The BIZEWEST Portal

Abstract

In June 2000, the Western Region Economic Development Organisation (WREDO), a notfor- profit organisation 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 e-commerce 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.