BANDUNG, PRINDONESIA.CO – Prita Kemal Gani, Founder of STIKOM The London School of Public Relations (LSPR) Jakarta, emphasized the statement above while speaking at the 2019 PR INDONESIA Awards (PRIA) conference session with the theme “The Role of Public Relations in 5.0 Era” in Bandung on Tuesday (26/3/2019). Prita did not deny that artificial intelligence and big data indeed help the work of PR practitioner to be more precise. However, PRs are also challenged to keep improving and sharpening their competencies. Here are the challenges of PR in the future:

Globalism

Prita said that PR must have a wide network globally, have a global capability and global competency standard.

Growth-Hi-Tech

Prita emphasized that internal communication is just as important as external communication. Sometimes as a PR, all we think about is the consumers, even though the ones who should be communicated with first is the internal party. This communication can be done digitally.

Education

Being a PR must be creative and innovative. That’s why PR must love arts. “PR must have a lot of imagination,” she said. Moreover, releases are not only in a form of writing. A PR must be able to produce release with good photos and editing techniques. According to PR, even though PR is helped by photographer, but they are still the conceptor.

Recruitment

Nowadays, PR practitioners are not only come from Communication Sciences background, but also from another field of sciences.

Research = Narrow the Gap

“There is no PR works that is done without research,” said Prita. Without research, we can’t respond to issues appropriately.

Ethics and Professionalism

A PR must uphold ethics and professionalism. One of them is by paying attention to appearance. In addition, PR must also be on time, accurate, accountable, and has good manners.

PR Reputation

CEOs are now realizing the importance of PR. As PR practitioner we must think of the ways for the CEO to become popular, because the role of CEO is quite big in building reputation.

PR 360⁰ Skills

PR, which previously only fostered good relations between stakeholders, now contributes to maintaining the welfare of the company, helps marketing, and supports moral improvement of the employees.

Competency in Building Relations

PR must be able to establish good relations with all stakeholders, such as the government, community, employees, media, tenant, customer, and member.

Lobbying

Prita said that several politicians who use this technique considered as imaging, but actually building a good reputation needs a long process. It’s just like making a cake, it needs a long process that involves more than one person. Meanwhile, image is like the icing sugar added on the top of the cake. This lobbying process includes persuasion, verbal and nonverbal communication, and crisis management skill.

Attribute

Attribute is matters that can support the ability of PR such as education, accreditation, certification, and membership. Prita said that Indonesia has the most faculty of communication in ASEAN with a high number of graduates each year. “Indonesia has 210 universities with communication faculty. It can be concluded that the number of PR in Indonesia is the most in ASEAN. This is our capital to create trends in the future,” she concluded. (rvh)