NSW Small Business
September 2005

Background:

The NSW Department of State and Regional Development (DSRD) is the State's business development agency who works with businesses to strengthen the global competitiveness, promote investment, job creation and build business capability across the State.

Every year, DSRD helps and supports NSW small businesses through annual celebration called Small Business September. The NSW Small Business September is a collaborative event consisting business seminars, workshops, forums and site visits across NSW.

Despite the continuing success of this event, DSRD struggled to manage the logistics of events, sponsors and stakeholders both in Sydney metropolitan and regional NSW.

Solutions:

In 2005, DSRD implemented its first online event management system for the sixth Small Business September. This system was developed by Alpha Salmon (formerly Rhodon IT) in .Net technology within Microsoft environment.

The system acted as a process and logistical tool for stakeholders to submit and update events online. The approval process was also administered online by DSRD's Small Business September Coordinator via the system.

The system corresponded directly with its event database and generated reports in real time. It also provided a content management system for administrator to update content and manage events and its details. This reporting also offered DSRD to control number of attendees per event to avoid over booking an event.

Results:

The 2005 Small Business September generated over 450 events from 120 stakeholders and catered over 5,000 event attendees across NSW. The website and its content were managed single-handedly by a DSRD's Small Business September Coordinator which proved its cost-effectiveness in both time and resources for the department.