Diluni Jayasekera, Managing Director – Brand Centrical, was among the “Top 50 Global Professional & Career Women” of 2022.
Marking the twelfth year of honouring inspiring men, women & corporates, “Women in Management” (WIM), in collaboration with the Sri Lankan Business Council in UAE and Equality Alliance UK, Jayasekera was awarded “Outstanding Entrepreneur of the year (Small)” at the “Top50 Global Awards”- Dubai.
From a very early stage in her life, she focused on challenging the status quo, even when all the odds were against her. Despite being one of the lucky few to have the opportunity to pursue a career in medical science, which is considered a gold standard in our culture, she decided to qualify herself in psychology, marketing, and management and continued to start a career in advertising. She quickly climbed the corporate ladder using the unique combination of psychology and marketing.
Eventually, her vantage point in her career helped her realize that Sri Lankan businesses were far behind the rest of the world in building meaningful relationships with consumers.
As she continued to dissect this problem further, it was evident that the problem’s root cause was the agencies. Theyt had the power to solve it but chose not to.
The local and the broader network of international agencies were rather happy providing repeated advertising services to deliver sales spikes over brand-building services, whhere the latter offers sustainable growth in sales and business alike. It was soon evident that this was impacting the country’s growth as well.
Though large organizations could afford to spend money on repeated advertising exercises, it did not positively contribute to the development of the business. SMEs had no choice but to spend two-thirds of their budgets on advertising to stay relevant over R&D or the company’s growth.
What triggered her was the negative impact this cycle had on the country’s development at a time when 50% of the country’s economy is dependent on private sector businesses. Upon this revelation, she decided to leave her comfortable career in advertising to start Sri Lanka’s first brand agency nine years ago.
” However, this was no easy task considering she was a 23 year old woman trying to create a market that never existed in Sri Lanka and telling directors on boards that predominantly consist of men that they have been doing things wrong for decades.”
Soon, she found herself standing in boardrooms of blue-chip companies in Sri Lanka, convincing them that they should allocate 60% of their marketing budget to branding. However, this was no easy task considering she was a 23 year old woman trying to create a market that never existed in Sri Lanka and telling directors on boards that predominantly consist of men that they have been doing things wrong for decades. Her efforts were further challenged by the full power of the local and multinational agencies with multi-million budgets, operating for over 20 years in the country. “Thus began my journey of transforming the Sri Lankan branding landscape and promoting companies to adopt branding predominantly over advertising.”
T H E J O U R N E Y
With her business partner she was able to identify the gap in the market and had the foundation level knowledge to provide brand services. It was vital for them to be savvy on the subject before they started. However, they were not very surprised to find out that despite being affiliated with some of the top ranking universities in the world, local professional education campuses did not have at least an introductory course in branding.
They faced this challenge by dedicating a year to teaching themselves and networking with professionals worldwide to gain insights to sharpen their knowledge on the subject. Due to the rare combination of practical and theoretical expertise she possesses, she was invited to guest lecture at the Sri Lanka National Institute of Marketing and was invited to many business forums.
They believe this was a turning point in their success as they crafted a perfect brand service mix best suited for local businesses by coupling the industry knowledge they gained over the year and the international exposure. However, the challenge was far from over. Soon after starting the operations and approaching the business, “we learned that even the top-tier Sri Lankan businesses had very little knowledge in branding and had closer to no resources internally to adapt brand concepts.
This was an immediate setback to the purpose of helping SME businesses rise to the top of the local markets and beyond. With these conditions, it was nearly impossible to convince businesses that purely relied on advertising for decades to change their priorities and consider building brand values first, rather than focusing only on sales spikes. If this was not challenging enough, this advice was coming from a 24- year-old woman with only a five year career record under her belt.
She was invited to guest lecture at a leading institute as they introduced Sri Lanka’s firs t ever education programme on Brand Management. She decided to counter this problem with two tactics that helped them penetrate the market. They first combined Their pitch stage or initial services with advertising services emphasizing branding. Following this, “we conduct educational meetings using data-driven analysis to build confidence in branding and brand-centred communication and forecast how adapting these can affect the business’s bottom line. Among many others, this same approach helped them secure their first and most prominent client, one of the largest and oldest conglomerates in Sri Lanka with a market capitalisation of US$168 million. They have worked on over 15 projects during the last nine years through this vital and lucrative partnership. While the company continued to partner with blue-chip companies in the first four years of operations, they later used the financial strength and experience gained through this strategy to make their services more affordable and practical for SME clients.
T H E G R O W T H
They founded the company with just one employee when there was no market demand for brand services. Naturally, they were faced with the challenge of finding the team with the necessary knowledge and exposure required to service the company’s growing clientele. To address this challenge, they created on-the-job training programmes to qualify the team to deliver the required service standards. This approach helped them develop their operation from one employee to 25 within the first five years of operations. They are proud to say that they have produced over 50 experts in branding across disciplines such as Brand Management, Strategy, Creative and Digital Marketing.
Due to the programme’s success, they were invited by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce (CCC) to train upcoming entrepreneurs on the importance of branding. They sustain the drive for learning even today within their culture through weekly programmes such as knowledge-sharing sessions that allow all employees to share their knowledge on any topic, which can add value to deliver better services to their customers. Since commencing operations, they have diversified their services into many areas, including the digitalization of processes which is a novel concept for local businesses.
They capitalize on primary and secondary research to understand the internal and external environments. This data analyzes how the processors and resources can be improved using middleware or new IT systems. Once the requirements are identified, they utilize the co-founder’s background in information technology to lead a team to architect and develop business software centred around strengthening brand values.
Due to the success of this programme, she was later invited by several organizations and associations to train upcoming entrepreneurs around the island on the importance of branding. Further, they took steps to introduce BPO services in marketing during the Covid-19 pandemic to counter the gap created within organizations, of existing and new clients, due to rapid layoffs. This helped them gain more long-term clients and provided job opportunities for many who lost employment due to the pandemic.
T H E S U M MAR Y
As a young company that challenged market giants, they single-handedly created a new market and demand for branding that did not exist nine years ago. To date, the company has positively impacted over 30 industries and more than 200 clients. During this process, she was able to help build many women entrepreneurs through mentoring “our clients and employees over the last nine years.” Following the business’s success, she was also awarded the Pioneering Woman Leader title at the Sixth World Women Leadership Congress and Awards ceremony held in Mumbai, India, in February 2019.
The company’s contribution and success were recognized by the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka (FCCISL) in 2016. Her co-founder, Wimukthi Galahitiyawa was chosen as the Young Entrepreneur of the Year and Entrepreneur of the Year (Bronze) in 2017, 2019, and 2020.