Looking to the year ahead
As the trains, tubes and buses start to fill up with returning workers; diets and ‘dry Januarys’ commence, once again our thoughts return to the world of work. Getting your brain back in to gear after a few day’s break always takes a day or two, (ahem…. )
Now that the series of team catch-ups, weekly calls, and monthly meetings has begun, we start truly contemplating what lies ahead this year. For clients in the financial services sector, a year of change seems inevitable, especially following the tumultuous events of last year.
In global markets, volatility in China, falling oil prices and other commodity collapses, as well as the markets hanging on every word of the central banks made for a rollercoaster year. In financial matters closer to home, pension freedoms, the continuing move towards passive investment, challenger bank entrants, new rules on stamp duty and the growth in mobile payments were just a few of the big ‘FS’ events of 2015.
And this is just in our clients’ core businesses. Communication professionals also have to keep pace with changes in their own ‘comms’ world too; another area which saw continuing change and consolidation of themes and trends last year. While content is, as it always has been, king, the manner of its delivery continues to metamorphose. The press release isn’t dead, but is accompanied by a host of new best friends spanning multiple digital and other platforms. However, despite growing digitisation, human relationships are still as important as ever.
You need to know your clients and their businesses well in order to provide the best advice, and you also need to know the media well in order to deliver relevant messages effectively. The human element remains critical, even in a digitising world.
The role of PR continues to evolve – as must we. Encouragingly, PR professionals are only 18% likely to have their job taken over by a robot over the next two decades, according to the study by researchers at Oxford University and Deloitte here.
With continuing volatility – globally and geopolitically, predicted for 2016 – it sounds as though our very human-ness will be more needed than ever.