CHINA´S PR INDUSTRY RECOVERY IN POST-CORONAVIRUS ENVIRONMENT
General View and measures from Government
As the first country to be engulfed in the COVID-19 pandemic, China is ahead of many other countries on the "curve"of the virus progression. China has kept incremental cases at extremely low level, and government and people are working hard on restarting economy. While they realize it is going to be tough, there is a general sense among the population that China will be able to manage the adaptation process more effectively than most governments around the world.
While a few industries see growth opportunity among the crisis, most business are heavily hit. The central government issued a series of policies and measures that cover epidemic control, business resumption, traffic and transportation guarantee, and enterprises support in terms of tax and fees reduction, financial support, necessities supply, and social insurance deferral. Local governments also released corresponding policies in accordance with their actual conditions. "New Infrastructure" investment plans worth up to 50 trillion have been proposed by provinces, of which 5G and related projects have been adopted and encouraged by the central government.
Where is Your Business?
China's public relations industry has also undergone a reforming process. During this process, some organizations were sifted out due to outdated and non-diversified business, imperfect internal communication mechanism, low risk endurance capability. In general, be affected by difficulties like budget cut-off from brand owners, short in professional talents, unstable supply from vendors, and restricted traffic, China’s PR industry was in a roller coaster in first half of 2020. But according to current situation, some difficulties in the past had became major or subordinate factors that boost their business bouncing back.
2 Actions of Companies
Companies in China nationwide are engaged in continuing protection of people (ind. workforce and customers), stabilizing supply chain, as well as ensuring adequate cash and liquidity on hand. Normal business trips as well as marketing events are either being postponed or canceled. Crisis management capability for corporations is now becoming something both critical and urgent. In addition to resolving the immediate challenges that the COVID-19 presents, leaders are thinking forward about how to build and strengthen the adaptability of the company in next stages of the pandemic, or even the post pandemic period. Mentality of predicting the next normal is to be prepared.
A number of leading Chinese companies, Alibaba, Tencent, JD, Xiaomi and Gree, announced investment plans in Wuhan and Hubei, a business move incorporating both government relations consideration and CSR needs.
From the perspective of business, Q1 is not a key period for PR companies, therefore it reduced the damage of the impact of pandemic. And pandemic forced PR agencies to upgrade their business and technology in short time; they also need to get out of their comfort zone and explore new fields, even some niche fields; they need to research new technologies, to response the unexpected online demands and remain their technology advancement in rough competition; companies that had no internal management software, they deployed software or system to manager employees and business online during quarantine; with consider company’s survival, employees shall be reorganized and optimized, to further improve the efficiency level of Human Resource. With benefits of technology development in China, these difficulties are solved step-by-step. Some companies encouraged to explore new market and found brand new field and their business is booming; some companies upgraded their technology and integrate it in their existed product package, by doing so, it raised the quality and reduced the price and enriched their services; by deployed internal management software and online collaborative work system, these measures are greatly appreciated by employees; Human resources are re-organized and well-reallocated, efficiency and loyalty of employees, and their faith in the profession are raised at the same time.
We have to point out that due to the pandemic, many brands have to postponed their events or migrate it from offline to online. The difference is way much more than they are literally appeared. Plus, online activities are not as perfect as we imagined. Even-though it overcame geographic obstacles for audiences, but problems like “Working team lack of field experience”, “Audience wouldn’t stay focused”, “Users can not physically feel the product / service”, “Poor visual / auditory experience” are hard to solve flawlessly. It’s a good understanding that this pandemic clearly showed brand owners Online Activities wouldn’t overtaken Offline Activities, they shall be compensate each other according to brands’ need and condition. But nowadays, Sales-on-Live (Introduce and sold merchandise on Live Streaming) and Vlog-sales are brand new communication methods that quite popular at present. But we shall remember that environment is continuously evolving and these methods and platform that hybrid communication and sales are still yet to be tested by time and market.
3 Government Policy & Initiatives
At hand, China had enter the phrase of rapid recovery, many policies are also leaning towards the worst affected areas. Gigantic companies like Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com, Xiaomi, and Gree had announced their investment plan in Wuhan and Hubei province, this is a business maneuver that covered Corporate Social Responsibility and Government Relationship. We can see some policies listed below would have laid the tone for the rapid development of these regions in the future.
China’s PR industry would take advantages of these policies and follow its own path of development, with considerations of its own condition and unique features. I do hope my article would help PR colleagues in other countries and regions. And I also hope to hear your insight and idea, I am looking forward to hearing from you as well.
Best regards (and stay safe),
Yin Xiaodong
President of 17PR/PRGC – Public Relations Global Communication