Public Relations: India accreditation move

Public Relations Council of India (PRCI), a registered body of PR and communications professionals, has initiated the process for accreditation of PR professionals in India.

M B Jayaram, Chairman, National Governing Council, PRCI, has said, "Today, the PR profession is emerging as a management function… In other developing and developed countries, PR professionals are accredited to independent bodies to improve the quality of profession. In those markets, only accredited professionals are preferred."

S D Reuben, President, National Executive, PRCI, said that an expert committee headed by M B Jayaram and an expert sub-committee led by independent senior professionals under the Chairmanship of K Srinivasan, Prime Point Foundation, Chennai, have been constituted to study the practices prevailing in other countries and to suggest procedures for implementation in India.

The sub-committee report will be ready in June.

Public relations: India ropes in US firms

K S Subrahmanya writes in Deccan Herald:

India is set to launch a concerted public relations campaign to win over a large number of ‘undecided’ and sceptical US Congressmen even as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice approaches Capitol Hill on Wednesday to sell the landmark Indo-US nuclear deal.

Over the next two weeks, Delhi will play host to three US Congressional delegations in an effort to secure their support for the deal. In Washington, India has engaged the services of three firms to enlist support for the deal…

The US firms hired include Barbour, Griffith & Rogers and Patton Boggs. They will lobby support in House of Representatives and Senate.

Pro-India business interests are backing this exercise.

Public relations and talent

Tim Addington writes about the Middle East’s PR industry in CampaignME:

Many agencies say that they are winning new business on a weekly basis and are inundated with requests for new business pitches.
But the ability of agencies to recruit and retain qualified and experienced staff is hindering PR firms ability to service new and exisiting clients, and has been cited as one of the major issues that will prevent its growth in the region.

Some agencies prefer to look to the Subcontinent, Europe and South Africa to fill the void due to the lack of homegrown Arab talent. But this route is costly and new recruits often lack the most basic understanding of the Middle East.

Others choose to hire locally, but find that the available talent pool lacks experience and expertise in public relations, despite having local and regional knowledge.

In Dubai, the most advanced PR market in the region, one agency boss estimates that 70% of those in PR are expatriate workers. But in Cairo, for example, Egyptians dominate with only a few expats in senior positions.

Tim Walmsley, regional managing director at Impact Porter Novelli, says that people entering PR in the region often do so as a means of moving into marketing jobs for large local firms or multinationals…

Sadri Barrage, managing director of Headline PR, and chairman of the Middle East Public Relations Association, says that developing local talent is the key to developing the industry across the region…