Public relations (PR) agencies seem to be following the rest of the industry in terms of acquiring international affiliations to take advantage of global account alignments and the experience of the affiliate. "With globalisation, the need for managing international public relations as well as cross border perception becomes important," Jha said. Capital Images, set up 18 months ago, has grown rapidly to open branch offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Chennai and Ahmedabad. Three representative offices in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Calcutta will become full-fledged branch offices by the end of September, Jha said.

The agency wants to introduce PR products that are standardised especially forfinancial-sector clients. Interestingly, Jha himself is a finance man having worked with ANZ Grindlays, BankAm, Alliance Capital and ITC Threadneedle.

The agency is also looking at health care and representing governments among its areas of specialisation. Jha said the company is exploring working on the government of India account. Significantly, its partner Ruder Finn handles several government accounts including those of Argentina, France, Japan, Spain and Thailand. Founded in 1948, the $40-million Ruder Finn has a roster of nearly 200 clients. Capital Images, which billed Rs 1 crore in 1997, has clients like Birla AT&T, Cummins India, Thermax Babcock & Wilcox, Mahindra British Telecom, Deepak Fertilisers, Kimberly Clark- Pudumjee, L&T Finance, Kinetic Engineering, Ion Exchange, and others.

It also plans to pitch aggressively for Ruder Finn's clients which include Abbot Labs, ABB, BAT, BASF, Citibank, Cadbury, Pizza Hut, Novartis, Time Warner, IBM and Cathay Pacific.