Mid-sized firms driving growth of PR & communications industry: Ashwani Singla

At e4m IPRCCC, Ashwani Singla, Founding Managing Partner, Astrum – Reputation Advisory, spoke on the upcoming trends in the PR market and its growth potential

The world of Public Relations and communications is changing at a quick space with the technology boom and a shift in paradigm in the way brands and firms are functioning. exchange4media hosted the India Public Relations and Corporate Communications Conference and Awards on Friday at Mumbai, which witnessed a keynote speech by Ashwani Singla, Founding Managing Partner, Astrum – Reputation Advisory.

He spoke about the changing world of PR and marketing for brands, the role of technology and how professionals in the field can adapt it.

Singla says that the industry has delivered consistent double-digit growth. When it comes to who’s driving this growth, he says the mid-sized firms are driving this the fastest.

Speaking about the disruption in technology, Singla says: “I don’t think there’s any government in the world, which will be able to keep lockstep with the disruption and the pace at which technology will evolve. So, clearly the ability to create convergence between what the interest of the business is and what the interest of the policy or legislators would be, will be an important skill set. That’s a growing need in the industry to be able to find the convergence between policy and progress.”

“I can tell you the entire business of astral is found in the fact that insights and data is the key to persuasion. So, therefore if that’s what’s going to happen, and that’s what’s changing in our world, are we ready for the skill sets that are needed to deliver the goods crisis, public Affairs, internal communication, and all that is I think gonna be the skill set that you’re going to need,” he added.

Lastly, he spoke about the trends that are coming up in the public relation and communications industry.  “So, you’re really going to see penetration in regional markets start to increase. So that sort of substantiates the trend. And of course, fake versus fact. AI will start deep fakes and all of those. Clearly, are we ready to deal with the fakes as good as we should be? I’m not too sure. Let’s look at the next piece.”

“Technology will certainly play a role. The question that I leave with you, is it going to be technology versus talent or technology with talent. Because at one part of automation, intelligence is going to certainly drive talent but at the same time, the talent has to play a very smart, very important strategic role in the pursuit of what we need to achieve.”