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Belgium 23-6-26 All Members Physical english

The Sovereignty Play : Sourcing for Autonomy, Resilience and Competitive Advantage

Sourcing for Autonomy, Resilience and Competitive Advantage. Global platforms offer incredible speed and innovation, but they also create deep dependencies that can expose your business to vendor lock-in, supply chain disruptions, and regulatory shifts. For today's CIO, the central challenge is no longer just about technology adoption; it's about building a digital foundation that is both agile and resilient. Strategic sourcing is the key. It has evolved from a procurement function into the primary tool for CIOs to navigate uncertainty, mitigate risk, and achieve digital autonomy. This session provides a practical playbook for using strategic sourcing to build a future-proof enterprise.

Belgium 30-6-26 Public Physical french

L'IT Public au point de rupture

L'IT Public au point de rupture : Vers un modèle à l'usage ? Transformer l'inertie en agilité : le défi du service public. Le constat : L’ère de la possession touche à sa fin Le citoyen n'attend pas que vous gériez des serveurs ; il attend des services. Pourtant, le modèle IT public reste prisonnier du « faire » plutôt que du « résultat ». Entre des budgets CAPEX verrouillés sur 5 ans et des cycles de procurement qui naissent périmés, l'écart se creuse. Le dilemme est stratégique : Comment passer d'une infrastructure que l'on subit à une informatique pilotée par le résultat (Outcome-based IT) ? Est-il possible d'adopter la souplesse du Cloud sans abandonner les clés de notre souveraineté ? L'objet du débat : Le "As-a-Service" au-delà du concept Nous vous invitons à remettre en question les promesses des modèles orientés vers la consommation. L'objectif est de débattre, sans tabou, du potentiel réel de ces approches pour le secteur public : Inverser la responsabilité : Passer de l'achat de matériel à l'achat de niveaux de service (SLA). Est-ce le secret pour libérer vos équipes de la maintenance ? Aligner le coût sur l'usage : En finir avec le surprovisionnement pour ne payer que ce qui est réellement consommé. Agilité "Procurement-proof" : Comment le modèle à l'usage permet-il de scaler en quelques jours ce qui prenait des mois d'appels d'offres ? La souveraineté par le contrat : Le "As-a-Service" sur site est-il le compromis idéal entre contrôle privé et flexibilité publique ? Le Format : "Zero Slides, Full Insight" Pas de présentation ni de marketing, uniquement une confrontation de visions entre pairs : Cercle restreint : Décideurs du secteur public francophone. Règle de Chatham House : Ce qui se dit à table reste à table. Débat pur : Une discussion structurée autour de vos doutes et de vos ambitions numériques.

Belgium 30-6-26 All Members Physical english

AI at Home

As AI becomes critical to business success, organisations in highly regulated sectors such as Financial Services, Critical Infrastructures and Defence, face strict data privacy, security, and compliance mandates that make public cloud AI a non-starter. This interactive session will explore the practical realities, both the benefits and limitations, of bringing enterprise-grade AI capabilities directly onto your own premises. Join CIONET, Kyndryl, and Dell Technologies for an exclusive, hands-on roundtable and live workshop on navigating the crucial intersection of artificial intelligence, data sovereignty, and autonomous operations. We will move beyond the theory by bringing the physical machine into the room for a live, air-gapped demonstration of cutting-edge workloads running entirely on-site. This interactive workshop will bring together Digital Leaders to: Demystify Sovereign AI at the C-Level: Review the strategic trade-offs, architecture, and compliance advantages of running localised AI models. See Zero-Leak Secure Code Review in Action: Watch a live demo of an on-premise LLM scanning software for vulnerabilities, ensuring your codebase never leaves your secure infrastructure. Experience On-Premise Agentic AI: Witness a local, autonomous monitoring agent, utilising advanced, Claude-level reasoning capabilities, managing critical IT Operations tasks completely offline. Collaborate on Best Practices: Engage with peers to discuss deployment timelines, security frameworks, and infrastructure requirements for true data control. Don't miss this opportunity to interact with live hardware, engage with industry peers, and gain actionable insights into unleashing the power of sovereign and agentic AI.

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How Hello Sugar reached a 66% automation rate with our hybrid solution

Hello Sugar wanted to scale their waxing franchise without growing their reception staff – all while offering higher quality CX. With Ultimate’s hybrid automation solution, this process couldn’t have gone more smoothly.

Hello Sugar at a glance

The customer

Hello Sugar is the fastest growing Brazilian wax and sugar salon in the U.S.

The market

Hello Sugar serves beauty-conscious customers across the U.S.

The support team

Their support team consists of 20 receptionists who handle requests via Zendesk.

The channels

Hello Sugar offers customer support via SMS.

The situation

Hello Sugar was looking to double the number of stores – without doubling their receptionists' workload.

The solution

Ultimate's hybrid combination of gen AI and conversation design helped Hello Sugar hit a sweet spot between empathetic, personalized, and scalable support.

Getting started with Ultimate

Trying to double the number of stores in their franchise within the year – without growing their support team – may sound like the makings of a sticky situation. But what sets Hello Sugar apart in the beauty and wellness space is their tendency to be tech savvy. They knew that the best way to scale was to automate. And while a lot of other AI providers sugar coat their automation capabilities, Ultimate’s automation solution proved to be the real deal.

Hello Sugar’s CTO, Austin Towns, was instantly impressed by the generative AI technology behind UltimateGPT and quickly began automating common intents about salon services and pricing. With the help of Ultimate’s hands-on customer success team and a seamless integration with Zendesk - who recently acquired Ultimate to scale the partnership - they enhanced the quality of their support by combining ultra-personalized service with near-instant response times.

With the freedom and flexibility of generative AI, their bot also delivers precise info about the location of salons to lost customers as well as empathetic responses for first time waxers – all in perfect brand tone of voice. Meanwhile, the precision and control of manual conversation design enabled them to automate their entire appointment booking process. Now, Hello Sugar boasts a 66% automation rate thanks to our hybrid automation solution.

"We currently have 81 salons and are going to grow to 160 this year – without growing our reception staff. And with automation, we’re able to do that while offering way better CX and getting higher reviews."

Austin Towns
CTO, Hello Sugar

Automation rate: 66%

Monthly savings$: 14K

Agent hours saved: 200

AI use case spotlight #1: Hello Sugar’s journey to +66% automation

Hello Sugar wanted an AI provider that could go beyond the traditional dialogue builder. Ultimate’s hybrid approach that integrates the precision of conversation design with the freedom and flexibility of generative AI delivered on this promise.
UltimateGPT has enabled them to quickly automate FAQ style questions about services provided and how to prep for an upcoming appointment. And conversation design helped them automate intents like booking appointments, as they can use API integrations to confirm location and generate a booking link for their customers.
Taken together, they have reached a 66% automation rate – with rave reviews about their CX from customers.

AI use case spotlight #2: Knowledge base optimization for better CX

Hello Sugar also succeeded in honing the powers of a well-designed knowledge base to enhance the capabilities of UltimateGPT.
By compiling a knowledge base replete with information on the details of location of each salon around the country, their generative AI-powered bot can provide extremely precise directions. Customers are also left with the feeling that they’re speaking to a human receptionist, thanks to the bot's natural-sounding tone of voice (TOV).
As a result, Hello Sugar harnessed the power of generative AI to deliver ultra-personalized and empathetic support to customers within seconds and at scale.

The success story

Instant Zendesk integration

Ultimate’s hybrid automation solution seamlessly integrated with their existing CRM so they were able to start automating common queries straight away.

Industry beating results

As a tech savvy business within the beauty and wellness space, Hello Sugar has been able to offer improved CX even as they double their number of salons – all while saving $14K in agent costs per month.

Hybrid automation solution

With our hybrid solution, Hello Sugar was able to combine generative AI and conversation design to reach an automation rate of +66%.

Improved customer experience

With the help of AI, Hello Sugar is able to attend to customer queries in a matter of seconds. Thanks to UltimateGPT, they’re able to do so in a way that integrates empathy and on-brand TOV into each interaction.

Next on their automation journey

Hello Sugar plans on continuing to find more use cases for AI to improve CX, such as by expanding their APIs to reduce manual work for receptionists.

For example, they want to harness the capabilities of API integrations for booking and rescheduling appointments to expand the capabilities of what their bot can do when responding to these requests.

They plan to audit all existing intents to find more opportunities to leverage UltimateGPT.

Technologies

Ultimate: Chat automation Zendesk: A CRM Platform

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.