Consolidation of operators in niche healthcare areas in the mid nineties opened the door for Stuart Giles and his wife Cathie Reed to develop APHS, a national pharmacy service network. APHS has now grown to become one of Australia’s largest niche healthcare providers, specialising in aged care and hospital pharmacy groups with offices in Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.
DB: What differentiates you from competitors?
SG: Initially, it was geography and service availability, coupled with specialisation. That has fanned out over the last 10 years to further areas of differentiation and innovation as we strongly invested in areas of technological solutions and importing technology from overseas to really try and give ourselves a point of difference.
DB: What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs?
SG: Be prepared for everything. The biggest expectation has to be that you’re going to have to work hard. Whoever said that success is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration was spot on.
What gives Australian entrepreneurs an edge?
I think we perform highly on a global benchmarking scale as we lack a critical mass of people and have greater geographic challenges. Whenever we have a great idea and want to try and convert it into reality, I think the fact we often have to solve those problems as well as establish a niche for that product or service, gives us an opportunity to outperform.
