Our predictions for 2017 (see the end of this post) largely came to pass, including the continuing positive development of more women leading corporate public affairs functions, more functions expecting practitioners to develop digital communication production capabilities, and more teams taking an axe to their corporate intranets and replacing them with technology and device agnostic platforms and social media networks.

The public affairs management function in the corporate sphere continues to be disrupted by how societies here and globally consume information and interact with institutions, including companies and governments. Disruption in business and how stakeholders are engaged has been constant over centuries. It is the pace of that disruption that will continue to be a big challenge for the corporate public affairs function this year.

Based on our conversations with corporate public affairs leaders, CEOs, boards of governance, as well as our own insights, here are our Top Five Predictions for 2018.

1. Psychographic-profiling, which scrapes data from social media accounts to develop a unique socio-political profile of an individual, will be considered more widely by corporate public affairs teams in their public advocacy and stakeholder engagement.

This use of Big Data was at the centre of the Trump US presidential campaign in 2016 to identify and target voters, and it generated privacy-related controversy at the time.

More industry groups and corporations in the US and Australia are using data in this way to inform advocacy and public information campaign tactics and modus operandi.

The marketing management function has been harnessing Big Data extensively to inform its strategies and campaigns. The corporate public affairs function is next off the rank; though navigating ethics, personal privacy, and corporate reputational implications of using Big Data to achieve public affairs ends, will loom large.

2. Boards want more frequent reputation research. According to the Centre’s 2015 State of Public Affairs in Australia, about 60 per cent of large companies conduct stakeholder reputation research.

The Centre forecasts that in 2018 company boards of governance will want to be more engaged with such reputation research, and if that research is not available annually, board directors will be asking that it be so.

While reputation research is an important input to corporate public affairs strategy and tactics in most leading Australian companies, more boards are signalling they want to unpack and understand corporate reputation and its drivers to inform their own strategy deliberations.

The 2017 levy/special tax on Australia’s largest banks, the Royal Commission into Australia’s financial institutions announced last year, and events such as United Airlines’ “passenger deplaning” snafu in April last year, had many more boards asking about the reputational health of their company, and wanting that health update more frequently.

We’re expecting more boards will ask management to conduct reputation research annually so directors have contemporary reputation readings in an information and reputation economy that continues to be disrupted at pace. (We note some corporations in high socio-political risk sectors are conducting stakeholder reputation research twice annually).

3. More demand for generalist practitioners. Demand across the profession for more all-rounders in corporate public affairs teams has been growing. We forecast that recruitment firms will receive more briefs than ever before seeking public affairs practitioners with capabilities and experience across disciplines – internal and external communications, government relations, corporate responsibility, stakeholder engagement, corporate brand management, reputation research and metrics, and issues management.

Specialists will continue to be in demand in disciplines such as government relations and corporate responsibility.

However, more Heads of Function are leading teams in which practitioners are sought, or being developed, to be high-functioning issues managers, stakeholder engagers, stakeholder communicators (including generating digital content), and to understand government relations and corporate responsibility communications.

Practitioners with broader capability across disciplines are far more readily assigned to manage priority issues and work on projects above and beyond business as usual, or to work on business as usual as specialist teams manage black swan issues, or crises.

4. Many public affairs teams will get bigger. Centre research in 2015 concluded that the average headcount in a corporate public affairs team in companies in Australia was 13.5, and 3.1 in industry associations.

We forecast that during this year, teams in many, many organisations will increase headcount, driven primarily by socio-political pressures on corporate reputation and digital media disruption, and demand for more issues management capacity emanating from those drivers.

Full time equivalent employee numbers and outsourcing for additional capability and capacity has been increasing in corporations and governments post the GFC.

Since 2015, more teams have moved to insource digital content production and issues management.

And although headcount tends to vary considerably by industry – and be influenced also by the business cycle of individual sectors – the move is on for the average headcount in the function to increase this calendar year.

5. Corporate brand management is back in the function. 2018 will be a year that will see more organisations move managing the corporate brand – the stakeholder brand – into the corporate public affairs function.

About half of companies in Australia manage their corporate brand in public affairs. Most of these see the corporate brand as the company’s offer and promise to investors, regulators, legislators, civil society, employees, the news media, and opinion leaders – socio-political stakeholders.

Up until a few years ago, marketing departments (especially in B2C entities) managed the corporate and retail brands (even if the corporate brand was the retail brand).

Regulatory, political, legislative, and reputational issues and developments, and the socio-political orientation of the corporate public affairs function, have fuelled deliberations around corporate brand management being managed in public affairs, with corporate brand management and reputation stewardship aligned more snugly.

We forecast this trend will continue, and continue to pick up momentum in 2018.

The year that was: the Centre’s Top Predictions for 2017
1. The evidence-base Arms Race.
2. The beginning of the end of the corporate Intranet.
3. The digital production-savvy corporate public affairs practitioner.
4. Infographic mania.
5. More women leading the management function.

The year that was: the Centre’s Top Predictions for 2016
1. Stakeholders at the heart of corporate public affairs strategy.
2. Social Media Command Centres.
3. Public affairs night shifts will be introduced in some organisations to monitor issues, and provide rapid socio-political response.
4. Renaissance of the corporate narrative.
5. Public Affairs helping their organisation understand the Asian Century.

The year that was: the Centre’s Top Predictions for 2015
1. Convergence of internal and external communications.
2. More cooperation between public affairs and marketing departments.
3. Application of heuristics to corporate stakeholder communications.
4. Stakeholder research becoming an essential input to public affairs strategy and planning.
5. Advent of a 'common market' for corporate public affairs skills across Australia and Asia.