Chapter 6 Dynamic Strategy

     Chapter 6 talks about maintaining your competitive advantage in the face of dynamic conditions.  A company must be willing to change over the span of time or at the drop of a hat.  A great example would be a gas station, say your competitor drops his/her gas 3¢ per gallon, now you would start freaking out because people love the cheapest gas.  So, of course now you are going to drop your gas down the same price to make sure your competitor does not gain a competitive advantage.  These are definitely dynamic conditions because you have to think quickly or could lose out of thousands of dollars of potential profit.  

     Having researched Merck for the past few weeks, I feel like their biggest challenge is whether to be a first mover or fast follower.  In the pharmaceutical industry many of times you want to be the first mover which is a firm choosing to initiate a strategic action, whether the intro of a new product or service.  As I have mentioned numerous times in previous blogs; when a company such as Merck gets so far along in its clinical trials/data and it believes it can take this product to the market it will patent the product.  This gives the company 20 years of using that formula for the drug without another company stealing it.  Being the first mover for this allergy drug has made Merck around $55-60 billion dollars in sales.  So, where does Merck go as a company from here to be another first mover.  Well, in my opinion they already are on their way, with Lambrolizumab.  I believe with the rise of tanning beds and teenagers/young adults thinking they need all this sun to look good, their will be a rise in melanoma cancer in the next few decades. With Merck already in the early stages of clinical trials with great success Lambrolizumab will be the next money maker.  So, in the pharmaceutical industry I definitely think you need to be the first mover and now a fast follower.