Business Speakers
Alan O’Neill aka ‘The Change Agent’ has over 30 years of experience from the board room to the front line supporting iconic brands to achieve amazing results.
In a dynamic world, Alan knows what it takes to drive change in a business – from top to bottom… and back to front.
It’s about having a Customer-centric Culture, Engaged People, and a Supercharged Sales effort.
Across B2B, B2C and the Public Sector, his clients include global brands like Selfridges, Bank of Irl, Harrods, Eli Lilly, Intel, Lufthansa, Mercedes, Moet Hennesy, Ramada Hotels, Scottish Power, Sherry Fitz, St. Gobain, The UN, Vodafone, and more.
Up until 2004, Selfridges was a sleeping giant – but in recent years has achieved two significant accolades… it’s officially the best department store in the world… and one of the most profitable (per m²) – Alan O’Neill was their lead consultant for many years.
A consultant, trainer, non-exec director, an author, and a visiting professor with Ashridge, he is also a trusted mentor to many CEOs and board directors who seek his advice on various issues.
Alan has a reputation for making the complex simple… being down-to-earth and practical… with a commercial focus that brings everything back to the customer.
Keynote Speaker:
It is this unrivalled business acumen that has seen Alan O’Neill facilitate and speak at conferences on several continents and conduct master-classes with C-level executives.
He asks hard and uncomfortable questions such as:
- How do you change an old culture and get it ready for emerging global challenges?
- How do you overcome cynicism and resistance to change?
- How do you overcome complacency, procrastination and accountability?
- How do you develop a customer service culture?
- How do you retain the best talent in a high-performance challenging culture?
With every engagement, Alan O’Neill takes time to understand the brief, the hard business challenges, the expected messaging… and builds empathy before meeting his audience.
He is energetic, passionate, engaging and motivational – and will leave your audience with thoughts and challenges relevant to your particular issues, that are guaranteed to provoke, shake up and inspire. But most of all – he gives hope.
He is also a competent conference chair – helping to get the structure and content matched to the expected outcome.
Speaking topics include:
Change Management
- Show Me the Lid on the Box
- Change Management – in 5000 Easy Steps…
- Future-proof Your Business – and stay relevant
- Who are you? What’s your Brand DNA?
High Performance Culture
- Maximize Your People Productivity in Five Steps
- Leaders also need Followers – especially in tough times
- Now I get it – it’s about Values, Silly!
- Selfridges – High Performance Results from High Performance Culture
- What added value can the HR community provide in a new world?
- What added value can the HR community provide in a new world?
Customer Service
- How to develop an obsessive Customer Service Culture
- Is Customer Service really important in a B2B environment?
- In a new world – Customer Experience vs. Customer Service?
- In a digital world – does ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ really matter?
- Going the Extra Mile is a Waste of Time, unless…
- Customerise Your Business
- Disney – the business behind the magic
- Disney-inspired Destination Development
- Super Service Made Simple
- Selfridges – From Good (71%) to Great (91%), consistently
Retail Thinking
- Retailers learned the art of great service from the world of Hospitality – now retailers teach us all how to Convert Our Customers to Cash.
- The Art of Retail Thinking – Retailers are at the coal-face and know how to turn on a sixpence – how can we have a bit of that.
- Supercharge your business with retail-inspired thinking and strategies
- Drive Sales using FCA
- What is your true Commercial Driver?
- Secrets of Success from the Giants of Retail
- DeBijenkorf – best in Netherlands, but not there yet!
- The Selfridges Story – the Best Dept Store in the World
In 2018, Alan’s debut book on Customer Experience – Premium is the New Black was published.
In the book, Alan shares lessons learnt from working with some of the best global brands (Selfridges, Dalata, Intel, Renault, St. Gobain, Sherry Fitzgerald and The UN (CTBTO) and how they can be applied to all industries in B2C, B2B and the Public Sector.
The key principle at the core of this practical guide is how to ensure your customers have consistently great experiences – making them more likely to buy from you repeatedly and become strong advocates for your brand.
