Critical Success Factors Of The Company

More attention to own business than to competitors is their strategy. South magazine observed that Nucor is “stripped down, no nonsense” organization. It keeps maintaining low cost and efficiency, which is the key to making profit in steel industry, by keeping the employee force at the level it should be, empowering them, being totally honest, involving them in decision making process, and using effective incentive compensation system.

There are many competitive forces that are affecting Nucor Corporation. Some of the primary ones are the market size, number of rivals, and pace of technological change.

Nucor has been facing many industry challenges including the overall development of the industry. They are competing with foreign firms on cost and efficiency. Nucor has a low cost strategy because as they say their product is not necessarily very attractive. It does not have attractive or unique selling features other than its cost. The commodity of steel is in a very competitive market. Nucor understands that innovation and productivity are going to be key factors to keep their buyers satisfied with their prices. Nucor is facing many challenges with a growing world market and many of their competitors merging in order to create stronger more dominate

The core strategy of Nucor is that of cost leadership via the use of technology. Through innovation and the use of high quality technology to process their steel, Nucor was able to achieve this cost advantage.

One of the core competencies is the management and culture. As mentioned in questions 2, Nucor has decentralized and lean structure. Each division managers have their own autonomy, and thus being able to operate in their own management styles in order to increase profit margins. The excellent leadership and the decentralized culture are valuable for Nucor, and it is also rare and difficult for competitors to imitate. In addition, they can bring long term benefits. Therefore, it is a sustainable competency which passed VRIO test.

Nucor is the largest steel manufacturer in the United States. It remains a profitable company despite being in one of the most cyclical industries in the economy. Nucor enjoys this success for several reasons, employee relations, quality, productivity, and aggressive pursuit of innovation and technical excellence. Nucor's strategy is that of a low cost provider, they know they are selling a commodity and understand their competitive edge in the industry is lowering prices through innovation and productivity. The company operates primarily in two business areas, steel mills and steel products.

Nucor Corporation is made up of 11,500 teammates whose goal is to "Take Care of Our Customers." We are accomplishing this by being the safest, highest quality, lowest cost, most productive and most profitable steel and steel products company in the world. We are committed to doing this while being cultural and environmental stewards in our communities where we live and work. We are succeeding by working together.

Another recommendation that I have for Nucor is instead of buying existing plant capacity, make new plants elsewhere or form a joint venture with a supplier to help save money. (Exhibit 3) This would decrease cost of supplies so they would have the extra money to build elsewhere or build a ne plant. By using the SWOT analysis (Exhibit 1) it let me break up Nucor into different parts to see what their strengths and weaknesses are. Nucor is solid with technology and treating the employees correct but the weaknesses that affect Nucor are more market based with some internal problems. Nucor has products for many different industries including automotive and housing. This can cause issues for Nucor if those industries take a fall, which they have over the last 5 years. It’s a good idea to be in these industries but Nucor has to realize what can happen to sales and revenues when one or both of those industries take a fall. Nucor has been expanding more in the United States, recently just building a plant in Louisiana (Exhibit 5). This plant will be a 750 million dollar purchase and will be a mill for pig iron. Nucor is expanding all over the United States but needs more presence internationally plan and simple. Nucor is a solid company with shareholder equity increasing each year; they have a solid stock in the NASDAQ market and continue to be a healthy steel company. They can and will

Nucor Corporation is one of the three largest U.S. steel producers with production capacity of more than 26 million tons and 20,400 employees. The company is also the world's largest steel recycler,

Nucor is a classic case in how a firm can develop sustainable competitive advantages through resources that fit the VRIO criteria. It is worth noting that Nucor has achieved this in an industry that few would describe as attractive.

Over the years Nucor emerged as a market leader in the American steel producing industry due to its sustainable growth strategies and incorporation of sophisticated technologies that enables the company to grow exponential and become a market leader by offering high quality steel products at lower costs. The company backed its growth strategies by massive integration in the American market. However, this growth strategy proved to be predominant in capturing the American market thus ignoring the potential competitive threats that could come from foreign steel producers. This included both steel producers integrating with American minimills and foreign producers who used America as a lucrative export market and dumped their products.

Nucor has created a company that is both internally and externally fit to the environment. The firm responds well to the driving forces of the industry and has opted to take a low-cost strategy with the relentless pursuit of innovation and strong employee productivity in order to combat the issues of the steel industry. In 2000, Nucor decided to expand its operations by acquiring new firms and new factories while continuing with its low-cost operations. The competitive strategy of Nucor has helped it become one of the leading manufacturers of steel and steel products in the United States.

On December 7, 1986, F. Kenneth Iverson, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Nucor Corporation, awaited a delegation from SMS Schloemann-Siemag, a leading West German supplier of steelmaking equipment, at his company’s headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. Iverson had to decide whether to commit Nucor to a new steel mill that would commercialize thinslab casting technology developed by SMS. Preliminary estimates indicated that the mill would cost $280 million, and that start-up expenses and working capital of $30 million each would push the total cost to $340 million, or nearly as much as Nucor’s net worth. Successful

Ever since 1966 when Nucor was on the brink of facing insolvency, the company adopted a cost leadership strategy under Ken Iverson’s management stretching over to the 21st century. With reference to Porter’s Three Generic Business Strategies, Nucor exploited a cost advantage to serve a broad market including local and foreign OEMs, fabricators and consumers in the construction, automotive, appliance, oil and gas industries. When determining its business strategy, Nucor has successfully aligned its external and internal environment by assessing the opportunities and threats while considering the feasibility and sustainability of the strategy in its internal environment. Its strategy has allowed Nucor to remain profitable without

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