The CIM Croydon branch hosted an evening exploring where the new social networking systems and CRM had scope to compliment one another.

Thomas Power Managing Director of Ecademy described the current and expected changes in social networking.  He highlighted Twitter as the leader in a somewhat confusing assembly of networking options.

David Jefferson, of JI Management Consultants presented an overview of CRM as a technology with 20 years of successful use, and not an inconsiderable number or reported failures to it's name. He stressed the need for focal identity in any networking campaigns that were intended to generate leads for later inclusion in a CRM system.  He offered a strategy for creating pressure to bring enquiries to a website designed to capture leads. He strongly recommended an interlinking of website and CRM database for the handling of relationships, and said this had been surprisingly slow in developing in recent years.