null

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.

Please Log In with your CIONET account first

How ticket automation helped Lush reach a 60% first contact resolution rate

Global handmade cosmetics brand Lush was hesitant about automating their support — but needed to clear their inbox of FAQs and give agents more time to connect with customers. Here’s how they went from support automation skeptics to AI enthusiasts.

Lush at a glance

The customer

Lush is a global cosmetics brand offering fresh, handmade beauty products.

The market

HQ’ed in the UK, they have branches in 21 countries — and stores operate in additional regions under franchise.

The support team

170 agents provide support in 15 languages to Lush customers around the world.

The channels

Customer care is available 7 days a week via phone, SMS, and email.

The situation

Lush needed to scale their support to meet growing demand — without growing their customer service team.

The solution

Ultimate’s ticket automation solution and a seamless integration with their existing CRM: Zendesk.

Getting started with Ultimate

Customer-centricity is at the heart of how Lush operates. That’s why they started out as support automation skeptics. “We’ve always resisted too much automation because we never wanted to replace personal interactions,” says Naomi. But once they saw the substantial effort ticket automation would save them — giving agents more time to engage in meaningful conversations with customers — the support team soon became AI enthusiasts.

It took just 16 days for Lush to go live with ticket automation, and on his first day Marvin (as the team named their bot) answered 37% of tickets. But Lush’s support department doesn’t measure success by traditional efficiency measures. Instead, they focus on what customers are saying. In the week after launching, despite higher numbers of complaints over Black Friday and delivery disruption due to UK Royal Mail strikes, CSAT was at 93%.

Get started with automation

“With the pandemic and now a global recession, we’re not in a position to make our Customer Care team bigger and bigger. So we needed to make agents’ jobs easier by taking away the repetitive questions.”

Naomi Rankin
Global Customer Care Manager, Lush

First contact resolution rate: 60%

Minutes saved per ticket: 5

CSAT score: 93%

AI use case spotlight: freeing their inbox of FAQs

The support team in UK and Ireland was already using Zendesk macros (prepared responses) to answer FAQs, but agents were still swimming in repeat requests.
Lush went live with 4 intents to cover their most repetitive queries: sales and discounts, donations, order dissatisfaction, and discontinued products.
With Marvin taking care of common customer questions, the team reached a 60% first contact resolution (FCR) rate — giving agents more time to work on complex cases that require their skills.

Learn about our industry-leading AI

AI use case spotlight: scaling support without scaling the team

Lush’s support department was struggling to keep pace with rising volumes as the company continued to expand, but hiring additional agents wasn’t an option.
As well as deflecting FAQs, Marvin can request customer information upfront and add tags and labels to incoming tickets, giving agents the context they need to solve issues faster.
These efficiency gains save Lush roughly 5 minutes per ticket and 360 agent hours each month — savings that free up their support team to dedicate more energy to meaningful customer interactions.

Contact our AI experts and start saving

The success story

Seamless Zendesk integration

Our ticket solution fits right inside Lush’s existing tech stack, so personalization isn’t lost with automation and there’s no risk of data silos.

Multilingual

For a global business like Lush, multilingual support is a must — luckily, our industry-leading conversational AI can speak 109 languages.

Intelligent triage

Automatic ticket tagging and pre-filling makes agents’ jobs easier and removes the possibility of human error: meaning accurate data and reporting.

Easy to train and maintain

It took just 16 days for Lush to go live with ticket automation and the team can continually iterate to improve the bot’s performance.

Next on their automation journey

Building on the success of their English-language bot, the team is aiming to launch ticket automation in German next. After that, Lush plans to localize their automated ticket support in other English-speaking regions such as Australia. Eventually, Naomi wants to have bot managers taking care of ticket automation in every region Lush operates in.

Technologies

Ultimate: Ticket 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.