For the last four years Erwin Verstraelen has successfully presided the CIOforum.

During that period, he has been the CIO for AVEVE and changed in 2018 to become the CDIO of the Port of Antwerp facing new and exiting challenges. He carried the title CIO of the year during 2019.

For 2020 the Board of CIOforum has chosen a new president.

Peter Vermeylen CIO of Cerba Healthcare a long-time member of the board, accepted to lead the CIOforum and Board for the coming years.

We thank Erwin for his excellent and continuous commitment and Peter for accepting the upcoming challenge. We wish them both success in their future careers.

Our masterclass on HR Digitalization was fully booked.  For those who have missed it, here you’ll find our 9 takeaways:

• Ensure that your employees love to come to work.
  This is a fundamental principle.  Employer branding should go ‘hand in hand’ with satisfied employees
• Be specific (and realistic) about your expectations with regards to digital skills.
  Identify the hard and soft skills which  are required to do the job.
  Don’t expect too much. Make your expectations very clear (also in relation with labor unions)
• Develop a sustainable policy with regards to lifelong learning (and invest in it).  
  Hiring young graduates will not be a sustainable solution to preserve digital skills on the long term.
  Instead, you also have a role to play to develop digital talents along their journey.
• Foster your relations with other C-level executives and Inspire
  The time when CIO’s were focusing on cost effective ICT is over now.
  Other C-level executives want you to inspire them with value creating opportunities to optimize the business processes.
• Create a shared vision on how ICT can contribute to the core business processes
  Ensure that there is a good alignment between ‘what the organization wants’ and ‘what ICT can deliver’.
• Do not forget your ICT Governance 
  Demonstrate your value contribution through a Business Case and ensure you’ll keep your main risks under control (next to being ‘Agile’, ‘Lean’ and a ‘Design Thinker’)
• Develop your roadmap 
  Develop a portfolio of investments linked to your business drivers
• Look at the data
  Evaluate the effectiveness of your ‘roadmap’ based on the data generated by your systems.
• Share experience with other organizations.
  ‘Network’ and ‘learn from others’

Erwin Verstraelen our CIOforum chairman, has been elected as CIO of the year 2018.

The CIOforum board, executive committee and al its members & partners congratulate Erwin with this excellent achievement. 

Read all about it in this article (Dutch).

Machine learning has arrived in the enterprise, and companies are eager to reap the competitive benefits the technology can provide. From automating processes that enable faster business operations to applying algorithms to improve accuracy, Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are
adapting the technology for a wide variety of uses—and transforming the way we work. To investigate the rise of machine learning, we worked with Oxford Economics to conduct a survey of 500 CIOs in 11 countries on three continents and across 25 industries, alongside in-depth interviews with leaders in the field. We found that CIOs are increasing their investment in machine learning, but must overcome several barriers to achieve their productivity, revenue, and innovation goals. Unless CIOs turn their attention to updating not just technology, but talent and business processes, the full value of machine learning cannot be realized.

Download the whitepaper from Servicenow.com.

Machine learning has arrived in the enterprise, and companies are eager to reap the competitive benefits the technology can provide. From automating processes that enable faster business operations to applying algorithms to improve accuracy, CIOs are adapting the technology for a wide variety of uses—and transforming the way we work.

Download the whitepaper from Servicenow.com.

During 2016 the CIOforum strategically decided to open up its membership to all CX levels and started looking actively for existing networks that have a similar approach and allow a reciproce collaboration. We contacted the House of Flanders (HOF), a CX level business network with 200 members that have several debate lunches with excellent speakers from the business and political arena. We agreed on an open acces for our members to enlist in their meetings. The costs that are involved in participating to one of their events is covered by your yearly membership fee. We have the opportunity to participate with maximum six members. In case of interest you can reserve a spot through our backoffice. This extension of our activities allows a broader perspective to our CIO mind set. This collaboration and the member restrictions also apply for the House of Flanders members. If you require more input or explanation please contact our backoffice.