I don't know whether social CRM will spell the end of 'plain old CRM' just yet. Granted, the leading pack will be looking at sCRM and thinking about how they can take advantage of the opportunities it presents, but for the rest 'plain old CRM' still has a lot to offer for the time being. While social media is growing in influence, it doesn't yet represent the be-all-and-end-all of customer engagement. Both opportunities and risks are increasing as a result of it – and neither can be ignored forever - but offline is still the priority. And CRM currently caters to that adequately.  Crucially, however, sCRM is about more than just embracing social media; it is about a philosophy of collaboration, non-transactional engagement and transparency. These are characteristic of social media but not exclusive to it. It's not so much a matter of the tools driving the philosophy; this philosophy needs to be engendered across the enterprise for the tools to work. The tools will then aid its realization. Remember, this philosophy didn't just appear with the advent of sCRM – CRM was already heading that way before the technological development. Best practice leaders have already been shaping their business around the customer for years using CRM; collaborating with them on product design and service provision. It's part of the evolution. SCRM just takes this and re-applies it to the forum best suited to it: the social web.  The point I'm getting at is that the CRM philosophy and the manner in which it shapes your company offline (strategically and procedurally) is far greater an undertaking than the software adoption alone. To understand that and to put in place the strategic and cultural pillars that support it would make for an easier transition to sCRM. Those companies who were already successful at CRM will be better placed to adapt to sCRM. In fact, it's a logical development. On the other hand, those companies who have yet to implement CRM successfully may find that it's too big a cultural change at this stage. They might feel they're better off taking the time to establish a customer-centric ideology without the enterprise 2.0 tools first and then following that same evolutionary path.  Perhaps I'm not giving companies enough credit here. But knowing the traditional difficulties faced by some in implementing CRM, the extra layers of complexity added by sCRM could be too big a leap in one go. That's not to say that purchasing software with the potential to add social or collaborative modules is ill-advised, but that it's important to get the basics right first. Matt