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Belgium 11-12-25 Country Members Physical english

Next Generation Digital Twins - CIONET Belgium: Community Event

Imagine being able to monitor, simulate, and optimise an entire city, factory, or supply chain in real time. Next-generation digital twins are making this vision a reality, transforming how we manage and understand complex systems. By creating dynamic virtual replicas of physical assets and processes, digital twins allow organisations to predict issues, optimize performance, and make data-driven decisions with unprecedented accuracy.This event will explore how digital twins are being used across industries to revolutionize the way we operate and maintain large-scale, intricate systems—whether it’s the infrastructure of a smart city, the efficiency of a factory floor, or the resilience of global supply chains.Examples of Digital Twins in Action:Smart Cities: Urban planners can use digital twins to simulate traffic flow, monitor energy usage, or predict the impact of weather events on infrastructure. This enables cities to optimize resources and improve the quality of life for their citizens.Factories of the Future: Manufacturing plants are leveraging digital twins to monitor equipment in real time, prevent downtime, and optimize production lines. With predictive analytics, factories can avoid costly breakdowns and improve overall efficiency.Supply Chain Management: Complex supply chains, spanning continents and industries, can be modeled as digital twins to track shipments, simulate disruptions, and optimize logistics. Businesses can reduce inefficiencies and respond faster to market demands.Key Themes:Real-Time Monitoring and Simulation: How digital twins provide real-time insights into complex systems, allowing for dynamic response and optimization.Predictive Power: Leveraging AI and data analytics, digital twins help organisations predict and mitigate issues before they happen, from equipment failures to supply chain bottlenecks.Scalability Across Ecosystems: Digital twins aren’t limited to individual assets—learn how they can be scaled across entire ecosystems like smart cities or global supply chains for maximum impact.Building Trust and Security: With digital twins handling critical infrastructure and sensitive data, what are the security and governance frameworks needed to ensure trust in these virtual systems?Why You Should Attend:Next-generation digital twins are no longer just a concept—they are revolutionizing industries by offering a new way to manage complexity. Whether you’re looking to optimize a city, factory, or supply chain, this event will provide practical insights into how digital twins can transform your organisation’s operations and drive future innovation.

Belgium 12-12-25 Squad Only Physical english

Managing IT Cost Without Losing Capability ; A practical look at how to control infrastructure, apps, and dev spend

Everyone wants value for money. But in IT, that value is spread across infrastructure, software, services, and people. Your infra spend is creeping up. App maintenance is eating your budget. New development is exciting but comes with hidden overhead. And people costs, from operations to engineering, remain the largest, most overlooked slice. If you’re under pressure to optimise without compromise, this session brings the right questions, trade-offs, and shared lessons to the table.

Belgium 16-12-25 Invitation Only Physical english

CIONET Round Table: Mastering Enterprise Service Management

This CIONET Round Table will focus on how the IT department can be the enabler that unlocks organisational efficiencies and helps to improve the employee experience. We will explore how CIOs and Digital Leaders can fundamentally transform the internal service experience by breaking down organizational silos, orchestrating complex cross-functional workflows, and leveraging a unified platform to deliver a truly frictionless experience for every employee.

December 12, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Physical english

Managing IT Cost Without Losing Capability ; A practical look at how to control infrastructure, apps, and dev spend

January 13, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual english

Moving Legacy Systems to the Cloud Efficiently : Balancing cost, risk, and continuity in complex migrations

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.

January 22, 2026 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual english

AI-Driven Development: Redesigning workflows, responsibilities, and trust in the age of automation

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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Etex modernizes its IT foundation for a new era of sustainable innovation

Cognizant and SAP partnered to migrate a business-critical SAP ECC environment to S/4HANA to ready Etex for future transformation and innovation.

The challenge

Etex is a pioneer in the manufacture of lightweight construction materials, enabling people worldwide to build safe, sustainable, smart and beautiful buildings. Founded in 1905, its innovations and acquisitions in fire protection, plaster technology, modular construction and engineering have revolutionized the construction industry, aligning it with Etex’s mission of inspiring ways of living.

Etex sees its products as part of the solution to combating climate change, as they are recyclable and up to 45% less emissions-intensive to produce over traditional construction methods. The company has signed the United Nations (UN) Global Compact and is fully committed to helping achieve UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in areas where its products can have an impact.

Migrating from a legacy SAP environment

Etex has strong ambitions to grow its business and develop the company’s sustainable product lines through internal innovation and further acquisitions. For this it needs a strong enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform with modern, business-enhancing functionality. Its legacy SAP ECC platform was facing end of support and Etex opted to take the opportunity to upgrade to SAP S/4HANA.

This was a major modernization project and Etex conducted a comprehensive multi-year assessment to determine the right approach. It opted for a brownfield migration, carrying some business-critical processes and functionality over to S/4HANA and leveraging new S/4HANA features where possible.

Etex wanted a world-class combination of systems integrator and technology partner to handle the migration and conversion. It therefore engaged Cognizant and SAP to deliver the end-to-end project.

Our approach

A target of 12 months was set for the whole environment to go live on S/4HANA. Throughout, Cognizant, Etex and SAP worked in partnership to ensure a smooth and successful project delivery with all parties working together to anticipate, address and resolve any issues.

Delivering a successful modernization

The modernization involved first developing a thorough understanding of the SAP environment. A full system readiness analysis was conducted to understand which aspects of the environment would need remediation prior to the move. A conversion plan for the migration was then created, using best-practice processes and frameworks.

To de-risk the project, a six-cycle migration was planned. The cycles started with the sandbox environment, being the lowest-risk, and progressed through to the production environment. Each cycle involved Etex, Cognizant and SAP working together to convert to S/4HANA, implement mandatory simplification items, make custom code corrections and migrate the data. The learnings from each cycle were applied in subsequent cycles, in readiness for seamless cut-over and go live.

As part of our end-to-end approach, Cognizant also implemented a best-practice test management strategy that Etex can use for future business transformation projects.

All six cycles were completed as planned, with Etex going live on S/4HANA in a single weekend at the end of the <12-month period.

"I am deeply impressed by the professionalism and collaborative spirit of the joint project team comprising Etex, SAP and Cognizant. Their unwavering commitment and seamless coordination allowed us to successfully deliver this critical project on time, without any disruption to our business operations."

Dirk Altgassen, Chief Data and Information Officer (CDIO), Etex

Business outcomes

The smooth, on-time migration to S/4HANA allowed Etex to start benefiting from SAP S/4HANA features in a little over a year—a rapid timeframe for a full modernization of a complex legacy SAP ECC environment. Specific outcomes achieved to date include:

Next-generation platform to enable business growth: Etex now benefits from a modern ERP backbone that will support the company in areas like finance, warehouse management, transportation and HR. It now has a foundation to deploy embedded AI use cases to drive further business value.

A new ERP backbone for 100+ plants in 40+ countries: Etex operations around the world benefit from a new digital core that sets the foundation for an enhanced user experience in S/4HANA.

Throughout, the collaborative effort between Etex, SAP, and Cognizant facilitated coordination and ongoing external benchmarking. This has been fundamental for the successful execution and establishment of the groundwork for the digital transformation journey.

Ready for a new era of sustainable construction

Etex was already an industry leader and pace-setter, with its lightweight, low-carbon materials enabling the transition to sustainable construction worldwide. Now, with new products and acquisitions on the horizon, Etex is preparing for a new era of sustainable innovation. The new modernization and migration project has ensured that its business-critical SAP core is ready for that shift, delivering a powerful new technology backbone that enables Etex to benefit from new S/4HANA features as they roll out.

Etex modernizes its IT foundation to drive sustainable innovation

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About Etex

Etex is an innovative and sustainable building materials company and a pioneer in lightweight construction. It employs 13,500 teammates globally, operating on more than 160 sites and seven Innovation Technology Centers (ITC) in 45 countries worldwide. For more information, visit www.etexgroup.com.

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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.

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.