By Moliehi Molekoa, Managing Director of Magna Carta Reputation Management Consultants and PRISA Board Member

The start of a new year often brings optimism, new strategies, and renewed ambition. However, for the public relations and reputation management industry, the past year ended not only with optimism but also with hard-earned clarity.

Moliehi Molekoa

2025 was more than a challenging year. It was a reckoning and a stress test for operating models, procurement practices, and, most importantly, the foundation of client–agency partnerships. For the C-suite, this is not solely an agency issue.

The year revealed a more fundamental challenge: a partnership problem that, if left unaddressed, can easily erode the very reputations, trust, and resilience agencies are hired to protect. What has emerged is not disillusionment, but the need for a clearer understanding of where established ways of working no longer reflect the reality they are meant to support.

The uncomfortable truth we keep avoiding

Public relations agencies are businesses, not cost centres or expandable resources. They are not informal extensions of internal teams, lacking the protection, stability, or benefits those teams receive. They are businesses.

Yet, across markets, agencies are often expected to operate under conditions that would raise immediate concerns in any boardroom:

• Unclear and constantly shifting scope

• Short-term contracts paired with long-term expectations

• Sixty-, ninety-, even 120-day payment terms

• Procurement-led pricing pressure divorced from delivery realities

• Pitch processes that consume months of senior talent time, often with no feedback, timelines, or accountability

If these conditions would concern you within your own organisation, they should also concern you regarding the partner responsible for your reputation.

Growth on paper, pressure in practice

On the surface, the industry appears healthy. Global market valuations continue to rise. Demand for reputation management, stakeholder engagement, crisis preparedness, and strategic counsel has never been higher.

However, beneath this top-line growth lies the uncomfortable reality: fewer than half of agencies expect meaningful profit growth, even as workloads increase and expectations rise.

This disconnect is significant. It indicates an industry being asked to deliver more across additional platforms, at greater speed, with deeper insight, and with higher risk exposure, all while absorbing increased commercial uncertainty.

For African agencies in particular, this pressure is intensified by factors such as volatile currencies, rising talent costs, fragile data infrastructure, and procurement models adopted from economies with fundamentally different conditions. This is not a complaint. It is reality.

This pressure is not one-sided. Many clients face constraints ranging from procurement mandates and short-term cost controls to internal capacity gaps, which increasingly shift responsibility outward. But pressure transfer is not the same as partnership, and left unmanaged, it creates long-term risk for both parties.

The pitching problem no one wants to own

Agencies are not anti-competition. Pitches sharpen thinking and drive excellence. What agencies increasingly challenge is how pitching is done.

Across markets, agencies participate in dozens of pitches each year, with success rates well below 20%. Senior leaders frequently invest unpaid hours, often with limited information, tight timelines, and evaluation criteria that prioritise cost over value.

And then, too often, dead silence, no feedback, no communication about delays, and a lack of decency in providing detailed feedback on the decision drivers.

In any other supplier relationship, this would not meet basic governance standards. In a profession built on intellectual capital, it suggests that expertise is undervalued.

This is also where independent pitch consultants become increasingly important and valuable if clients choose this route to help facilitate their pitch process. Their role in the process is not to advocate for agencies but to act as neutral custodians of fairness, realism, and governance. When used well, they help clients align ambition with timelines, scope, and budget, and ensure transparency and feedback that ultimately lead to better decision-making.

“More for less” is not a strategy

A particularly damaging expectation is the belief that agencies can sustainably deliver enterprise-level outcomes on limited budgets, often while dedicating nearly full-time senior resources. This is not efficiency. It is misalignment.

No executive would expect a business unit to thrive while under-resourced, overexposed, and cash-constrained. Yet agencies are often required to operate under these conditions while remaining accountable for outcomes that affect market confidence, stakeholder trust, and brand equity.

Here is a friendly reminder: reputation management is not a commodity. It is risk management.

It is value creation. It also requires investment that matches its significance.

A necessary reset

As leadership teams plan for growth, resilience, and relevance, there is both an opportunity and a responsibility to reset how agency partnerships are structured.

That reset looks like:

• Contracts that balance flexibility and sustainability

• Payment terms that reflect mutual dependency

• Pitch processes that respect time, talent, and transparency for all parties

• Scopes that align ambition with available budgets

• Relationships based on professional parity rather than power imbalance

This reset also requires discipline on the agency side – clearer articulation of value, sharper scoping, and greater transparency about how senior expertise is deployed. Partnership is not protectionism; it is mutual accountability.

The Leadership Question That Matters

The question for the C-suite is quite simple:

If your agency mirrored your internal standards of governance, fairness, and accountability, would you still be comfortable with how the relationship is structured?

If the answer is no, then change is not only necessary but also strategic. Because strong brands are built on strong partnerships. Strong partnerships endure only when both sides are recognised, respected, and resourced as businesses in their own right.

The agencies that succeed and the brands that truly thrive will be those that recognise this early and act deliberately.

The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa CCIE, has reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to deepening inter-agency collaboration as he received the Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Mr Charles Ebuebu, on a courtesy visit aimed at exploring strategic partnerships in digital transformation and regulatory frameworks across Nigeria’s media and technology sectors.

Speaking during the meeting, Inuwa stated that digital transformation and regulation are inseparable in Nigeria’s rapidly evolving digital ecosystem. He also emphasised that digital transformation is not a one-off project but a continuous journey that requires constant improvement, periodic target-setting, and organisational adaptability to emerging realities.

According to the NITDA boss, the agency deliberately embarked on a transformational journey to reposition itself from a traditional civil service structure to a high-velocity, smart public sector organisation. He noted that when the agency began its transformation drive, a significant percentage of its workforce came from the mainstream civil service, bringing with it entrenched bureaucratic mindsets and rigid operational practices. This, he said, necessitated a conscious decision to change the narrative.

“More than 70 or 80% of our staff came from the mainstream public service, and we know the mindset of public servants, so we started changing that narrative by focusing on people, resetting mindsets, building capacity, and fostering a culture that supports innovation and accountability,” he noted.

Inuwa explained that NITDA’s approach to digital transformation was anchored on three core pillars: people, processes, and technology. He stressed that no matter how advanced technology may be, it cannot deliver value without the right people and efficient processes in place.

He further disclosed that the agency undertook a comprehensive cultural reorientation programme, supported by cultural audits and initiatives aimed at creating psychological safety within the organisation.

“This was critical to enabling staff at all levels to freely contribute ideas, challenge existing processes constructively, and engage in horizontal and vertical collaboration without fear of reprisal,” he stated.

He noted that culture remains the foundation upon which any successful strategy must stand, adding that “no matter how good a strategy is, without the right culture, execution will fail.”

Providing further insight into the transformation journey, he explained that NITDA adopted an integrated framework encompassing people, process, culture, content, and technology. Through this framework, the agency identified and addressed deeply rooted bureaucratic tendencies such as command-and-control structures, risk aversion, and excessive dependence on directives from senior leadership.

According to the DG, “these reforms paved the way for trust-based delegation, inter-departmental collaboration, and process optimisation”.

He further revealed that NITDA documented over 396 internal processes and subsequently streamlined them to eliminate inefficiencies and repetitive executive approvals. He cited examples where routine operational tasks that previously required multiple approvals at the Director General’s level were redesigned to empower departments as gatekeepers, allowing leadership to focus on strategic priorities.

This process optimisation, he said, also created the foundation for automation and the integration of digital tools.

On capacity building, the DG disclosed that all NITDA staff underwent mandatory artificial intelligence (AI) training, reinforcing the agency’s position that AI is a tool for enhancing productivity rather than replacing human capital.

He noted that staff across departments are now leveraging AI to improve workflows, generate ideas, and transition from manual administrative roles to AI-enabled system administration.

Inuwa added that technology deployment at NITDA is deliberately driven by business value rather than trend adoption, stressing that technology must support clearly defined processes and organisational objectives.

He announced that the agency has developed a comprehensive digital transformation playbook, capturing lessons learned from its journey, which it is willing to share with NBC and other government institutions.

To advance collaboration with NBC, Inuwa proposed concrete areas of partnership, including sharing the agency’s digital transformation playbook, delivering tailored training and capacity-building programmes, enrolling NBC staff in digital literacy initiatives developed with global technology partners such as Cisco, and providing technical support for modernising regulatory frameworks to align with the evolving digital and media ecosystem.

Earlier in this remark, Mr Ebuebu called for deeper collaboration between the NBC and NITDA, describing the partnership as long overdue in the face of rapid media and technology convergence.

He noted that although he has had several insightful interactions with the DG NITDA in the past, it was important to institutionalise cooperation between both agencies to address emerging developments in media, technology, data governance, and Nigeria’s digital future.

While calling for closer ties between the two agencies, he emphasised that a strategic partnership between NBC and NITDA is critical to effectively regulate the evolving media ecosystem, harness technology for content creation and distribution, promote the growth of local media, facilitate knowledge transfer, and protect Nigeria’s cultural and national interests.

Dr. John Asein, director-general, Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC), has charged universities to leverage Intellectual Property (IP), innovation management and research commercialisation to build vibrant, sustainable and globally competitive ecosystems.

The DG stated this while delivering a paper on: ‘’Research Commercialisation, IP Policy and Innovation Management’’ at the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU) organised Business Clinic themed: Unlocking University-Driven Business Ecosystems: Innovation, Partnerships and Sustainable Enterprise Models in Abuja.

The programme was targeted at engaging Vice-Chancellors, principal officers and other key officers in Nigerian Universities in a practical dialogue on how to transit their institutions into thriving business ecosystems through innovation, enterprise development and strategic partnerships.

In his presentation, Dr. Asein, disclosed that Universities are now recognised as engines of national development and innovation hubs that must connect scholarship to business.

He noted that with over 300 Universities in Nigeria, there is need for structured pathways to turn ideas into commercial outcomes while attention should be focused on IP assets in our universities in order to harness them in a safe, sustainable and satisfactory manner.

The DG NCC speaking further on leveraging resources from the creativity locked up within the university system, harped on the need to harness the soft power of our youth as Nigeria’s most valuable natural resources are its people.

Drawing demography from Nigeria youthful population, he observed that over 70 percent of Nigerians who are under the age of 30 are mostly in the university system studying. These youths, he noted, shape cultures, technology and innovation through creativity and digital skills.

He tasked universities to become innovation factories where young people can explore ideas, protect their IP and grow startups by integrating innovation culture, entrepreneurship training and IP awareness into its learning environment.

He equally urged Universities to look beyond the sciences to commercialize traditional knowledge-based innovations and harness the potentials in the creative arts disciplines like music, visual arts, theatre arts and others for commercial outcomes.

Dr. Asein, recommended that universities as centres of learning, should take the lead in using the IP system for promoting education and learning, wealth creation, revenue generation and institutional development.

Underscoring the need for all universities to have an IP Policy, he noted that the Model developed by the Nigerian Copyright Commission in partnership with the CVCNU is a good starting point.

The Secretary-General, CVCNU, Prof. Andrew Haruna, presented the welcome address at the event while the Director, Technology Innovation and Commercialisation, NOTAP, Mrs. Adah H.N. Mokolo-Oladunke represented the Director-General, NOTAP at the event.

The 2025 CVCNU Business Clinic witnessed attendance from representatives of Public and Private Universities across the 36 States in Nigeria.