His copartner wife Sukriti adds, ‘I forcee another BPO boom that will enhance the growth rate of developing nations where manual labour and intellectual inputs are cheap. It will be Media Processes Outsourcing (MPO) already sprouting rapidly in an unorganized fashion. This industry will transform into a diamond mine.

Future BPO Tsunami

‘Yes’, my visionary friend and CMD Expressionspr adds, ‘You must have noticed that in every country the Media, Information, Public Relations, Advertising and Entertainment industries already have some element of outsourcing inducted in some form. ‘

‘Like in Films we have everything outsourced be it the Directors, Starcast or different activity coordinators like stunt person, make up staff, musicians and variouss types of suppliers; everything is hired. ‘

‘And the results were stupendously successful flicks that churned and earned trillions of every currency. Similarly we have Traditional and Outdoor Publicity mostly managed by unskilled organised sector.
We already have a talented pool of underutilised freelancers in virtually every Media, Information, Public Relations, Advertising and Entertainment industries related profession. And this is the future.’ he concludes advocating the advent of MPO industry.

And the Future is now

I hate this heading but the inevitable privatisation of several incompetent government departments in every country will pave the way of the future MPO Industry. Reason being the high runnig costs, low levels of performance, rampant corruption, cancerous spread of non-professional attitude and a void of creative ideas. It is plaguing the image of nearly every popular goverment.

The leaders come in power. Perform and achieve and yet trashed in electoral dustbins just because their Media Departments were unable and incompetant to project them properly and aggressively.

The evidence from the United States is clear. The recent PRWar fought and won by Obama in the U.S., impressively ruined and buried one former president Clinton’s wife alongside the ruling president Bush. Both of them relied on their rusted media agencies.

Keyboards and screens of all sorts are going to be the playgrounds for the public relations experts in future. Within five years from now the PRwars will be very different. Well, if you are some PR Pro and think that it’s not going to happen, then pack your baggage otherwise learn something from PC Games, Robotic Surgeries, Videoconferencing, Remote sensing, Computerized shops and malls, mushrooming broadband connections.

Governmental PR under fire

The first casualty seems to be my fraternity, the government PR. Already suffering a severe credibility crisis, favoritism, unprofessional working style and isolation from mainstream Public Relations, I see several countries in a process of absolute revamping, restructuring and privatizing their age old systems to give better results within the schedules and budgets. I would like to mention that U.S. President elect Barak Obama’s PR company Blue State Digital not only managed his massive PR mission but collected around $ 200 million for his campaigning. The total expenditure involved was $ 1.1 million, not even significant fraction of what BSD collected for Obama. The government PR offices, despite slurping huge money every year hardly give the tax payer any return in any manner. So in the future, most of the governments will hire expert PR firms and keep changing them as and when needed.

Cluster Bomb Public Relations

My trusted friend Rajesh Jain, CMD, ExpressionsPR says, ‘The PR is changing from a print-media oriented activity to a multilevel human resource management.  Until now it used to be writing releases, speeches, handbills, designing signage, doing media relations and organizing events. In future the Public Relations will be a multidiscipline mammoth activity. It will be more like a cluster bomb, a big shell containing several lethal and very effective small bombs. The Future Public Relations is going far more effective from what it is used to be recently. The future PR, I believe will contain several weapons, just like a cluster bomb has several bombs in it.

24×7 PR is Coming

Another expert John Paluszek, Senior Counsel, Ketchum, and APR, Fellow PRSA supports the above comment in his article that there are many different areas PR will diversify in future. This future advancement of PR is thrilling. Brenda Hodgson also touches this aspect in her blog on the topic, PR in the next 25 years. Like Rajesh Jain’s claim that PR will have a lot of different shapes and be more like a cluster bomb; that means the future PR will be able to target various goals at the same time. The future PR will definitely be very different from today’s traditional journalist and media oriented PR. It will be able to achieve different aims within very little operation time.

Emergence of Superspecialized PR

The future PR will be a sort of customized media relations clubbed with the traditional mainstream print/electronic/photo/web media management solutions. Initially our expert would need to integrate all these faculties with a lot of difficulties but sooner or later, may be within one year, will have the customized action plans for diverse PR needs. The greatest future development will be the emergence of Advocacy PR, Marital PR, Solid Waste Management PR, Aviation PR, Counter Terrorism PR, Reputation &Credibility Management PR, And Customized Lobbying etc.

Effective media relations are vital to the success of any corporation’s overall communications strategy. A sound media relations programme can deliver huge benefits to a corporation. in Future as well the PR will be massively dependent on deploying superior media relations skills. 

Within some years tailor made and tactical media relations programmes will occupy major thrust in every company and organization’s action plan. In each significant market of India, future media & pr consultants will exclusively device relationships management strategies to suit the local, regional, national and the relevant international media to harvest maximum media attention without pumping huge revenue to attain the same.

The companies and their consultants will have to sit together regularly in future to outline, design, develop, approve and attain their goals. The media action plans will be prepared years ahead of actual deadline. Only those companies are going to survive in the future who would be able to understand the futuristic media relations now. Every important PR Company will have to maintain it’s own media intelligence network to gather sustantial inputs at any cost. They will have to extract ways and means to analyze in advance the possible PR threats and Media Relations fallouts. It’s where the role of media management becomes very important. Unlike today, in future the media relations will be almost independent of the traditional media tactics of pampering a battery of journalists.  

Yes, I believe that ethical public relations is going to emerge stronger and more effective. It’s going to be the savior of traditional & decaying old fashioned media pampering public relations.

Sometimes back when I was working as Media Chief to former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (India) Mr. Raj Nath Singh, I happened to visit Mumbai, where I first met CMD, ExpressionsPR, now one of my best friends, Mr. Rajesh Jain. I found his style very different and strage. He never looked nervours and always maintained his balance without kneeling before anyone in the media. Later I visited his grand office at Andheri West. The wall mounted growth chart was evident how successful his team was. I compared my army of sub-ordinates to his small team and asked him the secret of his success.

He replied in a typical marathi manoos accent, ‘ More you pamper or spoil the media, harder they screw you. It’s better to fail in one or two assignments than to finish your career as a pimp. If you try to buy, bribe or corrupt the media, it’s not your client who will face the music next. Better maintain a balance between the priorities and device your own strtegic plan with a touch of ethics.’ 

He kept on narrating, ‘In today’s times perception is reality, and the company’s reputation capital is perhaps its most important asset. It’s where ethics make or destroy you. If the reputation of a well-known company is damaged the company can wither and die in a matter of months, destroying shareholder value and hurting the interests of virtually every category of stakeholders. Conversely, even a lesser- known company which builds a solid reputation can thrive and grow by competing effectively in the marketplace for customers, employees, vendors, desirable business partners and capital. In the process, the company is able to deliver sustained shareholder value.’

‘Every action of a company has a bearing on its reputation. In such an environment, active and deliberate corporate reputation management is a necessary extension of traditional brand management. After all, the primary brand is the overall corporate brand. PR, advices clients on initiatives and programmes designed to build, manage, enhance and protect corporate reputation. The firm offers research services for benchmarking corporate reputation amongst peers within an industry. PR counsels on corporate philanthropy and social responsibility initiatives that will enhance reputation. And on an ongoing basis, we advise clients on issues with the potential to influence their reputation.’ He summed up.