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The Chartered Institute of Marketing Sri Lanka Branch maintains a unique management style. This method has been commended highly by the CIM UK and has been adopted as a standard branch management model for other CIM branches worldwide.

The Branch has a process oriented approach towards its goals as opposed to the conventional functional orientation. The three target groups of CIM are the students, members, and the corporate community. Five process teams, viz. Student development, diplomate development, membership development, public relations, and networking service these target groups.

A team leader who represents the respective process at the Executive Council of the CIM Sri Lanka Branch heads each process team. Shiraz Latiff is the process leader for Diplomate Development Team. He is a Chartered Marketer and holds an MBA from the Postgraduate Institute of Management, Colombo. His team is involved in organising Continuous Professional Development programs for the diplomates so that they could work towards becoming Chartered Marketers, the ultimate recognition in the marketing profession.

Shiraz said that their goal in CPD programs is to provide the opportunity for the CIM Diplomats to continue their knowledge enhancement upon completion of their Postgraduate Diploma. The status of Chartered Marketer is the ultimate recognition in the field of marketing, which all marketers aspire to attain. For this, the CIM members require to accrue at least 35 hours of Continuous Professional Development every year to attain and maintain their 'Chartered' status. CIM members have the opportunity to accrue CPD hours from their endeavours undertaken to enhance their marketing knowledge. This could be either on-the-job as well as off-the-job endeavors.

The Diplomate Development Team, Shiraz said, envisages organising programs for Continuous Professional Development by the diplomates to acquire Essential Skills for Marketing, Developing Skills for Marketing and to expose themselves to themed ideas that are pertinent to the changing times. In pursuit of providing the exposure to the diplomates in these three areas, our programs will be focused on Emergent Themes, Corporate Management Themes, Self-development Programs, Job Specific Skills and Issues of Ethics and Sustainability, Corporate Governance and Competition Law.

These programs are of two types. Emergent Themes are presented as evening programs under the branding of 'CIM Talking Point". Leading personalities in their respective fields are invited to address the CIM members and the marketing fraternity on current and emergent marketing and marketing related themes. The other type of program is the 'CIM Professional Series,' which is either half day or full day workshop style programs on pre-determined topics.

The CIM Annual Conference is also held as a congregation of members and the marketing fraternity to share their knowledge on branding related themes. The annual conference is one of the flagship events of the Sri Lanka Branch. This year in August, the fourth CIM annual conference will be held under the theme of 'Discovering the New Consumer for Branding'.

Shiraz said that by organising these focused programs, the CIM Sri Lanka Branch is committed to increase the quantity and the quality of the Chartered Marketers in Sri Lanka. Currently there are 120 Chartered Marketers in Sri Lanka and over fifty percent of them are employed at senior management level in the private and government sector.

CIM is the world's largest professional marketing body, working closely with the marketing profession, government, industry and commerce to develop greater awareness and understanding of what marketing can contribute to International Business.

Over the years, CIM has expanded overseas and among the 58 branches and market interest groups in the UK, there are six international branches and four member groups worldwide. CIM has over 60,000 members worldwide and leads the marketing profession into the next century. CIM Sri Lanka is the first overseas branch and looks after the interests of local marketing students, diplomates and members of the institute. The branch has over 1,000 diplomates, 500 members and 120 Chartered Marketers.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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