Belgium 23-9-25 Squad Only Virtual english
Security teams are overwhelmed. Too many tools. Too many alerts. Too few people. And now, increasing pressure from the board to protect everything, everywhere, all the time. Expect honest reflection, shared strategies, and a conversation that cuts through compliance noise and focuses on what to do when your team is stretched and your risk is rising.
Read MoreBelgium 23-9-25 Invitation Only Physical english
In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, the financial services industry in Belgium faces a critical juncture regarding its cloud adoption strategy. While the allure of cloud computing – with its promise of scalability, agility, and innovation – is undeniable, the unique regulatory demands and paramount need for data sovereignty present significant challenges. This CIONET roundtable, aims to bring together Digital Leaders from the Belgian financial sector to discuss how to navigate these complexities. We will explore how financial institutions can leverage cloud technologies while ensuring complete control over their data, maintaining compliance with stringent European regulations like GDPR and DORA, and mitigating geopolitical risks.
Read MoreBelgium 24-9-25 Invitation Only Physical english
As smart devices proliferate across operational environments — from sensors on factory lines and GPS trackers in logistics fleets to wearables in healthcare and connected systems in smart cities — the integration of Managed IoT (MiOT) is accelerating. But with it comes a surge in cybersecurity risks. No longer isolated or air-gapped, OT systems are becoming fully networked, remotely accessible, and deeply entwined with IT. This creates a vulnerable, highly complex digital mesh, one where a single compromised device can trigger physical, financial, and reputational consequences.
Read MoreSeptember 23, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Virtual english
Security teams are overwhelmed. Too many tools. Too many alerts. Too few people. And now, increasing pressure from the board to protect everything, everywhere, all the time. Expect honest reflection, shared strategies, and a conversation that cuts through compliance noise and focuses on what to do when your team is stretched and your risk is rising.
Read MoreSeptember 30, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Virtual english
Everyone has technical debt. The question is what to do with it. Refactor now? Wait for the next feature? Build on it and hope it holds? If you’re tired of debating whether to clean up or move on, this session helps you frame the debt conversation in a way that supports both speed and stability.
Read MoreOctober 2, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Virtual english
Architecture doesn’t happen in diagrams. It happens in minds, seasoned, curious, sharp minds that understand how the pieces fit. But who’s shaping these minds? Who’s growing the next generation of digital architects? If you’re responsible for complex systems, and for the people designing them, this session is for you.
Read MoreHow the world’s largest ad company optimizes FinOps
WPP, the world's largest marketing services company, faced skyrocketing cloud costs due to sprawl across multiple platforms. The Challenge: Gaining visibility into cloud spending and optimizing resource usage. The Solution: Implementing IBM Apptio Cloudability for cost transparency and IBM Turbonomic for automated resource management.
If you’re one of the approximately 120 million people who tune in each year for the Super Bowl—or at least for the commercials—you’ve seen WPP’s work. If you’re an employee at a Fortune Global 500 corporation, your company has likely worked with WPP.
With more than 2,000 offices under its ownership, WPP is the world’s largest marketing services company, running a global enterprise that produces high-end work spanning the full marketing spectrum, from advertising campaigns, social media management and influencer marketing to commerce solutions, app development, CRM implementation and more. It’s a massively data-centric business.
In recent years, as WPP shifted its IT to a hybrid, multicloud model to gain critical IT and application agility, costs skyrocketed. “We went from paying a fixed bill every month for a set amount of physical assets, to being charged for resources literally by the minute,” says Paul Cocks, WPP’s Director of Global Technology Services. With thousands of disparate organizations building in the cloud for their own needs, WPP faced major cloud sprawl.
“We really didn’t know how much we were spending,” says Ananta Manandhar, WPP’s Head of FinOps. “We had hundreds of accounts across all major public clouds. A key objective was consolidated visibility.”
On the technology side, Mr. Cocks and his colleague, Cost-Optimization Lead Alan Burnett, recognized the potential for saving millions of dollars by eliminating underutilized computing resources. They wanted to master the art of right-sizing and make the cost dynamics of cloud work in the company’s favor.
During the POV, it would have paid for itself ten times over. ”
WPP created a well-rounded, efficient FinOps practice by applying two technologies: IBM Apptio™ Cloudability (link resides outside of ibm.com) and IBM® Turbonomic®. The Finance team uses IBM Apptio Cloudability to see exactly how much WPP is spending, and where, across all companies and all cloud platforms. The Operations team uses Turbonomic to expedite savings by efficiently optimizing resources by way of AI-driven sizing recommendations and automated resizing actions.
IBM Apptio Cloudability came first. After evaluating it against a third-party offering, WPP implemented the IBM solution and quickly achieved spend visibility across 99% of its cloud landscape, including AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). “It just worked,” says Mr. Manandhar. “It has very good APIs for integrating across the environment. We onboarded hundreds of billing accounts and mapped the usage to stakeholders. It showed us an actual dollar view; an invoice view; a usage view, including anomalies; and an amortized view. And when we compared it with data directly from the cloud suppliers, it was very accurate. That helped rapidly build trust in our recharging ops with our users.”
Next, Mr. Cocks and Mr. Burnett engaged IBM for a Turbonomic proof of value (POV) that revealed enormous savings potential. Mr. Burnett, who’d gained extensive optimization experience in a previous role at another major enterprise, deployed Turbonomic in one of WPP’s Azure tenants and let the solution generate resourcing recommendations. Mr. Burnett selected from the recommendations to execute 1,100 resizing actions, many through Turbonomic automations.
“During the POV, it would have paid for itself ten times over,” says Mr. Cocks.
WPP has now officially deployed Turbonomic in its Azure environment and will phase it into its other clouds. “It’s revealed massive right-sizing potential and a lot of unused resources—too much to scale down manually,” says Mr. Burnett. On his Turbonomic interface, he views thousands of autogenerated sizing recommendations in addition to the cost impact they would have. The Operations team breaks the host of recommendations into manageable chunks and engages with users to identify which actions make good business sense.
Then, the team can resize with great efficiency using the bulk actions functionality in Turbonomic. They’ve basically doubled the pace they achieved in the POV, now taking approximately 1,000 actions every one to two months. “We got rid of 500 unattached disks in one weekend, saving a quarter of a million dollars,” says Mr. Burnett. “You can’t do that without automation. It enables a pace that really helps bring cloud costs under control.”
We got rid of 500 unattached disks in one weekend, saving a quarter of a million dollars. You can’t do that without automation. It enables a pace that really helps bring cloud costs under control. ”
In just the first three months of using IBM Apptio Cloudability, WPP achieved about USD 2 million in savings. Since supercharging FinOps with both IBM Apptio Cloudability and Turbonomic, the company is saving about 30% on its yearly cloud spend.
Now the focus is shifting, according to Mr. Manandhar, “from making it efficient to keeping it efficient, going from campaign mode to regular operations mode.” His team uses the live dashboard feature of IBM Apptio Cloudability to monitor costs and trends and generate monthly reports of ongoing savings potential—setting up targets for Turbonomic as the Operations team applies it first to GCP, then to AWS.
With such clear visibility into costs, usage and waste, WPP is instilling a culture of FinOps in the enterprise. “When you demonstrate that volume of optimization opportunity,” says Mr. Burnett, “it just makes everybody much more aware of how we can drive costs down rather than accept what we’ve got.”
“Because we’re tracking it, people are starting to budget it. They’re actively supporting the overall optimization,” says Mr. Manandhar. “It’s bringing about a cultural difference, creating a much closer partnership between business, finance and the engineering team.”
It’s bringing about a cultural difference, creating a much closer partnership between business, finance and the engineering team. ”
WPP plc owns many prominent agencies in communications, experience, commerce and technology & data. In total, the organization employs approximately 114,000 people in 100 or more countries and works with more than 300 Fortune Global 500 companies. WPP is headquartered in London.
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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?
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreDécouvrez 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 !
Read MoreCIONET 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.
Read MoreWould you like to know more about CIONET Belgium, membership or partnership opportunities? Do you have feedback or any other question? Send us a message!
You can either send us a registered handwritten letter explaining why you'd like to become a member or you can simply talk to us right here!