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Belgium 21-10-25 Squad Only Physical english

AI in Practice ; What it really takes to move from pilot to production

Every organisation has a handful of AI pilots. But very few have scaled them. The models are accurate. The vision is clear. But something’s always in the way; lack of infrastructure, unclear ownership, security concerns, or just plain fatigue. This is a conversation for people in the messy middle of the AI journey, those navigating the leap from promising prototypes to operational value.

Belgium 21-10-25 Invitation Only Physical english

CIONET Round Table - From Disconnected Data to Unified Insight ; Building a 360° customer view to unlock commercial growth

In today's competitive landscape, customer expectations have never been higher. They demand a personalised, seamless experience at every touchpoint, from initial marketing contact to post-sale service. Unified data is at the heart of creating engaging customer experiences and is meant to fuel the 360 profile. However, for many organizations, a complete picture of the customer is fragmented, with critical data scattered in disconnected systems and departments. This exclusive roundtable will bring together Digital Leaders active in multiple industries to discuss a critical challenge: breaking down data silos to build a true 360° view of the customer. We will explore how to solve the complex integration challenges that prevent a unified view, and how to transform disparate data into a single source of truth. Join us to: Discover how to overcome the technical hurdles of integrating critical business systems, such as ERP and CRM platforms, to unify customer data. Explore real-world case studies on how organisations have successfully created unified customer insights to enhance personalisation and boost commercial and operational efficiency. Discuss best practices for turning fragmented data into actionable insights that can anticipate customer needs, drive revenue growth, and foster long-term loyalty. This is a unique opportunity for Digital Leaders who are ready to transform their customer engagement strategy and unlock the full potential of their data.

Belgium 22-10-25 Invitation Only Physical english

The End of the Firewall

Enterprises are questioning whether private networks and stacked firewalls are still worthwhile investments. A newer approach operates on the open internet with Zero Trust, eliminates perimeter complexity, and reframes cybersecurity as a business performance metric for boards and audit committees. This is a closed-door, peer discussion, not a lecture. We’ll examine the promise and its pitfalls: Are the promised savings significant, or are they too good to be true? What risks do you introduce? How does this collide with your installed base, legacy OT, entrenched processes and team competencies, and how do you overcome that without breaking operations or credibility with the board? Two senior leaders from global companies will spark the dialogue with lived experience: Kurt De Ruwe, CIO AkzoNobel Frank Bolata, CIO Syensqo

October 21, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Physical english

AI in Practice ; What it really takes to move from pilot to production

November 4, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Virtual english

From Backlog to Value ; Prioritising what matters when everything feels urgent

You’ve got a roadmap, a backlog, and a lot of pressure. Every team wants their feature. Every stakeholder claims urgency. And your developers? They just want to deliver something meaningful. But how do you prioritise in a way that serves the business, and keeps the team sane? If your backlog keeps growing and your outcomes stay flat, this session helps you turn intent into value, without losing control.

November 18, 2025 Squad Session Squad Only Physical english

Business Process Driven Architecture ; Designing systems that follow how your organisation actually works

Too often, architecture is drawn top-down, neat boxes, elegant flows, and little connection to the way teams really work. But what if we flipped it? What if our systems evolved from the actual processes, pains, and needs that drive the business? If you’re tired of systems that look good on slides but frustrate in practice, this session will ground the conversation where value is created, at the process level.

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Belfius - Transforming a digital workplace to increase customer trust

Discover how Belfius, one of Belgium's leading banks, partnered with Kyndryl to enhance their regulatory readiness in anticipation of the 2025 DORA deadline. By redefining their target operating model and conducting a comprehensive skills audit, Belfius successfully regained control over their IT infrastructure, increased flexibility, and ensured full transparency in their operations. This customer story highlights the practical steps taken by Belfius to strengthen their IT controls and achieve compliance, offering valuable insights for IT leaders navigating similar regulatory challenges.

Business opportunity

As one of Belgium's leading banks and insurance companies, with a history of 150 years, Belfius serves 3.8 million customers, with over 12 thousand in the public sector. The company is embedded in all segments of the Belgian economy and society. Its brand values focus on caring for Belgian society by earning and maintaining the trust of every customer.

With the rise of hybrid work, Belfius recognized their need to transform their digital workplace environment. They needed to develop a secure, mobile, flexible and personalized solution that would enhance employee experience and enable Belfius to better serve their customers.

Technical challenge

Belfius’ original digital workplace was implemented on premises at a time when dedicated telecom bandwidth was essential to guarantee consistent network performance for banking employees, so they could reliably and securely serve customers, especially in hundreds of Belfius branches. As internet bandwidth expanded, Belfius customers enjoyed fast mobile banking, but the bank’s employee-assisted services, based on a centralized application model, were sometimes hampered by unpredictable disconnections. At the same time, the centralized model faced challenges in keeping up with available technology upgrades and innovations. To address this, Belfius aimed to align its digital workplace with today’s requirements and expectations.

Our solution

Together, Belfius and Kyndryl created a modernization strategy with a phased approach to minimize overall disruption to the business. This strategy supports Belfius in achieving their business goals by enabling faster delivery of new applications and smoother interactions with colleagues and customers.

In the first phase, Belfius designed and rolled out a new corporate device program that includes:

Direct access to Microsoft Office 365 applications, rather than virtualized access, enabling 12,000 Belfius employees to securely and agilely collaborate across departments to efficiently deliver banking and insurance services.
Automated cloud-based software updates to increase productivity by proactively reducing technical issues, ensuring the devices are always running at the latest security levels.

The power of partnership

Belfius’ digital workplace transformation is built on leading Microsoft technologies:

Microsoft Office 365 (including Teams) unifies workplace collaboration on a single platform.
Microsoft Intune proactively manages software updates across the Belfius device fleet from a landing zone in Microsoft Azure.
Microsoft Defender implements zero trust security that uses AI to monitor and protect the fleet from threats.

What progress looks like

Belfius has gained increased productivity and engagement with reduced risk as a result of these first phase achievements:

Belfius employees are able to work anywhere anytime and frictionlessly collaborate with applications on new devices.
The Digital Experience Management (DEM) environment monitors user experience.
Fleet-wide zero trust security protects sensitive data both in flight and at rest.

Currently, Belfius is refactoring virtualized applications to directly run on Microsoft Windows 11. This extends the benefits of the new digital workplace to Belfius employees regardless of where they are working.

“One of my favorite features of the Digital Experience Management is that corrective actions are taken even before the users notice a problem.”

Bart Vercammen

Head of Digital Workplace Services, Belfius

Technologies

Microsoft Office 365

CIONET Business Circles

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?

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.