members, the term statistics still applies and continues to be a highly valued part of the service the BFPA provides to members. Staying relevant To gain the most detailed and useful data for our members, the BFPA invites Oxford Economics to compile a macro-economic report related to our industry. The data relates to everything from jobs to technological developments and economic forecasts. We also hold a popular economic seminar once a year. Additionally, we publish a whole range of reports based on data provided by the members themselves. This includes monthly, quarterly and annual reports covering a variety of industry topics such as sales figures, market optimism and salaries. All this activity has been the responsibility of the Statistics Committee for a number of years, but with the formation of the Business Intelligence/Industry Insights pillar, we will initially review in detail all the existing surveys for current relevance to the BFPA members. We will also be taking feedback from the wider membership to try to make sure we fully understand their current needs from the data perspective. Once we have completed this, we will explore how we can further extend the data we collect, such as perhaps more international data, or more marketspecific projects. One of the challenges we see is that there is considerable variety in the nature of the businesses of the Association member companies, and we need to find ways to stay relevant to the different segments. We already operate separate access the data and then process more easily and visualise it so that they can extract the value for their particular business needs. This is a topic we will be working on during 2023. Communications One conclusion from the strategy review in 2021 was the need for better channels of communication with members. We realised that the awareness of the activities of the Statistics committee could be greatly improved. Other articles in this edition of the Yearbook address this issue. However, in addition to ensuring the information is better focused and fit for purpose, we must also ensure that it reaches the right people within our member companies in a timely manner. Otherwise, some of the value is wasted. A single member company can have many people who would be able to make use of the data, and so we need to ensure we maintain an up-to-date list of relevant recipients. Participation Another important topic for us is the participation by member companies. Everybody is interested to receive the reports, but not everybody is able to find the time to contribute the data upon which we so much depend. We will be considering ways to improve this engagement by the members, but I feel that if we are successful in increasing the relevance of the data, provide tools to make it easier to use and make sure our membership is fully aware of what is on offer, we will see greater participation, and this in turn will increase the value of the service and raise it to a whole new level. sub-committees for pneumatics and hydraulics, which have fairly distinctive needs, and within hydraulics we also split out mobile from industrial. We need to consider what other segmentation may be useful. Another issue is to consider how to stay relevant in terms of scope in a changing industry. For example, in pneumatics there is a trend towards electric actuation over pure pneumatics. In hydraulics, we need to decide what products we include within our remit. For example, should we cover industrial hose and oil sales? Being more user friendly In our initial discussions we agreed that, bearing in mind the pace of change in digital technology, there are plenty of opportunities to make the service of the Statistics committee more user friendly. For example, we could make it easier for members to submit data, and we could also provide tools that enable users to 38 www.bfpa.co.uk
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