By Our Correspondent
FITC, the world-class, innovation-led, technology-driven, knowledge and professional services institute has emerged winner of the 2020 Business Excellence Award (The BIZZ Awards) and the Strategy, Change, and Transformation Award (The IBX Awards).
FITC, which provides cutting edge Learning, Advisory and Research Services to organizations within the Financial Services and other sectors, was announced winner of the two global awards in an elaborate virtual ceremony held in Doha, Qatar and Houston Texas respectively.
The Nigeria’s premier knowledge institute, FITC, won the Gold category in The BIZZ awards and Silver category in Strategy, Change and Transformation in the International Business Excellence, IBX Awards in recognition of its phenomenal initiatives that have led to innovative and exceptional transformation within the organization.
Also presented with an award was the Managing Director and CEO, FITC, Chizor Malize, who won the IBX 2020 Award for “Inspirational Leader”. The award was in recognition of the innovative, dynamic and game changing work at FITC in 2020 at the height of the global pandemic resulting in the extraordinary organization wide transformation at FITC and positive impact on the Nigerian financial services sector, FITC’s primary focus area.
Other IBX 2020 Award winners include Microsoft and Virgin Mobile.
The International Business Excellence (IBX) Awards is part of a global business movement, giving organizations the chance to meet and compete with others from all over the world. Over the last twelve years, IBX Awards have been leading the way in recognising inspirational business practices, holding over 100 events and hosting more than 2000 companies.
Organized by Awards International, the IBX Awards recognises long-term sustainable profitability achieved through the practice of excellence, which occurs across a broad range of disciplines and defines the modern business agenda.
The BIZZ Awards gathers and recognizes leading businesses from different regions that contribute to the daily growth of their local economy and the world economy. THE BIZZ was created by World Confederation of Businesses (WORLDCOB), to offer to the global business community a range of benefits that further their development.
WORLDCOB was founded in 2004 in Houston, Texas, in the United States of America. Its primary mission is to promote business development worldwide, recognizing and boosting the growth of leading businesses and businesspeople in every country through the special tools and services that it offers its members. The organization has approximately 3,500 members representing over 130 countries.
Considered to be the most important business excellence award in the world, The BIZZ Awards is organized and given out to the most outstanding companies and businesspeople in each participating country. The award which targets small, medium and large enterprises was created to recognize businesses with practices worthy of recognition who end up being examples for other businesses to follow in their communities and internationally.
Speaking on the awards, Malize, said the organization would keep going beyond the ordinary in its effort to delivering innovative knowledge solutions to its clients in the Financial Services and other sectors.
“For 40 years, FITC has been an innovator, enabling people and organizations to excel and it was in line with our vision to build a world class innovation-led and technology-driven organization that we defined our six success pillars which are programmes, process, platforms, people, positioning and performance. We took deliberate and strategic steps by making significant changes across these key drivers of the positive transformation experienced today by our stakeholders, and which has also culminated to these awards and recognitions being given to our organization today. We are extremely delighted by these awards and we remain committed to helping our clients in the Financial Services and other sectors navigate and advance their careers, while building on our member firms’ successes through our clear vision, strong corporate values, and our culture of excellence,” Malize said.
Established in 1981 as a non-profit organisation limited by guarantee to provide capacity building and serve as a knowledge hub for the Nigerian Financial Services Sector, FITC is owned by the Bankers Committee, Central Bank of Nigeria, Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) and all deposit money banks in Nigeria.
Over the years, FITC has demonstrated delivery of best-in-class services using a large pool of multidisciplinary and versatile professionals, who provide business support to its numerous clients within the public and private sectors, most notably within the financial services sectors and public sector of Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Through an innovation mindset, deep market insight and a world-class approach to programme design thinking, it would be recalled that the organization redesigned all its learning solutions by infusing programme curriculum with more relevant contents that address the future of work and the future need of businesses. FITC identified and created new learning opportunity areas such as the FITC Executive Education and the FITC Board Leadership programme. The programmes were designed to meet the learning needs of senior leadership of organizations such as Senior Managers, General Managers, Directors and C-suites Executives. These programmes are rich in content, with global benchmarks and quality faculty comparable to the best business schools in the world.
Embarking on an agile transformation as a new way of thinking was for FITC, a key catalyst for the organization’s transformative work over the last few months. Beyond technology, FITC applied the principles of agility across its entire organization from process innovation, new programme development, customer relationship management, consumer insight analytics. The organization responded swiftly to its stakeholders learning and knowledge needs, increased its speed of execution with remarkable improvement in organizational productivity.
Amidst the global crisis, FITC recreated new and innovative knowledge programmes that kept individuals and organizations they served highly informed, updated, and equipped for a post COVID-19 era. The Institute developed and launched additional knowledge portfolios such as the FITC Executive Education Institute, the FITC Board Leadership Institute, the FITC Youth Connect Programme with several digital learning solutions including webinars, summits and a global cyber security conference reaching 6 continents and over forty countries with over one thousand participants.
Well-known across Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa as a client-centric organization strategically focused on developing talents across diverse organizational skill levels, FITC continues to fill the knowledge gap required under shifting global business conditions, building executives who are exceptional leaders, confident decision-makers, skilled strategists, global thinkers and effective change agents. Even as the world was overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the knowledge institute was building the foundation for post crisis growth for its member firms and their organizations.
In pursuit of its world class aspiration, FITC is constantly seeking valuable partnerships with visionary organizations with common intent. Through its collaborative approach to market, FITC partners with institutions like International Finance Corporation (IFC), Association of Chartered Certified Accounts (ACCA), the African FINTECH Association, SAS Institute South Africa, West Africa Bankers Association, (WABA), the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN), Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRC) and Nigeria Deposit Insurance Commission (NDIC).
Through these partnerships, FITC is able to focus on priorities that enrich its service offerings such as robust and top-rated faculty, enriched learning content and shared infrastructure. The Institution works collaboratively with top notch organizations to develop new capabilities that foster alignment of strategies, create mutual benefits and competitive advantage while maximizing performance.
