![]() Our strategy, which remains unchanged, reinforces the need for us to change our underlying operations and enables our ability to grow. The US Market remains committed to growing our business over the long term and achieving our 15Ã-15 goal in line with our values and standards. I will continue to keep you updated as appropriate. That is why I am sending this message to all colleagues within the US Market. Though this exercise affects select groups within the US Market, I've always committed to you that I will be transparent and open, and keep everyone up to date on important actions within our business. I know how difficult this is for our organization, particularly the people who are directly affected. In fact, we all must commit to challenging the status quo and be willing to make fundamentally different choices than in the past. Making difficult choices in select functions, based on an assessment of the business risks and opportunities identified within each area, will allow us to transform our business and capitalize on the most significant market opportunities in 2012 and beyond. However, the unfortunate reality is that we must do more and move now if Merck is to be successful over the long term. Over the past few years, the US Market has made significant reductions in our organization. We will also offer the opportunity for employees in the aforementioned select areas to proactively "hand raise" and be considered for separation. Employee selection decisions will follow established company processes. The restructuring exercise within the select areas will be completed and affected employees will be informed by the end of October 2011. We will move quickly in order to minimize disruption for customers, our business and employees. ![]() These necessary actions are part of and consistent with the important role we play in GHH's contribution toward Merck's overall transformation and, as I have stated previously, we cannot promise the avoidance of such activities. Effective immediately, we will also increase the use of vacancy management by removing more open positions across the entire US Market organization. In the coming weeks, we will restructure the following select HQ functions and field groups within the US Market: Marketing & Customer Solutions Managed Markets & Policy Strategy & Commercial Model Innovation and the Neuropsychiatric and Women's Healthcare specialty sales teams. The US Market is taking additional steps to accelerate plans to manage our expense base, in part because our current vacancy management approach is not allowing us to reach expense targets quickly enough. We must challenge and prioritize every single investment choice to ensure that we are nimble, flexible and streamlined as we drive profitable growth. Critical to Merck's need to transform is our ability to fundamentally change how we operate our business, including managing resources differently and reducing our expense base. The external environment is tougher than ever, with an unprecedented pace of change that continues to accelerate. SUBJECT: Update on Ongoing Changes to the US Market's Business Operations TO: All US Market Colleagues (HQ & Field) Merck "Disingenuous" for Stopping Earnings Guidance, Wall Street Says.Spanked by Wall Street, Merck CEO Orders U-Turn: 13,000 Layoffs.Read the full text of the memo after the list of related stories. Rather than waffling about the need for unchanged change, the entirety of the memo could have been reduced to a couple of sentences if Timney had written them in plain English. Timney also seems to be a little bit confused as to whether Merck's employees ought to challenge the status quo or follow the company's "unchanged" strategy (a strategy that required a U-turn from Merck's previous strategy of refusing to cut costs): "the need for us to change our underlying operations"."the people who are directly affected."."we cannot promise the avoidance of such activities.".Timney's other don't-mention-the-war maneuvers included: the opportunity for employees in the aforementioned select areas to proactively "hand raise" and be considered for separation. At one point he describes layoffs as an "opportunity": Timney, however, appears to have swallowed a thesaurus of business-writing cliches before he began his email. Merck should be praised for talking openly about the fact that it needs to reduce its workforce by 13,000, in addition to the 17,000 jobs it vanished as part of the acquisition of Schering-Plough. employees a memo which contains at least 12 different euphemisms for the company's planned job cuts and layoffs in October, but doesn't actually mention the words "jobs" or "layoffs." Merck (MRK) president Mark Timney recently sent his U.S.
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