Strategy College produces two CIM world prize winners

Strategy College of Marketing & Business created history this week by producing two world prize winners at the December 2011 assessment session, for the Chartered Post Graduate Diploma of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) UK.

CIM boasts a proud history of 100 years with its roots in the UK. Sri Lanka is the world’s largest international region with over 2,000 studying members. This year the overall achievement of world prizes stand to be the highest since the establishment of CIM in Sri Lanka over 20 years.

Dina Pesumal of Strategy Business School was awarded the world prize for ‘Emerging Themes,’ which is a post graduate Level Subject (Final Stage). ‘Emerging Themes’ is one of the unique subjects in the new syllabus, which gets a postgraduate student to engage in writing a professional journal article on a contemporary issue and its business implications.

At a special ceremony organised to felicitate the winners, she commented on the razor sharp guidance and support she received from her tutor at Strategy Business School, which enabled her to excel in this new subject. “The new syllabus has cutting edge subjects that further broadened my knowledge horizons, which will help me in my career,” she said.

The veteran marketing tutor for the subject Lewie Diasz, commenting on this significant achievement, said: “To be adjudged the number one in the world among 5,000 students from all over the world for ‘Emerging Themes’ in the final stage is a great achievement. Being a new and unique subject, ‘Emerging Themes’ challenged students as well as tutors world over, with lower pass rates. In that context it’s a great achievement for the country to have received this honour.”

World prize recipient for ‘Managing Marketing,’ Sajith Samaraweera was the second award winner produced from Strategy College of Marketing & Business. ‘Managing Marketing’ is a subject that takes a diploma student deep into the most relevant management competencies, starting from managing teams, leadership, measuring, marketing performance and quality systems to operational finance.

A delighted Sajith said: “At Strategy learning marketing becomes a lifestyle; when your tutors are established and practicing business leaders, the insights you get are real and invaluable. This motivated me to apply myself even further. I thank my tutor for raising the bar for the subjects as well as myself as person.”

Yasas Hewage, the tutor for the subject, commented: “At Strategy our class sizes are kept small purposely; this creates the much-needed intellectual discussions and facilitates a wider debate. Sajit, who is a graduate from Moratuwa and employed at Virtusa as a Business Analyst, has been a key contributor to the discussion at class, his proactive approach to learn undoubtedly was a key contributor towards this world class achievement.”

“The success of assignment-based assessment lies in three aspects: a robust process, a committed student and a committed tutor. At strategy we work on all three aspects,” Diasz added.

“Starting from the assignment learning agreement, we take many steps during the course to keep a student on track.  Our tutors are committed to provide in-depth feedback personalised to each student. Our entire tutor panel being established and practicing marketers, students gain the most from these focused discussions.”

Hewage added: “CIM is one of the most prestigious and highest quality professional qualifications offered for business and marketing students in the country. Our vision is to see that more world class graduates are produced at Strategy, to give leadership in post-war Sri Lanka, the emerging ‘Wonder Asia’. To make this dream a reality we need top marketers at the helm of each industry. We at Strategy are committed to this dream.”

Strategy recruits students for the chartered post graduate diploma twice a year and the July 2011 intake is now on.