With the emergence of several new technologies including AI, machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), and blockchain, several leaders are adopting InsureTech and FinTech solutions to enhance digital customer experience. These solutions enable organizations to meet and deliver the ever-changing needs and requirements of their clients and customers.
One such prime example of a leader providing FinTech and InsurTech based solutions to its clients is Kevin Steer. In 2010, Kevin established 121 Advisor Sdn. Bhd.—focusing on InsurTech and Fintech solutions. Considering himself as a ‘techie’, Kevin designs data models and shares them with the team for any suggestions or feedback. Currently, Kevin spearheads as the CEO of 121 Advisor and propels the company to greater heights.
Mirror Review recently had the opportunity to participate in a conversation with Kevin Steer where he shared his views on leadership along with the associated roles and responsibilities, and the challenging journey of the establishment of the company. Following are some snippets of the fascinating conversation.
What are the various services and solutions offered by 121 Advisor?
121 Advisor Sdn. Bhd. is a visionary technology solution and consulting services company. Since its establishment, we have implemented various online solutions for Referral Management with Marketing Automation, Mobile Point of Sales, Online Direct Selling, Online claims, Agency Distribution, Online Customer Service Portals, Corporate Websites, Multi-lingual Chatbots, and Robo Advisors. Along with these, we have also introduced AI-based predictive analysis for new products, lapsation, and fraudulent claims. Our product ‘Customer First Connected Enterprise Digital Framework’ integrates all the above-mentioned solutions.
What exclusivities offered by you make you distinct from others?
Our exclusive services include–
- Predictive Analytics with Machine Learning:
We build Predictive Analytics Models (PAM) for banking, insurance, and takaful. Our solutions focus on predictive marketing & sales, customer service, new business underwriting, personalization, and claims management.
- Multi-lingual Chatbot for Financial, Insurance & Takaful (FITbot):
It utilizes hybrid trees and natural language processing (NLP) to engage with customers to offer a more personalized customer experience and generate more referrals.
- Web Portal Solution for Sales & Servicing (WebPoS):
It enables clients to experience a unified personalized digital experience where content, sales, marketing, and work management are consolidated instead of siloed.
- Referral Management & Marketing Automation (ReMMA):
It enables banks to effectively and efficiently auto-assign leads, tracks, and manages lead referrals and conversions based on user-defined workflows.
- Sales Activity Mobile App (SAMA):
It allows agents to effectively plan and manage sales activity to ensure all leads and prospects are addressed. It can also be used by managers to monitor real-time to render assistance where necessary.
- Community & E-worksite Marketing & Distribution (CeMD):
It allows organizations to engage with members of their community to nurture trust and create advocates thereby improving customer retention.
- Choices Online Store (COS):
It allows insurers and takaful operators to provide direct purchase of products online. The COS can integrate with Multi-lingual Chatbot for Financial Insurance & Takaful (FITbot) robo-advisor services as well as referrals via Referral Management & Marketing Automation (ReMMA).
- Takaful & Insurance Mobility Made Simple (TIMMS):
It allows agents to identify client’s financial needs via Customer Fact Find, recommend products, make presentations, generate quotes and e-submit applications in a regulatory compliant process.
- Customer Service Portal:
It is an on-demand access point enabling customer to view their insurance/takaful account, anywhere and anytime. The portal provides a safe avenue for customers to update their personal information, pay premium, switch funds, print documents, update beneficiary details, request policy changes and engage in filing claims and processing.
- Enterprise Product Configurator (EPC):
It has been built to rapidly setup product rates, illustrations, validation engine as well as an automated testing module allows quick product deployment.
- Multi-channel Distribution Management Solution (McDMS):
It enables general agencies, IFAs, brokers, Agency Leader Corporations (ALCs) to simplify operations by consolidating their diverse requirements.
Can you please brief us about your team?
The success of any company is largely dependent and equally contributed by the team members. 121 Advisor is run by a team of talented professionals with a track record of success in serving clients across the Financial, Insurance, Takaful, and service sectors in the Asia region for the past 20 years. I value every opinion and change the data models as per the feedbacks received from my team.
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the functioning of several businesses and industries. What measures did you incorporate to surpass the challenges induced during the pandemic?
121 Advisor has grown significantly since its inception. During the COVID-19 pandemic, several companies were affected due to its adversities. The pandemic also resulted in the shutting down of various businesses around the world. However, 121 Advisor managed to surpass the challenges induced by the pandemic. We worked on delivering disruptive solutions for our services and ensuring optimum client satisfaction.
What upcoming services and solutions are anticipated by 121 Advisor?
As most millennials in the Asia Pacific do not understand financial planning, and often max out their credit cards and get into debt; there is a need to help educate them on their lifestyle financial goals and recommend products that they can buy online. Therefore, to help people understand their needs and financial plans, we will soon launch the ‘u12know’ platform. It is a disruptive knowledge portal that will provide proper knowledge and offer advice on lifestyle financial and (in future) health goals. The information on the portal will be translated into the local language for every country.
The u12know portal was recently launched in Malaysia. Especially, with the ongoing pandemic situation, 121 Advisor saw the need to offer financial services and health services online with lifestyle financial & health advice. Several other services will be extended to the portal including lifestyle financial goals with recommendations for financial and business products, including our multi-lingual chatbot & Robo Advisor. Along with this, we also plan to include health and wellness calculators to advise people on their health including the ‘total health score’. The score will be based on the health calculators that will indicate the health type of the person ranging from very healthy, healthy, unhealthy, or at risk. We are planning to expand our services and launch the u12know portal in Singapore, Indonesia, Europe, and the USA.
Leadership Note:
“We don’t follow trends, we pioneer them,”
