null

Belgium 10-09-2026 Squad Only Physical english

Building the Infrastructure AI Needs: From computer and data access to scalability, cost control, and operational readiness.

AI is moving from pilots into operational use, and the infrastructure question is becoming more concrete. The challenge is deciding what needs to be built, expanded, controlled, or delayed as usage grows. Three pressure points usually appear first. - Compute capacity requires careful planning: teams need enough GPU, cloud, or specialised processing power, while keeping utilisation and cost under control. - Data movement becomes more demanding: AI needs access to data across systems, with latency, security, integration, and quality managed from the start. - Operational control becomes essential: monitoring, access rights, resilience, cost visibility, and ownership need to scale with usage. The working question is simple: how do we support AI at scale while keeping infrastructure efficient, governed, and financially sustainable? If you are working through these choices, let’s compare approaches with others facing similar constraints.

Belgium 15-09-2026 Squad Only Virtual english

Turning AI Pilots into Daily Workflows: How to move from experimentation to adoption by redesigning work, ownership, controls, and habits.

AI pilots are easier to launch than to embed into daily operations. The challenge is changing how work happens once AI becomes part of decisions, tasks, handovers, and controls. Three pressure points tend to decide whether adoption holds. - Workflow fit matters: AI has to enter the flow of work as part of the process. - Ownership needs to be clear: someone must own the process, the controls, the exceptions, and the outcome. - User trust has to be built: people need to know when to rely on AI, when to challenge it, and when to escalate. The working question is simple: how do we move AI from promising pilots into daily work while keeping clarity, accountability, and risk control? If this is part of your current reality, let’s compare choices, constraints, and lessons learned.

Belgium 17-09-2026 Country Members Physical french

Les Rencontres: CTO: Le Saint Graal?

Pendant longtemps, le TCO donnait une impression de contrôle. On investissait, on amortissait, on optimisait. Les coûts étaient visibles, relativement prévisibles, et structurés autour d’une logique claire entre CAPEX et OPEX. Ce modèle ne suffit plus à expliquer où va réellement l’argent. Aujourd’hui, une part croissante des dépenses IT ne repose plus sur ce que l’on possède, mais sur ce que l’on consomme: des tokens générés par l’IA des agents qui exécutent des actions en continu des outils SaaS qui se multiplient dans les équipes du cloud qui s’adapte en permanence à l’usage Le coût ne disparaît pas, mais il devient plus diffus, plus dynamique, et souvent plus difficile à attribuer, à expliquer, et à maîtriser. C’est là que des approches comme le Technology Business Management, ou TBM, redeviennent particulièrement utiles: non pas comme un exercice de reporting supplémentaire, mais comme un moyen de relier concrètement les dépenses aux services, aux usages, et aux décisions. Et c’est là aussi que la question du “Saint Graal” revient, mais sous une autre forme. Vous vous demandez peut-être: Comment garder de la maîtrise quand la dépense dépend du comportement, des usages, et parfois même de systèmes autonomes ? Comment piloter l’équilibre CAPEX/OPEX quand le cloud, le SaaS et l’IA déplacent progressivement les coûts vers des modèles variables ? Quels coûts restent encore trop souvent hors radar: ressources métier, formation, support, intégration, sécurité, gouvernance ? Et surtout, qu’est-ce qu’un “bon TCO” veut encore dire quand il faut le mettre en regard d’objectifs parfois plus stratégiques, plus longs à mesurer, ou plus difficiles à quantifier: qualité de service, résilience, agilité, expérience utilisateur, capacité d’innovation ? Ce sont précisément ces questions qui seront au cœur de notre rencontre: une discussion ouverte entre pairs, ancrée dans la réalité du terrain, pas pour débattre de modèles idéaux, mais pour comprendre comment chacun tente, concrètement, de mesurer, d’attribuer et de reprendre le contrôle, sans réduire la valeur d’un choix technologique à son seul coût.

Please Log In with your CIONET account first

Adoption success. New voice solution for a media company

Moving to a unified communications platform to accelerate digital transformation and boost productivity.

Overview
Technology is changing the world as we know it.
It’s a huge challenge for organisations looking to accelerate their digital transformation. Including one of our longstanding customers, a mass media company who needed to move to a unified communications platform to help their teams work smarter and improve customer and user experience. But when you’re a global organisation with 30,000 staff across 170 locations in 84 countries, it’s not so straightforward.

The challenge
Changing user behaviour
The rise in remote working meant a number of their employees were using their own phones, laptops and unsupported collaboration apps. Lack of visibility and control of BYOD not only posed a real risk to their network, but also user experience.

Having everyone use a single solution across chat, phone and meetings would not only simplify end user experience but improve collaboration, increase productivity, and strengthen security. But due to their size, this wouldn’t be an easy task.

It wasn’t just about rolling out a new communications platform across the organisation but changing its culture too. The customer needed to educate its people before, after and during the migration to ensure they fully embraced the new technology and got the most out of it.

And that’s where our user adoption service came in.

In addition to adding great business value, the BT user adoption team worked as collaborative partners and were a true pleasure to work with.”

Chief People Officer

The solution
User adoption made simple
The customer was using multiple collaboration tools – this wasn’t cost-effective or scalable. Migrating to Microsoft Teams Direct Routing would give them a workspace for real-time collaboration, communication and meetings, all in one place. Along with a choice of calling plans over our global SIP network allowing them to make and receive calls within the platform.

Our proven methodology has helped organisations achieve faster business results and ongoing value from their cloud technology investment. So, we were best placed to deliver a user adoption programme to support the upgrade of 27,000 users to the new cloud-based platform.

A big part of our user adoption service is taking the time to understand our customers’ business challenges. Our dedicated specialist spent time with them to understand their users’ current behaviour and identify the change required.

The plan was to deliver an “early adopter” programme to 420 employees. The customer would then take the learnings from the programme to further improve the overall roll out of Microsoft Teams Direct Routing to its wider organisation.

To support the early adopters through the change and drive engagement, we created a detailed launch communication plan, including training and assets, and personalised email communications inviting them to attend tailored online training sessions. We also launched a user content library for online video tutorials, quick start guides and FAQs. We created additional help and advice for hearing impaired users, guiding them through the platform's accessibility features, like live captions. Users were asked to complete a small survey four weeks after the early adopter launch, to provide valuable insight to help improve the wider roll out.

In addition to our comprehensive early adoption programme, we also set up our Genius Desk, a ‘go to’ specialist team who became a part of the customer’s organisation for six months. The team offered users specific help and support on each phase of the Teams migration to drive maximum adoption.

The result
A better user experience
We successfully helped the customer change user behaviour and get everyone on board. The early adopters programme achieved 100% take-up as a result of our detailed launch plan - avoiding any disruption to business activity.

Our user adoption team received high praise from the customer, calling out their amazing support for what was “a very complex series of inter-related projects” and how they were a “true pleasure to work with”.

Users also got a lot from our training, with one saying: “It was fast paced, insightful, and will help me be more efficient day-to-day.”

Six months since the roll out of Teams the customer has seen call volumes increase 15 times over.

The training was fast paced, insightful, and will help me be more efficient day-to-day.”

Early adoption programme user

Technologies

Microsoft Teams

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.