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Welcome to CIONET Belgium

Realise your ambition! Connect with your local community of digital leaders.

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Upcoming Events

 
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Belgium 28-8-25 Country Members Physical english

20 Years CIONET - CIONET Belgium: Summer Festival

A special celebration marking 20 years of CIONET—two decades of empowering digital leaders and driving innovation in the technology landscape. This exclusive event will bring together our members to reflect on the incredible journey we've shared and look ahead to the future of digital leadership.Featuring keynote presentations from visionary CIOs, industry pioneers, and founding members, we’ll explore how far we’ve come and what lies ahead in the ever-evolving world of technology. Together, we will honour the contributions of our members who have shaped CIONET’s legacy while offering insights into how the community will continue to lead in the years to come.This is more than a celebration—it’s an opportunity to reconnect, reflect, and recharge with your fellow digital leaders. Don't miss this exclusive experience packed with inspiring talks, networking opportunities, and special recognitions that highlight the best of CIONET’s history and future.Let’s celebrate the past, present, and future of the digital community you helped build.

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Belgium 28-8-25 Country Members Physical english

Summer Festival - Advisory Board

A special celebration marking 20 years of CIONET—two decades of empowering digital leaders and driving innovation in the technology landscape. This exclusive event will bring together our members to reflect on the incredible journey we've shared and look ahead to the future of digital leadership. Featuring keynote presentations from visionary CIOs, industry pioneers, and founding members, we’ll explore how far we’ve come and what lies ahead in the ever-evolving world of technology. Together, we will honour the contributions of our members who have shaped CIONET’s legacy while offering insights into how the community will continue to lead in the years to come.

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Belgium 2-9-25 All TRIBERS Virtual english

What Does It Cost to Host an App? ; A practical guide to calculating hosting costs across infra, licenses, and operations

You’ve been asked a simple question: “What does it cost to host this application?” But the answer is anything but simple. The platform sits across multiple data centres. The app spans a few VMs, shares a backup system, uses licensed monitoring, and touches five different teams. Your CMDB should help, but it’s rigid, outdated, or incomplete. And yet, you still need to provide a number, clear, explainable, and grounded in reality.

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Upcoming TRIBE Events

 
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August 20, 2025 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual polish

Motywowanie pracowników - programy, metody i dobre praktyki

To oczywiste, że o sukcesie organizacji decydują ludzie. Ci powinni być zmotywowani i uśmiechnięci. Wysoki poziom identyfikacji i zaangażowania buduje się długo i mozolne, ale najlepsi managerowie mają sprawdzone techniki, praktyki i metody cierpliwego podnoszenia motywacji zespołów.

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August 20, 2025 Squad Session Invitation Only Physical polish

SECURITY TRIBE: SESJA STRATEGICZNA

Podczas wystąpień, case studies i stolików dyskusyjnych omówimy następujące zagadnienia:    Wdrożenie Zero Trust Cybersecurity risk assesment / Risk management / Zarządzanie ryzykiem w organizacji kluczowej Zarządzanie tożsamością / PIM/IAM / IAM Bezpieczenstwo w łancuchu życia aplikacji i systemów (Bezpieczestwo SDLC)

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August 26, 2025 Squad Session Invitation Only Virtual polish

AI w chmurze czy on-prem? Praktyczne porównanie środowisk w budowie i rozwoju projektów

Marek Laskowski z Domański Zakrzewski Palinka, opierając się na doświadczeniach z wdrażania rozwiązań AI zarówno w chmurze, jak i w środowiskach on-premises, przedstawi praktyczne porównanie obu podejść. Omówi kluczowe aspekty: od kosztów i time-to-market, przez wymagane kompetencje i model organizacji zespołów IT, po utrzymanie i skalowanie rozwiązań. Marek przyjrzy się zaletom i wadom obu modeli i wskaże, jakie kryteria powinny decydować o wyborze środowiska dla konkretnego projektu AI.

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CIONET Partner Updates

CIONET Partner Updates

Recent Cases

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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.

 

 
Challenge
 
 
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.

 

our approach
 

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.

 

Business outcome
 
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.

 

Technologies

SAP S/4HANA Cloud

CIONET Circles

CIONET Business Circles

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Healthcare Circle

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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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.

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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 !

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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.

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Testimonials

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Contact us

Would you like to know more about CIONET Belgium, membership or partnership opportunities? Do you have feedback or any other question? Send us a message!