Special Reports

THE flexibility to refine his business plan after initial setbacks has delivered Adam Lamond a thriving operation that provides engineering, maintenance and industrial services to the likes of BHP Billiton and Fortescue Metals Group.

PAST winners of the Rising Stars award could never be accused of standing still.

WHILE many businesses in the west are bracing for the economically stifling impact of impending skills shortages, Skill Hire chief executive Stephen Edgar sees opportunity.

BURGER entrepreneur and chef Justin Bell has taken a sizable bite out of the Perth market and is aiming to serve up his unique fare in Melbourne by spring.

The winners of the 2011 Rising Stars awards illustrate the diversity and enormous opportunity for private businesses in WA.

ONE man’s vision to provide a value-added pressure-testing service to the construction, resources and oil and gas industries, has led to the emergence of a leading Australian company poised to expand offshore.

THE solar retailer business can be risky, with changes to government subsidies and rebates altering the ebb and flow of the market, but Sun Connect hasn’t let this reality dominate its strategy.

BANKS and risk management groups say the Australian dollar’s volatility makes it a good time for businesses to start using hedging instruments to protect against foreign exchange risk.

The high Australian dollar is generally considered bad news for business, but some of the recent evidence suggests it is not that simple.

THE property market around Mandurah may be in the doldrums, but major land developers have taken the breathing space provided by the global financial crisis to prepare for the next wave of growth in the sector.

THERE are plenty of residential developments that have a golf course as their focal point – and the Mandurah area has its fair share.

Mandurah’s developers are still waiting for the market to turn after three hard years.

SERCO is a company that Western Australians are becoming increasingly familiar with, since it became preferred tenderer to supply non-medical services to the giant Fiona Stanley Hospital project rising near the Kwinana Freeway at Murdoch.

DON Voelte’s departure from Woodside comes at a time when the business face of Perth is changing rapidly, and quite literally.

HE’S chairman of the East Perth Redevelopment Authority and heads up the Perth Waterfront Taskforce, but don’t call Stuart Hicks powerful; instead, he says, it’s influence he’s wielding to build a 21st century face for the city.

Colin Barnett is riding high and consistently outpacing Canberra. But he faces some major challenges to maintain his trajectory.

ANKETELL is a location on the Pilbara coast few Western Australians could pinpoint.

LAST week’s standoff between the federal and state governments over mining royalties overshadowed the news from Shell that it had given the green light to its $11 billion Prelude floating LNG project.

LAST month, a heavyweight crowd attended the opening of an exhibition of Jeffrey Smart’s work at the new high rise on the Bishop’s See site.

THE resources sector anticipates Enterprise Migration Agreements will enable more than 30 large projects to overcome the labour shortages that threaten their viability.

New figures have shed light on the enormous scale of the emerging oil and gas boom, for both investment and employment.

LEIGHTON Holdings subsidiaries Leighton Contractors and John Holland are two of Australia’s major construction contractors, but they are not names normally associated with engineering work on LNG projects.

THE long, hot summer may have lingered a bit long for residents of the South West, but for the state’s wine industry it meant an early harvest and what looks to be another good vintage.

The wine industry is copping it from all angles, Emily Morgan reports.

The term ‘sustainability’ is often bandied about in various industries; for wineries, the context of the word has morphed to include organic production, efficient and environmentally conscious viticultural practices and business sustainability for the mar

I WONDER if wine shows have lost their relevance.

DATA centres are a long-established feature of the IT landscape, yet during the past year there has been unprecedented activity in this sector and the promise of more to come.

The emergence of cloud computing and the growth of data centres are the buzz topics in the IT sector, but what do these trends really mean?

THE on-field (and off-field) dramas of the high-profile football codes may dominate the mainstream media’s attention, but there continues to be community and business support for mass-participation sports such as netball, surfing and tennis.

WITH a move to a funky new venue just around the corner, and the team firmly entrenched as a perennial finals contender, it’s hard to wipe the smile from Perth Wildcats chief executive Nick Marvin’s face.

THESE days, it seems it is not enough to be entertained purely by top-class sports people displaying amazing athletic feats as they pit their well-honed skills against rivals.

No matter what Perth’s professional sporting outfits do on or off the park, it’s the quality of the venue that dictates the pace of their financial growth.