Helsinki, 2015-02-12 11:30 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AFFECTO PLC -- STOCK EXCHANGE RELEASE -- 12 FEBRUARY 2015 at 12.30
Affecto's strategic update
Affecto's board of directors and management have updated Affecto's strategic direction and financial targets.
Context for our strategic direction is the current, digitally transforming world. We will address this with a focus on increasing value for our customers and for their customers. We will also actively develop our core business, expand to emerging new business technology areas close to our core, and further develop our expertise to help our customers succeed.
Five main themes of the strategy update:
Our strategy is based on the observation that digital transformation is changing the world and that the line between the physical and digital worlds is blurring. Traditional industries and business models are challenged, as new entrants introduce novel digital business models or established entities cross over to new areas. Central to these changes is the progressively growing use of information and analytics to make better decisions and to automate decision making.
Customer needs are also evolving. Today, our customers benefit more frequently from our increased participation in solving business opportunities and challenges. Therefore, we will strengthen co-creation of solutions together with our customers in an iterative way. Such solutions will have a more direct impact on the businesses, customers and value creation of our customers. Technological excellence provides the basis for our solutions, while the business process and industry-specific skills have growing importance. As our customers develop new technology-based business solutions, we believe that our customer relationships will develop towards value oriented partnerships.
Our strong core consists of enterprise information management, advanced business process systems and location solutions. We create solutions together with hundreds of customers in Northern Europe. Our set of essential industry experiences covers e.g. over 60 financial institutions, over 30 B2C companies, over 50 technology companies and over 100 public sector entities. We will actively develop this core. We will increasingly utilise new technologies and develop our skills in creating business solutions. This means e.g. growing utilisation of cloud and real-time technologies, as well as predictive analytics. In business solutions we will e.g. further develop information rich process automation. We will also seek more efficiency and effectiveness by increasing and developing group-wide usage of shared resources as well as co-operation with our current partners.
We will exploratively develop new emerging business technology areas connected to our core. We believe that these capabilities will help us in creation of customer value. Examples of these areas are mastering and designing digital consumer experiences, as well as connecting elements of Internet of Things. Additionally, we will create niche capabilities needed in digital transformation, e.g. in fields like algorithmic automation and secure digital business. We have pioneered solutions and projects in all these areas to-date, and we are determined to seek growth in them. As a part of developing our approach, we will also consider more actively new kind of partnerships, e.g. with startup companies, in these areas.
Our specialists are a unique strength in Northern Europe. This is composed of their excitement, knowledge and the size of the community in our core capabilities. We will boost further development in our community and our way of working. We will also create new career paths for e.g. hybrid business-technology experts. Our people create our value to customers, and they are the Affecto that our customers meet.
Long-term financial targets
We aim to achieve clear growth in the evolving core business and improve its profitability. We believe that growth in our core can be achieved by continuously renewing our capabilities to match the technology advances and the evolving customer needs. The emerging business technology based solutions will start exploratively yet decisively. Their impact will be limited at first, but we aim to achieve significant growth in them in the long term.
In the long term, we target to reach over 10% annual growth and EBIT margin improvement.
Organic growth will be the main vehicle of growth for us. Acquisitions may be used to support growth in strategic areas. Geographical expansion is not a target in itself, but we might follow customers and customer industries.
CEO Juko Hakala comments:
We firmly believe that the ongoing digital transformation is creating a great opportunity for us to take more directly part in our customers’ and their customers' life. Better information and situational awareness are of growing importance for our customers in the development of new products and value for their end-customers, whether they are consumers, B2B clients or citizens.
We are keen to help our customers by both offering effective solutions in our core business areas, and by being an explorative partner in capitalising new possibilities. Our roots are in our strong technological knowhow and our enthusiasm in cultivating information. In future, we strengthen our focus on value for our customers as well as for their customers in our operations.
We believe that the digital transformation progresses rapidly and "launch & learn" is here to stay. We will be agile and continuously adjust our bearings. Hence our strategic update indicates the key elements of our new direction as well as the concrete first steps to get started.
Affecto Plc
Juko Hakala
CEO
www.affecto.com
Additional information:
CEO Juko Hakala, tel. +358 40 772 5597
SVP M&A, IR Hannu Nyman, tel. +358 205 777 761