Events

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Together with our Business Partners, we host multiple Events throughout the year, such as Roundtables, Advisor Briefings and Continuous Education Events. On this page, you can find our Upcoming and Past Events. If you are an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional, feel free to sign up!

Past events

Annual Event: indysource Annual Event 2024

indysource Annual Event 2024

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Please sign up for this Event via the signup form. 

We're thrilled to announce that for the third consecutive year, indysource will be hosting our highly anticipated indysource Annual Event on 18 April 2024. Join us at the elegant and historic ss Rotterdam Grand Ballroom, 3e Katendrechtsehoofd, Rotterdam.

Join us for insightful presentations featuring the indysource Insight Reports – State of the Industry (SotI) and the Supplier Perception and Performance (SPP). Plus, seize the opportunity for valuable networking opportunities with fellow indysource Members and Business Partners. 

Date: 18 April 2024
Time: Exact time to be confirmed soon
Location: ss Rotterdam Grand Ballroom - 3e Katendrechtsehoofd Rotterdam

Stay tuned for more details on the exact time and agenda as we approach the event. We can't wait to see you there! 

Networking Event: "AI - Beyond the Hype" - New Year Drinks & Networking Event 2024

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Please sign up for this Event via the signup form. 

As we approach the end of the year, we would like to celebrate the great achievements with our Community of Independent Sourcing Advisors and Professionals as well as our Business Partners. For the second year in a row, we are excited to invite you to the indysource New Year Drinks & Networking Event on 18 January 2024. We will announce more details about the topic and speaker soon, so stay tuned! 

Event Details:
Topic: "AI - Beyond the Hype" - Open discussion about AI and Sourcing in 2024
Date: 18 January 2024
Time: 18:00 - 20:30 CET
Location: Millennium Tower - Weena 690, Rotterdam 

If you are interested, don’t forget to sign up below! 

Roundtable: Cognizant Redefining ‘Cloud’ services - Driving growth, innovation and ESG agenda

Cognizant Redefining ‘Cloud’ services - Driving growth, innovation and ESG agenda

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Please sign up for this Event via the signup form. 

Please join us on 21 September 2023 for the upcoming indysource Roundtable on Redefining ‘Cloud’ services - Driving growth, innovation and ESG agenda, hosted by Cognizant

With steep technological advances and companies re-aligning themselves as software-centric businesses, Cloud services are not just about flexible and scalable consumption but much more. Cloud services have risen from being a supporting factor of business to a dynamic organizational capability enabling digital supply chains, accelerated market response times, improving the frequency of innovations, and strengthening our environment and societies. As part of this interaction, we will share how Cognizant Cloud, Infrastructure and Security services (CIS) is helping organizations across the globe leverage Cloud services to have a multiplier effect on their desired business outcomes.

Date & Time: 21 September 2023 - 18:30 - 21:30 CET 
Location: Paardenburg BV Amstelzijde 55 1184 TZ Amstelveen
Topic: Redefining ‘Cloud’ services - Driving growth, innovation and ESG agenda
Speaker: David Francis, Chief Digital & Information Officer at Eriks and Paul van Vlaanderen, CTO at ABN Amro Clearing Bank


We look forward to seeing you there!

Networking Event: Summer Barbecue & Networking Event

Summer Barbecue & Networking Event

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Please sign up for this Event via the signup form. 

On 24 August 2023 we hosted the indysource Summer Barbecue & Networking Event at the magnificent location Fort de Vechten, located in the New Dutch Waterline (Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie) near Bunnik (Utrecht) which offers a unique combination of culture, history and nature. We are glad we had the opportunity to meet our indysource Members and Business Partners and catch up after the summer holidays. 

We also had an insightful presentation by Paul van Wijngaarden and Werner de Jonge on Early Market Engagement, how to use a Design Thinking Approach.

*Please be aware that this Event is exclusively focused on Independent Sourcing Advisors and Professionals, particularly the indysource Members.

Roundtable: Tech Mahindra IT Transformation Journey and Strategic Partnership

Tech Mahindra IT Transformation Journey and Strategic Partnership

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Please sign up for this Event via the signup form. 

On 22 June the indysource Members had the opportunity to attend a Live Roundtable Event with Etienne Ammerdorffer - Engagement & Sourcing Lead at KPN and Ramon Nijman - Strategic Sourcing Lead at KPN, hosted by Tech Mahindra. We discussed the topic “IT Transformation Journey and Strategic Partnership with KPN”. 

Speakers: Etienne Ammerdorffer - Engagement & Sourcing Lead and Ramon Nijman - Strategic Sourcing Lead  
Date and Time: 22 June 18:30 - 21:30 CET (including dinner) 
Location: Kasteel de Wittenburg - Landgoed de Wittenburg 1, 2244 BV Wassenaar 

Roundtable: Wipro Ecosystems, A New Partner Imperative at FrieslandCampina

Wipro Ecosystems, A New Partner Imperative at FrieslandCampina

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Please sign up for this Event via the signup form. 

On 11 May the indysource Members had the opportunity to attend a Live Roundtable Event with Fleur Bosland – Strategic Vendor Management at Royal FrieslandCampina, hosted by Wipro. We discussed the topic “Ecosystems, A New Partner Imperative”. 

A few years ago, the concept of an IT partner ecosystem barely existed. Organizations worked with vendors, suppliers and service providers, selling products or services to customers and doing their best to outperform the competition. Partnerships were usually developed to leverage market synergies or benefit from capabilities outside their own areas of specialization. 

Today, things are different. Enterprises have much more complex needs that are difficult for a single provider to fully meet, and therefore products and services must collaborate in ways not previously considered possible. This explains why, according to IDC research, 40% of large enterprises will have established formal ecosystem partnerships with technology providers by 2024. 

Fleur Bosland talked about the recent vendor ecosystem strategy, explained their actions, the reasons behind it and some learnings. indysource partner Wipro participated in the discussion highlighting some of the actions they are taking as a vendor to stay relevant and be amongst the vendors of choice. 

Speaker: Fleur Bosland – Strategic Vendor Management at Royal FrieslandCampina 
Date and Time: 11 May 18:30 - 21:30 CET (including dinner) 
Location: HFSLG - Restaurant de Hoefslag - Vossenlaan 28, Bosch en Duin

 

Annual Event: indysource Annual Event 2023

indysource Annual Event 2023

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Become a Member today for free!

On 18 April 2023, we hosted the second indysource Annual Event, featuring the indysource Insights Reports - State of the Industry, DealFlow and the Supplier Perception & Performance (SPP). It was a great opportunity to meet our current and new Members and our Business Partners on the magnificent former ocean liner and cruise ship ss Rotterdam.   

Moreover, we also hosted a Best Practice Focus Group at this year’s Annual Event. The Session took place in the afternoon before the official start of the indysource Annual Event in one of the meeting rooms at ss Rotterdam. We discussed two topics (1) Agile Sourcing/Procurement Process Alignment and (2) Transition & Transformation. Interested in joining another expert-based Focus Group?  Sign up to become a Member.

Time & Agenda:

  • Best Practice Focus Group: 14:00 – 17:30 CET (Skyroom)
    • Agile Sourcing/Procurement Process Alignment
    • Transition & Transformation
  • indysource Annual Event: 18:00 - 22:00 CET (Grand Ballroom)
    • State of the Industry - Key Highlights on the Strategic Outlook on the Sourcing Industry and our Supplier Panel  
    • DealFlow - Overview of the Tactical Opportunity Analysis on the Demand Side Industry Sectors Q1/Q2 2023  
    • Supplier Perception & Performance (SPP) - Key Highlights and Announcement of the Award-Winning Top 6 Suppliers

*Please be aware that this Event is exclusively focused on Independent Sourcing Advisors and Professionals, particularly the indysource Members.

Roundtable: Hexaware Digital and Business Transformation for Baloise Belgium

Hexaware Digital and Business Transformation for Baloise Belgium

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Please sign up for this Event via the signup form. 

On 22 February  indysource had its first Live Roundtable Event for 2023 with Koen Van Dyck, IT Director for Baloise Belgium, hosted by Hexaware. We discussed the “Digital and Business Transformation for Baloise Belgium” and how Hexaware has enabled that for Baloise Belgium and Baloise Group on the Cloud.
  
Speaker: Koen Van Dyck, IT Director for Baloise Belgium
Date and Time: 22 February 18:30 – 21:30 CET (including dinner) 
Location: Rotterdam - restaurant VINEUM - Eendrachtsweg 23, 3012 LB Rotterdam

Networking Event: New Year Drinks & Networking Event

New Year Drinks & Networking Event

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Become a Member today for free!
 
On 19 January 2023, we hosted the indysource New Year Drinks & Networking Event sponsored by HCL. It was great to look back and say goodbye to a successful year full of interactive Events with our indysource Members and Business Partners. The New Year Drinks & Networking Event was a great way to connect with your peers over a drink, bites and a beautiful view of Rotterdam.
 
We also had an insightful presentation by our Event Speaker Daniel Drummen – IT Category manager at DSM who shared very interesting insights about their experience in the dynamic sourcing process.
 

*Please be aware that this Event is exclusively focused on Independent Sourcing Advisors and Professionals, particularly the indysource Members.

Webinar: Hexaware 2022 Executive Conversation - Business Update

Hexaware 2022 Executive Conversation - Business Update

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Please sign up for this Event via the signup form. 

On 10 November indysource hosted the 2022 "Executive Conversations" indysource Webinar Event, with Hexaware. This Webinar is part of the "Executive Conversations" series. In this webinar series, we sit down with the regional leaders of our Business Partners to provide a quick and to-the-point overview of the Direction, Vision and Capabilities (DVC) in the Benelux market in 2022. 

We introduced the key people for the region, went through the 2022 business update, presence in the region, key focus industries, new wins and clients/projects, and the focus solution areas for the region and finally why and when our Members should call Hexaware

Speakers:
  • Alexander Müller – SVP Continental Europe – Managing Director Germany - Hexaware
  • Vijay Raghavan - Head of Business Development - Financial Services (BFSI), Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals for EMEA
  • Chandan Mishra - Country Manager - the Netherlands - Hexaware
Date & Time: 10 November 16:30 – 17:30 CET

Roundtable: Tech Mahindra Digital & Data journey at DAF

Tech Mahindra Digital & Data journey at DAF

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Please sign up for this Event via the signup form. 

On 5 October indysource hosted a Live Roundtable Event with Tech Mahindra. The Speaker was Nicholas Vasilius, Global Head of Technology, Manager, Data Science & Engineering at DAF. We discussed the ‘Digital & Data journey at DAF'.

During this session, Nicholas elaborated on the key business drivers behind the data strategy adopted by DAF and how they are building a strong ecosystem to realize the goals set out in this strategy. He also shared his insights in the areas of data engineering and infrastructure modernization by adopting end to end cloud approach and how these initiatives are governed with the goal of improving end-user & customer experience.

Speaker: Nicholas Vasilius, Manager, Data Science & Engineering at DAF

Date and Time: 5 October 18:30 – 21:30 CET (including dinner) 

Location: Restaurant Quatre Bras - Nieuwstraat 79, Best, North Brabant, NL, 5683 KB

Webinar: Valid 2022 Executive Conversation - Business Update

Valid 2022 Executive Conversation - Business Update

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Become a Member today for free!

On 29 September the indysource Members had the opportunity to join the 2022 "Executive Conversations" indysource Webinar Event, with Valid. This webinar is part of the "Executive Conversations" series. In this webinar series, we sit down with the regional leaders of our Business Partners to provide a quick and to the point overview of the Direction, Vision and Capabilities in the Benelux market in 2022.

We introduced the key people for the region, went through the 2022 business update, presence in the region, key focus industries, new wins and clients/projects, and the focus solution areas for the region and finally why and when our Members should call Valid. 

Speaker: Eric Hogenboom – CEO - Valid 

Date & Time: 29 September 16:30 – 17:30 CET 

 

Roundtable: Mindtree Digital Transformation @Scale for Unilever Food Solutions

Mindtree Digital Transformation @Scale for Unilever Food Solutions

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Please sign up for this Event via the signup form. 

On 21 September indysource hosted a Live Roundtable Event with Mindtree. The speaker at the Event was Harpreet Sethi, Global Head of Technology, Unilever Food Solutions. We discussed the ‘Digital Transformation Scale for Unilever Food  Solutions. 

In this case study, indysource Members learned how technology-led business transformation at scale is delivered for Unilever Food Solutions, powering digital commerce, digital marketing and omnichannel-personalized customer engagement through platform standardization, data harmonisation and intelligent automation. 

Speaker: Harpreet Sethi, Global Head of Technology, Unilever Food Solutions 

Date and Time: 21 September 18:30 – 21:30 CET (including dinner) 
Location: Brasserie Paardenburg, Amstelzijde 55, 1184 TZ, Amstelveen 

Webinar: Wipro 2022 Executive Conversation - Business Update

Wipro 2022 Executive Conversation - Business Update

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Become a Member today for free!
 
On 1 September 16:30 – 17:30 CET indysource Members had the opportunity to join for "Executive Conversations" indysource Webinar Event of 2022, with Wipro. In this Webinar Event series, we sit down with the regional leaders of our Business Partners to provide a quick and to the point overview of the Direction, Vision and Capabilities (DVC) in the BeNeLux market in 2022.

In the Webinar Event, we introduced the key people for the region, went through the 2022 business update, presence in the region, key focus industries, new wins and clients/projects, and the focus solution areas for the region and finally why and when our Members should call Wipro.
 

Speakers: Sarat Chand - Managing Director – BNL at Wipro, Henk Smit – Head of Consulting Wipro Benelux, and Eric Daanen – Head of CIO-Advisory Wipro Benelux

Date & Time: 1 September 16:30 – 17:30 CET 

Webinar: TCS - Raising the bar together – A case study on a trusted partnership

TCS - Raising the bar together – A case study on a trusted partnership

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Become a Member today for free!

On 6 July our Members had the opportunity to join the "Heart2Heart" indysource Webinar Event, with TCS. We went over a case study on the journey of a relationship that brought mutual value for TCS and a large grocery retailer and raised the bar together. The relationship started in 2017 as a consolidation of services and has already exceeded the high expectations that were set out during the start of the engagement. This mutual trusted partnership exceeded expectations by elevating the maturity of the whole ecosystem through a high level of automation. The success of this relationship also helped both the partners to explore other areas and expand the footprint to provide similar benefits. This case covered the results, the process through which this was achieved, best practices and lessons learned along the way.

Speakers: Ganesh Vaidyanathan, TCS Client Partner and Gurpunyeet Singh, Senior Director, IT Sourcing

Date & Time: 6 July 16:30 – 17:30 CET 

 

Roundtable: Why the quest for sustainability is actually a call for new friendships...

Why the quest for sustainability is actually a call for new friendships...

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Become a Member today for free!

On 22 June, indysource hosted a Live Roundtable Event together with Wipro. During the Event we discussed the hot topic of sustainability. Wipro shared more insights on a recent publication Transform to Net Zero organization in collaboration with Nike and Unilever where they shared their approaches to developing products and services that convert ambitious net-zero commitments into actions.  
 
In his keynote Wolfgang Steiner (Sustainability Business Lead, Europe for Wipro iDEAS) talked about why Sustainability is not only a game-changer for Business in general, but very much and especially also for Technology Leaders and their IT organisations. The keynote took the indysource Members on a journey about the key role sustainability plays within Wipro
  • How we help clients to achieve their ESG ambitions;
  • Why the power of a price tag is so powerful also for Sustainability progress;
  • Whether there is such a thing as “Green IT” at all;
  • How Sustainability changes the role of Technology within the Business Organisation;  
  • Why it is about time for new friendships
 
Date and Time: 22 June 19:00 – 21:30 CET (including dinner) 
Location: Kasteel Woerden - Kasteel 3, 3441 BZ Woerden 
Speaker: Wolfgang Steiner – European Head of Sustainable Business Transformation

Roundtable: Delivering an SAP core model project for business process convergence at Thales

Delivering an SAP core model project for business process convergence at Thales

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Become a Member today for free!

On 9 June indysource Members had the opportunity to join our second Live Roundtable Event in 2022 hosted by Sopra Steria. Sopra Steria presented a customer case at Thales in which they helped Thales in a single large but complex program. The speakers at the Roundtable were Eric Olivier Leindecker - Global Account Manager, and Etienne Beslay - Program Director and Sebastien Nys - Delivery Director Financial Services.

Thales Group's management saw this SAP program as a unique opportunity to converge industrial and financial processes between the various entities in France (>21,000 users), by sharing best practices. Further objectives were to obtain productivity gains, reduce operating and support costs and prepare for the digital transformation.

Sopra Steria has jointly developed with Thales the solution with an implementation of SAP in multiple sites across 8 global business units. The solution was developed and implemented over multiple years at fixed cost, with a more regular SAP project phasing including rollouts in combination with an Agile collaboration in developing and implementing the SAP Fiori based end-user layer.

Date and Time: 9 June 18:30 – 21:30 CET (including dinner)
Location: VINEUM - Eendrachtsweg 23, 3012 LB Rotterdam
Speakers: Eric-Olivier Leindecker - Global Account Manager, Etienne Beslay - Program Director and Sebastien Nys - Delivery Director Financial Services.

Webinar: TCS 2022 Business Update - Executive Conversation

TCS 2022 Business Update - Executive Conversation

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Become a Member today for free!
 
On 19 May 16:30 – 17:30 CET indysource Members had the opportunity to join the 2022 "Executive Conversations" indysource Webinar Event, with TCS. This Webinar is part of the "Executive Conversations" series. In this Webinar series, we sit down with the regional leaders of our Business Partners to provide a quick and to the point overview of the Direction, Vision and Capabilities in the Benelux market in 2022. 
During the Webinar we introduced the key people for the region, went through the 2022 business update, presence in the region, key focus industries, new wins and clients/projects, and the focus solution areas for the region and finally why and when our Members should call TCS. 
 

Speaker: Josu Devasia – Country Head 

Date & Time: 19 May 16:30 – 17:30 CET 

Roundtable: Cognizant Digital Studio Tour and Client Case Study

Cognizant Digital Studio Tour and Client Case Study

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional? Become a Member today for free!

On 11 May indysource Members joined the first Live Roundtable event of 2022, hosted by Cognizant. Cognizant gave the indysource Members the amazing opportunity to visit their Digital Studio in Amsterdam, a place where they help companies transform to be digital and win in the digital economy. It’s a collaborative working space where different disciplines come together in an environment that is inclusive, creative, diverse, and welcoming to people with unique schools of thought, and where we ideate, prototype and deliver digital at scale.
Combining deep human insights with speed of development: driven by human science-based research, applying design thinking and lean-agile start-up methodologies, coupled with modern software engineering (DevOps, CI/CD and Cloud-Native). Using the Cognizant’s new immersive room, we discussed several exciting client case studies like: Digital Transformation of the De Lage Landen origination platform where Cognizant has enabled a low touch modern user experience which they presented during the visit to the Studio.

Annual Event: indysource Annual Event

indysource Annual Event

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional, become a Member today for free!
 
On the 14th of April, indysource hosted its first indysource Annual Event former ocean liner and cruise ship ss Rotterdam. We had insightful presentations and interactive discussions with our Members. 
 
We've discussed Key topics backed by our Annual Insights Reports:
  • Key Note: State of the Industry - Top 10 Change Factors - Supplier Panel Discussion
  • Industry Sector Expert Panel: DealFlow - Review of Opportunities - Member Panel Discussion
  • Key Note: Supplier Perception & Performance Top 6s Announcement
      
This Event was exclusively focused on Independent Sourcing Advisors and Professionals, and in particular, the Members who are active in our Supplier Perception & Performance (SPP), attending Events and Members participating in Discussions on our indysource Virtual Office (iVO). If you are interested in joining upcoming indysource Events get in touch or directly become a Member here.
 

Webinar: Wipro 2022 Business Update

Wipro 2022 Business Update

Unfortunately, the upcoming Wipro Webinar: 2022 Business Update - Executive Conversation, planned for March 31 has been cancelled. You will be informed once the Event is rescheduled.

Please join us on 31 March 16:30 – 17:30 CET for the "Executive Conversations" indysource Webinar Event of 2022, with Wipro. In this Webinar Event series, we sit down with the regional leaders of our Business Partners to provide a quick and to the point overview of the Direction, Vision and Capabilities (DVC) in the BeNeLux market in 2022.
 
In the Webinar Event, we will introduce the key people for the region, go through the 2022 business update, presence in the region, key focus industries, new wins and clients/projects, and the focus solution areas for the region and finally why and when our Members should call Wipro.
 

Speaker: Sarat Chand - Managing Director – BNL at Wipro 

Date & Time: 31 March 16:30 – 17:30 CET 

Webinar: Sopra Steria 2022 Business Update

Sopra Steria 2022 Business Update

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional and do you want to replay this Webinar, become a Member today for free!
 
On 17 March the indysource Members had the opportunity to join the "Executive Conversations" Webinar Event of 2022 with Sopra Steria. The speaker for this Webinar Event was Michel Lorgeré - Chief Executive Officer (CEO) – BeNeLux at Sopra Steria He provided an overview of the Direction, Vision and Capabilities (DVC) of Sopra Steria in the Dutch market. We introduced the key people for the region, went through the 2022 business update, presence in the region, key focus industries, new wins and clients/projects, and the focus solution areas for the region and finally why and when should our Members call Sopra Steria.
 

Speaker: Michel Lorgeré - Chief Executive Officer (CEO) – BeNeLux at Sopra Steria

Date & Time: 17 March 17:00 – 18:00 CET

Webinar: Tech Mahindra 2022 Business Update

Tech Mahindra 2022 Business Update

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional and do you want to replay this Webinar, become a Member today for free!
 
On 10 March the indysource Members had the opportunity to join the second "Executive Conversations" Webinar Event of 2022 with Tech Mahindra. The speaker for this Webinar Event was Sandeep Agarwal Vice President & Country Head - Benelux at Tech Mahindra. He provided an overview of the Direction, Vision and Capabilities (DVC) of Tech Mahindra in the Dutch market. We introduced the key people for the region, went through the 2022 business update, new wins, presence in the region, key focus industries and clients/projects, and the focus solution areas for the region and finally why and when should our Members call Tech Mahindra.
 
Speaker: Sandeep Agarwal - Vice President & Country Head - Benelux at Tech Mahindra
Date & Time: 10 March 16:30 – 17:30 CET

Webinar: Cognizant 2022 Business Update

Cognizant 2022 Business Update

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional and do you want to replay this Webinar, become a Member today for free!

On 3 February the indysource Members had the opportunity to join the first "Executive Conversations" Webinar Event of 2022, being with Cognizant. The speaker for this Webinar Event was Saket Gulati - Vice President – Market Head, Netherlands & Head of Financial Services Benelux. The speaker provided an overview of the Direction, Vision and Capabilities (DVC) of Cognizant in the Dutch market. We introduced the key people for the region, went through the 2022 business update, new wins, presence in the region, key focus industries and clients /projects, and the focus solution areas for the region and finally why and when should our Members call Cognizant.

Speaker: Saket Gulati - Vice President – Market Head, Netherlands & Head of Financial Services Benelux

Date & Time: 3 February 16:30 – 17:30 CET

Webinar: Wipro HR Services - People Operations to People Care

Wipro HR Services - People Operations to People Care

Are you an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional and do you want to replay this Webinar, become a Member today for free!

On 20 January we had an exciting indysource 'The Digital Move' Webinar Event hosted by Wipro. In this Webinar Event, we discussed a Wipro HR Business Process Services Case at a Tech Giant. We delved into the reasons why and the possible scope and solutions relating to the Case, and also looked to answer the question 'is it possible to leverage HR BPO to increase Employee Satisfaction and Retention'. The Speakers for this session were Prabjot Makin, Europe - HR Practice Director, and Ajay Mulgaokar, General Manager & Practice Head, HR Services from Wipro.

Roundtable: #Digital journey at Asahi

#Digital journey at Asahi

On the 25th of November, we had a very exciting first Live Roundtable event of 2021 with Tech Mahindra on a digital journey at Asahi'. The speaker for this event was Sandeep Bhardwaj - Head of Cloud and Platform (Global) at Koninklijke Grolsch (Asahi Europe and International). The location of the Event was the beautiful Kasteel de Wittenburg.

Webinar: Driving Output-Based Pricing for a Leading Commodity Trading Company

Driving Output-Based Pricing for a Leading Commodity Trading Company

Note that this Webinar is for Independent Sourcing Advisors and Professionals.

Please join us on 3 November 16:30 – 17:30 CET in an exiting ‘The Digital Move’ Webinar with Cognizant on ‘Driving Output-Based Pricing for a Leading Commodity Trading Company’. 

Presented by Cognizant’s Enterprise Engineering Practice, this session will focus on an overview of the practice and strategy and a deep dive case study - using an output-based model leveraging agile delivery for a leading commodity trading company. The session will cover client context, critical success factors for performance, and challenges including delivering commercial predictability when requirements cannot be specified upfront, to deliver key business and technology outcomes aligned to the wider business vision.

Speakers:

Ovidiu Pitic is the market lead for Cognizant’s Enterprise Engineering (EE) practice for Benelux and Nordics and brings 25 years of experience in applying technology solutions for enterprise transformations. In his current role, he acts in complex, multi-vendor ecosystems combining start- ups, scale-ups and established corporations, with a focus on large-scale modernization initiatives for business impact.   Ovidiu holds a BSc in Computer Science and an MSc in Artificial Intelligence. He is based in Amsterdam.

Saleha Williams is Cognizant’s Global Head of Strategy for Enterprise Engineering (EE). Saleha is responsible for driving EE’s global growth agenda and strategic market positioning: she is also the Chair of EE’s Global D&I Council. An FT UK Top 100 international technology thought leader, Saleha has over 25 years global industry experience with companies including Google, Disney, CNN, BBC, BT, London 2012 Olympics as well as VC funded starts ups and her own global consulting practice. She recently returned to Cognizant after leading the Google EMEA Consulting Group with WPP.    Saleha holds an MBA in Digital Transformation from Henley, a Disruptive Innovation & Strategy certification from Harvard, and a master’s degree in Psychology specialising in Neuroscience and Leadership from Cambridge.

Webinar: Cyber Hygiene and its Significance in Cyber Maturity

Cyber Hygiene and its Significance in Cyber Maturity

On 21 October we had a very interactive ‘The Digital Move’ Webinar on ‘Cyber Hygiene and its Significance in Cyber Maturity’ with TCS. The Speakers of the Webinar were Vikas Choudhary - Assistant System Consultant, and Chandrasekar Narasimhan - Business Development Manager. 

In this session, we discussed some of the key security areas of focus to enhance cyber hygiene and a walked through a case study on how TCS enabled a leading Dutch energy major strengthen their security controls.

Security is and has always been an ever-evolving area in information technology.   

The recent pandemic has been a catalyst of change, as organizations have been grappling to adapt to the new normal.   

With the workforce going remote and the workloads moving cloud, With the attackers getting advanced and the attack patterns getting sophisticated, there is no better time than NOW to start re-evaluating the enterprise security. 

Webinar: Delivering a Scalable Cloud-Based Platform for Regulatory Reporting

Delivering a Scalable Cloud-Based Platform for Regulatory Reporting

On the 14th of October we had an inspiring 'The Digital Move' Webinar with Sopra Steria on ‘Delivering a scalable cloud-based platform for regulatory reporting'. The speakers for the Webinar were Vineet Jay - client executive and Neil Caldwell - delivery director.    

Sopra Steria presented a customer case in which they helped the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK, similar to the Dutch ‘Autoriteit Financiële Markten (AFM), to create a platform that allows the FCA to implement the MIFID II regulations in the UK by using this platform to receive all regulatory compliant reporting from all relevant financial market parties. The platform is called the Market Data Platform.  

Sopra Steria has built the platform in a large application development program in close collaboration with the FCA. Utilizing for the large part an Agile WoW, with joint staffed teams, the involvement of open-source vendors and offshoring. The platform was built cloud-native as one of the first large scale deployments on AWS in the UK. Sopra Steria remains until today responsible for the management and operations of the platform. The platform has a high volume capacity of on average 31 million transactions per day.

Webinar: Evolution and Benefits of Data Science in Global Manufacturing

Evolution and Benefits of Data Science in Global Manufacturing

On 30 September, we had a very interesting Heart2Heart Webinar – Evolution and Benefits of Data Science in Global Manufacturing with Tech Mahindra

During this session, Vinay Singh, Data Science Manager, at one of the largest Chemical producer of the world talked about the Evolution and Benefits of Data Science in Global Manufacturing. Vinay is an Alumni of Mannheim Business school and École Supérieure des Sciences Économiques et Commerciales (ESSEC), Vinay Singh is data science practitioner with over 16 years of industry experience.

Besides that, he is Visiting Lecturer at Hochschule Furtwangen, teaching data science, and has authored a couple of books and papers on technology.

A staunch supporter of social causes and a great fan of start it small. He mentors data-driven start-ups like yourFirstAd and ManiaVarsity.

Moreover, he loves to listen to the life experiences and stories of people around him and draw inspiration. 

Webinar: HCL 2021 Business Update

HCL 2021 Business Update

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On 16 September 16:30-17:30 we had an Executive Conversation with Deepak Arora who leads BFSI for BeNeLux and Nordics and Rohit Upadhyay who leads Diversified Industries in BeNeLux, introducing our Business Partner HCL

This was the sixth webinar in the series: "Executive Conversations." The speaker provided a quick and to the point overview of the Direction, Vision and Capabilities of HCL in the Benelux market.    

We introduced the key people for the region, went through the 2021 business update, new wins, presence in the region, key focus industries and clients /projects, and the focus solution areas for the region and finally why and when should our Members call HCL.

Webinar: RPA & Business Process Transformation @ VGZ

RPA & Business Process Transformation @ VGZ

Not a Member yet? Go here if you are an Independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional, and sign up to replay this Webinar.

On 2 September 16:30-17:30 the indysource Members had a Heart2Heart Webinar with Cognizant and their partner VGZ on "RPA &  Business Process Transformation @ VGZ". During this webinar, Vincent Dolfin - Regional Lead Insurance Consulting Benelux at Cognizant, Tim Vink - Delivery lead at Cognizant, and Jordy Haven - Product owner at VGZ, tried to inspire the Members with their personal stories on the inception of RPA at VGZ, the journey within the organization, and the drivers of success.

Back in 2017 VGZ & Cognizant partnered together to see how they could use the technological possibilities of RPA to support or even drive their Business Process Transformation Program. Together they will present the ins & outs of their journey, what makes it a success story, provide unique insights, and valuable learnings that hopefully inspire others to pursue similar ambitions.   

Curious how a technical experiment with RPA led to a fundamental acceleration and digital transformation of customer & operations processes at a major health insurance company? During the indysource webinar, Cognizant and VGZ jointly presented their successful journey on how they enrolled RPA at the customer & operations department. And how that helped to spark a fundamental acceleration and digital transformation of the core business processes. Typical drivers of success were highlighted, for example how to select processes suitable for RPA, how to work together between supplier and vendor, how to monitor business value, and how to continuously fill the development pipeline. And they also shared their most important learnings that they picked up along our way. At the end we had some very good questions asked by the Members.

Webinar: Wipro 2021 Business Update

Wipro 2021 Business Update

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On 8 July 4:30-5:30, we had an Executive Conversation with Sarat Chand, Managing Director at Wipro, introducing our Business Partner Wipro.

This was the fifth webinar in the series: "Executive Conversations." In this webinar series, we sit down with the regional leaders of our Business Partners to provide a quick and to-the-point overview of the Direction, Vision and Capabilities in the Benelux market. 

We introduced the key people for the region, went through the 2021 business update, new wins, presence in the region, key focus industries and clients /projects, and the focus solution areas for the region and finally why and when should our Members call Wipro.

Webinar: SAP Cloud Journey at a Global Conglomerate

SAP Cloud Journey at a Global Conglomerate

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On 30 June 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm CET we had an interactive Webinar on a major Dutch-based client’s ERP Consolidation & Cloud Transformation programme. The speaker for this Webinar was Vandit Dixit, client partner at HCL. The client is a global building materials conglomerate based in the Netherlands. The client has grown aggressively through multiple acquisitions and is undergoing a consolidation of 25+ ERP systems, migration to SAP on public cloud as well as orchestration over Public cloud, Private cloud and on-prem. 

We explored the following aspects of the program: 

  • Background to HCLs business at the client 
  • Why the client is making the SAP consolation & migration roadmap and the business case HCL will deliver  
  • Challenges for SAP migration and the hybrid cloud orchestration programme 
  • Shaping the client’s multi-cloud ecosystem and operating model 
  • QA from indysource Members

Webinar: Sopra Steria 2021 Business Update

Sopra Steria 2021 Business Update

If you want to replay this Webinar and you are an independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional, become a Member today!

16 June we had an Executive Conversation with Michel Lorgeré, CEO Benelux, introducing our Business Partner Sopra Steria.

This was the fourth webinar in the series: "Executive Conversations." In this webinar series, we sit down with the regional leaders of our Business Partners to provide a quick and to-the-point overview of the Direction, Vision and Capabilities in the Benelux market.

We introduced the key people for the region, went through the 2021 business update, new wins, presence in the region, key focus industries and clients /projects, and the focus solution areas for the region and finally why and when should our Members call Sopra Steria. In this Webinar, we also touched on the topic Agile, which resulted in an insightful conversation between Members and Sopra Steria.

Webinar: Bridgestone’s “Vision of Mobility”

Bridgestone’s “Vision of Mobility”

If you want to replay this Webinar and you are an independent Sourcing Advisor or Professional, become a Member today!

 

On 4 June we had a very interesting Webinar with Tech Mahindra's client Bridgestone: Executing on Bridgestone’s “Vision of Mobility”

 

During this session, Bart Kerkhofs, Director IT Services & Operations at Bridgestone, elaborated on Bridgestone’s recently announced “Vision of Mobility”. The Bridgestone mobility eco-system is a world of platforms of, fleets, tyres and data. To address the massive market changes – such as Mobility as a Solution and connected vehicles in smart cities –  Bridgestone is evolving its business and operating models to provide value for society and to its customers. Bridgestone is revamping its business by co-creating with partners and connecting to mobility platforms.

Webinar: Contracting for Agile/DevOps - Best Practice Sharing

Contracting for Agile/DevOps - Best Practice Sharing

On 27 May, 16:30-17:30, we had our first indysource Webinar of the Talking Practices series. In a Panel discussion with our Members, we focussed on Best Practice Sharing and talked about their experiences, observed common and emerging practices for Contracting for Agile/DevOps.

Webinar: TCS 2021 Business Update

TCS 2021 Business Update

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On 29 April, we had the “2021 TCS Business Update Executive Conversation – Direction, Vision and Capability” Webinar. The Speaker of this Webinar was Josu Devasia, Country Head at TCS.  

In this 3rd webinar from the series: "Executive Conversations.”, we sat down with our Business Partners' regional leaders to provide a quick and to the point overview of the Direction, Vision, and Capabilities in the Benelux market. 

We introduce the key people for the region, went through the 2021 business update, new wins, presence in the region, key focus industries and clients/projects, and the focus solution areas for the region, and finally, when and why Members should call TCS.

This was a very interactive Webinar with plenty of interesting questions.

Webinar: The Intelligent Enterprise with Wipro

The Intelligent Enterprise with Wipro

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On 30 March we had a great Webinar with Wipro from the Digital Move. During the interactive session, we discussed multiple interesting case studies and learned how Wipro is enabling organisations to run better and grow faster leveraging Data, Analytics and AI.

Webinar: Maturing DevOps through Co-sourcing

Maturing DevOps through Co-sourcing

Replay will be available shortly here. to join the Webinar. Not a Member yet? Click here.

On 18 March a Webinar of the “The Digital Move” series took place with Sopra Steria on “Maturing DevOps through Co-sourcing at Belgian financial” 

The engagement started as a more traditional application managed services engagement. Sopra Steria was transforming the customer’s landscape from legacy applications to modern application tech environments and change of platform infrastructure

As of 2017 application services started moving to an Agile way of working, and to a collaborative managed services WoW with distributed tribe and squads in on-shore, near-shore and ad-hoc offshore locations

3 pillars: (1) One Team, being a mix of customer and Sopra Steria ; (2) Collaborative mindset, a true dialogue between parties with dedicated governance; (3) Shared objectives with Common/shared KPI's (down to squad level) between customer & Sopra Steria. 

Objective: focus on continuous improvements to decrease time to market

Speaker: Sebastien Nys, Delivery Program Director

Webinar: Tech Mahindra 2021 Business Update

Tech Mahindra 2021 Business Update

On 11 March 16:30-17:30 we had a very good and interactive executive conversation with Sandeep Agarwal, Vice President and Country Head Benelux, introducing our new Business Partner Tech Mahindra, and his team.

This was the second webinar in the series: "Executive Conversations." In these webinar series we sit down with the regional leaders of our Business Partners to provide a quick and to the point overview of the Direction, Vision and Capabilities in the Benelux market. 

We introduced the key people for the region, went through the 2021 business update, new wins, presence in the region, key focus industries and clients /projects, and the focus solution areas for the region and finally why and when should our Members call Tech Mahindra.

Webinar: Engineering Cloud Landing Zones with HCL

Engineering Cloud Landing Zones with HCL

Please join HCL & indysource on the 2nd March for an interactive and engaging discussion on a major cloud transformation program with a Global FMCG client. The discussion will explore the strategy, migration approach being taken to move different & significant workloads to multiple public clouds. We’ll examine how a client has created a future state cloud operating model which integrates the business platforms with the service model in line with the industry standard Model 2 operating principles. The discussion will also look at the challenges involved in architecting the cloud landing zones and the ecosystem relationships between the public cloud providers, the client, and HCL.

Webinar: Cognizant 2021 Business Update

Cognizant 2021 Business Update

If you're a Member, click here see the summary and re-watch the Webinar. Not a Member yet? Click here.

In this first webinar of 2021, we had an interesting executive conversation webinar with Saket Gulati, Vice President – Market Head, Netherlands & Head of Financial Services Benelux. This was the first of a new webinar series: "Executive Conversations." In this webinar series, we will sit down with our Business Partners' regional leaders to provide a quick and to the point overview of the Direction, Vision, and Capabilities in the Dutch market.

We introduced the key people for the region, went through the 2021 business update, new wins, presence in the region, key focus industries and clients /projects, focus solution areas for the Netherlands, and finally, when and why Members should call Cognizant.
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Webinar: ING's BizDevOps journey

ING's BizDevOps journey

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In this episode of The Digital Move, we discussed; how and why ING selected HCL as a strategic partner, and how HCL has become the number one strategic partner for ING supporting them on key strategic programs as Open Banking & Digital Banking platform creation and Regulatory & Know-Your-Customer programs. How ING with HCL's support overcame key challenges 1) Process Challenge - adopting a BizDevOps model for offshore spanning Business, IT and offshore teams, and 2) People Challenge - scaling of the model across ING's organization with training and adoption of new practices by the people involved.​

Webinar: Maximizing Intelligent Automation Invest.

Maximizing Intelligent Automation Invest.

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In this episode of The Digital Move Wipro discusses how Wipro helped GSK in maximizing their intelligent automation investments by setting up a bot factory that leveraged their existing investment in IBM Watson. Dee Padalia, Partner Strategic Relationships and Brendon Chamany, Global Sales Head (Automation & HOLMES) elaborated on how Wipro helped GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) maximise their investments in Intelligent Automation, which would have otherwise been sunken costs. To do this Wipro setup of a complete Bot Factory Program in GSK for 2019 & 2020 to develop and roll-out Chatbots, Voicebots and Process Bots for multiple business users including Procure-to-Pay, HR, Legal, Global Ethics & Compliance and Taxation. Business benefits were delivered, with 20+ Bots rolled out so far, and integration of Bots done with SAP, FB Workplace, Workday, WhosOn, etc.

 

The key differentiator was how Wipro leveraged the existing technology to focus the project towards successfully delivering clear business impact, going beyond ‘just’ being a new technology opportunity, and manage to deliver vastly improved business benefits at a fraction of the initial investment.

Webinar: Randstad's Move to the Cloud

Randstad's Move to the Cloud

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Randstad operates in 38 countries, with over 38,000 employees in more than 4,800 offices. Before partnering with TCS, Randstad operated in a ‘local to local’ IT infrastructure model. With the broader HR industry undergoing a significant digital transformation, this legacy structure left the business exposed to potential inefficiencies and security risks. To stay relevant in the fast-changing world of work, Randstad is implementing its ‘Tech and Touch’strategy, which combines the use of smart technologies such as AI and machine learning with a human approach, to source the right talent for the right roles.
As part of this strategy, Randstad engaged with TCS to completely transform its IT infrastructure. This entailed migrating over 925 IT applications from over 50 legacy datacentres across the world to a public cloud – one of the world’s largest such migrations – and putting in place a robust governance structure. Randstad now has a future-proof, cloud-based digital core that fully integrates the company’s global IT operations, leverages centralized global management and monitoring mechanisms, standardizes and automates processes, and features an enhanced security framework including intrusion detection and prevention systems.
With this new core, Randstad can embrace new growth opportunities, unlock and allocate existing resources in more efficient ways, and enhance the overall experience of customers and candidates who interact with Randstad’s digital platforms.

It was interesting to see that Randstad purposely decided for an as-is transition to TCS and to the cloud, and later decided for application consolidation and rationalization. Still, the business case allowed for a global roll-out despite the local and fragmented IT Governance that existed within Randstad. Further benefits can now be achieved by ongoing rationalization of the application portfolio, but these were not taken into account at the time of the decision for TCS.

Webinar: Becoming Data Driven

Becoming Data Driven

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Asda is one of Britain’s leading retailers with 18Mn+ consumers shopping weekly and catering 98% of UK homes through www.asda.com. With Asda’s pledge to bring maximum benefit to shoppers - ‘Save Money. Live Better’; Asda pricing team always played a critical role in providing the best pricing insights and decision support to their Trading and Marketing team.

However, Asda’s pricing team has been facing a few challenges:

Speed to market for pricing decisions - Pricing data technology depended on significant manual interventions and lacked integration with new and different sources of marketplace pricing data (acquired from 3rd parties).
Insights and Analytics - lack of centralisation and disparate data sources increased duplication and impacted a single source of truth for pricing data. 
In this webinar, we will learn more about how HCL helped ASDA in their transformation to a data-driven company by inverting the Data Analysis Pyramid, focused on creating real insights and decision support by automating low-value tasks of data collection and analysis. This case won the ISG Paragon Award in 2019.

It was interesting to hear how HCL acted as a true business partner, supporting the move to a data-driven organization, but also supporting the organization in implementing an Agile team approach.

Webinar: New Business Dev. with Covid19

New Business Dev. with Covid19

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By now most of us have got used to remote working. Running engagements seem to continue, the workplace changes. But what are we doing with new business development? Is it even possible? What are the lessons learned so far? What are the absolute dos and don'ts? In this webinar, our member panel discussed these questions and shared their experiences.

Webinar: Analyst Scorecard

Analyst Scorecard

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Maximising the value from Analysts, How HCL works with Analyst firms, Why analysts are critical for HCL and our customers, Leveraging AR reports and insights for indysource members. Our guest is Aniruddho Mukherjee, Head of Analyst Relations Europe at HCL. 

A key take away is that HCL and other Suppliers are actively working with Analyst Firms to positively influence the feedback to customers and are keen to share with the Advisor community.

Webinar: Cloud First at a Major Bank

Cloud First at a Major Bank

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This webinar was the first of a series of webinars focusing on partnerships for Digitial Transformation. We talked to Alex Pitic and Ovidiu Snoeren from Cognizant on how they supported a major Dutch bank’s “Cloud-first” strategy, Cognizant’s Digital Engineering team is deployed to accelerate cloud enablement through an innovative but proven approach, resulting in business-critical legacy applications being refactored for the cloud in a matter of weeks.

It was also great to hear, given the current environment of social distancing, how Cognizant deals with the 'work from home economy' accelerating the move to new processes, automating existing processes and enabling communication.

Webinar: Real partners in tough times

Real partners in tough times

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Our guest was Johan Smits - Director Global Planning of a global Beverage Company. Johan shared his experience with the global rollout of global solution for Supply Chain planning and the challenges he faced with managing an ecosystem of suppliers and how you get to know your real long term partners when the going gets tough. 

It was interesting to hear how some suppliers step up to save a project.

Webinar: Tendering with Covid19

Tendering with Covid19

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Last Tuesday we had our first webinar with Mark Houdijk - SourcingAdvice, Petrick Pap - Morgan Stone Advisory, Paul van Wijngaarden - Whitebridge Consulting and Joost Schlatmann of HCL. Martin Stacey - indysource facilitated the discussion and was supported by Joël ter Meulen - indysource. In the webinar, we explored the status of running tenders, possible best practices and the support of technology.

Roundtable: Digital Transformation

Digital Transformation

On the 11th of December Wipro hosted a group of indysource members at Oud Paardenburg in Oudekerk a/d Amstel to discuss several Digital Transformation cases based on Wipro’s expertise and experience build up in Wipro Digital and Designit.  

As companies move to digital, Service Providers are setting up dedicated units to support the new requirements that clients encounter in their Digital Transformation journey. 

After an informal welcome, Wipro introduced Wipro Digital and Designit and their view on Digital Transformation. They described how Wipro adapts in a fast-changing world. 

Wipro is moving to Digital. Designit is not just an acquired company diversifying Wipro’s Services. Instead, Wipro is transforming their ‘old’ organization into an organization that is able to serve all their clients with their digital initiatives. 

Buying centres are the business and/or the CIO. The experience is that Digitalization initiatives are not initiated by traditional buying centres, like the procurement or IT department. As digital transformation initiatives are focused on transforming the business and less on supporting the business, most digital transformation initiatives arise from within the business or from the business savvy CIO/CDO. This changes the sales approach of projects as well.  

Deals are done in a different model. Digital initiatives are not about changing or improving existing services, but about designing a new service or product. This also means that traditional SLAs cannot easily be applied. Cooperation between the business and the IT digitalization initiatives is even more important than the cooperation between the IT department and the business as digital transformation deeply impacts the business. 

Digital Transformation takes guts.  Digital transformation requires a different mindset compared to traditional IT Services, as the destination is unknown. For some projects, it might be uncertain whether they will succeed and if they succeed whether they will be profitable. This doesn’t mean that there is no business case for digital transformation projects, the risks of failure might be higher, but the potential benefits are so as well.  

 It was interesting to hear about the views of Wipro on digital transformation and have the indysource members participate in the discussion and be inspired by the client cases of the Wipro.  

Briefing Event: 2020 State of the industry

2020 State of the industry

On 26th of November a group of indysource members met at The Millèn Restaurant in Rotterdam to discuss the 2020 State of the Industry, the dinner was hosted by HCL. The goal of this event was to kick-off of the State of the Industry 2020 Survey on indysource member’s view on the market and changes in the market. In a lively discussion we drew a number of conclusions:

  • We haven’t started the full deployment of Digital Transformation  
  • Service providers should be willing to “Kill their darlings”  
  • There is an opportunity for partnerships for Digital Transformation

 

If you're a member, click here to read the full report. Not yet a member? Click here.

Roundtable: Digital Workplace

Digital Workplace

On the 4 September HCL graciously invited indysource members to De Luytervelde in Eindhoven. We had a pleasant dinner and a great discussion about the Digital Workplace. 

Sixteen indysource members, Geert-Jan van Bommel, Director Platform & Infrastructure at AkzoNobel and Erwin de Kort, Global Director User Services at Signify were warmly welcomed in the sunny garden of De Luytervelde. After the social conversations with fellow outsourcing experts, we were invited into the dining room.

 

Geert-Jan started with some background on his company and talked throughout the first course about AkzoNobel’s sourcing strategy and strategic objectives. After a hostile takeover attempt that was declined by the management of AkzoNobel, there was pressure from the shareholders to increase the performance of the company, hence AkzoNobel promised their shareholders, amongst others, increased profitability. They are planning to achieve that goal by both increasing prices and reducing costs. It was up to Geert-Jan van Bommel to reduce the IT costs. He optimized the IT department by, amongst others, centralization of the IT Department. One of the key drivers to reduce costs is to reduce options for the employees, one size fits all. This helps to reduce complexity and the need for assistance is needed in complex situations. Erwin de Kort confirmed this but said that when one of his C-level superiors has a need outside the standard solution he will be running to make their wishes happy regardless of the standard. The independent advisors discussed the digital workplace further in detail, with a focus on the one size fits all concept.

During the main course, the discussion focused on the success factors of Transitions and Transformation (T&T). In every outsourcing deal, the T&T is a challenge. As a group, we concluded that the people side of T&T is very important. When somebody resists the solution is to explain the reasons and motivations for the change. 

When Signify hired HCL the business was Transitioning from being part of Philips to being an independent company. As Signify was developing itself again employee satisfaction was not great. As the as-is situation could be greatly improved the Transition of HCL was relatively smooth. HCL succeeded in bringing down the total tickets by over half and increased the NPS to 80. That could be seen as a very successful Transition.

Roundtable: Cloud Transformation

Cloud Transformation

On the 3rd of July 2019, indysource hosted a Round Table Event, together with their business partner Wipro, on Cloud Transformation. 

The event took place in a classic mill, called ‘De Jonge Dikkert’, located in Amstelveen. It was built in 1672. The name ‘De Jonge Dikkert’ carries the restaurant for good reason. They remain constantly refresh, rejuvenate. Not only the interior is contemporary but also the experience of the dinner.

The evening started in ‘the mill room’, which is literally in the heart of the mill. Dee Padalia, Advisor Relationship Manager from Wipro, welcomed everyone. After that Gerwin Pol introduced the indysource Virtual Office and talked about the value of using the Virtual Office and how members can collaborate and use it for their projects.

After the introductions, Maarten Boersma started a very interesting first session about Moving to Cloud, Migrating and managing to drive cost optimization and currency. He explained the current availability of Cloud Services, their possibilities, difficulties and consideration when moving to the Cloud.

Sameer Mital started the next session off with a quote from Charles Dickens … “A tale of two cities”, hereby he referred to the reality of many companies having to deal with the legacy IT migration to the Cloud and at the same time develop new Cloud Native applications. He introduced Wipro’s viewpoints on this topic and showed the participants the challenges and opportunities when developing in Cloud Native. A lot of questions raised during this session.

The third session from Jos Verwoerd included 3 very important models. The first one was how companies begin with the Cloud. The second one was on how companies get new applications using the Cloud. And the last one was on how companies start with a clean sheet and start with a new approach.

The fourth session wasn’t planned, but because of the many questions on this topic in the second session, Sameer Mital presented Wipro’s view on the Cloud Transformation Business Case. This session was very much appreciated by the participants and drew a lot of discussions. 

In between sessions, the different courses were served and, the participants vibrantly discussed the previous sessions.

All the participants agreed, the Round Table was a great success!

Roundtable: Scaling Digital across the enterprise

Scaling Digital across the enterprise

 

On Wednesday the 13th of February we had a roundtable with HCL featuring Ian Fox, the head of media operations of Manchester United. HCL hosted indysource and her members at Vinkeles Amsterdam, a Michelin starred restaurant in heart of Amsterdam.

We were welcomed with a glass of champagne and some bites, which we could enjoy during the introduction of this evening. Ben Waterston explained to us the nature of HCL and what they do in the Netherlands and worldwide. Thereafter Ian Fox shared his story about his seven-year journey with Manchester United to obtain a platform which gives their 659 million fans access to all of United’s news and relevant information. Now their application is realized and their app is top-ranking in multiple countries. By users, this app is rated a 4.8 out of 5. According to Ian, the reason that it is not rated 5 out of 5 is that after games in which Manchester United does not perform up to the standard the reviews are significantly worse. 

When Ian Fox started there was no supplier who was able to meet their requirements for their app. The app required the integration of multiple software suppliers in the background and had to be able to mobilize Man U’s fans with compelling content. HCL decided to partner with Manchester United. Their partnership succeeded and resulted in the launch of the app last year. 

According to Ian Fox, the biggest accomplishment of their partnership with HCL is related to the real-time hosting of statistics of matches played by Manchester United. The challenge was that they had to compete with other apps that use complicated mathematical predication models, which do make those apps incredibly fast, but not reliable. The development team realized that their app receives there information so fast that they had to delay the push notification, otherwise the notification would reach their audience before they see the goal on live television. 

During the dinner, Ian Fox answered questions from indysource members regarding the challenges he faced during the development of the app. The group seemed especially interested in the relationship between Manchester United and the 23 software suppliers that have integrated their services into the app. It was to convince the software suppliers to make their software compatible with the app, but this process was mutually beneficial at the end, as this compatibility feature also led to more business for the software suppliers. The discussion was also about the trust of management, as there were little to no results in the first couple years of the journey. 

Roundtable: AI

AI

 

On Wednesday the 14th of November HCL organized an event for indysource members and acquaintances. We gathered at Michelin starred Restaurant Vermeer and after a glass of champagne, Cato Furum from HCL opened the evening by examining the developments and possibilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI). We continued discussing AI and other relevant business developments with both HCL professionals and independent advisors.