CIM Sri Lanka to empower marketers on ‘Digital Transformation’

The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Sri Lanka is all set to hold its 17th Annual Conference titled ‘Digital Transformation’ early next week, bringing together more than 450 professional and business community of Sri Lanka to one forum. It is the central meeting point where topical themes, strategies and trends of marketing are reviewed, discussed and celebrated through a panel of international and local experts. CIM Sri Lanka Vice Chair and Conference Chair Amal Fernando and CIM Annual Conference 2017 Technical Chair Bertram Paul took time off to share some insights on this year’s Annual Conference as well as CIM Sri Lanka’s success as the leading professional marketing body. Following are excerpts of the interview:

By Charumini de Silva

Q: Give us an overview of this year’s theme of ‘Digital Transformation’ and why?

Amal: Every year we tend to talk of something which is pertinent to the marketing and the business fraternity. The 17th CIM Annual Conference is scheduled to be held on 17 and 18 July under the theme ‘Digital Transformation’. The conference will be inaugurated on Monday 17 July and the technical sessions will be held on 18 July at Cinnamon Grand Colombo. 

The topic that we chose tends to be timely, which could support our marketing and business community as well as our members who are our key focus group in this Annual Conference — to provide them new knowledge, ideas, networking opportunities to broaden their horizon. Digital is a growing trend transformation is taking place all over the world. Bertram was the one who presented this year’s concept paper and we try to bring the best in the world to share their expertise, knowledge, bring in examples, discuss case studies and share it with our corporate fraternity, which will in turn help business in Sri Lanka. Therefore, every year we come out with a theme which is relevant with the times and trends.

Bertram: Generally, when we hold the Annual Conference, we look at the trends. This year, the common umbrella which covers most of these trends was ‘Digital Transformation’. Digital has really evolved and it is leading to business being disruptive. When you look at the digital space, especially marketers, not too many marketers have really comprehended what digital marketing is actually about and its full potential. Old school marketers think that it is about setting up a website, having a Facebook campaign, but digital is actually a lot more than that. 

What we really want to showcase is the full potential of digital, what is happening in the rest of the world, what the successes are and why it is that companies in Sri Lanka need to take serious look at ‘Digital Transformation’. We see that companies that have not adopted this new trend are actually losing out in chunks. Hence, part of the transformation is not just left to the IT department or marketing department, but there is a whole culture change that needs to take place in individual companies. This is what we expect to do with this year’s conference.

Q: What are the key highlights of this year’s Annual Conference?

Amal: This is the first time CIM Annual Conference is bringing down three high-level people from Europe. World-renowned digital guru Paul R. Smith who is also the Founder of SOSTAC will deliver the keynote address this year. In addition Michael Rogers Management Consultant – KPMG, thought leader and consultant in digital transformation, specialising in providing tech strategy advice for financial service clients and Jerome Thil, Vice President, Marketing for Sabre Travel Network Asia Pacific, will speak at the 17th Annual Conference. 

This trio comprising the high level panel will share insights on a vast array of subjects including digital disruption, machine learning, artificial intelligence, marketing automation, internet of things (IOT) and transformation and convergence. This year we have invited all Chief Information Officers (CIOs) to the conference and we expect around 450 participants for the inauguration. On day two full-day workshop we expect around 400 participants. 

We are having two panels in between the conference. One with local industry experts, where they will speak about the real experience and adaptation in Sri Lanka and at the end a CEO panel to see how they will embrace the culture and trends of digital transformation.

While we do a lot in digital in Sri Lanka, there is still a lot to be learnt. The real evolved market in terms of digital is in Europe. For example, in Europe brick and mortar is going down and the opening of stores is for experience. It is a total reversal of how channels were. Main channels we go to buy brick and mortar are closing down, but the digital channels have expanded so much that they keep opening experiential stores, such as what amazon.com has done. With this year’s conference, we are covering some key sectors including finance, travel and startups which are important to the economy too.

On Wednesday 19 July, the day following the conference, we are conducting an awareness program on digital trends, entrepreneurship and sportsmanship free of charge to students from leading schools in Colombo. We are looking at 500 first year students of Ordinary Level and Advanced Level classes to participate in this program. This is also another first in hosting such an event soon after the Annual Conference.

Bertram: These are three leading personalities who have got their hands dirty in digital. The keynote speaker Paul R. Smith is an expert on digital marketing and he has pretty much written the textbook on digital marketing. He is also the founder and author of SOSTAC Planning Framework. Michael is a Consultant of KPMG and his area of expertise is digital transformation. He has really done this for financial sector companies. Jerome is involved in start-ups. 

As Amal said, normally we have one speaker from Europe and complemented from Asia, but because of the importance of this year’s theme we have got all of them from Europe. The conference will help corporates to look at the trends, environment changes, how to plan, the pitfalls to be watchful for and the success stories. Ideally, at the end of the conference, participants should be able to go back and prepare a marketing plan for their businesses. This will be a great way to get all Sri Lankan CEOs and mangers exposed to this level of experience, so they will really pick up what is going on and understand the whole scope.

Q: How do you think the CMOs need to evolve and what skills and competencies will be needed in the next five years?

Bertram: If you look at the skills gap, one area that really stands out where marketers have traditionally been weak is financial literacy. This is sometime back, CIM was concerned globally. They do feel that not enough marketers are making it to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) level as they lack the competitive edge on financial literacy. Even if you look at Sri Lanka’s corporate leaders, there are only a very few CEOs who have a pure marketing background. One of the reasons is that some marketers are not financially literate, because they are not held accountable for hard numbers. 

Unfortunately, we see students coming in who are not financially savvy and their excuse is that they would not chose marketing if they were good in their mathematics. This is a very important area that we need to fix, because only then would marketers actually be able to become business managers, not just to focus on one little area. The real role of a marketer is to be able to run the business, provide that competitive advantage. If shareholders are to really trust marketers to run the business and reach positions of CEOs, then financial literacy is a gap that marketers need to fix.

The other trend I seen in students is soon after a course of marketing, they feel that they should do a brand management job, whereas if you really want to understand how it works you need to look at management training programs which invariably put you through the sales process. You need to understand dealing with customers, trade and all other procedures along with that. Those are two areas that need to be fixed.

Q: How successful has the CIM Sri Lanka office been so far?

Amal: CIM Sri Lanka’s primary purpose is to provide value addition to our members, provide them a root to Chartered Marketer status, and provide them opportunity for continuous development so that they can maintain the Charted Marketers status. At present we have 3,000 active members and a total base of 10,000 members. As the world’s largest professional body for marketing, we tend to drive the marketing agenda. 

Apart from the annual conference, we have certain programs to impart world-class knowledge and allow networking opportunity via programs like the talking point, CEO breakfast forums to educate and upgrade the knowledge of practicing marketers as well as related people in the subject areas. These programs provide the opportunity to network outside work and also to strengthen their business proposition as well. We have a set of corporate partners whom we deal with and we tend to work closely with them such as in recruitment process and so forth. We also do a lot of awareness programs especially for school children on the concept of marketing, marketing education and the career opportunities. Though many think that marketing is just sales and advertising, it is getting a lot of prominence at the board level in today’s corporate world.

Q: Could you highlight the importance of marketing as a profession that drives businesses to success?

Bertram: Marketing is essentially looking at customer requirement and satisfaction at a profit. If you look at real growth, it comes from the sides of growing the top line. From a country’s perspective, if you are really trying to grow and add value; then you look at growing volume and topline. To be really able to do that is where marketing really comes in. Understand market segments, customer requirements, come up with various products and services to satisfy customers, how to get the competitive edge, how to differentiate from competition — this is pure marketing. This is where marketers can really add value. Of course, there needs to be a business case, not just satisfying customer. It is about making sure there is a business case behind it, ultimately growing volumes. It also provides a structured approach and then tries to respond to it.

Pix by Ruwan Walpola