FAB Scoops Digital Innovation Prize

The Federation of Awarding Bodies has won the digital innovation of the year award, at the prestigious Annual Trade Association Best Practice Awards in London last night.

The awards, organised in seventeen categories, brings together the short-listed finalists from trade bodies across the UK; organisations who play a pivotal role in supporting and representing their members’ interests in all aspects of everyday business and commerce.

Established in 2002, the Federation is the collective voice of the UK’s world-class awarding and assessment industry.

Commenting on the award, Tom Bewick, chief executive, said:

“What better way to celebrate 20 years of existence as a membership body than to be recognised by our peers for this prestigious trade association award.

“I’d like to thank everyone involved who backed our digital strategy in 2018: the board, the brilliant staff team and our members; particularly as they really supported us throughout the difficult times of the pandemic.”

“We hear a lot about the digital economy, but harnessing its true power is not always straightforward. At the Federation, every single member of staff had to retrain for new digital skills, including the overhaul of our website and the creation of a new digital channel in Skills World Live Productions.

“We’ve turned clunky manual membership systems into online digital accounts. We’ve overhauled the format of our flagship conference by introducing hybrid and live-stream technology for all our events. And the Skills World Live Radio Show, which went viral, regularly scores 15,000 downloads for each episode.

“FAB’s success is in large part due to the excellent partnerships with FE News; and our sponsors, OneFile and Pearson, who have got behind our plans.

“As an industry association we really pride ourselves on delivering innovative and successful services for members; which means for every £1 in subscriptions we raise, a further £1.45 is generated from commercial revenues. After a challenging time during the first lockdown, the digital strategy and investments made by the board helped us increase membership on pre-pandemic levels by 3 per cent. In the latest financial year, commercial revenues are above forecast by 46 per cent, putting us on course for a record-breaking year.

“All this is thanks to a tight FAB team, at board and exec-level, who constantly go above and beyond when it comes to delivering on our core mission to be a best-in-class digital trade association.”