Strategic integration in UK manufacturing companies

This paper discusses the results of two pieces of empirical work which investigated strategic integration in a sample of UK manufacturing companies. Although there have been calls for improved links between marketing and manufacturing, the results show that, in practice, the strategic link between these two functions is still weak. However, this problem is considered by companies as primarily an infrastructural one, with cross-functional teams, bi-directional communication and the sharing of common goals viewed as key elements of functional integration. The research also indicated that companies do have formal business strategies but are less likely to have individual functional strategies and that, when these strategies do exist, they are unlikely to be separate documents but sections of the overall business plan. However, few of the sampled companies make use of any formal approaches for strategy development. Another observation is that, again in contrast to recent calls for companies to become market oriented, UK manufacturers are still predominantly product oriented.