The BIZEWEST Portal

Abstract

In June 2000, the Western Region Economic Development Organization (WREDO), a not-for-profit organization sponsored by the six municipalities that make up the western region of Melbourne, received a state government grant for a project to set up a business-to-business portal. The project was to create a “horizontal portal”—BIZEWEST—that would enable small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in Melbourne’s west to engage in an increased number of ecommerce transactions with each other. The western region of Melbourne contains around 20,000 businesses, and is regarded as the manufacturing, transport, and distribution hub of South-eastern Australia (Tatnall, Burgess, & Singh, 2004). Traditionally, this region had encompassed much of the industry in metropolitan Melbourne.