After another highly successful year, RIBA Enterprises has announced record operating profits of £3.7m for the financial year 2015, up 40% on 2014.
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 £21.3m. Excluding one-off exceptional items, the operating profit increased by over £1m.
Commenting on the results RIBA Enterprises Chief Executive Richard Waterhouse said: “These results demonstrate that across our business, continued investment in our products and content continues to deliver real value to our customers. Our dedicated and professional staff remain committed to the organisation and its vision and are motivated to continually improve our products and services whilst delivering the highest standards of customer care.
“Continual investment in BIM related product information has resulted in increases in both revenue and output within the NBS product range. 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.
“Investment across the RIBA Services business has also enhanced our publishing output for the RIBA Journal and RIBA Publications titles.”
RIBA Enterprises Ltd is the knowledge management company of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). They employ over 250 staff and have offices in London, Newcastle upon Tyne and Newark and operate under the trading name of NBS as well as providing a number of RIBA related services.
During 2015, RIBA Enterprises have delivered the NBS BIM Toolkit. Awarded through Innovate UK and working in association with the BIM Task Group and industry partners, this was developed by the specialist software and content teams at NBS. The NBS Toolkit is a free to use tool, launched in April 2015, and 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.
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 over 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 customers across the world for their continued support “