What driving forces do you see at work in this industry? Are the likely to impact the industry’s competitive intensity and profitability favorably or unfavorably?
The driving forces in the steel industry would be technology evolution. The change in the steel making technology has transformed the steel industry. Market growth has a huge impact in the development of the steel industry, strategies, profitability, and efficiency. Market and competition is a factor to consider when looking at the long run of this industry. New innovative technologies such as advance computer systems, physical models, and artificial intelligence can be used and incorporated in the steel manufacturing process. The economy also greatly affects the steel industry as
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A competitive approach tends to be the best strategy for this commodity product industry. Nucor has been successful in reaching relatively low production costs. Nucor has the ability to build plants inexpensively but also operate them very efficiently. Nucor has a record of profitability even when times are tough in the domestic steel industry, showing that Nucor has lower costs relative to other steel producers. It could also be assumed that Nucor is cost competitive with foreign steel producers trying to sell their products in the United States.
Is there any reason to believe that Nucor has achieved a sustainable competitive advantage over its rivals?
Nucor’s cost competitiveness is something they have developed over years. It seems as if a small portion of domestic competitors if any at all even appear to have costs as low as Nucor. Nucor’s management teams have tried not to miss any opportunities to drive costs down in its business. This would then provide Nucor with a sustainable low-cost advantage over its domestic competitors as well as its foreign ones attempting to sell steel to customers in the United States.
Have Nucor’s recent acquisitions over the past several decades contributed to their
Industries will look different with all of these forces. The strategy will change based on how these forces look for the organization and industry. These concepts can be applied across the board, and they help organizations from getting trapped into the latest trends and technology out there selling solutions. This matrix really helps to
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 the largest steel producer in the United States and had net sales of $12.7 billion in 2005. Nucor is the nation 's largest recycler. In 2004, Nucor recycled approximately 17 million tons of scrap steel, with 5 million of those tons being automobiles. Nucor 's origins are with auto
What driving forces do you see at work in this industry? Are they likely to impact the industry’s competitive structure favorably or unfavorably? (Did we answer this question?)
Upon Review of Nucor Corporation’s current findings, analysis of internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as a comparative analysis at the industrial level of the steel industry, the following includes a summary of findings and recommendations for Nucor Steel Corporation:
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 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
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.
The five forces are not independent of each other and changes in one of the forces can have knock on effects with the other forces. The aim is to understand the nature and attractiveness of the industry, indentifying the drivers and allowing consideration of the impact of these forces on the SBUs on W H Smith.
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.
In order to sustain its competitiveness and profitability, Nucor shall consider going global. Generally, the criteria needed for Nucor to go global are intellectual capital, psychological capital and social capital.
U.S. Steel and other steel companies for decades, relied on the tried and true strategies of vertical integration and price control (Hoerr, 1988). In the 1960’s, foreign competition from developing countries like South Korea, Taiwan and Brazil entered the market "with low material and labor costs, modern equipment, and the support of government policies" (Hoerr, 1988, p. 99). Because of lower costs and concern over supply created by constant threat of strike, many
This Assignment will develop your skills in industry analysis. This must be done as individual work, so you must not discuss the case with anyone else before completing the Assignment. Please use the following questions to structure your answer:
Finally, I could also mention that this was a value destroying industry, since the cost pressure was high but with the lower prices of steel, the companies had difficulties to pass the impact of the costs to the customers.
A great competitive advantage in the industry will be to have an integrated enterprise that is capable of R&D and large scale commercial manufacturing. In this context, Nucleon’s long term strategic goal should be to gain this competitive advantage by continuing to leverage its existing R&D competencies along with acquiring in-house manufacturing