Alan O’Neill
Customer Experience and Change Management Speaker
The secret to growing profit? A thriving company culture with customer experience at its heart. Alan’s expertise and 30 years’ experience can steer your company through the change to make it happen. Enthusiastic and down-to-earth, Alan can share his hard-won insight from helping global giants to grow profit, from Selfridge’s to Suzuki and from Emirates Insurance to Swedbank.
Learn the secret of Selfridges’ success from the man whose 7-Steps to Profit programme stimulated growth for the department store from £45 million profit to £200 million in a few short years. Now Selfridges has received multiple awards as the ‘Best Department Store in the World’. Alan’s 7-Steps to Profit has also transformed the fortunes of other iconic brands such as Toyota, Getty Images, Harrods, Aafaq Islamic Finance, Primark, Intel and Moet Chandon. Alan can guide your team through his structured path to profit increase, tailoring his insight to the needs of your business. Wherever you are on your journey, Alan’s no-nonsense expertise, infectious enthusiasm and sheer depth of experience can reignite your company’s passion for growth. Known for his relentless focus on putting people first, Alan truly understands the direct link between a thriving company culture and improved commercial results. Alan can help your team to identify your unique culture as a company and use this to give you maximum competitive advantage. A seasoned expert in facilitating organisational change in culture and strategy, Alan can help your
team to navigate any stormy waters and overcome resistance.
Alan’s tried-and-tested formula will help you transform your business to deliver the meaningful experiences your customers crave. Practical, empathic and very commercial, Alan’s refreshing and passionate style will inspire and challenge your organisation to embrace change and grow, using real-life business models and memorable success stories. Alan brings 30 years of wide industry experience, from retail to manufacturing and distribution, FMCG to financial services, hospitality to professional services, motor to travel and tourism and more. His work history spans blue-chips and PLCs, SMEs, family businesses and the Public Sector across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Navigating a post-Covid economy. In our post-Covid world, Alan supports organisations in person and online, to get a clear head and develop recovery plans to ensure a speedy return to our new normal. He can offer physical, virtual or hybrid meetings – tailoring his approach to suit your business challenges.
Topics
- Customer experience – why it’s at the beating heart of all decision-making
- Culture – the four ‘must-have’ values to set your direction
- Change management – how to overcome resistance and take people with you on a new
journey
Testimonials
“Alan’s business acumen, genuine passion for great customer service and his hands-on experience overseeing large-scale change within organisations such as Selfridges is unique. It makes him one of the most impressive speakers on change management and customer experience I have ever come across. Alan is a popular speaker at events around the globe with organisations who want to learn from his insights and his bold tactics to help build a world-class customer-centric culture and ultimately to increase sales.”
Frances Keane, Managing Director – Personally Speaking
“Alan O’Neill has completed some inspirational work for us at Dalata Hotel Group plc over the past number of years. His insight into customer experience and the customer thought process is second to none. The timing of his content is excellent, as the world of digital collides with traditional hospitality and customer service more frequently.”
Stephen McNally, Deputy CEO – Dalata Hotel Group plc
“In his unique and compelling manner, Alan O’Neill brings alive one of today’s most provocative subjects for contemporary business leaders. With retail in its most dire state in living memory and the unrelenting charge of the disruptors seeming to have many of the high streets stalwarts on their knees, many have at long last started to realise that this fierce battle for the customer might well mean the death of many of the losers. Alan convinces all businesses that they are as ‘unique as their fingerprints’, but treat their customers just like everyone else. Anyone can copy your strategy but no one can copy your culture – its high time you mobilised and energised these points of difference through the customer experience.”
Rene Carayol, MBE, International Keynote Speaker, Author and Leadership Guru
“Change Management and Customer Experience are two very relevant topics in today’s world. Every single client of ours is going through change at some level – some more disruptive than others. Within that change, more and more organisations have come to realize that whatever change they make, they must put ‘customer’ at the heart of that. ‘Customer Experience’ is indeed the new battleground and differentiator in this digital world. As a highly experienced Change Agent and Speaker, Alan inspires and challenges audiences with his practical business models and stories.The Selfridges Story is just one that brings all of the concepts to life and resonates with busineses of all types, B2B and B2C.”
Cosimo Turroturo, Managing Director – Speaker Associates
“Alan is one of the most brilliant minds in department store retailing today. Before engaging him for Rustan’s for a short-term project, I heard nothing but good things on the work he did for Selfridges. I was impressed by the breadth and depth of his knowledge on two critical areas: company culture and the customer experience. I have learned from Alan, that even in this digital era the secret sauce of an organization is people – and stretching it further, relationships. The quality of the experience we deliver, and resilience in this turbulent age is 100% dependent on the quality of our RELATIONSHIPs. Alan said it simplifies to two things that need to be holistically and deeply understood and harnessed not only functionally but also creatively: TALENT and TECHNOLOGY. Alan has this rare skill of helping businesses like ours continue to focus on our very basic purpose of firstly winning loyalty of our employees and then our customers. It’s
still about sincerely and authentically winning and retaining hearts and minds; even in this age of AI, big data, crypto currency, block chain, and other game changing disruptions.Alan has useful insights on how to disrupt yourself but in a way that has clarity, that is still true to your dna, and at the end of the day is still about people. Alan presented at a number of events for us and our industry colleagues in Manila where we picked his brains and connected with his wisdom and passion. That was fascinating and enlightening. I can’t wait to have him back.”
Donnie Tantoco, President – Rustan Commercial Corporation (Philippines)
“Change and disruption are the new norms in business today. More and more of our clients are coping with that by staying focused on their customers. Customers are changing too, and their expectations continue to grow. That applies to digital and traditional channels. In his talaks, Alan brings us back to basics and challenges us all to refresh our thinking, putting customer experience at the heart of our decision-making. We have worked with Alan countless times as a speaker, and our clients continue to be inspired by his practical tips and stories.”
Nick Gold, Managing Director – Speakers Corner
Alan’s accomplishments
- Three-times published author with Premium is the New Black, Culture Matters, and Show Me the Lid on the Box .
- Business columnist with leading newspapers and several business and trademagazines in the Gulf
- The 7-Steps to Profit process has been used by iconic global brands such as Toyota, Getty Images, Primark, Intel and more.
- Case study example
How did Selfridge’s become the best in the world?
Alan can inspire and navigate your company with the ultimate rollercoaster story of
success: Selfridge’s. In a few short years, Alan’s guidance through the 7-Steps to Profit
grew annual profit from £45 million to £200 million. As a result, Selfridge’s won the award
for ‘Best department store in the world’ multiple times and continues to beat global records
for sales per sq/m.