By Siddhartha Mukherjee
Time is ripe for the Indian PR Industry to undergo a Saagar Manthan! No doubt, kudos to the industry captains and their senior management for going all out towards organic growth. The last five years have witnessed amazing individual and collective initiatives by PR Firms in areas such as Talent Upgradation, Width & Depth of Service Deliveries, Technology Advancements, Content Creation & Management, Reputation Management, Accessibility, etc. However, what will now help is the last mile inorganic nudge that will give a final shape to our Industry!
The PR industry’s shape-up will need Shake-Ups, Gobbles and Mergers! While it has been organic, the growth has been shapeless.
It is time that our industry starts consolidating both width- and depth-wise. It is time for number of service providers offering specific categories of services get cleaned up or pruned. It is time that ‘Haves’ get separated from the ‘Have-nots’. This is possible only through Mergers & Acquisitions or Buy-outs.
Unless that is done, ARPUs will hesitate to cross years of unimpressive thresholds.
The picture that is emerging is making it amply clear that PR Industry is clearly getting segmented under the broad categories of:
i) Holistic Corporate Brand Reputation Managers
ii) Media Relations Agencies with permutations of specialties such as Crisis Management, Communications Training, Digital initiatives, Advertising, Events, Internal Communications, Events etc.
iii) Basic media relations agencies
iv) Stringers or Boutique Agencies
In fact, bits of what we speak here have already started happening in the market place. More so, it should not surprise us if the frequency of news talking about such shake ups rise in frequency!
Interestingly, talking of it, the Indian PR industry has already started the shake-up through a guerilla approach. Agencies have started making unconventional moves! Though in retrospect, they make perfect sense. Acquisition of Content Creations firms, Digital Agencies, Advertising firms, and other such surprise business moves are adding on to the Industry shake up!
Our PR industry needs disruption to get on to the next generation of growth! Inorganic route through Mergers & Acquisitions has a lot of merit.