Comprehending “Consumer Strategy”: Myriad memories of a Mentor

Ten years have passed so rapidly. It reminds me of the late Prof. Uditha Liyanage, my management mentor. He was a sage of our age, in touching many minds as a marketing maestro, left us on 10 August 2015 at the age of sixty-one. There was a valued volume titled, “Consumer Strategy,” published posthumously containing myriad thoughts of my mentor. Today’s column is a reflective revisit of his contributions.

- BY AJANTHA DHARMASIRI ‘SENIOR PROFESSOR IN MANAGEMENT, POSTGRADUATE INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT

The Postgraduate Institute of Management has posthumously published his final contribution, “Consumer Strategy” in 2016. We renamed the PIM library as “Prof. Uditha Liyanage Memorial Library” in honour of him. In August, 2019, we launched “Prof. Uditha Liyanage Memorial Oration” as a biennial event. My attempt is not to repeat his accolades but to reflect on his renderings of brilliance.

I still recall how the alumni of the Postgraduate Institute of Management (PIMA) together with the Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM) and the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) organised an event that revolved around the book, “Consumer Strategy,” a collection of articles by Prof. Liyanage published posthumously. After a brief recollection of reminiscent memories of Prof. Liyanage by Dr. Wickrema Weerasooria, Deepal Suriyaarchchi provided a comprehensive review of the book. Next was a panel discussion featuring Eardley Perera, Dr. Asanga Ranasinghe, the current Director of PIM, and me, as the then Director of PIM. It was heartening to see my idea of a collaborative event involving PIMA, PIMA, SLIM, and CIM becoming a meaningful and memorable reality.

At the panel discussion, I mentioned that I am not competent enough to comment on this masterpiece and suggested offering a nonmarketer’s perspective. Ironically both me and Dr. Asanga Ranasinghe ( then President of CIM) were in the same MBA batch of PIM, being students of Prof. Liyanage. On the other hand, Eardley Perera, a pioneering marketeer, had been a teacher of Prof. Liyanage in the MBA programme of PIM.