Beltug and sister associations discuss the ‘power of collaboration
To work on the barriers companies, organisations and ICT decision makers face in digitisation, it is critical to take into account the voices of stakeholders at many different levels. That requires that we join forces with other EU associations. For several years, Beltug has worked intensively with three CIO associations: Cigref (France), CIO Platform Nederland and VOICE (Germany). Our collaboration benefits our members, their members and the entire business market.
16 / 11 / 21
In mid-October, the presidents of each association showed the power of this collaboration, bringing our shared concerns and positions to the attention of the audience, during Cigref’s General Assembly meeting.
Arthur Govaert, President of CIO Platform and CIO of Radboud UMC zoomed in on the challenges the GDPR presents to business users. He pleaded that the responsibility to comply with laws and directives like the GDPR should be shared by business users and software publishers equally.
Dr. Hans-Joachim Popp, Vice-President of German association VOICE, discussed the practice of software publishers forcing customers to frequently add patches for security – even though these patches are necessary due to flaws that the software publisher made in the product from the beginning.
Claude Rapoport, our president, represented Beltug. He spoke on unfair practices of ICT vendors in their relationship with clients.
Bernard Duverneuil, Cigref president, emphasised the importance of aligning our four associations’ voices and topics, to jointly approach the European Commission. “Coming together is the beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success”, he quoted Henry Ford.
By collaborating, we can jointly create qualitative responses towards the EU, better align the priorities of the respective members, and increase the impact of the positions we take.