Member Article

Record Year for RIBA Enterprises

RIBA Enterprises has announced record operating profits of £3.7m for the financial year 2015 after another highly successful year.

Despite a challenging economic environment, the company has reported a strong performance , delivering significantly higher profits and increasing revenues. Sales of £23.3m were achieved, an increase of 9.4% on the previous year’s figure of £21.3.

Commenting on the results RIBA Enterprises Chief Executive Richard Waterhouse said “These results demonstrate the excellent efforts of our dedicated and professional staff, who remain committed to the organisation and its vision, motivated to continually improve our products and services and focused on the highest standards of customer care”.

RIBA Enterprises Ltd is the knowledge management company of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), they employ 250 staff and has offices in London, Newcastle upon Tyne and Newark and now operate under the trading name of NBS .

NBS are expert provider of technical information for construction industry professionals, offering essential, innovative products and services, highly valued by those working in architecture, construction, design and engineering. NBS has produced the recognised national standard specification system for the UK for more than 40 years

During 2015, RIBA Enterprises have delivered the NBS BIM Toolkit. Awarded through Innovate UK and working in association with the BIM Task Group this was developed by the specialist software team at NBS. The NBS Toolkit is a free to use tool, launched in April 2015, has already been a huge success with the company reporting registrations for the product coming from 115 countries. This number is expected to rise as organisations prepare for the Government mandated use of Level2 BIM on all public sector projects.

Continual investment in BIM related product information has resulted in increases in both revenue and output within the NBS National BIM Library. NBS’ reputation for the quality of the BIM output has been recognised in a number of global markets and the information is being used as a base for the development of data by many of NBS ’major customers.

Other successes have included the further development of NBS Create and the freely available e learning courses which have seen strong take up as customers use this resource to get the best out of their products.

2015 saw continued investment in the online presence of RIBA Enterprises with the RIBA Journal site being further developed and the launch of a new identity and website for NBS.

Richard Waterhouse continued “We are very pleased with our performance in 2015 and excited by the challenges ahead. 2016 will see the completion of the redevelopment of The Old Post Office in Newcastle, which is the headquarters of RIBA Enterprises and will house up to 200 staff. We have also moved to new offices in London. I would like to pay tribute to the hard work, enthusiasm and creativity of the whole team and thank them for all their efforts in 2015. I would also like to thank our many customer across the world for their continued support”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellie Murdoch .