Blog - Reflections Chairman on themes and journey for 2024

This blog aims to showcase our primary focus areas that will help us align our efforts to elevate not only our individual organisations, but also the collective strength of CIO Platform Nederland. 

As the technological opportunities develop, so too does the need to adapt our digital strategies, our innovation efforts, and the transformation of processes and ways of working. Within the theme of Digital Strategy, Innovation & Transformation, we will therefore uncover the trends and strategies that catapult our organizations into new heights of efficiency and competitiveness. Simultaneously, we’ll also look at the role of digital and the CIO in adverse economic circumstances, plenty of opportunities to be of value to your organization then as well. Do bring along your board members for this session in April! And if you’d like some colleagues to help you put the final touch to your new strategy, a Peer Review would be the ideal option. 

Both from a governance perspective and a compliance perspective, board members need to become more aware and involved with cybersecurity. This to protect their own organisations as well as the user of its procucts and services. Within the theme of Information Security we therefore aim to inspire more interaction between those responsible from a board perspective and more operation-focussed experts. Some expert views should start off the debate with (executive/supervisory) board members, CIO/CDO’s and CISO’s, with a focus on continuity in relation to cybersecurity incidents.  

Our relationship with technology providers has been strained over the last years, as we became more vocal in expressing our discontent with some of their ways of doing business. As long as their dominance in the markets remains, and interoperability is still a costly challenge, we’ll keep up the pressure on improving market conditions from the theme of Vendor Relations. Some changes are already in the making, due to i.a. new legislation. This will increase information sharing and make it easier and cost-effective to, for instance, use your data in multiple Clouds. For these new regulations to be efficiently put into practice, we’ll initiate cooperation with relevant stakeholders within government and the private sector. The intention is to create sufficiently transparent obligations and ways of demonstrating your compliancy. And to urge the different regulators to approach their compliancy audits in the same way. With the aim of reducing the costs of compliance as much as possible. Furthermore, we will continue to research and discuss new ways of cooperation and empowering each other in the field of procurement.  

On the other side, we also need to keep relations with vendors workable in order to maximise the opportunities new technologies could, and probably will, bring. AI for instance, will be on most of our innovation roadmaps. While experimentation is well under way, and AI is even deployed in an increasing number of operational systems, for instance in cyber security, there may still be some AI and data governance and ethics dilemmas and a new regulatory framework to comply with, and its business impact to ascertain. Lots of opportunities to share inspiration and help each other along! The same goes for sustainability, which will be high on many organisations’ ‘to do’ list, and important for the world and next generations, but also a great challenge when it comes to extracting and reporting relevant data, and new business opportunities. Here the new CEG Sustainability may offer new insights and best practices. 

Next to the challenges and opportunities I addressed above, most of us are also facing difficulties in keeping our workforces skilled for the future or keeping available capacity in line with the projects and programs set in our plans for 2024. Newly educated talent will only bring partial relieve, so we also need to look at keeping current workers up to date in their skills or reskilling them and offering an inspirational and empowering place to work. Embracing diversity is therefore not only a moral imperative but a strategic advantage. As a result, in 2024, the theme Diversity & Inclusion aims to explore how fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace enhances creativity, innovation, and overall organizational performance, and elaborate on the role of the CIO. 

As we embark on this journey together, let this blog serve as a catalyst for dialogue, collaboration, and shared learning in 2024! 

Warm regards, 

Martijn Koning 
Chairman
CIO Platform Nederland