While visitors were preoccupied with all the sleek and shiny exhibits at this year's British International Motor Show, little did they realise just how much work was being done behind the scenes - not least the management of a powerful database comprising detailed information for a projected 25,000 delegates and 500,000 visitors.

As motor icons including Fiat, Jaguar, Renault, Mini, Volvo and BMW unveiled their latest models, Midlands-based web services company Postcode Anywhere and mobile information product provider TAAP provided the technology that was stealthily running the show.

The infrastructure allowed exhibitors to capture and process information, and deliver it in real time via the TAAP system to each individual exhibitor's IT systems for immediate fulfilment and lead processing.

This year's motor show, hosted at London's state-of-the-art exhibition centre ExCeL proved to be the biggest unrivalled event of its kind in Britain.

The TAAP system collected on average just under six leads per minute at the show, twothirds of which included address verification through Postcode Anywhere, allowing exhibitors to pinpoint visitors' nearest dealer.

The remaining third consist of enquiries to test-drive vehicles or requests for dynamic email response where postcoding was not required. All leads were fed into the exhibitors' own IT systems in real-time.

Steve Higdon, chief executive of TAAP, said: "It never ceases to thrill me when I see the speed at which data can be captured and the number of leads and that we are collecting for our customers. " It may well be a behind-the-scenes activity, but these leads represent the potential future of these companies and it's a great feeling to know that our involvement makes such a difference to sales."