Delivering a More Successful Digital Business

One of the trickiest questions I get asked regularly is - "What exactly does your company do?". This is not for reasons of difficulty in explaining everything that we do, rather the difficulty of summarising what we do into a sufficiently short format. When I was in Iceland on vacation in September I had the additional challenge of trying to accurately translate some of those technical terms and concepts into everyday vernacular. I decided then and there that I would compose as concise an article as possible to act as a crib-sheet for anyone needing to explain or understand our modus operandi.

The shortform elevator pitch is as follows:

"Affino is a London-based multinational Social Commerce Specialist with its own in-house-developed Affino Social Commerce Platform. Affino works with companies and organisations to evolve business plans in order to create successful automated digital businesses, which are powered by the Affino Social Commerce Engine. Affino Social Commerce covers key industries, ranging from Retail to Publishing / Media, Professional Communities and Performing Arts."

There are 3 key aspects to Affino

1. Expertise

The core to every successful business is the high calibre of individuals who make up that business, and how well they work together. Although small in number, Team Affino is composed of some of the very best creative-problem-solving and hard-working talent found anywhere in the world. All team members are expert in their own area - whether Systems Architecture, Applications and Software Development, Project Management, Design and Branding, Technology and Operations.

2. Process

We have a unique process for drawing out the very best from everyone involved. The process is highly collaborative, and is centered on two or more partners gaining a full understanding of each other’s goals and challenges. Broadly speaking, there are three stages to the process:

• Digital Business Audit - a deep and broad-ranging on-site organisational audit - consisting of a series of structured discovery conversations with leading stakeholders - with a view to investigating the current standing of a company, and evaluating its ability to capitalise on its full digital potential.
• Transformation Plan - evolving from the Audit, the Transformation Plan sets out what a business or organisation needs to do to achieve its full digital potential. This usually involves streamlining of existing processes, often including possible re-branding and re-purposing of some staff and resources. The essential consideration here is to capitalise on an organisation’s in-house expertise and strengths and to really work with those resources already in place.
• Solution - everything Affino does is based on its own native Affino Social Commerce Platform. Affino delivers all the required complementary services - including consultancy, branding, design, integration and implementation, project management, hosting and support - everything is based on and around running a successful Digital Business on the Affino Social Commerce Platform.

3. Platform

The Affino Social Commerce Platform has been in constant development since its prototype version ’Sunrise’ was first originated back in 1998. It is a total digital front-end solution combining CMS and Media with Ecommerce, Community, Promotion and Analysis. It is a fully realised Digital Business platform active in sectors from Retail to Publishing / Media, Professional Communities and Performing Arts. The platform’s key benefits are as follows:

• Single Unified Solution - a fully hands-on manageable and cost-effective complete and seamless digital business solution
• Total Monetisation - generates revenues from all key business activities by way of more than 20 different commercial engines
• Sales & Marketing Automation - Affino’s unique Automated Customer Ladder with its 47 Conversion Events allows you to automate all your key customer contact points - to motivate, incentivise, recognise and reward those customers
• Deep Customer Engagement - Affino’s unique combination of abilities with added automation makes for a much more immersive and multi-faceted, rewarding customer experience
• OmniChannel Experience - the responsive design interface delivers the same consistent seamless customer experience across all devices and contact points
• Productivity and Empowerment - companies which deploy Affino benefit from full hands-on control over every aspect of their Digital Business - they can do much more in-house without needing to get 3rd party agencies involved

There are a number of existing articles which give a more complete picture of Affino’s capabilities, including:

• Affino Pedigree and Provenance
• Affino Overview
• Affino Features
• Featured Affino Sites
• Affino for Publishers / Media Companies (including Case Studies)