must-do” work often blocks the strategic work. CIONET only creates value if its agenda matches what CIOs truly need, in the right format, at the right time. The challenge Pick the few priorities that matter most for 2027, then translate them into a clear CIONET agenda. Outcome we leave with A ranked CIO agenda for 2027, and a directly aligned CIONET programme outline (themes, formats, cadence), with a shortlist of speaker and case targets.

Belgium 27-8-26 Country Members Physical english

Summerfest: From Story to Habit

How to align people, shift routines, and prove value Technology transformations often fail not because the tools don’t work, but because people don’t change their work habits. Boards want proof of value, executives want business outcomes, IT wants clarity, and employees want ease. Between these expectations, the CIO’s role is no longer just to deliver platforms; it is to tell the story that motivates people and turn that story into daily habits. This session will explore: The narrative: how to craft a simple, repeatable story that explains the “why” behind change for every stakeholder. From story to routine: practical ways to embed new behaviours through manager rituals, team incentives, and visible leadership. Reskilling and new expectations: preparing teams for evolving roles, from cross-department collaboration to AI-enhanced workflows. Measuring what matters: showing progress in speed, quality, and resilience — not just in licences bought or trainings completed. The aim is to equip CIOs with a leadership toolkit: a story that unites, habits that endure, and proof that convinces even the toughest boardroom.

Belgium 8-9-26 Invitation Only Virtual english

What an AI Architect Actually Does in Practice; Skills, responsibilities, interfaces, and career moves behind one of the most misunderstood emerging roles.

The AI architect role is becoming more visible, and the scope varies across organisations. The challenge is defining what the role owns, where it sits, and how it works with existing architecture, data, security, risk, and business teams. Three pressure points need clarity. - Role definition matters because the position can span solution architecture, data architecture, governance, integration, security, vendor selection, and business process design. - Interfaces matter because the role must connect teams while respecting existing responsibilities. - Skills matter because technical depth needs to be combined with judgement around controls, delivery choices, and operational boundaries. The working question is simple: how do we define the AI architect role so it becomes useful, credible, and connected to delivery? If this role is emerging in your organisation, let’s compare how others are defining it and where they are placing it.

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Supporting PUMA's move to cloud voice with Microsoft Teams with BT

Learn about how BT have been supporting PUMA’s push towards a harmonised global voice and collaboration platform with a cloud-based solution from Microsoft Teams.

Overview
Sports company PUMA is known worldwide for relentlessly pushing sport and culture forward by creating fast products for the world’s fastest athletes. The German company is present in more than 120 countries.

When it comes to communications and collaboration, PUMA have taken decisive action to deliver the tools and experiences their people need to keep the business at the front of the market.

We’ve been partnering with PUMA since 2005, so when they wanted to take their cloud communications and collaboration tools up a gear, we were ready with rapid, effective solutions and support.

The challenge
PUMA were using Microsoft Teams as their core collaboration platform, so it made sense to integrate their voice services into the application too. Their drive was to give employees a seamless working experience, focused on a single application. While Microsoft Teams was already used internally, alongside other applications, PUMA also wanted to make it the one-touch solution for communication with external partners and get rid of traditional telephones. From this base, employees would be free to dial out whenever they needed to, and everyone would be reachable via the voice network – removing any barriers to the collaboration and innovation that have made PUMA a success.

Eager to unlock these benefits quickly, PUMA chose to make a rapid, ‘big bang’ change away from a mixture of legacy and cloud Private Branch Exchange (PBX) infrastructure to one, harmonised platform. PUMA wanted a partner that could provide managed voice functionality into Microsoft Teams on a global scale. This needed to include a global SIP service, all number porting and the ability to deliver voice directly into the Microsoft Azure cloud. In addition, the service also needed to connect some analogue devices and fax machines.

As a leading global sports brand, we need to be fast and flexible. As such, it was our ambition to have a leading global solution for communication and collaboration – and BT’s integrated solution does exactly that. Combining Microsoft Teams with BT’s global voice services has given us a seamless working experience within a single application.”

Zoran Balenovic

Teamhead IT Communication Systems, PUMA SE

The solution
We created an integrated solution for PUMA that brought together the power of Microsoft Teams with our global voice services. We combined this with full project management support from our professional services team to ensure a smooth and efficient deployment process.

PUMA’s PBX hardware and local phone lines are now a thing of the past. Our resilient global SIP trunks (secured by Transport Layer Security (TLS) / Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (sRTP) encryption) now connect PUMA to the Microsoft Azure cloud in each region to ensure superior quality of service. Our teams took care of all national compliance regulations involved in porting PUMA phone numbers and provided new numbers when required.

We included PowerSuite to protect PUMA employees’ ability to use Microsoft Teams to call and collaborate wherever they are without disruption. This end-to-end monitoring and reporting tool gives at-a-glance insight into user quality experience. Working across all internet service parts and third-party internet providers, it brings clarity and allows rapid issue resolution. And PUMA can call on our worldwide customer service centres for component support around the clock.

We introduced local managed gateways to take care of analogue device connections and we forward all fax calls directly from our global voice platform to PUMA’s cloud fax service.

The result
In partnership with PUMA, we established a global standard for Microsoft Teams-integrated voice services. The initial stage of roll out saw around 2,000 PUMA users across Germany, France, Italy, Spain and The Netherlands moving onto our Microsoft Teams voice functionality, with the agile implementation process only taking a few weeks.

Today, PUMA has the flexibility to scale their voice services up and down in line with business needs, including coverage in South Africa as well as APAC and EMEA regions. With rapid configuration, short timescales and all the complex regulations that vary from region to region taken care of, PUMA has a secure, encrypted cloud-based voice service that’s ready to grow with them.

Two years into the project, our voice services have delivered the reliability and stability that PUMA needs to thrive; PUMA hasn’t needed to raise a single incident ticket after completing the migration.

It's been fantastic to partner with such a forward-thinking and fast-moving company to streamline their infrastructure and deliver high-quality voice services via Microsoft Teams. A highlight has been hitting every goal – and supporting PUMA’s sustainability journey with a cloud-based, ‘only buy what you need’ service that can reduce power consumption.”

Dorit Bode

Country Manager and Regional Sales Lead, Germany, BT

Technologies

Microsoft Teams SEO PowerSuite

Partners

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.