What do you think about Merck Company?
At first, Merck & Co. is one of the best companies in the world in terms of ethics. They not only
operate because of their own net profits, but also consider the greatest interest of society. In the case,
we can probably see that they chose ethics over profits. Even though they had noticed that doing R&D
for this project – producing medicine – is not going to benefit them, they still did because they felt like
they owed an obligation to patients. They decided to sacrifice their own interests in exchange for
society’s interest – people’s lives.
However, we still have to consider that they have already predicted what they are going to get
from this project. They knew that they are going to produce the medicine and sell it to patients for
profits. Even if they could not sell for some reasons (Eg: high price, too low price,…), they knew that they
still get something in exchange for their spending which is “Goodwill”. For most of large and successful
companies, Goodwill is one of the most competitive advantage that helps a firm standing out among the
market or industry. As such, I believe that they clearly knew they will not get “loss” finally in this game.
They might get loss in terms of profits in short-term, but it is definitely going to benefit them in the long–
term.
In my opinion and lesson, I felt that most large and successful companies tend to choose ethics
over profits because they have reasons to do so, they have ability to do so. Generally speaking, spending
200 or 300 millions of dollars to help society is a big challenge for every company. However, with the
size of large companies like Merck, I don’t think it is a big deal for them. But I still entirely appreciate
with what they have done. That is amazing company with a lot of amazing people.