Attention HQ - Strategies for UK subsidiary companies

It is all very well exhorting UK business to be more innovative, more competitive andto close the productivity gap with economic rivals such as the US. The problem is,approximately 40 per cent of companies in the private sector are owned by non-UKbased companies. In these cases the parent companies may not be committed to,or concerned about, the long term competitiveness of the UK.The challenge for the subsidiary country managers in the UK then becomes this:How to manage the relationship with HQ in such a way that attracts sufficientresources and decision making power to determine the future of the subsidiaryin a way that benefits both the parent company and the UK?Our research focused on a key component in managing the relationship betweensubsidiaries and parent companies: attention. The research, which looked at 87UK subsidiaries, and compared the results with those obtained from subsidiariesin Canada and Australia, revealed a number of important findings relevant tocountry managers of subsidiaries both here in the UK and elsewhere.[...]