PRmoment India
PRmoment India
10-Year Wait for Peak PR Growth in India, Jaideep Shergill, Pitchfork Partners
This episode explores the challenges and opportunities in the PR industry with Jaideep Shergill, co-founder of Pitchfork Partners. Jaideep discusses market dynamics, talent acquisition issues, and the importance of strong financial management, all while highlighting potential growth sectors, particularly among Indian family businesses.
• Challenges of starting a PR firm in the current landscape
• Importance of talent acquisition and retention in PR
• Financial management as a critical aspect of sustaining a firm
• Trends in industry consolidation and market opportunities
• Pitchfork Partners’ transition from strategy to execution
• The role of personal interests in enhancing professional perspectives
• Future prospects for PR firms focusing on family-owned businesses
Thank you for listening to the PRmoment India podcast. Follow us on Twitter @PRmomentIndia. Write to paarul@prmoment to be featured on the podcast.
Hello, and welcome to the PR Moment India podcast. Today, I'm very pleased to welcome Jaideep Shergill, who is co-founder and CEO of Pitchfork Partners, a firm that began about 10 years ago. It's the 10th anniversary this month. With that, Jaideep, how tough do you think it is to start a PR firm in today's age? What would tech enable it or make it more difficult to do that, and why the name Pitchfork Partners?
Jaideep Shergill:Thank you for having me, parul, I really appreciate it. And just to sort of respond to the question that you asked, which is in two parts, I the uh point at this stage of the journey that we're in in this industry, I think it's probably harder to set up an agency now than it was 10, 15, 20 or 30 years ago. I think the challenges are several. I think the war for talent, the war for share of wallet and, of course, the highly sort of transient nature of the work that we do makes it that much harder now than it would have been 25 or 30 years ago. I think when you look at the Indian market 25 or 30 years ago, there were a few players, everybody was starting out. It was a sort of battle between kind of equals in that sense. But then over time a lot of things happened which I won't get into because everybody knows the changes that have happened in the industry and therefore if someone was to ask me do I set up a firm now, or maybe five years ago or, uh, five years from now, I would just say that it's much harder and you need to have, uh, you know, sort of really uh strong willpower to kind of go through the the changes that one is going through, because it's no longer just about the changes that are happening within the industry right today. We're living in a global economy where everything impacts the industry. So a war happens in some place or there is a economic downturn somewhere. Anything changes the sort of needle very quickly. So that's that's what I would do.
Jaideep Shergill:I mean, I I am not one of those people who believes that setting up any business is easy, uh, but our industry in particular is is just getting harder to uh set up new businesses in.
Jaideep Shergill:I mean, having said that, I looked at the prci report recently which says that there are whatever hundreds and thousands of agencies in this country, but I'm not entirely sure many of them are viable or sustainable or are even profitable. So that's my view on the situation with setting up a new firm at this point. As far as we are concerned at Pitchfork, I think the reason we called it Pitchfork and set it up when we did was we wanted to focus more on strategic communications, which is what we do even now, although we do a lot of execution as well. But strategic comms is still our forte and the reason for the name Pitchfork has largely got to do with the devil's advocate. We wanted to position ourselves as an irreverent firm which calls things the way they are, and hence the branding and the name came from there. So that's the story of how it happened with us 10 years ago.
Paarul Chand :I'll come back to the devil's advocate bit later in our talk. Flowing from what you said about the PRCI sprint report which was released last week, it's also showing they say they're showing a trend of consolidation in the industry as well. What is your take on that? Are we looking at a second generation of founders who are firstly, are they consolidating at all? Because you haven't seen many sales per se in that range, with a few exceptions, of course. So how do you see that trend? Is the second generation outperforming the first generation, or is it dealing with a completely different animal right now?
Jaideep Shergill:I definitely don't think that the second generation is outperforming the first generation. I don't think that's the case because, from what I gather, india contributes probably one and a half percent of the revenue globally to the PR industry. The US is 50%, I think. Asia overall is 15 or 16% or something, and India is 1.5% total. So if you're talking about a market which has the second largest number, or probably now the largest number of consumers in the world and we contribute only 1.5% to our industry, that just shows you how far we are from any sort of growth peak. Uh, so the peak is going to take another 10 or 15 years to get to. Uh, so I still think the first generation founders and many of them are still around in different capacities. I think they still have a long way to go before the second or third generation come even close. Um, that's the first thing. The second thing I would say is that, while the global holding companies are not making as many acquisitions, I think people will have to figure out other ways to consolidate. So maybe they'll have to be smaller firms that get together and form some sort of a consortium, or maybe people think about unique ways of fundraising, like bringing in private equity or listing on the market or other ways, like a few agencies did in China and other countries in the last 10 or 15 years. But I don't see a lot of acquisition in the traditional PR space happening, at least from the traditional holding companies, least from the traditional holding companies.
Jaideep Shergill:There was a period when a lot of people said that consulting firms will acquire Accenture and people like that would acquire agencies in our industry, but even that we haven't seen too many good examples of in India, because I think what they are looking for is agencies or firms that are doing something strategic either at one end of the spectrum or they are doing something creative on the other end of the spectrum.
Jaideep Shergill:If you don't have either of these or both, then there isn't that much difference between one and the other. All of us are kind of in the same boat, right? Everyone's doing the same thing. So unless there is some super specialization that will excite a consulting firm or a specialist firm to acquire one of us, otherwise I don't see a lot of that happening, whereas on the other hand, if you see a lot of the acquisitions now, they're usually happening in the digital space, right? So you'll still see a lot of digital agencies getting acquired, but you don't see a lot of PR firms getting acquired, so I think there needs to be a completely different approach. That's my view.
Paarul Chand :So we did see, of course, the big sale with WPPs last year, but that is of course an outlier, I'm guessing. That's a global thing, yeah, so what do you think it will take for a firm such as yourself to differentiate itself enough to even if a buyout is not your goal at the moment moment, or maybe it is what will it take to differentiate yourself enough?
Jaideep Shergill:I mean, I think, the only thing that will eventually differentiate firms in the long run, especially because we are so small within the global revenue scheme of things. As I mentioned earlier, the fact is, if you look at the top 100 or top 200 or whatever agency rankings that come out globally, also, you'll usually have just one or two Indian agencies on the list. The rest of them are part of a global company, which is why they're on that list, right? So if someone's already part of a holding company, they don't disclose their numbers by market or region. But otherwise, if you see standalone Indian agencies, you'll probably see one or two, maybe three at most, making it to that list, right? So I still think that is a, you know, still a long way off from peaking, as I said, from reaching that growth peak. I would say we're still 10, 15 years away.
Jaideep Shergill:But that being said, I think, if the, if the question is what will really, uh, keep us in this race, whether it's us or anybody else, I think it's just the standing power, it's longevity, it's how long you last, uh, without folding up or without letting go of your basic sort of dna or philosophy, um, and if anyone can last for 20 or 30 years, then the proof of pudding really will come there, because I think this industry, particularly in a market like ours, will survive only if some of the players are there long term.
Jaideep Shergill:What we've seen is a lot of players start, they open their businesses. Not many of them are around 5 or 10 years later. Several of them have just sort of disappeared, and some of them, who reach a certain size, then get acquired and then they get gobbled up by somebody else and then they sort of disintegrate in their own way. But there are very few who will sort of continue for 20 or 30 years. Those are the ones that I think have the best chance of getting through the hump and then getting to the other side.
Paarul Chand :But even to maintain that longevity. What is it that you do to maintain that longevity?
Jaideep Shergill:yeah, basically, you just get up every day and start all over again. I mean, that's the simplest way to put it, but I think the important thing really is, you know, I see a lot of people are focused only on bringing in business or pitching for business at any cost, getting clients in at very low budgets, which is not sustainable. Right, because if you keep bringing business in at low costs, you're not going to move the needle A B, you're not going to get great talent if you don't pay well when anyway, you know, the misconception about a country like India is that you have. The misconception about a country like india is that you have a billion and a half whatever people, but not all of them are people you can hire, whether it's in our business or any business. So talent needs to be paid well, clients need to pay well.
Jaideep Shergill:Um, but last not the least, I think a lot of firms in our industry are not financially managed well. That's my sense. I've seen a number of founders, older founders, younger founders as well. They don't really look at their finances, as you know, deeply, as they should be. For example, are they putting away certain amount of money every month? Are they they reinvesting that money? Are they making money? Make more money? Are they finding ways to get their money from clients faster so that that cash flow is built in a stronger way? Are they doing deals with vendors where they get discounts?
Jaideep Shergill:I don't think a lot of people in our industry are good in the financial aspects of running their businesses. I've seen companies that are very badly managed, even though they may have a good set of clients and they may even be growing. But if you can't run the business side of things, if you are not a good finance person, if you don't understand numbers, then ultimately it's a business right uh. The ones who can do that are the ones who will, in my view, do better than the rest in the long run. That's one of the specific uh points that I think a lot of founders don't get so are you saying that?
Paarul Chand :uh, it's actually quite a typical problem of the founder versus the ceo who actually runs the business, isn't it like a very typical problem you have with founders across industries that they don't? They have the big idea, the vision, uh, but perhaps not, uh, not the ability to activate that business wise, yeah, possibly, I think.
Jaideep Shergill:See, it's also different when you're a product business versus a service business, right we are a service business. So we don't have PE firms and VC firms giving us millions of dollars to burn. So we have to make the money work better. We have to make the money work smarter.
Jaideep Shergill:You know, how well you manage your money. Whatever money that you make, can you make that money grow so that even in bad times you have the resources? We see at least I see a lot of founders borrowing money from banks, taking loans. Those are not viable options in our kind of business. You have to be able to be financially savvy. I mean that is a big miss in my view that I see around me, so yeah.
Paarul Chand :Thank you, jaydeep, for that very clear overview. Jaydeep, going forward, I mean, I know it's a bit of a general question, but, given the churn in the industry, what sectors do you see really being of interest to companies such as yourself? What industry sectors Though I know it's a bit of a general answer, but still, if we could dive into that, what would be interesting for PR to grow with sectors? The second part of it is, which you can answer later perhaps, is that we are seeing a reverse globalization with, with, with trump, and also indications of trade barriers that he might, he's looking at trade barriers in a certain way. How would that really impact the pr business?
Jaideep Shergill:well, I mean to be honest, like I said, and I know I'm saying the same thing over and over again, but I don't really see at least and I'm now every answer I gave I'm trying to limit it to the Indian subcontinent, right, so not at a global level, but I don't see any sort of adverse impact of whatever Trump is doing or any of the policies that they have, at least on the PR and comms market.
Jaideep Shergill:here, the challenge that I see happening is that we are clearly seeing three kinds of companies, right. So you're seeing the established multinational companies that operate in the Indian market. Most of them either work with large global companies or holding companies or their PR agencies in the market. Then you have a lot of you know Indian companies that are well-established Indian companies, like the Tata's or others, as you know, who again have agency partners, either Indian or a combination of international or indian agencies. But then you also have a lot of family run companies, right so, which are not necessarily small. Some of them are mid-sized, some of them are pretty large, some of them are second, third, fourth, fifth gen companies which are now beginning to emerge, and I see that as a big opportunity for independent firms specifically.
Jaideep Shergill:So if you're talking about independent firms like ours or others, I would see that as a big space. I'm not entirely convinced that the startup world is the place to go, because a lot of firms that I know took this route of working with startups and then they burnt their fingers because the startups themselves didn't last very long. They didn't have the ability to spend on marketing and communication. We had firms who took on a lot of startups and then those startups disappeared, so then their business sort of tanked overnight. I would go with Indian family-owned companies as a big opportunity, because many of them are now getting bigger, stronger, they're emerging from the shadows and I see that being a big opportunity.
Jaideep Shergill:And irrespective of what happens with Trump or otherwise, I think that will continue to be a big opportunity.
Paarul Chand :So, coming to the growth of Pitchfork Partners, can you share what has been the growth over the decade? And when you started out, I remember you had said that we'll be a consultant for PR firms, but I think that's no longer perhaps valid. So how have you evolved from there to what is your positioning now?
Jaideep Shergill:Yeah well, the positioning was not to just be a consultant to PR firms. The positioning was to be more strategic and and also work with other firms if needed. We still do that even now. We still have the same partnerships like we used to. I think the only thing that's happened is that at some point, we decided to step up a little bit in terms of our execution capabilities. So I would say for the first five years we were just a strategic boutique, whereas now we also have an execution piece built in, because a lot of clients expect you to do the execution and not just pay for the strategy. Therefore, we needed to do that, but at the same time, we're still fairly small. So it's not like we've changed a lot in terms of our philosophy from where we were 10 years ago. It's just that we've pivoted a little, keeping with the times and making sure we're ahead of the curve as much as we need to be.
Jaideep Shergill:And I think for firms like ours, like I said, you know, besides family owned companies in India, there's a lot of opportunity to do work with new companies that are entering the indian market from the west uh, from the us, from other places and therefore we tend to do a lot more work in b2b technology or areas like financial services, but not the retail side of financial services, the b2b side of financial services. So sectors like that, anything to do with the you know engineering, b2b manufacturing, auto, financial services, technology these tend to be places where there's a lot more action for firms like ours versus the traditional firms who still work a lot in the FMCG or consumer sort of brand area. So therefore we are more corporate versus product or brand. That's kind of the big difference. And within corporate communications there's lots of other stuff that's happened in the last 10 years, right. So there's ESG. There's purpose marketing of other stuff that's happened in the last 10 years, right, so there's esg, there's purpose marketing, there's internal comms, there's talent branding.
Jaideep Shergill:There's a whole lot of those things that we also do pretty well compared to the rest of the market so that's really where I think we've had to take this step five years ago, of sort of moving from just being a small boutique to being a being a small boutique to being a strategy plus execution sort of firm, so that we can play in both areas then so, but like I said, we're still relatively small and that's really the way we like it, so that's an intentional thing.
Paarul Chand :Coming now to another part of the podcast where we really talk about uh jayati, you as a person and what has been your personal journey in communications. So you've been, of course, not only with Pitchfork Partners, but you've been with MSL and seen those mergers through as well. So what has been your journey like through that era and now personal journey? I?
Jaideep Shergill:mean, to be honest, I took a leadership role at a very young age. I mean I started my career in the first two or three years of setting up my career I joined a company that was just being founded. So you could say that was my first sort of entrepreneurial journey journey, even though in that company I wasn't an owner to start with till later. But that was a company called Hanmar and Partners which started in 99 and I was one of the first people who joined then. And then we grew that company before we got acquired by Publicis, and then MSL was the brand that acquired us, and then we were part of them for a few years, during which we grew that business as well and made a couple of acquisitions and built that business from scratch. So we started with Hanmar, then MSL and that entire journey.
Jaideep Shergill:But I guess because I started at a younger age I mean running a company by the time I set up this company when I was in my 40s. By the time I set up this company when I was in my 40s, I think it wasn't that difficult because I had already set up two companies from pretty much from scratch and then built them to significant sizes. So setting up this company wasn't that difficult. I think what was difficult really, as I was saying when you asked the first question, is that the timing of setting up a business 10 years ago versus 30 years ago was very different. So when we started in the late 90s or early 2000s, that was a time when it was like the wild west, right, nobody knew anything. We were just the first people, one of the first people, who were setting up anything in this space. So I guess the opportunities, uh and and the way we could build our business from five people, three people, whatever businesses to 500 people businesses, those things are a little harder to do now.
Jaideep Shergill:You don't see many examples of anyone in the last 10 years who's been able to do that. The ones who have are already around 20, 30 years ago and that's why I keep saying that the upside is still a long way to go. We're still 10-15-20 years away from the peak. So I still see a lot of the legacy agencies or the older agencies will continue to grow. There'll be a few of the newer ones which will survive, but by and large, that's the trend that I see. But as far as my journey is concerned, I think for me it was a opportunity to actually slow down in my 40s because I went through probably you know 20 years of non-stop action. So for me the last 10 years have actually been fairly serene and peaceful and running a smaller business is is so much easier. So that's my uh journey in the last sort of whatever nearly 30 years, but breaking that up into the first 20 and then the last 10 one hobby or uh, or passion that you have away from work several.
Jaideep Shergill:You can see a number of books behind me. I collect a lot of books. I have probably 40 000 or more books that I've collected over the years. I collect a lot of rare books. I spend a lot of time with people within that community, with writers, publishers, in that ecosystem. I also, you know, enjoy any other form of art, whether it's music of all kinds, films of all kinds. Yeah, I actually, in the last 10 years I think, I've spent more time doing what I enjoy, with my hobbies and pursuits, and, uh, then I did in the first part of my career.
Paarul Chand :So, yeah, that's a good, that's a good thing one rare book that you acquired and one rare book that's your dream to acquire.
Jaideep Shergill:I have several rare books. I mean, I have hundreds of them.
Jaideep Shergill:Typically, you know, I look for. So there are certain publishers in the US and UK that only publish limited copies of books. So, for example, if you're a science fiction reader or somebody who reads in that genre, you can find a couple of publishers who will, you know, come up with a new edition of a book that was published 200 years ago or something. Um, those, those actually go for 500 000, you know, but they're uh, you know, limited editions, which are sometimes signed by the author or, you know, or the uh, in some cases, the son of the author. The author probably died 50 or 100 years ago, so things like that. So the author probably died 50 or 100 years ago, so things like that. So, yeah, there are many, to be honest, and then I continue on that journey. So I really can't think of any one title. But yeah, I mean it's an ongoing process, I'm always at it.
Paarul Chand :Thank you, Jaideep
Paarul Chand :. From what you said, it could be that you like science fiction a fair amount, it seems. I do Indeed, so with that, may the could be that you like science fiction a fair amount, it seems.
Jaideep Shergill:I do, I do Indeed.
Paarul Chand :So with that, may the force be with you and Pitchfork Partners. Thank you so much for joining us on the PR Moment India podcast. Thank, you.
Jaideep Shergill:Thank you, parul, appreciate it. Thanks for making the time.