COVID-19 has had a major impact on the activities of our FHI members and our FHI organization over the past year. For example, we have decided to move the World of Technology & Science (WoTS) 2020 trade fair to 2022 and have converted most industry events into webinars or online knowledge weeks. We will continue this digitalization of our activities in 2021.
In this first newsletter of 2021, we would like to inform you about FHI's transition: what are we innovating, what are we continuing and what other improvements are we planning. All this with respect for the objective of our association: 'Putting customers in touch with our FHI members'. The methods to achieve this goal adapt to the spirit of the times, but our goal itself has remained unchanged for almost 65 years!
What have we already achieved in 2020?
The past year hardly offered any space for physical events, a loss that we felt deeply. The need for knowledge exchange remained and has been met by various successful webinars and online knowledge weeks. This has achieved an important goal – sharing knowledge with the market. Participation in and assessment of these online activities are good. Together with members and external speakers, we can offer a neutral and expert program. FHI has gained valuable experience in the organization and design of these online events in 2020. We will also use this expertise for our members in 2021.
At the same time, approximately forty industry and event sites have been brought together under our central platform in recent years fhi.nl. The FHI platform has a (GDPR-compliant) visitor database that forms the essential value of our association. This contains a huge number of customers that we have registered throughout our history with trade shows and events. Bringing valuable content to this vast group of customers will be a priority in 2021. We do this broadly, but especially specifically within certain areas of interest and clusters. In this way we continuously draw attention to our FHI members in the right places and in an appropriate manner.
By participating as a member or being involved in webinars, online knowledge weeks or a cluster in your industry, you also participate in marketing. Due to the prescribed 'social distance', our members are increasingly collecting 'leads' online. As soon as physical meetings are possible again, FHI will respond to this with a balanced combination of physical and online events.
Your extensive member profile on the FHI platform: fhi.nl
'To be found online or not to be found online' is the main question we and our members have to ask ourselves in 2021. The stakeholders in our markets and many of our FHI members today drive virtually around the internet instead of across the BENELUX highways. Today, an online presence is the alternative to physical stages for marketing and knowledge sharing.
By posting content together with all FHI members fhi.nl we make our joint platform very strong, making each building block – the individual content of each member – easier to find for customers. If we do this well together, we will achieve a level of discoverability that no FHI member can achieve for themselves with their own resources; it is the added value of the collective.
As the first part of this large-scale 'content creation operation', members of the Industrial Electronics, Industrial Automation and Laboratory Technology branches will receive an extensive member profile on the platform as part of their FHI membership. fhi.nl.
This gives you the opportunity and the tools to post your own content, in the form of a company portfolio, news or press releases, videos, podcasts, and so on. The collectivity of posting content together makes the difference and, moreover, it is fhi.nl in the eyes of evaluators (en bots) as an association website, reliable and neutral. These aspects ensure a high ranking in search engines and therefore for more attention to your content and for strongly increasing visitor numbers fhi.nl in general.
The content in your extended member profile is and remains your property and responsibility. FHI offers a secure platform, provides handy tools and offers a dashboard that provides insight into web traffic to your content. As an additional service, our experts can help shape your content. Our webinar studio is also available. read more about the platform fhi.nl and see the user manual of the extensive member profile/myFHI and Dashboard. read more about our transition here.
What can you expect from us in 2021?
As we continue to build the online presence of FHI and our FHI members, we will continue to invest in trade fairs, events and smaller-scale network meetings and (cluster) workshops. As soon as this is possible again, we will organize physical meetings in addition to online, a choice we make taking into account the circumstances and the preferences of our participating members.
The Electronics & Applications trade fair now has a stronger cross-industry character. The E&A is scheduled as a physical event for a broader target group on September 28, 29 and 30, 2021. FHI members can meet their customers there at limited costs. Each sector is working on content and branding to properly address its own target groups. We provide a backup plan in case restrictions remain in place.
The development and perfection of the FHI platform fhi.nl continues. FHI colleagues create tutorials and webinars with which we support FHI members to share their content, presentations, papers and knowledge in general on our platform in the best way fhi.nl online, where customers can discover it. It is also this content that can be part of FHI newsletters (cluster operation) specifically aimed at specific target groups. In addition, FHI remains the collective advocate of the technology sectors. Representing interests around spearheads and the services provided to FHI members are well-run FHI activities that we want to strengthen in 2021. Our members can rely on our expertise and that of our reliable partners regarding:
– (model) delivery and purchasing conditions;
– HRM, RAO and occupational health and safety matters;
– collective insurance;
– and many other support services. See here for a comprehensive overview.
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