Afrotherapy aims to bring you a range of carefully selected, high quality and effective black hair and beauty and skin care products from around the world. A personalised online service will help you select the right product for your hair and skin as well as styling tips, advice and the latest trends.

Afrotherapy imaginatively uses the internet, broadband and information technology to benefit and promote a faith-based business in London. The new website is the latest initiative of the comany, which was set up by two partners, Harriet Kessie and Joseph Cudjoe, four years ago.

The business has a computerised client management system. Through the website, clients can make appointments by email and view samples of work.

Joseph Cudjoe says: "Twenty per cent of our business comes through our website. Our information technology systems are pretty unique in our industry - they enable us to handle many more customers, but still offer that personal Harriet Kessie touch. They are a key part of our plan to grow in a customer-centred way".

"We had the idea of using information technology right from the start. We realised the importance of a website in marketing our potential. Through the website, we are able to showcase our work. We can display the styles we can do, give information about the salon and its specialities."

Joseph Kudjoe and Harriet Kessie

A lot of clients come from outside Edmonton, where the salon is based, having come across the website on the internet.

There is a regular stream of customers, who travel from as far away as Oxford, Cambridge, Ipswich and Liverpool.

The salon also gets visitors from abroad, who have come acrosss the website. They make it a point to visit the salon, after they arrive in London.

Advises Joseph Cudjoe: "Don't avoid using information technology and the web.

The company has won a string of awards. Afrotherapy has thrown caution into the wind and has gone from strength to strength. The value-base of the two partners is neatly summed up by the company's mission statement: "To glorify God, empower individuals and positively impact local communities as we provide our clients with truly customer focussed hair and beauty solutions and related services."

Harriet Kessie's adventure in the business started out in the front room of her aunt's house in east London, where she learned the skills needed to succeed in a very competitive business. Even then, she had ideas of her own.

Her big start came while studying at West Ham College and working in a high street salon. She says: "I was working at a salon on Saturdays. It was busy and one day the manager asked me to cover for a colleague; the next thing I knew I was in at the deep end styling people's hair on my own."

Harriet Kessie and Joseph Cudjoe are determined to grow  their business and are planning a national chain of Harriet Kessie salons with a training academy, branded products and other services.

"We hope that it will become a well known brand fronting a nationwide high street chain,"says Harriet Kessie.

report by Don de Silva