EDA drives the future of digital innovation and data excellence in the electrotechnical sector

Like & share this news article:
News

  Posted by: electime      31st March 2026

This year’s manufacturer award winners

Now in its 7th year, the Electrical Distributors’ Association’s Digitalisation Forum and Data Quality Awards 2026 held in London recently brought together over 100 forward-thinking professionals from across the electrotechnical supply chain to explore the latest digitalisation opportunities, share practical insights, and celebrate excellence in product data quality.

Delegates heard from expert speakers and panel discussions on a range of topics surrounding the rules and tools that are shaping the way product sustainability data, notably embodied carbon data, is shared and used, and the role of artificial intelligence in making the supply chain more agile and responsive.

Margaret Fitzsimons, CEO at the EDA said, “The 2026 EDA Digitalisation Forum & Data Quality Awards was a fantastic opportunity to see the innovation and commitment driving our sector. From insightful discussions on sustainability and environmental product data, and AI through to celebrating outstanding achievements in product data quality, it was inspiring to witness so many of the EDA’s member businesses actively shaping the future of digital transformation. Congratulations to all our award winners – your dedication to the EDATA data pool sets the benchmark for excellence across our sector.”

Richard Appleton, Head of Digitalisation at the EDA, highlighted latest developments and plans for the EDATA data pool, where information on over 320,000 products is shared by leading manufacturers with their wholesaler customers. Richard also unveiled early insights from the latest EDA Digitalisation Survey, adding, “This is an important piece of research, last undertaken in 2022/2023, because it provides a clear, accurate picture of the current state of digitalisation in the UK’s electrotechnical supply chain. Our approach is both qualitative and quantitative, giving both the wholesaler and manufacturer viewpoints on digitalisation challenges, opportunities, and predictions for the future. The results make fascinating reading for anyone with a keen interest in the digital strategies that are changing the way this sector does business. For those interested in the full results these are available at www.eda.org.uk.”

Celebrating data excellence

At the heart of the event are the Data Quality Awards, where leading manufacturers are singled out as top contributors to the EDATA data pool, and EDA wholesalers are celebrated as exemplars of data pool engagement.

This year’s EDATA manufacturer winners are:

Overall Data Quality Award <1,000 SKUs
Winner: Atlantic

Overall Data Quality Award 1,000 – 3,000 SKUs
Winner: Marshall-Tufflex

Overall Data Quality Award >3,000 SKUs

Winner: Legrand Electric Ltd

EDATA Sustainability and Packaging Data Pioneer Award

Winner: Collingwood Lighting Ltd

On the wholesaler side, these businesses were recognised for their engagement with the data pool:

  1. Chorley Electrical Traders
  2. Edmundson Electrical Ltd
  3. LEW Electrical Distributors

Wholesaler winners

Also as part of the Forum, those manufacturers recently achieving the coveted EDATA Gold Standard Product Data were presented with their certificates.

Manufacturers in EDATA that have recently achieved Gold Standard Product Data

The event was made possible thanks to the support of these EDA Solution Provider sponsors who also exhibited at the Forum.

  1. Agathos Systems Ltd
  2. B2BE Limited
  3. Epicor Software (UK) Ltd
  4. Infor
  5. Intact Software
  6. Kerridge Commercial Systems Ltd trading as Klipboard
  7. Omiteo UK
  8. Sharp-aX Computer Systems Ltd