Nucor

| 1) Reduced personnel costs2) Access to better and more specialized talent3) Allows for better growth potential, particularly concerning shared services

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

Individual productivity calculator can be devised to reward those who work more in order to keep the parity issues from creeping in and at the same time providing growth and recognition to the employees as mentioned in the Herzberg two factor model (Newstrom, 2015). This model can be interpreted as a pioneering technique to motivate the team.

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.

This report discusses the challenges that The Nucor Corporation faces during this era of social and economic climate change. Using Porter's Five Forces Analysis and Four Generic Strategies, we will assess the steel industry standards as it relates to the strategies implemented by the Nucor Corporation. We will also assess what Nucor’s strengths and weaknesses are, and if they will be able to continue

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

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.

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.

In such an environment, if Nucleon chooses the first alternative and builds a new pilot plant, they will have the ability for future larger-scale development and in-house manufacturing will surely provide Nucleon with the control over process and quality procedures. However, as we can see on Exhibit 1 of the case, this option is very costly (roughly $7.4 M) considering that Nucleon only has $6.5 M at hand. Apart from the need for capital investment, building a new plant requires investing in “human capital” since Nucleon will need to hire additional R&D staff and experienced technicians. Both the building of the new plant and the trainings that current and future staff are time-consuming and involves a risk of having an idle plant if CRP-1 project turns out to be unsuccessful. Besides, when building a new plant, Nucleon will experience loss of focus from R&D activities, which was a core competency for the company, and the process uncertainty of shifting the fermentation procedure adds more onto the risk.

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.

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.

Costco’s infrastructure skills and capabilities support operations for achieving low cost global leadership in warehouse retail sales and better than industry average. Costco’s culture strives to provide a limited variety of quality merchandise goods from private label and some well established brands.

Core competencies, capabilities and capacity: This option would require a high level of changes within the organization. Nucleon’s existing core competencies and capabilities is in the area of R&D. It has no prior experience of production and manufacturing. Manufacturing is significantly different than R&D. It would require Nucleon to acquire different talent, skillsets, experience and very difference focus in developing manufacturing competencies and capabilities.