Spirit W | People available but no talent to hire: Perfect Relation's Pinto

South Asia’s largest broad-spectrum advisory in the area of professional image management with over two decades of trackrecord, has been awarded the best Public Relations agency of the year by the Holmes Report. The Homes Report is an annual award given to public relations agencies judged on parameters of growth year-over-year in terms of business, employees, network, clientele, new pitches won and some path breaking campaigns that received recognition across international award platforms.

Perfect Relations is a pioneer in the creation of India’s communication industry and has been the advisory for more than 2500 clients n a period of over 20 years. Last year it secured some of India’s biggest PR pitches including Infosys, Google, Airtel, Essar Group, Star Network, Nokia, Eicher, Trident Group, Rolex Awards for Enterprise, American Express, SIAM, Jubilant Foodworks, Honda Motors and Dr. Lal Path Labs.

What more? Many of Perfect Relation’s clients have stayed with them for over 10 years. This is a testament to the agency’s consistency of the approach and ability grows with clients in an evolving market.

Adgully spoke to Valerie Pinto, CEO, Perfect Relations on the Holmes Report award and many other issues.

Valerie has straddled the entire spectrum of public relations in the country with many successes and case study campaigns to her credit. She has been with Perfect Relations for the past 12 years, and her experience spans across Corporate and Financial Communications, M&A Strategy, Market entry and In-market dynamics, and Consumer Communications. Prior to joining Perfect Relations, Valerie worked with UTV and with Universal Public
Relations. A champion national level athlete, Valerie was also a Mumbai University topper in
Economics and later did her post-graduation from Xavier Institute of Communication, Mumbai.

The following is the excerpt of the conversation.

Adgully: How important is this award for you? What does this win mean for you?

Valerie Pinto: The award reflects the hard work, perseverance and dedication that our company has shown through every brand we have partnered with. It is a testament of the enduring belief in teamwork - that every employee can, and has made a difference to how we service our clients and outperform their expectations. 

Apart from being rated as the ‘India Consultancy of the Year’ we have also won 4 International and 3 National awards last year. At the recently held Sabre India awards, Perfect Relations was awarded the Gold Sabre Award for the Coca Cola, ‘Support My School’ campaign, Uninor crisis management campaign, Life Ok campaign in the Entertainment category, as well as the Platinum Sabre award for the Coca Cola Support My School Campaign. Additionally our work was shortlisted (among hundreds of entries from around the globe) for two of the most reputed PR awards in the world, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations - Excellence Awards (UK), and The Gold Standard Awards (UK).

For a truly homegrown and locally owned communications and image management firm, international recognition of our capabilities and purpose give our teams great impetus to exceed our achievements.

VP: The public relations consultancies were all judged on parameters of growth year-over-year in terms of business, employees, network, clientele, new pitches won and some path breaking campaigns that received recognition across international award platforms. It was our agility, innovation, network and most of all our ability to deliver great ideas that meet client objectives that were the key points considered while rating us No.1 in the Indian market.

Having helped in the creation and the evolution of India’s communication industry for over 20 years, we are pleased that our effort in being instrumental in the growth of this industry has been recognized.

Perfect Relations secured some of India’s biggest PR pitches in the past year including Infosys, Bharti Airtel, Nokia, Trident group, Rolex Awards for Enterprise, American Express, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), Jubilant Foodworks, Honda Motors and Dr. Lal Path Labs. Apart from these businesses, Perfect Relations also won specific business mandates for Google and Essar Group, and channels within the Star Network.

AG: What difference you feel will it make to the organisation as a whole and employees morale?

VP: I am pleased to tell you that the phone hasn't stopped still ringing! It is indeed a proud moment that all 500 of us celebrate across our 16 offices. As the clients and the employees together have contributed to the organisation being acclaimed, the elation is shared by all of us. The dynamic nature of the industry and our clients ‘expectations have had the desired cause-effect relationship for all of us this year. We shall strive further to strengthen this relationship in the years to come.

AG: How competition in the PR Industry shaping is up or has shaped Perfect Relations? What are your strengths that you feel has helped you stand out?

VP: The emerging competition in the Indian public relations space has increased demand for our highly specialized services. It has also increased the relevance of Public Relations as a critical image building tool, a quality once only associated with advertising. Until recently, PR was unknown at the corporate-management level. This is why we encourage healthy competition; in fact Perfect Relations has initiated a university contact program where we mentor the next generation of managers at India’s leading universities in PR and brand building. We have recently conducted a series of lectures at the marketing festivals of B-schools like IIM-Ahmedabad. We also organize workshops in innovation, messaging and communications, and capacity building programmes across India.

Many of our competitor agencies are, in fact headed by Perfect Relations alumni, who have been honed in our organizational work ethics, culture and environment. We regularly publish a variety of industry reports evaluating research on the media and PR industry, along with dedicated internal communications products for clients. With our dedicated Crisis Cell manned by the best crisis managers in the country, we are considered the first port of call for any corporate or political crisis.

Our HR policies emphasize hiring employees who not only demonstrate exceptional communication skills, but also possess domain expertise in other industry verticals. Apart from the usual mix of marketing, PR and journalism, Perfect Relations has hired from IT, Sciences and Economics background.
This has sharpened our insight in terms of complimenting the varied client needs.

AG: In an era where takeovers are common, are you not planning for an alliance atleast going forward? Or you plan to remain a domestic PR firm?

VP: Having serviced over 2500 clients, including many Fortune 500 companies for over two decades, we enjoy the equity as one of India’s first homegrown agencies. Our mandates have included international and multinational corporations, and we are open to entering strategic partnerships that enrich the services we provide to our clients.

AG: Please tell us something about your domestic and international plans? What are the other things/areas that the firm is looking to conquer in future?

VP: Domestically we will continue to get better each day at providing our bread and butter services. Analytics, value added services, CSR, healthcare and consumer led businesses continue to be our key growth drivers. The exponential growth in online media and customer redressal management encourages us to stay invested and increase our service offering.
After South Asia and Africa we plan to expand our international footprint across other emerging markets like China, South America, Indonesia and Philippines

AG: What are the challenges that the PR industry faces in the ever changing environment today?

VP: Like all other industries we are facing the issue of unemployability. Many people available but no talent to hire. Given that we are a people's business this asset is extremely critical for us. Identifying grooming and retaining talent is the key challenge.

I also believe using statistics to showcase impact to business is one area we as an industry need to spend time on.