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Belgium 13-1-26 Squad Only Virtual english
Migrating legacy systems to the cloud remains one of the toughest balancing acts in IT. Every choice affects stability, cost, and trust at once, and what starts as a modernisation effort quickly turns into a negotiation between ambition and reality. Suddenly budgets rise, dependencies appear late, and timelines tighten as old architectures collide with new expectations. In the end, success depends on sequencing, ownership, and aligning business priorities with infrastructure limits, and not only on technical readiness. Making it work requires more than a plan on paper. Knowing which systems genuinely belong in the cloud, which can wait, and which should stay put shapes the entire roadmap and defines its success. Each refactoring decision sets the level of future flexibility, but it also drives cost and risk. The trade-offs between speed, sustainability, and resilience only become clear once migration begins and pressure builds. Let’s discuss how to plan migrations that stay on track, manage hidden dependencies, and handle downtime with confidence. Let’s also discuss how governance, testing, and vendor coordination keep progress visible and credible. Are you in? A closed conversation for those who turn cloud migration from a disruption into a long-term advantage.
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Belgium 20-1-26 All Members Physical english
CIOs today are being judged less as technology leaders and more as portfolio managers. Every euro is under scrutiny. Boards and CFOs demand lower run costs, higher efficiency, and clear ROI from every digital initiative. Yet, they also expect CIOs to place bets on disruptive technologies that will keep the enterprise competitive in five years. This constant tension is redefining the role. In this session, we go beyond FinOps and cost reporting to tackle the strategic financial dilemmas CIOs face.
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Belgium 22-1-26 Invitation Only Virtual english
AI coding assistants entered development teams quietly, but their impact grows by the day. What started as autocomplete now shapes architecture decisions, documentation, and testing. And when productivity gains are visible, so are new risks: security blind spots, uneven quality, and the slow erosion of shared standards. Teams move faster, but not always in the same direction. The challenge has become integration rather than adoption. And new questions have risen: how do you blend automation into established practices without losing oversight? When is human review still essential, and what should the rules of collaboration between developer and machine look like? As AI tools learn from proprietary code, where do responsibility and accountability sit? Let’s talk about how to redefine those workflows, balancing creativity with control, and protecting code quality in a hybrid human-AI environment. A closed conversation on where AI accelerates progress, where it introduces new debt, and how development culture must evolve to stay credible.
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January 13, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual english
Migrating legacy systems to the cloud remains one of the toughest balancing acts in IT. Every choice affects stability, cost, and trust at once, and what starts as a modernisation effort quickly turns into a negotiation between ambition and reality. Suddenly budgets rise, dependencies appear late, and timelines tighten as old architectures collide with new expectations. In the end, success depends on sequencing, ownership, and aligning business priorities with infrastructure limits, and not only on technical readiness. Making it work requires more than a plan on paper. Knowing which systems genuinely belong in the cloud, which can wait, and which should stay put shapes the entire roadmap and defines its success. Each refactoring decision sets the level of future flexibility, but it also drives cost and risk. The trade-offs between speed, sustainability, and resilience only become clear once migration begins and pressure builds. Let’s discuss how to plan migrations that stay on track, manage hidden dependencies, and handle downtime with confidence. Let’s also discuss how governance, testing, and vendor coordination keep progress visible and credible. Are you in? A closed conversation for those who turn cloud migration from a disruption into a long-term advantage.
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January 22, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual english
AI coding assistants entered development teams quietly, but their impact grows by the day. What started as autocomplete now shapes architecture decisions, documentation, and testing. And when productivity gains are visible, so are new risks: security blind spots, uneven quality, and the slow erosion of shared standards. Teams move faster, but not always in the same direction. The challenge has become integration rather than adoption. And new questions have risen: how do you blend automation into established practices without losing oversight? When is human review still essential, and what should the rules of collaboration between developer and machine look like? As AI tools learn from proprietary code, where do responsibility and accountability sit? Let’s talk about how to redefine those workflows, balancing creativity with control, and protecting code quality in a hybrid human-AI environment. A closed conversation on where AI accelerates progress, where it introduces new debt, and how development culture must evolve to stay credible.
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January 27, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical english
Zero Trust sounds simple on paper: trust no one, verify everything. But once you start implementing it, the fun begins. Legacy systems, hybrid networks, and human habits don’t read the manual. The idea is solid; the execution, not so much.
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CIONET Trailblazer: AI Transformation: Bridging the Cultural Divide to Achieve Competitive Advantage
Published on: December 17, 2025 @ 9:16 AM
Delivering visibility, control, and simplified security to Bathgate Group
Delivering visibility, control, and simplified security to Bathgate Group
OVERVIEW
The Bathgate Group has been delivering excellence to customers across a range of products and services for over 50 years. The Cheshire-headquartered firm is now comprised of four companies—producing high quality silica sand, delivering B2B finance, as well as road haulage services. It’s also one of the largest raised access floor manufacturers in Europe.
Managing IT for such a diverse organization comes with its own distinct set of challenges, as Group IT Manager, Chris Snape, knows well. He was brought in to consolidate and streamline the environment around 18 months ago and made cybersecurity a priority. Trend Micro Worry-Free Services Advanced, delivered from the Vodafone Business Marketplace, already had a huge impact—saving significant IT time and money while minimizing the company’s risk exposure.
"Trend Micro does what it says on the tin. It’s worry-free security which lets me get on with day-to-day tasks and other projects. [Trend Micro Worry-Free] massively reduced the number of man hours we spend on security management, and if anything needs doing hands on, it can be done from the dashboard."
Chris Snape - Group IT Manager, Bathgate Group
CHALLENGES
Bathgate’s 200 endpoints include 50 mobile devices used by the company’s delivery drivers. Combined with employees’ corporate email accounts and Microsoft 365 productivity applications, they represented a sizeable attack surface for IT to protect. The brief was to simplify endpoint and email security for Bathgate without sacrificing quality.
“When I came in, all our endpoints were individually configured and running different versions [of security software]. Plus, there was no centralized reporting, so if something happened there was no way of easily finding out,” says Chris. “What I wanted for the group was something that could be managed centrally and rely on to work by itself in the background. But also, a product that we could configure with exceptions and business rules.”
WHY TREND
Chris was introduced to Vodafone Business, who recommended Trend Micro Worry-Free Services Advanced delivered from their Business Marketplace portal. The product offers powerful protection for endpoints, cloud apps, and email from a single solution:
SOLUTION
Accessing the solution from the Vodafone Marketplace portal multiplied the value for Chris by simplifying the supply chain and consolidating support with a single provider. “Trend Micro was introduced to us as an all-in-one solution well managed through the Vodafone Marketplace portal and at the right price point,” explains Chris.
RESULTS
The combined offering delivers powerful protection across email and endpoints, while streamlining security and offering enhanced control, according to Chris. A recent incident in which an external email was hijacked and tried to send malicious emails to employees, was detected and mitigated by Trend Micro.
“I could see via the dashboard what happened and called them to make sure they changed their password. After the first few [spam] emails came in the product learned and started to quarantine them. Inboxes get pretty much no spam at all now,” Chris explains.
WHAT'S NEXT
Bathgate have been so pleased with the way Trend Micro and Vodafone Business have performed over the past year; they’ve decided to sign up for another year without shortlisting any competitors.
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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?
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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.
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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 !
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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.
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