Prior to 1970, attention paid to the concept of marketing and education in marketing was not as much as today. The idea of forming a governing body to represent the profession of marketing was first discussed at the residence of Mr Elmo de Alwis, where 3 students who were getting ready for the examinations of the Institute of Marketing (UK), discussed the issue of the marketing qualification not being recognized as much as they should be.
 One person that should be mentioned here is Mr Asoka de Lanerolle, at Lever Borther, who took over the task of drawing up the draft constitution and the first meeting was held in January 1970, The team made sure that many marketers as possible would take part in the inaugural meeting, and thanks to Mr Asoka de Lanerolle, the entire marketing team of Lever Brother also took part. The first meeting of the Institute of Marketing was held at the Planters' Association at Galle Face, where the constitution was adopted unanimously. The Ceylon Institute of Marketing was later incorporated under Parliamentary Act No. 41 of 1980, where the institute was renamed as Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing.
In 1994 SLIM teamed up with Sri Lanka Institute of Development Administration (SLIDA) to inaugurate a local Diploma in Marketing. Today SLIM provides classes for the Preliminary Course in Marketing (PCM), the Diploma in Business English & Personality Development, Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing (PG DipM SL) as its own programmes. The institute conducts classes for CIM (UK) qualifications, Introductory Certificate in Marketing (UK) and Diploma in Tourism Marketing (UK), MBA and Certificate in Personal Development through the Buckinghamshire New University as international education programmes.
 SLIM has planned to introduce an additional education programme of its own in June 2010 to be called the Introduction to Marketing. The primary aim of the education programme is to educate the schoolchildren on the importance of marketing, and groom future marketing professionals at early stages. Further SLIM has already paved the collaboration of the Buckinghamshire Chilterns University, UK to introduce an MBA programme. The institute is gearing up to take its educational programmes to the international level by providing the programmes online.
SLIM will be opening its own Business School in Matara in August 2010, which will become the fourth centre of its own management, while the first three are situated in Kandy, Borella and Colpetty. SLIM has franchised operations covering all important regions of the country totaling to ten franchise operations.
SLIM actively promotes marketing as an essential business philosophy to facilitate the mission of "establishing marketing as the driving force which enhances business and national value". The institute is proud to be a part of well over 1,000 students, and 300 vibrant marketing professionals as registered members. SLIM conducts Master Skills training programmes on a monthly basis and another regular event is the Live @ Sundown evening meeting sessions, which carry out discussion and training programmes for marketing professional.
Another glamorous annual event is the SLIM Sri Lanka Effies, an event which is looked forward to by the corporate sector. Effies is an award ceremony where SLIM looks in to the effectiveness of advertising and rewards at national level. It is carried out in collaboration with the American Marketing Association. In 2002 SLIM identified the need to recognize brand excellence at national level, thus the "Brand Excellence" awards was born. SLIM also joined hands with Nielson the largest marketing research company in the world to introduce People's Awards in the year 2005. As the award winners are selected by the people themselves, it is a true representation of the pulse of the people. It is being held in 2010 for the 10th time.
SLIM is planning to conduct is Annual Marketing Conference by June 2010. It has planned to re-launch NASCO in 2010 and to launch an event under the name of "Markting Rox" to take the marketing aspect and introduce the benefits of education in marketing to the rural areas of the country and its three programmes for the year would cover Kurunegala, Negombo and Matara in June, September and December respectively.
Whilst celebrating its 40th Anniversary SLIM is geared to providing training and educational programmes in marketing and is looking forward to many more successful years of service in formulating education programmes and nurturing future marketing professional to the field of marketing and being the driving force of marketing as the marketing body of Sri Lanka. |
E-mail
