I am extremely excited about the current trajectory of AGE and its continued evolution. Quite simply, both the short-term and long-term goals for AGE is to be the company of reference for our insurance, fleet, and leasing partners globally. This means that we are constantly innovating, investing in the right technologies, and reviewing our service and product offerings with our customer’s pain points and an improved journey top of mind. Co-designing is an important concept and those companies that can work best build fluid business to business engagements will likely emerge as winners in a rapidly changing world. In the short-term, we will continue to expand our global footprint and create further cohesion (process and policy) across our many members in 22 countries. It is not always so easy when working across many countries, each with their own idiosyncrasies, but by working as one and having a common approach, our customers are able to rely on a cohesive offering.
2. As the key person responsible for the new International Glass Claims Platform, what were the biggest challenges of this project, and what can our members expect for the future, in this and new IT projects?
It is critical that AGE continues to move forward with a truly international offering and having a common platform is one of the key components. With each market having its own unique characteristics, it is important that we build a better understanding of our members’ needs and then translate this to provide our customers, who are also becoming more international, with a cohesive view of our service and product offering along with well-defined measures of performance. Challenging our members to keep on raising their performance bars requires easily accessible measures of performance. Our members can expect deeper engagements to better understand their needs and of course, we will keep on asking for their feedback. With technology driving so much change across many industries, it is important that AGE as an organization is well positioned as a technology leader. It is also important that AGE leverages the considerable strength in our network, with our members all market leaders in their geographies. We do this by sharing best practices, including understanding if specific technologies used in one country can benefit other members.
3. How can AI support AGE’ sustainability commitment to become climate neutral until 2025?
Artificial Intelligence is certainly a topical subject now, and we are seeing a significant number of new technology entrants using AI and computer vision to recognize vehicle damage and then automatically kick off a resultant downstream process. Backed by big data sets and machine learning algorithms, this technology has a strong potential to automate many of the current manual insurance processes and drive sustainability. An example of where embracing this technology is also good for the environment is to allow the AI to determine a glass replacement or repair. Worldwide, glass manufacturing processes produce at least 86 a million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. Repairing vs replacing can help make a dent here with the average carbon footprint from replacing a windscreen estimated to be 44kg CO2 emissions, including production, transport, and recycling! Using an AI tool, whose link can be sent to the policyholder, would allow an upfront repair vs replace decision to be made, increasing the number of repairs.
4. Customer experience is one of AGE main focuses. How is AGE working to achieve high results with a digital approach?
In my experience, customers, and this includes not only our business-to-business partner but, also their customers, increasingly want on-demand convenience. This convenience facilitated by digitization is a mega trend and businesses that do not follow adequately are at risk. Whether it is ordering taxi or a quick take way, booking a flight, or even finding a date, people increasingly just want to press a button on their phone! While servicing the glass needs of our customer may not be as exciting as finding at date, the underlying need for the experience to be quick, convenient, and easily accessible is common. A key objective of AGE is to help our members facilitate a transition to an increasingly digital world. The includes sharing both best practice and best platforms, many of which are being developed by our members proprietarily. So, with the idea that our members do not necessarily need to re-invent the wheel, we certainly encourage them to look within the AGE community to see what can be shared. This can result in saved capital expenditure and faster time to implementation.
About Filum Ho
Born in Taiwan but grown up in the United States, Filum graduated in Economics from the University of Michigan. Filum was also selected to participate in Stanford University’s one year SEED Executive Development Program for leading emerging market companies.
In his early career, he worked as an investment banker in Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch for 3 years each, where he worked in London, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Africa trading interest rate products and currencies.
In 2003, Filum joined a small family automotive part business – Grandmark International, working as an executive. Now they are the biggest independent owner wholesaler of parts and glass in South Africa.
In 2017, Filum Ho became CEO of Autoboys in South Africa, being the second fitment glass service solution, that SA had. Currently, and only 5 years after, Autoboys has 35% of the market.
In 2020, Filum officially joined the AGE board.
In AGE he is mainly responsible for the digital progress of the group, especially in international jobs, where he developed with his team the platform that is available to all AGE members.
Today, Filum aims to strengthen and transform AGE digital strategy and roadmap, using technology as a leverage.
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