Chair Francesca Vanthielen opens the day and guides the programme with her signature energy and sharp insight. She connects the different sessions and speakers into one coherent story, keeping the central theme in focus throughout the day: turning IT and Software Asset Management into real business value. IT & SAM is no longer just about managing licences and tracking assets. It is about gaining visibility, optimising costs, strengthening compliance and making smarter strategic decisions. Ultimately, it is about transforming IT Asset Management from an operational necessity into a strategic driver of efficiency, innovation and business success.

In this keynote we will discuss the people side to create cloud value. The cultural shift, skill evolution, and new behaviours required to thrive in a cloud-driven world. While tools and processes matter, success ultimately hinges on how teams collaborate, make decisions, and embrace a more agile, data-driven mindset. Together, we’ll explore how SAM professionals can grow into FinOps contributors and stronger leaders: what skills carry over, what new competencies are needed, and how roles evolve when moving from compliance-focused work to continuous cloud value management. 

In a large and complex international organisation, Software Asset Management is much more than managing licences, contracts and compliance. It is a strategic, cross-functional capability that connects people, processes and data to drive governance, operational efficiency and business value. In this keynote, ENGIE will share how its SAM function is structured, the roles and responsibilities behind its operating model, and how close collaboration with Procurement, Finance, Legal, Data and Digital teams supports more informed decisions and stronger governance. The session will also explore ENGIE's approach to cost optimisation, process automation and continuous improvement, highlighting how SAM is evolving from an operational discipline into a strategic enabler of efficiency, transparency and sustainable value creation.

The world of IT is moving faster than ever. How can ITAM teams stay up to date with these developments? In this session, we will explore the trends that are expected to play an important role in the coming years, and how teams can prepare for changing responsibilities and ways of working. As a result, this session offers valuable insights not only for ITAM teams, but also for teams that work closely with IT Asset Management or play a role in shaping its direction.

Every major technology breakthrough promises greater efficiency, innovation, and growth. Yet many organizations struggle to capture the expected value. Why? Because technology is no longer the limiting factor, capability is. In this session, we examine why skills shortages, increasing complexity, and the accelerating pace of change are creating a new business challenge: the Capability Crisis. Leaders will gain practical insights into how successful organizations are building, acquiring, and orchestrating the capabilities they need to transform technology investments into measurable business outcomes.

ITAM and FinOps are converging to provide greater visibility of technology cost, consumption, risk and value. AI adds a new dimension, enabling predictive insight and better decision-making, while also becoming an asset that needs to be managed, governed and optimised. This session explores how ITAM, FinOps and AI can work together, using practical KPIs to translate technology performance into C-suite outcomes and move from operational reporting to strategic, measurable business value.

SAM teams rarely struggle with insight. They struggle with getting leadership to see its value, because the language does not land outside the SAM bubble. While leadership thinks in risk, growth, capital allocation, and increasingly concepts like FinOps, SAM often speaks in entitlements, discovery, and compliance. That gap is why many SAM functions struggle to get attention, budget, or strategic alignment.

SaaS vendors are increasingly abandoning seat-based licensing in favor of consumption-based pricing: usage, credits, metered consumption: a shift that pushes traditional SaaS management tools to their limits. When billing follows actual usage rather than per-user counts, cost control and predictability suffer, making FinOps thinking as critical for SaaS as it already is for the cloud. Discover how USU SaaS Management delivers full transparency, continuous optimization, and smarter cost control, now extended to support consumption-based models.

With the introduction of E7, Microsoft is placing a strong emphasis on licensing AI agents. However, like many other software vendors, this licensing model also comes with an unpredictable consumption factor. How should you manage these models, predict usage and costs, and avoid exposure to risks? In this session, we will walk you through Leadout’s approach to these challenges.

Technology is, more than ever before, at the centre of everything we do. That's the result of the AI revolution. As ITAM professionals, what is our role in all this?  In this session AJ Witt, Best Practices Lead at ITAM Forum examines what the changes mean for ITAM and how we as professionals can adapt what we do to ensure our organizations receive strong returns on our technology investments. AJ will outline how to equip your ITAM programme for the AI age by looking at what it means for the entire technology lifecycle.  By attending you will gain practical insights into how to build foundational trustworthy data, use AI to generate actionable insights, and create a roadmap for engaging with peers and other senior stakeholders across your organization. Topics covered include Hybrid Licensing, Consumption-based pricing, the Economics of ITAM, alignment with FinOps & Tokenomics, and Executive Engagement.

Cloud adoption has created new opportunities for speed, scalability and innovation, but it has also made IT costs more dynamic and harder to predict. For many organisations, gaining control over cloud spend is no longer just a finance challenge, but a shared responsibility between IT, finance, procurement and the business. In this keynote, Mediahuis shares how to kickstart a FinOps practice and create better visibility, ownership and control over cloud costs. The session explores the first steps in building a FinOps approach, the challenges of creating internal alignment, and the lessons learned when turning cloud cost management into an ongoing discipline rather than a one-time exercise. Attendees will gain practical insights into how FinOps can help organisations improve transparency, optimise spending and support more informed decision-making across IT and the business.

Chair Francesca Vanthielen closes the programme and warmly welcomes everyone to the network drinks & appetizers.