26 Mar 2026
Restaurant Petri
IDC & IBM Executive Dinner
Reinventing Application Operations: Freeing Up Run Costs to Power Innovation
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Reinvent your Application Operations model with AI‑first automation and unlock the capacity your organization needs to move from experimentation to scaled impact.
A peer-to-peer dinner roundtable
Recent IDC research shows that as Nordic organizations look to apply AI within their application estates and operations, more than half face significant readiness barriers including skill gaps, integration complexity, aging delivery platforms, and data governance challenges. At the same time, key operational capabilities such as automated incident detection, root‑cause analysis, self‑healing, and workflow automation remain areas where many organizations are experimenting but have not yet scaled into production.
This readiness gap is emerging at a critical moment: IDC also finds that over half of Swedish organizations believe they must reinvent themselves within the next five years to stay competitive, yet few feel they’ve made the changes required for the next wave of business transformation. This highlights a widening disconnect between ambition and execution. As such, AI sits high on strategic agendas, but operational foundations are not yet fit to support reinvention at scale. Modernizing Application Operations has therefore become a pivotal lever for CIOs seeking to close this gap, reduce operational drag, and create the capacity to shift from “run” to “innovate.”
Key Topics
What’s holding back modern Application Operations?
Preparing for an automation‑ and AI‑first future: moving from pilots to scale
Rebalancing Run vs. Change: Creating capacity to reinvest in innovation
Why you should attend?
This IDC and IBM Executive Dinner provides a private forum to share thought leadership, experiences, compare strategies, and discuss how modern, autonomous, or “zero‑touch” Application Operations models can unlock new capacity, resilience, and business value. During this exclusive event, we will address:
- What’s holding back modern Application Operations?
We’ll uncover today’s roadblocks, from manual processes and fragmented estates to skills pressures and operational silos. - Preparing for an automation‑ and AI‑first future: moving from pilots to scale
Understanding where automation and AI are already delivering value, why so many initiatives stall before scaling, and what foundations are needed to achieve more autonomous or “zero‑touch” operations. - Rebalancing Run vs. Change: Creating capacity to reinvest in innovation
How optimizing Application Operations can unlock budget, capacity, and talent allowing CIOs to accelerate AppDev, modernization, and business‑driven transformation initiatives.
Speakers
Jennifer Thomson
Associate Vice President
Global Services Insights, IDC
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Jennifer Thomson
Jen Thomson has more than 20 years’ experience advising IT Vendors, senior IT, and business execs on their digital business optimization and transformation strategies. She leads European Research for Accelerated App Delivery, Cloud, and Services. Her core goal is to drive synergies and growth across these research areas, with a central focus on thought leadership.
She specializes in providing insights on the investment strategies and decisions of European enterprises as they transition to modern application architectures. Her research explores app dev and delivery capabilities required to operate in a digital economy, and how this impacts enterprise organizational structures, culture, processes, tools, and skill sets. She leads the Future of Digital Innovation research for IDC Europe, exploring software innovation strategies and what this means in terms of end-user strategies, investment priorities, software sourcing, and KPIs. Thomson’s core research also explores enterprise maturity and strategies towards enterprise scale and empowered DevOps.
She is responsible for the execution of a broad range of consulting and advisory projects. As IDC’s European expert on application development and delivery strategies, Thomson is an experienced public speaker and regularly presents at conferences and IDC partner and end-user events.
She started her career at Compaq Computer EMEA as a senior research analyst. She has a bachelor’s degree in international business with German from Sheffield Hallam University (United Kingdom) and Pforzheim Fachhochschule (Germany).
Anna Johansson
Partner, IBM Consulting Leader Sweden & Norway
IBM
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Anna Johansson
Anna has 25 years of experience in the consulting industry, working together with clients to transform their businesses with the help of technology, as well as leading change and growth within IBM Consulting. As Partner and IBM Consulting Leader Sweden & Norway, Anna aspires to deliver on the IBM Consulting strategy through passion for talent development and building strong strategic partnerships across business transformation, technology consulting and application operations.
Event Sessions
Thursday, March 26 2026 9:00 pm | Location:
Summary of discussions and key takeaways
Thursday, March 26 2026 5:50 pm | Location:
IDC & IBM Welcome Address
Agenda
IDC & IBM Executive Dinner
One day event
Champagne Reception
Guest arrival with welcome drinks and networking
IDC & IBM Welcome Address
Jennifer Thomson
Associate Vice President Global Services Insights, IDC
Anna Johansson
Partner, IBM Consulting Leader Sweden & Norway, IBM
Starter Courses – First Discussion Topic
What’s holding back modern Application Operations?
We’ll uncover today’s roadblocks, from manual processes and fragmented estates to skills pressures and operational silos
Main Course – Second Discusson Topic
Preparing for an automation‑ and AI‑first future: moving from pilots to scale
Understanding where automation and AI are already delivering value, why so many initiatives stall before scaling, and what foundations are needed to achieve more autonomous or “zero‑touch” operations.
Dessert – Third Discussion Topic
Rebalancing Run vs. Change: Creating capacity to reinvest in innovation
How optimizing Application Operations can unlock budget, capacity, and talent allowing CIOs to accelerate AppDev, modernization, and business‑driven transformation initiatives.
Summary of discussions and key takeaways
Jennifer Thomson
Associate Vice President Global Services Insights, IDC
Anna Johansson
Partner, IBM Consulting Leader Sweden & Norway, IBM
Event close
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IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. More than 4,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to effect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service. Visit www.ibm.com for more information.