The Marketing, Communications and Public Relations sector has the capacity to grow, adapt and invest.
In a constantly changing business environment, it is adopting new technologies, skills and creating conditions to improve well-being, diversity, equality and ethics.
All this in a context of widespread geopolitical crises and economic uncertainty. Coping with AI, disinformation and the climate, while stimulating creative and talented teams, is no easy task. But it is a decisive task for improving the customer experience.
Improving the customer experience, especially in the B2B - SayU Consulting's specialization - and helping organizations acquire new customers are among the main challenges. And the first is directly related to the second: improving the customer experience also means improving the journey of companies and organizations in the sector.
And here lies another major challenge: talent and its retention, reinforcing the role that experienced professionals play in the sector and the difference they can make in improving the customer experience and achieving customer objectives.
And it is in this pool of challenges that seek to anticipate trends and look at what the main prospects will be.
For example ICCO World Public Relations Report reveals that companies in this sector will prioritize investment in ESG and give priority to mastering AI tools. .
When asked about the top three technologies of the future, 86% of respondents put AI among the top three, compared to 40% in 2022. Data science is relegated to second place, with 41% (compared to 42% in 2022). The top skill for the future is “mastery of AI tools”, with 45% ranking it in the top three, a new option for this year, above strategic consulting, 42%.
The expectation, and bet, of 55% of those surveyed is to apply the new technologies to make organizations work more efficiently. While 47% will use them to build communities online and 38% for greater employee involvement.
Investment in environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) is the area expected to see the most investment (49%), with ‘influencer communication’ and ‘strategic consultancy’ completing the top three for the second year running.
“Sustainability and the environment’ will once again be the social cause to which companies will give priority (69%). As far as challenges are concerned, 42% of the responses are on “macroeconomic conditions” along with “customers unwilling to allocate adequate resources”.
Even so, 96% of the companies in the sector expect to grow over the next five years and foresee an increase in the profitability of their organizations. Profitability that comes from the growth of their clients' business, to which the sector's contribution will be decisive.