This June, a group of CIOs gathered in the Netherlands to share ideas around successful IT governance with CIO.nl Editor-in-Chief Volkert Deen, and HP Directors Koos van der Straaten and Martin Schoonheim.

1. This event is sponsored by
CIO Dinner on Successful IT Governance
HP Netherlands and CIO.nl invited 12 Dutch CIOs
to an inspiring dinner on June 13th at Michelin-
starred Hotel Restaurant Savelberg (Voorburg,
the Netherlands). IT Executives of (among
others) the Netherlands Ministry of Defence, the
Netherlands organisation for Applied Scientific
Research TNO, Raet, PwC and APG gathered for a
presentation by Berenschot managing director
Hans van der Werff on Effective IT Policies.
Guided by Van der Werff, CIO.nl Editor in Chief
Volkert Deen, Country Director HP Enterprise
Service Koos van der Straaten and HP Director
Business Development Martin Schoonheim, the
guests discussed the developing role of the CIO and their IT department in relation to
market trends like cloud computing and a growing need for agility and efficiency.
Deen: “Our CIO.nl dinners are aimed at building a
respectful relationship between industry partners and
IT decision makers. Besides creating an excellent
networking opportunity, we feel evenings like this are
about sharing knowledge and best practice, and I am
very pleased to see HP embracing that format.”
A short questionnaire among the attendants in
preparation for the meeting confirmed the wish of IT
Executives to be approached as equal partners: in
response to Schoonheim‟s question as to what
vendors can do to strengthen their role in their
organisations, most CIOs asked for a conversation on targets and value creation instead of
products and solutions.
The overall discussions were very compelling and although there were numerous
conversations around different themes, there were 3 key debates that were of great
interest.
The first of these focused around who should be taking the lead when it comes to new IT
Initiatives, and whether this role should be IT or business. There was an overwhelming
agreement that it should be IT that leads these initiatives; however a lot of discussion was
based on the statement “The worst thing IT can do, is what the business asks”.
Although there was consensus that this really is IT„s role, it was felt that IT should be
capable of understanding the requirement of the business needs, and implementing a
strategy that benefits the business goal of the organisation in the most cost effective way.
This is especially topical when it comes to the Cloud debate. Today most CIOs are fully
aware that there is a great deal to be gained from implementing a cloud strategy, but the

2. key stumbling block would appear to be convincing the company‟s management that this is
the correct course of action.
Another topic that was of great importance and stimulated a great deal of debate was
around the statement “Getting rid of legacy systems is the best decision a CIO can make”.
The general attitude here was if they could they would, but there was a real feeling that
these systems were one of key inhibitors in preventing them from instigating a cloud
strategy, as most companies are tied down in their legacy systems and that means that IT
struggles to convince their businesses and their CIOs that these systems are accidents that
are waiting to happen.
The final topic of interest really led on from the legacy
system debate and is very much interlinked. This was
around the issue of skill sets of employees. There was a
general agreement that in most companies there is an issue
with “legacy employees” where people have a good IT
knowledge base but the majority of this is now outdated,
there was reluctance in keeping up with new trends and
technologies. In fact it was interesting to hear that starting
over again was very appealing to some of the CIOs.
With 100% attendance and ratings ranging from “good” to
“excellent”, the evening was very successful. Says Louis
van Dieteren, CIO Raet: “This was a good combination of
content with discussions in a nice environment.” Country
Director HP Enterprise Service Koos van der Straaten was
pleased to see active discussions and many attendants
willing to share their experience. Deen: “This was our first
CIO dinner with HP as partners. We are looking back on a
valuable exchange of information as well as a pleasant
networking event. I am looking forward to continuing this partnership with HP in the
future.”