India Market Heating Up
Earlier this week, I emailed Richard Edelman and suggested he discuss India on his blog. He told me he was on his way there (as he later blogged) and that he would do so when he came back. Today, I read on Public Relations India about announcements about Edelman in India made this week.
So, it seems, unsurprisingly, that US PR companies are not unaware of this market and its potential. Today, they may simply have Indian clients, but I suspect that there will be much investigation of cross-team potential with offices in other countries around the world.
Update 11/18: The subject of PR outsourcing to the subcontinent is picking up speed in the blogosphere. PR Fuel has a good post on this subject here. However, Om Malik seems to be predicting that the Indian [outsourcing] tech boom is over (who knew we PR people were harbingers of the end).
I dont envy Edelman - the company they have aligned with has a fairly checkered history. After over 15 years of partnership, Burson-Marsteller split from them a couple of years ago.
On the outsourcing front - stuff like research might go there, but more as a subset of the larger research work already beginning to be outsourced rather than anything specific to the PR industry. Like other service industries, PR in India has also transformed rapidly over the last 15 years. However, its still largely a media relations game, and the vast vernacular press adds to the complexities. There is also a discernible lack of professionally trained or experienced PR professionals. I am unable to fathom how anything significant could be outsourced to India. Even if US/European PR firms set-up offices there and shift their internal back-office work, such as database management, to their Indian offices, most of the work will remain where the clients are. Moreover, I feel that the primary objective of firms setting up shop in India is to get some business.
Posted by: Atul Agarwal | December 01, 2004 at 06:55 AM
topics on public relations
Posted by: ppt | August 25, 2005 at 08:22 AM
Hi
by the way
Does outsourcing PR jobs really work?
Posted by: Raghu Subramaniam | May 03, 2006 at 03:05 PM
"India market is heating up" and "let's outsource PR work to India" are fine but one must do something to make Indian PR agencies better. The sorry state of Indian PR business would make you cry. Be it quality of people, service or process, we have, probably, the worst PR agency in the world. Let us know what can be done!
Posted by: Arunabho Khan | May 13, 2006 at 09:45 AM