Before joining IdeaWorks, Alan was Retail Strategist with ARC Worldwide / Leo Burnett. He was also a Director in the Strategic Change consulting practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers, based in Melbourne. Prior to that, he was the Executive Director of The Australian Centre for Retail Studies at Monash University. Before moving to Australia in 1994, he spent 3 years as a consultant in the retail consulting practice of Coopers & Lybrand, London. Before joining C&L, London he was a lecturer and researcher with the Oxford Institute of Retail Management at Templeton College, the University of Oxford’s business school.

He has extensive consulting and advisory experience with leading retail and consumer products companies globally. His work in the retail sector includes strategy design and operational improvement engagements with leading retailers in most sectors in the UK, Europe, North America, Asia and Australia. He is especially associated with retail industry research which takes ‘over the horizon’ perspectives on the future for the industry globally. He is the author of over 80 books, papers and conference presentations on strategic issues in retail and consumer products industries. He was awarded his doctorate from the University of Oxford.

Will’s academic credentials, which include graduate degrees in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from Stanford University, an assistant professorship at the University of Houston, as well as a National Science Fellow at Stanford University, are complemented with strong corporate and retailing credentials. The latter includes management responsibilities in corporate planning and development, store management, retail operations, consumer research, operations analysis, and distribution planning during his 15-year association with Montgomery Ward. He has also had management assignments for Foley’s Department Stores, Agency for International Development, NASA—Manned Spacecraft Center and the Center for Naval Analyses.

Will is a member of National Retail Federation and the International Council of Shopping Centers and has spoken on retail topics at a number of their seminars and conferences. Will recently co-authored a book entitled “Winning at Retail” which was published by John Wiley in early 2004. Will’s hobbies include skiing, soccer, and collecting art rock posters from the 60’s.

Ronald challenges organisations to think out of the box, think big and to innovate from a true customer experience perspective. He is passionate about the need for organisations to create more WOW for their customers and applies human-centred innovation processes which are heavily infused with principles from the Experience Economy. Over the years, he conducted several studies in the area of experience creation in the retail and hospitality industries.

He has developed a breakthrough methodology to drive organisational change, called BlueWaves, guiding organisations to look beyond the functional aspects of service; moving from hard-ware to heart-ware. Currently he is involved in supporting several organisations in Singapore, ranging from new product & service creation for the medical industry to the definition of new service offerings for restaurant and retail outlets.

Ronald holds a Dutch degree in Marketing and Mechanical Engineering and is a founding member of the Fellowship of Inventors and the Asian Experience Economy Centre, a think tank and resource centre in experience creation.

For more information about NBDA Asia,  please visit www.nbda-asia.com.

Zack Bana has more than 15 years of experience in the consulting and training profession particularly in the area of service quality, change management, strategy, team effectiveness. Over the years, more than 100,000 people have benefited from Zack’s high energy presentations, keynote speeches, interactive workshops and management retreats.

Zack’s passion for service quality led to the birth of Beacon Consulting in 1998 where the focus area of the organization is succinctly captured through its motto “Breaking frontiers through customer care and learning”.

In 2006, Zack mooted the idea of establishing a benchmark index to help organisations assess the level of service that is being delivered vis-a-vis other organisations in the same industry. SRA, in partnership with Beacon Consulting, successfully launched the first-ever retail industry-wide mystery shopping initiative known as RIMS (Retail Industry Mystery Shopping).

With many years of professional speaking and training experience around the world, Zack provides consultancy interventions and training for government agencies, multi-national corporations and SMEs in the fields of high technology, financial services, medical services, manufacturing, retailing, hospitality, and entertainment.  Some of the organisations Zack has actively worked with in the area of consultancy and training include Hewlett-Packard, Isetan, Giordano, Daimler Chrysler, DKSH, ABN Amro, Montblanc.

Miklos is a veteran in market research with over 13 years of experience in FMCG retailing. He first joined Nielsen in Hungary in 1995, and transferred to Nielsen Singapore in 1997.

Miklos is a member of Nielsen’s Singapore Management Committee as well as managing Nielsen’s Singapore Retail Measurement business.