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Uditha Liyanage (1954-2015) passed away after a brief illness on August 10, 2015. During the last six months he kept away from official duties and public events and finally succumbed to his illness. His untimely demise is a great loss to the nation as he was considered as a national asset in the field of marketing and management.
I got to know Uditha in the early 1990s when I was a Visiting Lecturer at the Postgraduate Institute of Management (PIM) and was working closely with Uditha’s faculty colleague, Tilak Fonseka. Over the years we interacted in a number of conferences, seminars and workshops where we were speakers in different sessions. We also served together in a number of subcommittees/judging panels in various chambers. As board members of PIM and Singer (Sri Lanka) we sat together in monthly meetings. Through these interactions, I got to know Uditha reasonably well and I venture below to recollect on some aspects of Uditha’s professional life.
Early years
Uditha was born in 1954 and had his early education at Royal College, Colombo. He started his career soon after college in the corporate sector as a Management Trainee and Marketing Executive in Brown and Company (1973-1976). Thereafter, he worked as a Brand Manager at the Maharaja Organisation for two years (1977-1979). In 1980, he joined Shaw Wallace & Hedges PLC as the Marketing Manager and later became a Director. While working at Shaw Wallace & Hedges, Uditha pursued a Diploma in Marketing with the Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK) and completed it in 1985. The nearly two decades experience in the corporate sector and the literature he read over these years, made Uditha embark on pursuing an MBA degree at the PIM in 1989 which he completed in 1991. The academic bent in Uditha compelled him to do a mid-career change and in 1992, he quit Shaw Wallace & Hedges and decided to pursue a career at the PIM.
PIM
PIM was a new opening for Uditha. In 1993, he was appointed both as the Academic Adviser to the Postgraduate Diploma in Management Programme and Coordinator of the Management Development Training Programme. It was during this period that Uditha’s academic interest grew to do research, culminating in a doctorate in Management from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. After completing his doctorate in 1999, he was appointed as a Senior Lecturer at the PIM in mid-2001. Ever since then, Uditha focused his career on teaching and became a senior Faculty Member of the PIM.
The PIM, which pioneered the MBA programme in Sri Lanka, has produced more than 3,000 MBA graduates over the last three decades. Today, a large number of CEOs and directors holding key positions both in the corporate sector and the government are products of the PIM. The MBA offered by the PIM has facilitated the practitioners to become professionals and Uditha, among others at the PIM, played a key role in this exercise. He was a popular teacher and taught courses on strategic marketing, marketing communication, business strategy, consumer behaviour, etc.
By mid-2000, Uditha had reached the peak of his academic life. He first became the Head of Academic Affairs and then the Director of the PIM in 2007. He held the Director and Chairman of the Board of Management and Boards of Study in Business Public Administration of the PIM till md-2013. During this time, Uditha prepared the Students Handbook, PIM Programme Brochure 2009-2010 and initiated a magazine titled ‘Professional Manager’. By early 2000s, the PIM became one of the first academic institutions to be autonomous from government funding and became a profitable institution. He was a key member of the team that turned-around the Institute, so much so that by 2008, the PIM won the Superbrand Award and in 2012, ISO 9000 standard.
Presentations and publications
Uditha was a prolific writer. During the 2000s, he brought out a number of presentations, reports and publications on branding, strategic marketing and consumer behaviour. He made a pioneering framework for strategy and marketing by revisiting areas such as balance score card, triple bottom line, corporate social responsibility, P&L, SWOT and other such areas commonly used in developing strategy. ‘Liyanage 10 Strategic Marketing Framework’ became a useful tool in explaining some of the ideas he had developed over the years. He addressed a number of conferences/seminars on the above subjects and was a popular speaker.
He was an author of many articles – most of them published in reputed journals and newspapers. He was a regular contributor to the Sri Lanka Journal of Management, The Chartered Marketer, Annual Volume of the Association of Professional Bankers, Sri Lankan Exporter and other such magazines. His main publication that stood out was a book on ‘Profiling the Sri Lankan Consumer’, which was first published in 2003 and ran into three editions, the last one in 2009.
Corporate sector and professional service
Uditha’s skills were spotted by many leading players of the corporate sector and these players wanted his inputs for their corporate and marketing strategies. He was thus invited to serve in the Boards of Singer (Sri Lanka) PLC, Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC, Chemanex PLC, Ceylon Cold Stores PLC (under John Keells Holding), Diesel and Motor Engineering PLC (DIMO), Talawakelle Tea Estates PLC (under Hayleys), Kuruwita Textiles Mill, Arpico Plastics Ltd., Arpitech (Pvt.) Ltd, RPC Polymers (Pvt.) Ltd, Q & E Advertising (Pvt.) Ltd and Yasui Lanka (Pvt.) Ltd. Needless to say, he served in these boards at different time periods and his contribution to the corporate deliberations was much valued by the other board members. Besides, he was a marketing consultant to a number of other companies.
While working in the directorates of such private companies, Uditha prepared Strategic Plans for the Tea Association of Sri Lanka, Unit Trust Association of Sri Lanka, Seylan Bank and Edirisinghe Trust Fund. He also prepared Corporate Plans for the Urban Development Authority, Vijay Kumaratunga Memorial Hospital and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority. These are among the many other unpublished reports he had prepared for the corporate sector in Sri Lanka.
The Government of Sri Lanka also utilized Uditha’s experience by appointing him as a board member of the University Grants Commission, National Institute of Business Management (NIBM), Academy of Financial Studies (now known as the Miloda Institute) and Presidential Task Force on National Productivity Improvement.
Uditha was invited to serve on the boards of autonomous institutions/semi-government bodies such as the Employer’s Federation of Ceylon, Institute of Chartered Accountants and Postgraduate Institute of Medicine. He was the Chairman of the Chartered Institute of Marketing - Sri Lanka and a member of the International Board of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. He was also invited to serve in the panel of judges/evaluators of various chambers and other organisations to determine the winners – he served as the Chairman of the Panel of Judges for Business Excellence Awards of the National Chamber of Commerce for many years and succeeded me as the Chairman, Panel of Judges and Chairman, Evaluators in the National Chamber of Exporters Awards and Best Corporate Citizen Award of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, respectively.
The marketing guru
In 2009, Uditha was made an Adjunct Professor of Management by the University of Canberra, Australia and in 2011 he was conferred Professor of Management by the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. The PIM Alumni organised an event in 2011 at the then Inter-Continental Hotel to Felicitate him on these accolades. Making the keynote address at this event, Dr. Wickrema Weerasooria, Senior Faculty Member of the PIM and former Secretary to the Ministry of Policy Planning paid a glowing tribute to Uditha’s achievements and contribution to the PIM and went on to state that Uditha is synonymous with marketing and has become the undisputed guru of the industry.
When illness engulfed him, there were three projects that he was keenly working on: ‘Translating Military Strategies into Business Strategies based on the Defeat of the LTTE’, ‘Branding Sri Lanka: Creating an Umbrella Brand’ and ‘Strategy in Complex Adaptive Systems’. These projects will remain unfinished work in a vast pool of academic work that Uditha did during his lifespan.
When he was the Director at the PIM he had embarked on a plan to expand the activities of the PIM, revive the PIM operations in Dubai and construct another building in the premises of the PIM. Alas, he was not to see this through and the task has fallen upon his student and successor, Ajantha Dharmasiri, who carries the mantle of the PIM from where Uditha left off.
Uditha’s departure is a great loss to the PIM and many institutions and corporates where he served in a non-executive capacity. He leaves behind his wife and daughter who stood by him during difficult times. He will always be remembered by his students and colleagues as a true scholar who worked with dedication and commitment to give his knowledge to others to build a better society in Sri Lanka. May he attain Nirvana!
(Saman Kelegama is the Chairman of Singer [Sri Lanka] and a Member of the Board of Management of the PIM)
