Reading the Global Communications Report is a first for me and it is an excellent piece of content to provide an insight into the PR industry. 

First impressions is how the industries growth has slowed to 5% as the overall revenue reaches $14bn. 

There are a number of reasons an industry can slow in growth, including many external factors such as the US Presidential Election and EU Referendum potentially making purchasers of the services cautious. Or perhaps as Paul Holmes comments “It’s easy to point the finger at procurement, but the fact is that these numbers suggest PR is still seen by many clients as a commodity rather than as a value-added service.” 

Another answer could be the difficulty to recruit the best talent. The report concludes that in-house and agency side agree talent acquisition is industry’s single biggest challenge. 

The revenue number above also includes a decline in revenue per capita, this would echo the decline in talent. Motivation also looks low since only 53% of the industry feel that their job will be important by 2020. 

The industry are clearly wise to this and it is noted that agency and in-house believe the most important proficiency trait for their staff to posses to achieve 5 year growth will be teamwork. 

It will be up to the leaders of these organisations to showcase their expertise and amplify the importance of this industry in the future. The recent appointment of David Gallagher at Omnicom as international president for growth and development clearly fits with his excellent online profile and brand. 

With overall market change due to be mainly affected by new technology and increasing demand for content it would be wise to look outside the core industry for talent. Not to mention the potential client base and industry knowledge that could be acquired. 

I am looking forward to discussing these topics further during The PR Summit.