PRCAI ‘State of Industry Survey 2017,’  shows 18% growth, emergence of employee PR

 20th September 2017    PR News 
 Paarul Chand

The Public Relations Consultants Association of India (PRCAI) released this year’s ‘State of Industry Survey 2017’ report at PRAXIS 2017 – in Jaipur over the weekend. The report is based on inputs from 36 PR firms and 28 in-house professionals.

This year, other than public relations consultancies, in-house communicators were also surveyed.

According to the report, the industry grew at 18% to reach Rs 1,315 in FY17, which is an up from last year’s Rs 1,120 crore; the report says that boutique firms are performing remarkably well.

Revenue share by company category in FY 17

As per the report the growth in 2017 has been driven by the retail, automobile and FMCG sectors. Large firms have reported significant increase of 14% in FMCG & retail revenues. Auto & OEM has seen a growth as compared to FY 16. Interestingly, the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector, which was last year’s biggest clientele for PR firms in the country, accounting for over 20 per cent of the revenue generated by agencies, is on the decline with a revenue share of only 8%. There has a decline in the revenue share of financial services as well. Overall, the private sector continues to account for 95% of the PR spend.

The PR industry is expected to continue to register a double-digit growth and reach Rs 2,000 crore by 2020.

Employee engagement has emerged as a separate PR service category this year.

Employee communication; employee engagement is gaining importance as a distinct PR  offering.

Revenue share by services category in FY 16

Revenue share by services category in FY 17

• Digital and social media continues to contribute significantly to the revenues industry
• Other services include influencer marketing, India entry strategies, creative design and website development

Talent
The availability of talent remains a key issue with stakeholders, specially in digital areas. Among the reasons that employees quit, compensation and opportunities for growth were a major reason , with medium sized firms being specially vulnerable.

Talent is also being hired from outside PR to drive content:

Hiring of talent pool in FY 16-FY17

• Due to the growth of content driven campaigns and use of digital and social media, very large, large and medium firms have started to hire from advertising and media industry

PR is considered strategic in half of the companies

Types of PR decisions

Reporting structure of PR