The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Sri Lanka will be hosting its first CIM Talking Point Programme for this year today (31st) at the Hilton Colombo Residences from 6.00 pm onwards. 
It will bring together top business leaders, CIM fellow members and corporate executives and is organized with the objective of highlighting emerging themes in marketing/business and discuss best practices to support strategic decisions for the future. This forum will be a platform for participants to share and exchange key insights which would help them in making decisions in their own organizations.
The programme is titled ‘Insights for Marketing in 2017’. It will be an overview of the marketing trends that emerged in 2016 and a forecast of what to expect in 2017. The panelists of the programme are Roshani Fernando, COO, Quantum Consumer Solutions speaking on ‘Insights from a psychographic lens of the Sri Lankan Household’ – the five different psychographic profiles that exist across Sri Lankan households, key insights and discriminating factors about each profile. The second speaker will be Shiran Fernando, Lead Economist and Senior Product Head Frontier Research, and the topic will be ‘Macro Insights for 2017’- overview of the Sri Lankan economy with the outlook on rates, currency while identifying key factors to watch out for during the year, Himalee Madurasinghe, Chief Executive at LMRB will shareinsights on ‘Emerging patterns of Consumer behaviour and Lifestyles’ while Erosha Tennakoon, Director at MindShare, Group M (Pvt) Ltd will speak on ‘Emerging trends in media and communication landscape - how marketers are connecting with consumers in new and meaningful ways in a dynamic business environment’. 
Rajiv David, Head of Membership Development at CIM stated “The main objective of the CIM Talking Point series is to impart knowledge on current themes and provide the marketing community with valuable information on market trends. We believe this timely topic will be useful to understand theupcoming marketing challenges and be prepared to successfully face the same. We hope to continue to add value to all the marketing professionals through our Talking Point series”. 
As the leading professional body for Marketing CIM places great emphasis in bringing together programmes that are topical and relevant targeting the members and the entire business community.