Francis Ingham, Director General, PRCA and Executive Director, ICCO reports that the story of public relations agency is one of constant innovation and evolution but the business fundamentals remain strong.

Any overview of the public relations agency scene must start with the undeniable truth that it is growing, and doing so in every region of the world.

We know from the ICCO World Report that agency income grew by 7% in 2015, breaching the $13 billion mark; and that agency employment grew from around 80,000 people to more than 85,000.

Moreover, this growth is not an aberration – agency income has grown in every one of the past five years.

In challenging economic times, the public relations agency story has been one of success in the face of adversity. It’s easy to ignore the good and concentrate instead on the areas where improvements could be made.

This first #FuturePRoof report, sponsored by ICCO and the PRCA, has some great thoughts on addressing these, and many other issues.

Each contribution is well worth reading, studying, and learning from the brainpower of others, who are offering their thoughts for free in the spirit of industry collaboration and learning – itself a great feature of our industry.

But one theme stands out for me - our industry needs greater confidence in itself, in its story, its future, and its value to organisations.