The Harvey Nash IT leadership event in Belgium is being held tonight (10th November 2009) in the prestigious Chateau du Lac in Genval, just outside Brussels. It is a fantastic setting for this major IT leadership event in the series being run by Harvey Nash across the UK and mainland Europe.
Our event tonight begins with Ronny Lommelen, Managing Director of Harvey Nash Belgium. Ronny welcomes the guest and thanks the speakers for attending before outlining that the Harvey Nash IT leadership series has been running for 11 years now and had a record response from over 1,300 senior IT executives this year. He passes to Simon Wassall, European Managing Director at Harvey Nash who will be chairing the event this evening.
Simon offers an introduction to the speakers who have a deep level of business experience and a diverse range of topic areas. Simon outlines that the presentations will touch on the issues facing IT leaders in the recession and promises examples of how companies are finding opportunity amongst the challenges of a very tough trading environment. He is looking forward to a lively discussion and Q&A session near the end of the evening.
Albert Ellis, Chief Executive Officer of the Harvey Nash Group is our first speaker of the evening. He begins by outlining the key trends identified in the IT Leadership report which focused on Belgium as well as other major European regions. He asserts that Belgian IT leaders are well placed to survive the current environment with a greater strategic influence than their European counterparts and with a positive, forward looking, attitude to their role.
As a result of Harvey Nash research it has become increasingly clear to Albert that the modern CIO has an innovative leadership style with openness and communication at the heart of their success. He confirms that despite the global recession the Harvey Nash report indicated there were still skills shortages in key technology niches.
The role of new media and new technology bring Albert’s presentation to a close with a promise that our next speaker will delve further into the issues of collaboration and innovation.
Alfred den Besten from MarketCap International & COMvenience is our next speaker who provides a fascinating insight into the “new world of work”. He reinforces Albert’s point that the modern IT leader is efficient not only because of the technology that they use but because of the way they approach their work. A freer and more collaborative way of working is being driven by younger workers, Generation Y, but is being adopted by workers of all ages and is making companies more efficient.
Many trends are influencing the change in work on a global scale but one thing is similar: a world of more flexible working and a greater use of modern technologies is emerging where costs of fixed material like offices and infrastructure are being replaced by mobile workers operating wherever the need requires them.
Alfred finishes with a warning that unless businesses open up and provide the tools like facebook, twitter, LinkedIn which enable remote workers and younger workers to connect with their network then companies run the risk of quickly becoming obsolete in a fast changing world.
Our final presentation comes from Michel Hautfenne from UCB which has long prided itself as an innovative organisation and able to change with the times. It was once called “Union Chimique Belge” and has a long history of success here in Belgium.
Michel is here to talk to us about innovation in procurement and how a number of techniques in the field of procurement can have significant cost savings and forge closer supplier relationships that help firms survive the global recession. Michel provides a powerful overview of his lessons learned after twenty years in the procurement sector and he is passionate about the ability of technology to provide lasting and ongoing value.
One of his projects, an IT consulting database, enables Michel to gather and analyse vast amounts of data to make better and more efficient decisions for the business. Without giving away trade secrets he points out that if knowledge is power then the speed of good information is vital to the success of companies.
With the presentations complete it falls to Simon Wassall to chair a Q&A session.
The debate is lively and the questions are thorough. The speakers debated topics around the future workplace, the role of technology in procurement, Generation Y and the attributes needed in a modern CIO. There were a number of occasions when members of the audience debated openly with each other and the speakers, exploring some of the topics in very interesting new ways. It was a thoroughly engaging end to the presentations here at the Harvey Nash IT leadership event in Belgium.
Simon concludes the evening with thanks to the speakers and an invitation to all attendees to join him and the Harvey Nash executive leadership team for a networking and social reception in this fantastic venue.
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