However, if it fails, our marketing strategy is meaningless and will result in losses. I applaud you for thinking ahead and considering the full consequences of reformulation actions. Repositionings are a major management challenge, to plan and to execute. Of course, even if your reformulation bid is highest, you must still have a technologically valid reformulation request and your reformulation must not violate any existing patents at the time of the reformulation. Thus, there's lots of detailed upfront analysis necessary to ensure that your reformulation will be successful.
All marketing plans are unconditional.
They happen whether or not your reformulation is successful. This is part of the challenge of doing launches, repositionings, and reformulations. These marketing initiatives are very chaotic kinds of things with lots of potential for adverse consequences. You do, of course, have the ability to make ad subsequent quarter, to update your marketing plans based on the outcome of a reformulation request. Price is normally a special challenge in reformulations if the costs of the new product will be dramatically different than the old product.