Australia’s plunging currency has delivered an unexpected benefit to Australian information security company CQR Consulting as it prepares to launch a direct presence in the UK.

CQR Consulting Director Greg Inge is moving from Australia to England to head up the new office where he will recruit staff and oversee several major contracts won by the company.

CQR Consulting delivers independent information security services, without the need to sell hardware, software or other technology services. The Australian-owned company provides an “honest broker” for organisations often caught between the competing claims of incumbent vendors.

CQR Consulting has won a significant contract with Reed Elsevier to design and deploy an international business continuity programme for the global publishing giant’s operations.

Greg Inge said CQR would use the UK as a “beachhead” to Europe. “We’ve had a serviced office in the UK for several years, used by our Australian staff,” he said.

“Many companies have said ‘when you have people on the ground, come and see us’. Now, we intend to leverage our contracted work for 2009 to win additional business. The projects we will undertake for Reed Elsevier give us a great base for expansion.

“While the strong Australian dollar has worked against us during the past 18 months, its recent drop has proved timely in terms of allowing us to use Australian resources to support this initiative.”

The Oxford office – about one hour north of London by train – is the fourth office for CQR Consulting. In Australia, the company employs 23 people in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne. As well as working in Australia and the UK, CQR Consulting has delivered information security projects in countries including Singapore, India, the US and the Netherlands.

Mr. Inge said he had travelled to the UK, Europe and the US on an almost a bi-monthly basis – lasting anything from one to three weeks – for the past couple of years. “For the first few weeks, I will supplement my role with one of our people from Adelaide,” he said.

“After that first month, I’ll start looking to recruit employees, probably two or three in the first year. By year three, we are looking to have a staff of 10 and a multi-million-pound turnover.

“As well as building partnerships with organisations that don’t do our type of work, we will use the UK office to service work in countries including the Netherlands, France, Germany and the US.”

The establishment of the UK office is based on the strength of its partnership with Elsevier, a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. Elsevier has 7000 employees in 70 offices globally, publishing 2000 journals and 1900 books each year.

In recent years, CQR Consulting has rolled out and supported a global business continuity programme for Elsevier. The success of this project enabled CQR to win a business continuity contract with Elsevier’s parent company, Reed Elsevier, which employs 32,000 people around the world.

For more about CQR Consulting, visit www.cqrconsulting.com .  For media assistance, call John Harris at Impress Media Australia on (08) 8431 4000 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .