I recently attended a business coaching weekend along with several businesses from around the Central West. It was an eye opening exercise for me to assess my business looking from the outside - something few businesses have the time to do unless done consciously. What was more surprising for me was to see that some of those businesses attending were quite large and successful businesses that had been trading for decades.

Even though these businesses were trading just as well as they had for many years they still saw the need to grow and develop to keep up with the rapid pace of change that we are exposed to everyday.

What I discovered was that these businesses saw their failings in the area's of trying to appreciate their 'modern' customer, their market's and more importantly their business systems. The onset of the internet has provided a cost effective and powerful medium to look at these areas as often a web solution provides the answer to a multiple of questions.

Over the coming months we will be talking about a whole variety of web solutions that can assist your business.

We will also be reviewing a site of the month which may of interest to you, sometimes business, sometimes personal and sometimes just for fun!

This month we ask you to check out the Sydney Opera House website www.sydneyoperahouse.com.au . About 12 months ago the Opera House undertook a serious look at their facility and its operation with the aim to develop a website (an award winning website it turns out). Their web solution needed to achieve a variety of outcomes

. To outline and promote their products and services
. To communicate with existing and potential customers
. To encourage online ticket sales
. To integrate online ticket sales into their existing systems

The site itself looks great, obviously they have a budget that most SME's can only dream about, but the site is great not just because of how it looks, but what it does and what it says.

The really powerful thing about the site is that they have combined online ticket sales with their existing booking system, so that you can view availability for any event on any night as well as see where the seats are for that night.