13.07.2021 Making Marketers Future-Ready: SLIM Launches Data-Drive Marketing Professional

The wave of digital channels and shifting consumer behaviour has impelled marketers to collect and analyse data to thrive. Marketers have unprecedented access to individual transaction-level data and can match that with the customer’s exposure to marketing activities and ads. Hence, businesses should embrace data collection and evolve with technology to become the frontrunners in the today’s marketing landscape. Data-driven marketers can get a better understanding of their customers’ buying journeys and curate strategies for each step of the process. With the current economic environment in Sri Lanka, data-driven marketing has become a quintessential aspect to better understand the target audiences, predict future behaviours of consumers and make real-time marketing decisions.

The Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM)—the apex marketing body in Sri Lanka—is poised to groom the prospective marketers of the country to make them future-ready by bridging knowledge and competency gaps through quality educational programmes. Producing future-ready marketers is one of the key strategic pillars of the Institute’s Future-Ready Sri Lanka national initiative. As per the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report, 50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025, as adoption of technology takes the world by storm. The same report highlights that there is a significant surge in the demand for professionals in the fields of data analytics, and the same report highlights that the profession of data scientist would be the number one profession in the world by 2025. Being data-driven does not mean immediately adopting the latest technological tools into a company’s tech stack, but making conscious and effective decisions, considering all your data. Unquestionably, the future demands a dynamic and upskilled workforce ready to sail across unchartered waters. Therefore, SLIM expects to enhance the value of the country’s human capital through various initiatives and create a future-ready Sri Lanka. Furthermore, the Future-Ready Sri Lanka initiative is driven by the mission of establishing Marketing as the driving force which enhances business and national value.

As an initiatory step towards producing highly-skilled, future-ready marketing professionals, SLIM becomes the first to introduce a professional qualification in Data-Driven Marketing. SLIM’s Data-Driven Marketing Professional (DDMP) is the latest professional qualification launched by the Institute in a bid to empower the modern marketer. Organisations that are frontrunners in data-driven marketing report far higher levels of customer engagement and market growth than their laggard counterparts, and data-driven marketing is no longer optional but a prerequisite in the profile of a future-ready marketer.

DDMP is a 3-month course which is focused on theoretical as well as practical context of data-driven marketing. SLIM DDPM is an ideal specialised programme designed to sharpen the knowledge of aspiring marketing managers—both conventional and digital—and provide the necessary understanding, knowledge and skills in data-driven marketing.

This professional qualification is curated in a way to evoke interest and educate about the essential applications and best tools in data-driven marketing, as well as blockchain technology to equip professional marketers to compete effectively and efficiently in their respective markets. DDMP covers a wide scope including, data mining to analysing and effective data-driven decision making. With the knowledge gained through this programme, marketers can streamline the digital marketing initiatives—adoption of big data, cloud, social and mobile marketing campaigns—of their respective organisations to yield a better ROI.

DDMP will be launched on July 24, 2021 at Hilton Colombo Residencies with the participation of industry experts in the country. The ceremony will be conducted under the auspices of Thilanka Abeywardena, President, SLIM, Nuwan Gamage, Vice President-Education, SLIM and Sanath Senanayake, Chief Executive Officer/Executive Director, SLIM. Seninda Bandara, Lecturer, SLIM/Founder, Boutique Agency Network and Chamira Jayasinghe, Founder/Chief Executive Officer, Arimac will join as guest speakers to enlighten the audience with valuable insights on data-driven marketing and its significance.

Commenting on the launch of DDMP, Nuwan Gamage, Vice President, SLIM stated, “As the National Body for Marketing SLIM majorly focusses on providing quality marketing education to drive students to deliver outstanding results in terms of their career development. We introduced DDMP as we identified the need of educating marketers about data-driven marketing to navigate the ever-changing seas of the corporate world. Unleashing the potential of data-driven marketing will have lasting impacts on businesses and the overall marketing landscape.”

During a time when a ‘fingertip society’ has emerged, and almost anything is just a click away, digital marketing and its advancements has become part and parcel of marketing. Therefore, it is of paramount importance for marketers to explore the depths of the digital aspect of marketing to excel in dynamic industries. SLIM is synonymous for its exceptional learning experience created through its focused and experienced panel of expert lectures.

SLIM is the National body for Marketing in Sri Lanka and has been promoting marketing excellence and elevating the status of marketing since 1970. It is a member of the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka (NCCSL), Organisation of Professional Associations of Sri Lanka (OPA) and Federation of Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka (FCCISL). SLIM also has received ISO 9001:2015 certification in recognition of its superior quality management system and ISO 2990:2010 for Learning Service Provider (LSP), providing non-formal education and training services.