An IFS customer since 2007, CDF Corporation will be attending IFS Unleashed this year. Alex Ivkovic, CIO, shares his motivations and expectations….
What brings you to IFS Unleashed?
First of all, one of the things that I really enjoy about IFS is that their executives and management as well as the technical team are very accessible. So, I’ll typically come along with couple of technical issues in my back pocket to talk to people about because it’s a great one-to-one opportunity. It’s not every day you get offered access to talk directly with architect or developers who designed your organization’s business-critical software solutions. I think anyone thinking about going to IFS Unleashed should grab the opportunity if it presents itself.
What do you find most helpful?
I always learn a lot from meeting my peers from other companies. Everybody has different ways of doing things and you can pick up an immense amount of knowledge from just talking to and meeting people during the social sessions. And then of course, there’s the breakout sessions. I mostly go open-minded and see what I can learn – the IFS manufacturing team is really good. It’s rare that we don’t take away something new we can action in our business – for example last time we came back with new ideas around the circular economy. I have great expectations from 2 particular sessions: ‘What does the future hold for manufacturing?’ and ‘The move to sustainable manufacturing and supporting decarbonization’ sessions.
What are you most looking forward to?
I’m really looking forward to getting back to seeing everybody! Being able to interact in person again is exciting and overdue! We’ve come a long way and IFS has come a long way in the past 18 months. We haven’t moved to IFS Cloud yet, so we’re looking forward to unpacking that in more detail at the event. We’ve already started looking at it and I’m bringing two members of my team so we can join the ‘IFS Cloud Roadmap for Manufacturing’ breakout and discuss our business goals with experts at the event. It’s also a good opportunity to talk to peers and learn from their experience.
Is the opportunity to network useful?
Absolutely! For example, next week I have somebody visiting our plant in West Bridgewater, MA, USA because they’re specifically interested in an IFS partner that we work with, Cedar Bay. This is someone I know from IFS events who’s been in touch to come and see what we do. Alongside our IFS User Group meetings, it all ties together to create an ecosystem where I can easily reach out and talk to people to share knowledge and expertise that adds value to our business.
See the agenda and learn more at ifsunleashed.com
Author:
Alex Ivkovic, CIO of CDF Corporation, the parent company of Cheer Pack NA and Quadpak. He has over 15 years of experience in all facets of IFS.
