Affecto Oyj - Company Announcement

THE PRESENTATION OF CEO PEKKA ELOHOLMA IN THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Helsinki, 2011-03-31 07:30 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AFFECTO PLC -- STOCK
EXCHANGE RELEASE -- 31 MARCH 2011 at 8.30 

THE PRESENTATION OF CEO PEKKA ELOHOLMA IN THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Affecto's CEO Pekka Eloholma's presentation in the Annual General Meeting of
Affecto Plc will contain a review on developments in year 2010, Affecto's
strategy and the future outlook. 

Year 2010

The business conditions improved in 2010 in all our operating countries: the
markets grew moderately in the Nordic countries and the recovery from the
economic crash began in the Baltic countries. 

We estimate that the low point of the economic conditions for us was in late
2009 / early 2010. During year 2010 we got back to the growth track and our net
sales grew in all other areas except Sweden, and even there the last quarter
produced growth. One of the highlights was that the business in the Baltic
countries grew and was again profitable, which was especially positive after
the deep recession and the restructuring actions caused by it. 

Our profitability improved during the year and each quarter was better than the
previous one. Early part of the year was still weak, but the second half was
clearly better. During the year we invested in developing our Swedish
operations: we changed the local management in early 2010 and have
forward-lookingly built the local organisation since then, targeting a
significant growth in 2011. 

Our order backlog grew to a record level in 2010, which gives us a good base
for future. 

Strategy

As every year, we have reviewed and updated our strategy. We keep the principal
strategic policies intact. We continue to focus closely on Business
Intelligence (BI) solutions, aiming to outstrip the markets in the growth of
our net sales and to achieve profitability that is among the best in our
business segment. 

We believe that our customers will focus even more on the identifiable business
benefits of their IT investments and will also need a growing scope of our
solutions. Current focus themes include e.g. linking business execution to
strategy, better performance management, collaborative decision making and
master data management. 

In connection with the strategy update, we are introducing Enterprise
Information Management (EIM) as the definition of our main focus area instead
of the plain Business Intelligence. Although we in Affecto have always
understood the term "BI" very widely, it is sometimes used at the market in a
more restricted sense just for the reporting functionalities, which may have
given wrong impression about the scope our solution offering. In addition to
the traditional BI, managing structured database information, EIM covers also
the unstructured information with Enterprise Content Management (ECM), where
Affecto is also strong. 

In terms of vision, we simplified the definition of our operating area from the
Nordic and Baltic regions to Northern Europe, where we aim to be the leading
provider of EIM solutions in terms of both net sales and business result and
measured by customer and employee satisfaction. An important component of our
growth strategy is to achieve a significant status in Sweden with its extensive
market, where our current relative position is weaker than elsewhere. 

We defined as our mission striving to ensure that, irrespective of job
description or hierarchical status, each member in an organisation has access
to the information that they need for the effective discharge of their duties. 

Our operations will continue to be based on strong specialization, strong local
customer work and efficiency from group-wide common processes and platforms. 

Future outlook

We assess the market conditions to be rather normal at the moment. The demand
for IT services has recovered from the recession, but we are not yet
experiencing any boom conditions. Our order backlog grew significantly in 2010
and has remained at a good level. Getting the Swedish operations back to growth
and profitability is the most significant development task for us this year. 

In connection with publishing our financials for 2010, we said that in 2011 the
main focus will be on profit improvement. Operating profit is estimated to at
least double compared to year 2010. The net sales are estimated to grow at
least by 10% in year 2011. This future outlook given in February is still
valid. 



AFFECTO PLC
Pekka Eloholma
CEO



www.affecto.com







         Pekka Eloholma, CEO, tel. +358 205 777 737
         Hannu Nyman, SVP M&A, IR, tel +358 205 777 761