David Reading Local business consultant

Business Matters Magazine spends five minutes with new local David Reading from Q Business Group.

David, tell us a little about your background.
I met my wife at London University and then joined IBM before emigrating to live in Sydney more than 30 years ago. I‘ve been self-employed since 1980, setting up a number of small businesses in the IT sector, apart from two years as a GM with Unisys. Unisys was great experience but it reminded me why I wanted to be self-employed.

An early success was launching one of the first IT contractor businesses in Australia and then securing a distributor agreement as part of the launch of the IBM PC in Australia. That business went national a year later and in three years we grew to more than 100 staff and $30 million turnover (equivalent to $100 million today).

I have spent a lot of time in Asia, having set up a search company recruiting senior IT professionals from Australia to take banking and telecommunications-based assignments there. I then worked in HK as executive vice-president with a technology investment group involved with emerging opportunities in China. I was the only “gwailo” (slang for ‘foreigner’) on the team, and that was quite an adventure.

In 2000 I set up an internet-based recruitment service, which I sold, and in recent years have engaged in consulting activities covering such areas as franchising, business restructuring, government tenders and starting up new businesses within established small companies.

When did you arrive on the Sunshine Coast?
I arrived in April this year.

What brought you here?
We have holidayed on the Sunshine Coast for the past 20 years and always planned to settle here once I could break away from business in Sydney. A year ago one of my two daughters and her family made the decision to seek out the lifestyle here, and so we decided it was time for us as well.

How are you enjoying living here so far?
Loving it and only wished we had come 10 years ago!

What would you say would be the major difference between Sydney and the Sunshine Coast as far as business is concerned?
The big difference is having time to do things. Life in Sydney can be such a mad rush that it is tough to get a healthy work/life balance. That applies to everyone and so getting to meet people in business or socially is difficult to arrange.

Tell us a little about what Q Business is all about?
It is a vehicle for me to share my experiences with business owners who are now embarking on journeys that I have made over the past 30 years. Looking back, you can appreciate why some ventures did not work out the way you envisaged, while others were great successes. You learn a lot from both.

What would you say is the reason that your clients choose you as their business consultant?
Personal business experience. Experience in getting new businesses off the ground and experience in changing the management style and business strategies of organisations that have stopped growing. Launching a new business is totally different to successfully managing one and requires different strategies to those that are needed once it is operational. Then you must have strategies to maintain growth, because if you are not growing then you are really in decline.

With this issue being all about business must-haves, could you give our readers your absolute top three, can’t-live-without tips?

A passion to succeed, so you keep on when the going gets tough.

A strategy that offers a point of difference to your customers.

Adequate cash flow - you can recover from everything except running out of money!