The Manufacturing/Marketing Interface: Critical Strategic and Tactical Linkages

There has been much conceptual discussion of the interfaces between manufacturing and marketing (Hausman and Montgomery, 1985) and manufacturing strategy and tactics (Hayes and Wheelwright, 1984); however there has been a dearth of empirical evidence. This paper presents empirical evidence on these two issues: the linkages between marketing strategy and manufacturing strategy, and the linkages between manufacturing strategy and manufacturing tactics. Data obtained from several groups of executives are presented regarding both of these linkages, as well as data on each executive’s view of his/her business unit’s current and desired manufacturing strategy priorities. Analysis of the data shows that there is a substantially consistent view of manufacturing/marketing strategic linkages and of tactical/strategic manufacturing linkages.