A visionary technology solution and consulting services company, 121Advisor has been serving clients across the Financial, Insurance, and Takaful sectors in Asia region for the past 20 years under the hegemony of Kevin Steer. Since its incorporation in 2010, 121Advisor has pioneered various revolutionary business solutions in digital technology, internet, and mobile platforms, social media channels as well as regulatory-compliant cloud solutions for multinational and domestic clients.
Kevin Steer:
Is a renowned name in this field; he is bringing new innovations to this business world. As the CEO of One Two One Advisor, Kevin advises on the design of new solutions and develops data models for the company. He leads a team of 35 individuals at 121Advisor, and he inspires them to create innovative solutions. Kevin is interested in the banking, insurance, and takaful industries, where his team has built a variety of innovative solutions, including online sales solutions, customer care portals, and n-Tier ALCs (Agency Leader Corporations).
In academics, Kevin did a bachelor’s degree from Cambridge University and subsequently spent five years working for Schlumberger. In 1986, he completed a Masters in Computing at Imperial College, where he concentrated on Artificial Intelligence, after observing how IT was growing.
More about the Firm
Catering to both the FinTech & InsurTech sectors, One Two One Advisor Sdn Bhd was formed in 2010. Over the past 10 years, the company has implemented many disruptive online solutions including Referral Management with Marketing Automation for Banks, Mobile Point of Sales, Online Direct Selling, Online Claims, Agency Distribution, Online Customer Service Portals & Corporate Websites. With the growth of AI & chatbots; 121Advisor implemented disruptive solutions including multilingual Chatbots & Robo Advisors along with AI-based Predictive Analytics / Machine Learning for predicting New Products, Lapsation, Fraudulent Claims & future predictions for Investment Funds.
“We grew 121Advisor to 20+ companies, including Agency Distribution for N-tier Agency Leader Corporations (ALCs). Plus we included Mobile Point of Sales, as well as Online Direct Selling to our customers, as well as Customer Service Portals to manage inquiries as well as service requests”, shared the visionary.
Dealing with the Challenges
Having worked in the insurance & takaful sector for a number of years, 121Advisor’s mission was to provide disruptive InsurTech & FinTech solutions for insurers, takaful operators & banks.
As a CEO & ‘techie’, Kevin has always been looking for new disruptive solutions to continue evolving the business. What was interesting was that he worked for an Artificial Intelligence Company in 1986, and that piqued his interest in AI. When 121Advisor started seeing the evolution of Chatbots, Robo Advisors, Predictive Analytics, Behavioral Intelligence & Robotic Process Automation. 121Advisor started researching on AI solutions and the team implemented 24×7 multi-lingual Chatbots, Robo Advisors for lifestyle financial planning, as well as implementing Predictive Analytics solutions for predicting new products to buy, lapsation of policies, fraudulent claims & future growth/decline of investment funds; which are integrated with RPA solutions to trigger workflows to notify the relevant people.
Present-day, 121Advisor has grown the business, and they are looking at u12 to expand to Singapore & Indonesia.
From the CEO’s Desk
Secret Sauce: My “Secret Sauce” is to enable businesses to grow and expand to more countries.
Biggest Failures & Learning: My biggest failure was to grow the business to 20+ companies, and we have expanded the companies to ALCs distribution models, where we distribute payments to each individual, and we monitor performance ratings.
Define Success: Success is growing and we plan to expand to new countries (Singapore, Indonesia, Europe & USA).
New Ideas in the Pipeline: 121Advisor designs Disruptive Solutions and we have significantly expanded our business to grow more business.
Vision in Life: 121 Advisor vision is to grow our disruptive solutions to new heights. Where we grow to build a Successful Journey.
Characteristics of Every Leader: As a Leader, I motivate the team to develop more solutions and grow the business.
Road Ahead
With the current pandemic ongoing, 121Advisor saw the need to offer financial services and health services online with lifestyle financial & health advice. They recently launched a knowledge portal u12know in Malaysia, that provides lifestyle financial advice (for single, married, family, retired & my business). This will be continuously extended to include lifestyle financial goals with recommendations for financial and business products, including our multilingual chatbot & Robo Advisor (which provides advice on financial goals). In addition, we have launched a number of Health Calculators, and they will soon be launching a “Total Health Score” to advise people on whether they are healthy, sick, etc.
121Advisor will be signing up with a number of banks, insurers, takaful operators, unit trust companies & will-writing services to offer their services online.
Best Advice Recently Received:
“Assess the risks and see whether they are suitable, and look at the new business to grow the company”
