affirma bpo portfolio updated
TRANSCRIPT
Managed ServicesOverview
Company OverviewAffirma ConsultingOur Mission: Become the best at applying solutions and services to positively impact people.
Affirma is a Seattle-based consulting firm founded in 2002. As a response to common project failures in the consulting industry, Affirma was founded on the principle of delivering dependable and reliable solutions that meet client needs and exceed expectations.
Currently Affirma employs over 250 people and is continuing to grow. Our most recent award was ranking #43 in Washington’s top 100 fastest growing private companies of 2014. Affirma has been recognized by the Puget Sound Business Journal two years in a row for being a “Top 50 Fastest Growing Private Company on the Eastside” as well as a “Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Company in Washington.” These awards are a testament to Affirma’s ability to provide impactful solutions to their clients and reflect the company’s exponential growth in both revenue and number of employees. Since 2009, Affirma has nearly quadrupled its full-time staff, hiring over 125 team members across several states and countries.
HQ - Bellevue, WA Los Angeles, CA Ahmedabad, India
Clients
Business Units & Services
TechnologyCustom Software
DevelopmentPortals & Collaboration
Systems Integration
Project Management
Web Development
Business Intelligence
Reporting
Big Data & Analytics
Mobile DevelopmentCRM (Salesforce &
Dynamics)
Digital Agency
User Experience Design
Visual Design
Marketing & Brand
Strategy
Marketing Automation
Campaign Execution
Copywriting
SEO / SEM
IT Infrastructure
Office 365
Cloud Infrastructure
Mobile Device
Management
Managed IT
Exchange
Active Directory
Unified Communications
Windows Infrastructure
System Center
Talent AgencyManaged Services
Business Process
Outsourcing
Recruitment Outsourcing
Contingent Staff
Contract-to-Hire
Permanent Placement
www.affirma.com
Business Process OutsourcingOur BPO services help enterprise customers identify repeatable business processes that can be outsourced and completely owned by Affirma. BPO engagements provide a ROI by scaling up and down the level of support according to demand. BPO reduces the need to hire full time teams.
ApplicationDevelopmentPut together the perfect team from Affirma’s software development and creative design teams to take ownership of critical business applications. Managed teams can execute routine maintenance tasks or add additional value by making recommendations to improve and innovate existing technologies. Outsource product development, line of business applications, project management or even marketing strategy & execution.
Managed IT ServicesIT Managed Services are a great option for clients growing rapidly and wanting to focus on needs of the business over the necessary IT infrastructure needed to support the change. Optimize the existing IT team members by alleviating hours spent on infrastructure management, end user support and help desk items. Affirma can provide 24/7 Tier 1-3 help desk support or just fill in the gaps during a given month.
Managed Service Offerings
Outsourced MarketingRefocus and prioritize your marketing and design team members by handing off deliverables to Affirma’s outsourced marketing team. Affirma’s Creative Design team can work alongside your existing team, provide creative services as needed or take ownership of an work stream.
Why AffirmaCustomer SatisfactionAffirma is built around customer satisfaction. We believe it is the lifeblood of a sustainable software services business. In 2014, 167 out of 169 project customers survey responded that they were "Likely" or "Very Likely" to work with Affirma again. That's a 98.8% satisfaction rating! This ultra-high customer satisfaction rate is only possible because we have an organization that is zealously dedicated to customer satisfaction. Our CEO, executives, project managers, developers, testers, account managers all have customer satisfaction as the #1 metric on their scorecard.
Strong CommunicationWe believe in proactive communication with our customers. Frequent check-ins, project status updates, and early demonstrations create true transparency. Constant communication ensures the project stays on course and continues to be well aligned with expectations.
ExperienceAffirma has launched many managed teams, enabling our clients to outsource entire business processes . We strongly encourage you to reach out to our references. We have consistently exceeded expectations for our clients.
Repeatable ProcessAffirma has a tried and true model for BPO (business process outsourcing)/ Managed Services engagements and has all the tools and expertise necessary to implement it.
Employee RetentionAffirma has been awarded the Top 100 Workplaces in WA award 4 years in a row. This is very important in managed services engagements as it increases retention and reduces training costs.
Managed Services Process
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Team High Level Execution• Affirma assigns a Client Primary Point of Contact
(POC), who is the Primary Point of Contact responsible for overall team deliverables, metric and status reporting, strategy and process improvement.
• POC works with internal recruiting team to recruit, screen, interview and on-board team members.
• Team Lead manages team members on an hourly basis.
• POC manages and resolves any team or individual related issues.
• Affirma provides employee-based incentives/rewards, performs bi-annual Performance and Career building Reviews and Annual Performance Reviews.
• Team leverages Internally-built custom tools for project tracking and scorecard reporting.
• Quarterly morale-events for team members to maintain retention rates, and high productivity levels.
Key Elements
Client
Team Members - Tier 2
Team Members - Tier 1
Affirma Client POC Team Lead
Recurring ReviewsA common question is what the overall BPO engagement looks like from a rhythm perspective. The following is the typical structure Affirma has seen be successful in past engagements.
Status & Reporting
Event Participants Meeting Objective
Weekly Status MeetingClient Primary POC, Affirma Program Manager
• Review weeks KPIs• General status updates• Review any projected weekly activities• Discuss any client or Affirma concerns
Monthly Business Review (MBR)
Client Primary POCAffirma Program ManagerAffirma Engagement Manager
• Review prior month KPIs actuals• Discuss any proposed team changes• Discuss strategies for process improvement• Discuss KPI targets• Discuss concerns not resolved in weekly meeting• Discuss any performance remediation plans
(described below)
Quarterly Business Review (QBR)
MBR Attendees plus Affirma General ManagerClient Program Sponsor
• Review Quarter KPI actuals• Approve any proposed target changes• Review progress toward cost savings goals• Discuss concerns not resolved in MBR• Review and approve action items from Continuous
Improvement Committee
Continuous Improvement PlanAs part of every BPO engagement, Affirma creates a “Continuous Improvement Committee”. The committee includes the Program Lead and 2 to 3 Subject Matter Experts from the team. This team will meet monthly and brainstorm opportunities for process improvements. Promising ideas will be beta tested in small batches to determine effectiveness. Those that pass the beta test will be presented to Clients for approval and then be implemented. The ideas are then presented for approval to any necessary stakeholders/sponsors. The following flow diagram illustrates this process:
Improvement Process
Individual Contributor
Improvement Committee
Client
Performance Monitoring PlanClearly adhering to service levels is the most critical success criteria for any Managed Service engagement. A clear plan for monitoring performance is necessary. Affirma typically monitors performance on a daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly basis. A scorecard is created for the client to review.
Team Performance
Frequency Description
Daily Affirma Program Manager will review team performance at the end of each day to see if there is any deviation from plan. If there is a severe deviation, engagement manager and client manager will be notified and an ad-hoc meeting will be scheduled for the following day.
Weekly Affirma Program Manager will meet with individual team members Monday morning to review prior week’s performance. Any goals or remediation plans will be established. Affirma PM will also meet with Client PM for weekly status review. Client will review prior week performance in a PowerPoint format exported from appropriate systems and compiled by Affirma PM.
Monthly Affirma PM, Engagement Manager and Client PM will review months numbers. If any thresholds are negatively crossed, a separate mitigation meeting will scheduled.
Quarterly Quarterly performance is reviewed in PowerPoint format. Any deviation from SLA will be discussed. Status of remediation efforts will be reviewed as well as targets for improvement.
Knowledge Retention DocumentationThe Affirma will team create the following documents and continually update on a regular basis. Knowledge base documentation is always available to the client for review and feedback.
Continuity of Service
Document Description
Job Descriptions Roles in the project will change over time. Job descriptions will be maintained for all roles in the project. This will assist whoever takes over the work in hiring appropriate team members.
Knowledge Base A SharePoint knowledge base site is typically created in BPO engagements that contains an FAQ, wiki, system diagrams, resource list, etc.
Process Diagrams For each task, a detailed process map is created and referenced from both the Knowledge base and training manuals. This diagram should be well annotated and contain all the “tribal knowledge” that frequently only exists informally.
Training Manuals A training manual per tool supported will be developed. This will include an FAQ, resolution plans on each common issue links to the knowledge base.
Onboarding Plan A document will be written that outlines the training tasks necessary for team member onboarding.
Exit Plan Detailed plan for transitioning workload to worldwide scale vendor (if applicable).
Resourcing Plan Plan that outlines the number of resources required, hours of work, peak capacity plan, etc.
Managed Services Overview
Solution CreationThrough pre-sales discovery, Affirma and the Client will map out the major projects to be worked towards during the contract term, identify the primary skill sets required and determine the optimal monthly level of involvement.
Monthly Retainer Team member’s availability is reserved in advance with a monthly retainer to ensure availability and continuity of team members. Clients may use Reserved Time for any of the scope items listed on this page. These hours will be billed against this reserved time until it is depleted. After the retainer is depleted in a given month, hours are billed on a Time & Materials basis per Affirma’s rate card. Affirma can also provide individual estimates and statement’s of work for work above the monthly retainer.
Support Our support team will provide a central point of contact to escalate issues for application and engineering support, resulting in quicker resolution times and streamlined service. We support enterprise environments with proven teams. Every managed support model is tailored to meet specific needs of the Client.
How It Works
Managed ServicesScope of Work - Development• Team works towards project plan or prioritized
work items as designated by Client• Team creates a back log of client needs and wants
to be carried out over time• Ad-hoc customizations and enhancements • Requirements gathering and planning for
upcoming projects and initiatives• Training sessions and system documentation• Further value-added recommendations when
monthly retainer allows
Scope of Work - Ongoing Support• Recurring maintenance tasks approved by Client• Quality Assurance team for any breaks & bugs • Ticket and support request resolution
• SLA’s in place• Solution Health Monitoring and Patching
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Service Level AgreementAffirma provides centralized outsourced service support to clients by adhering to a mutually agreed upon SLA. This establishes the response expectations of the Affirma team and drive accountability. Each team is put together with the optimal skill sets based on the primary service needed. We can also provide custom tailored support outside of the standard SLA to meet your business needs.
Client Impact Definitions
Service Levels
Client Impact Response Time AvailabilityCritical 30 Minutes 24x7x365High 2 Hours 10x5 [7:30 AM – 5:30 PM], Monday – Friday, excluding
standard U.S. holidaysMedium 4 Hours 10x5 [7:30 AM – 5:30 PM], Monday – Friday, excluding
standard U.S. holidaysNext Next Business Day
Contact Email Dedicated address provided by Affirma
Phone Dedicated phone number provided by Affirma
Impact DescriptionCritical Users are experiencing a loss of functionality or service for critical systems and are not able to establish a
workloadLarge percentage of users or every department is affected
High Users are experiences a loss of functionality or service, but a workaround is establishedSmall percentage of users or subset of departments is affected
Medium Users are able to function with minimal impact to business operationsNext Add/modify user accounts
Non-urgent question for technical teamDevelopment or QA environments
Application Development Team
RolesTechnical Roles• Senior Principal Consultant• Software Architect• Development Lead• Software Engineer (Senior, Mid, Junior)• Offshore Software Engineer (Sr, Mid, Jr.)• Quality Assurance Lead• QA Tester• Offshore QA Tester
Supporting Roles• Technical Project Manager• Senior Project Manager• Business Analyst• Industry Business Analyst
Technical SkillsPrimary Competencies• Custom Applications
• ASP .NET / MVC• Java
• SharePoint• Mobile, iOS, Android, Windows Phone• Web Technologies (PHP, HTML5, CSS, Java Script,
CMS)• Salesforce & Dynamics CRM• SQL Server (SSRS, SSAS, etc)• Tablaeu, Qlik• Big Data, Hadoop, data lakes• Data Warehousing, ETLs
Development Methodologies• Agile/Srum• Sprint based• Waterfall
Here are the current roles and skill sets that Managed Service clients can choose from:
IT Infrastructure Team
Affirma RolesInfrastructure Roles• Infrastructure Consultant• Senior Infrastructure Consultant• Tier 1 – 3 Support Analyst• Network Admin• Systems Admin
Technical SkillsPrimary Competencies• Cloud Planning & Migrations• Hybrid environments• Office 365• Windows Infrastructure & Virtualization• Microsoft Exchange• Active Directory• System Center• Skype for Business• Amazon Web Services• Mobile Device Management
• Windows Intune, Microsoft EMS• Airwatch• Jasper
• IT Help Desk• Zen Desk• JIRA
Here are the current roles and skill sets that Managed Service clients can choose from:
Partner CapabilitiesStrategic Partner Channel• Disaster Recovery Solutions• Datacenter Services• Cloud Hosting (Public, Private, Managed Hosting,
Bare metal)• Cyber Security Consulting• Hardware and Software licensing, Software Asset
Management• Technology Learning & Training Services
*All of Affirma’s strategic partners have gone through a vetting process and have partner agreements in place. Any engagement with a partner is subcontracted through Affirma to ensure quality of service.
Digital Marketing Agency
Affirma RolesAgency Roles• Marketing Expert• Creative Lead• Designer• Senior Designer• Usability/UX Designer
Creative Skill SetsPrimary Competencies• User Experience Design
• Usability Testing & User Research• Information Architecture & Tree Testing• Wireframes
• Rapid Clickable Prototyping• Visual/Graphic Design
• High fidelity compositions• Web design• Custom & Mobile app design• BI Dashboard/Scorecard design
• Marketing Automation• Email Design, Nurture Email, campaign
execution• Content Creation• Copywriting• SEO / SEM Strategy and Execution• Branding• Social Media Marketing• Motion Graphics
Here are the current roles and skill sets that Managed Service clients can choose from:
Partner CapabilitiesStrategic Partner Channel• 3D Animation• Marketing Automation Platforms (Hubspot,
Marketo, Pardot)• High end Marketing Strategy
Outsourced MarketingCase Studies
Business NeedThe Xbox Support team at Microsoft intakes thousands of customer support requests per day through multiple digital platforms. The twitter account for Xbox Support needed a team of support analysts to respond to and resolve clients support requests. Affirma familiarized themselves with the existing process, put together a team of analysts and made process recommendations to improve overall response time.
Xbox Customer Support Team
What We Did• Affirma took ownership of the Xbox Support twitter account,
establishing an agreed upon SLA with Microsoft.• Xbox Support’s Twitter account set the Guinness world record as
“Most Responsive Brand” on social media with the help of Affirma’s managed team.
• The Affirma XCS team manages and responds to over 3,000 customer tweets a day.
• Twitter engagement increased drastically among Xbox live users, including non-support social engagement.
• Affirma also made improvements to the public facing Xbox Support website that is build on the SharePoint platform.
Business NeedThe Cloud and Enterprise team at Microsoft was overwhelmed with design requests from internal stakeholders. They needed to identify recurring creative deliverables to be outsourced in order to focus on mission critical items.
Microsoft Outsourced Marketing
What We Did• Affirma worked with the Microsoft team to create various
marketing materials as needed including webinars, power point presentations, promotional signage and other design deliverables.
• As client satisfaction increased, Affirma gradually took ownership of multiple recurring deliverables for the internal design team.
• Affirma’s team is now an integrated part of the Microsoft team, providing value on a monthly basis across multiple related assets. The outsourced team can scale up and scale down accordingly.
Microsoft Marketing Email Design
Microsoft Motion Graphic Video
Business NeedQuatum was looking for general guidance on their existing brand and positioning in the market. The public facing sites and informational materials including news, brochures and datasheets were the main areas in need. There was also a large expo coming up and Quantum wanted to optimize customer engagement create custom branding and focused engagement.
Quantum Branding
What We Did• Affirma evaluated Quantum’s existing digital
brand presence and made recommendations to increase attendee engagement at the NAB 2015 expo.
• We created custom branding and focused marketing materials for the public facing website and a promotional site for the expo. The expo website had specific calls to action including a lead capture form.
• The Affirma team designed new brochures and datasheets.
• The Quantum design team was able to focus on other strategic initiatives with Affirma’s outsourced creative design team.
Quantum Branding Cont .
Quantum Branding Cont .
BPO Case Studies
Business NeedMicrosoft significantly changed the incentives around how Channel Partners are compensated. This caused significant churn and confusion with partners which created significant partner satisfaction issues. Getting this resolved was one of Kevin Turner’s 5 main commits for FY13.
What We DidAffirma was engaged to create and manage a support team whose responsibility was to manage partner onboarding and program incentives for several major incentive programs (SIP, Online, etc…)
OutcomeThe primary KPI was Issue Resolution in 72 Hours. When Affirma started, this was at 17%. It is currently over 90%. We are now striving to change that metric to Issue Resolution in 24 hours.
Microsoft Ops Data Support Team
Reference Contact:
Fred Jordan – GM of Channel Incentives [email protected]
Business NeedIn FY13 – it was discovered that Microsoft Partners – who were owed payment – were not getting paid on time, or at all in recent years. The list included hundreds of thousands of Partners and the overall experience and Partner satisfaction was continuing to decline.What We DidAffirma built a team of Data and Support Analysts to ensure:• Incentive payment calculations were completed
accurately and on time each month• Payment amounts and distribution were compiled,
validated and released on time and accurately each month
• Partner addresses, forms and other information were up to date and accurate to ensure Partners were getting paid on time and accurately
OutcomeThis team was a major success for the CI organization as it cleared large amounts of partner payments increasing partner satisfaction significantly.
Microsoft Online Execution Team
Reference Contact:
Fred Jordan – GM of Channel Incentives [email protected]
Business NeedIn FY13 – it was discovered that Microsoft Partners – who were owed payment – were not getting paid on time, or at all in recent years. The list included hundreds of thousands of Partners and the overall experience and Partner satisfaction was continuing to decline.What We DidAffirma built a team of Data and Support Analysts to ensure:• Incentive payment calculations were completed
accurately and on time each month• Payment amounts and distribution were compiled,
validated and released on time and accurately each month
• Partner addresses, forms and other information were up to date and accurate to ensure Partners were getting paid on time and accurately
OutcomeThis team was a major success for the CI organization as it cleared large amounts of partner payments increasing partner satisfaction significantly.
Microsoft Online Execution Team
Reference Contact:
Fred Jordan – GM of Channel Incentives [email protected]
Business NeedMicrosoft was developing a tented cutting edge application that is based on machine learning and natural language components similar to Cortana. The client needed to spin up a managed team to take on a large amount of repeatable task driven work with raw data.
What We DidAffirma built a team of Data and Support Analysts to execute on data tagging and data processing activities. This team is elastic, being able to scale up and scale down according to monthly variance in work load.
This was a brand new initiative so Affirma brought in a team of Business Analysts and Developers to create processes and custom tools to streamline and automated the repeatable work processes.
Affirma documented these processes that are now used as knowledge base and facilitate on-boarding of new team members
OutcomeAffirma was able to spin up a team within a month and execute on monthly deliverables. We are continuing to manage and refine this process.
Machine Learning Team
Managed Application & IT Case Studies
Business NeedSnap-on is a leading global developer, manufacturer and marketer of tool and equipment solutions for professional tool users. Snap-on has more than 22,000 products, operates in more than 130 countries and employs approximately 11,000 people worldwide. Snap-on also has a franchise network of more than 4,200 franchises. After working unsuccessfully with a separate vendor on their collaboration platform, Snap-on engaged with Affirma. It became apparent, they were not receiving a consultative approach to the platform as well as ongoing oversight and support.
What We DidAffirma evaluated their existing SharePoint Environment and delivered findings and recommendations. We proposed an ongoing support engagement model that better met their long term goals and strategy around collaboration.
The ResultWe delivered a managed collaboration platform meeting core business requirements.Overseeing their environment ongoing allows them to focus on their business while ensuring their business critical collaboration platform is running and meeting the business needs.
Snap-On Application Services
www.affirma.com
Business NeedOssur Americas, a global leader in orthopedics, had a critical medical billing application that was failing for key customers. The current engaged team could not solve the complex business problems and there was no continuity for how to support and maintain the application going forward.
What We Did We rebuilt the failing medical billing application that was critical to the business. We evaluated their most critical business problems, bringing in expertise in Business, Finance, and Technology to reconcile complex billing algorithms. We assessed the overall architecture and provided findings and recommendations to stabilize the system. We also provided a comprehensive plan for maintaining the application going forward.
ResultsWe delivered an enterprise scale, market viable medical billing system that is exceeding customer expectations. The system is stable and maintained, monitored and improved by our team.
Ossur Application Services
Business NeedAdvantage WayPoint, a national food service sales and marketing agency, came to Affirma with a request to transfer their business function web portal to a mobile application. The app needed to include their large database of information for distributors, operators, and sales associates and adapt the processes into Android and iOS formatting to empower the sales staff and drive business decisions with the information they provide. We took their existing enterprise customer relationship management program and created a mobile version that went above and beyond the current web functionalities.
What We DidBuilt an application that runs natively on Android and iOS platforms to give both user types the unique interactive experience they expect from their phone interface. Using Xamarin, we were able to find synergies between the two platforms and create two separate experiences with similar coding, optimizing resources and minimizing time spent.
Created a feature called Sample Express that allows sales associates to order samples for their clients on the fly.
Enabled two unique barcode scanners that access Advantage WayPoint’s large database, which contains hundreds of thousands of products and gives a user full image and information, and can run a search on competitors’ products as an associate comes across them in the field, comparing them to the database and giving information for further assessment.
Affirma ensured a successful deployment of the application and Advantage WayPoint is very happy with the results. The project ended under budget and the application is fully launched and currently in use.
AWP Outsourced Dev Team
Business NeedStonehenge Capital deployed Office 365 and needed a 24/7 IT support solution for all of their users.
What We Did• Affirma set up a 24/7 Help Desk
Support engagement to meet all of Stonehenge’s needs.
• All IT tickets are handled via phone, email and IM chat.
• Provided a 3 Tier support team, including Tier 1 Support Technicians, Tier 2 Support Engineers and Tier 3 Office 365 Architects.
Stonehenge Capital 24/7 Support
Client Testimonial Videos
Advantage Waypoint“What started as a “we need help now” has turned into a continuing relationship with Advantage Waypoint and Affirma.” “Working with a great partner such as Affirma has allowed us to be a leader in our industry.”
Harry Folloder | CIO
Client Testimonials
Spectralux Avionics”I think it would be unrealistic for me to expect this level of customer service from everybody because I’ve been in IT for many years and Affirma’s very unique in that regard.”
Gordon Sun | IT Director
Advanced Integration Technology”Affirma allowed me to work with them to come up with the exact solution that we needed. It was very evident after interviewing other software companies that Affirma was the one that had the most creative solution in mind.”
Noah Anderson | PM/Mechanical Engineer
Microsoft Good afternoon, my name is Chris Bacich and I am a Microsoft employee based out of Bellevue Washington.
I personally manage and work with Affirma Consulting. If there is anything I can answer for you regarding Affirma’s skills, competencies, or their company, please let me know. Affirma Consulting has been a trusted business partner with Microsoft for several years. I have been with Microsoft for 11+ years and working in this market for 7+ years.
I can personally vouch for the quality of their work since I have seen them positively impact our largest and most strategic customers. From a Business Intelligence, SharePoint and Application Development perspective, they are as good as I have worked with across the entire Northwest (which includes WA, OR, ID, AK and northern CA). Thank you,Chris Bacich | Partner Account ManagerNorthwest SMS&P | Microsoft Corporation
Video Password: Affirm@12
Microsoft Endorsement
