Nucor Executive Summary

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.

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

In light of the surplus steel products in the U.S., Nucor along with other steel producers had to lower their prices in order to compete with the extremely low priced foreign steel that flooded the U.S. market. Nucor was not adversely affected by the price change; in fact they were able to maintain their financial health (Thompson, 2007).

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:

Nucor Steel is one of the major steel producers in the world and a market leader in America that is facing a threat of competitive pressures from potential international players.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Value Chain analysis evaluates each step business goes through from inception to finality. The goal is to maximize the value for the total cost. Costco's mission is to provide their members with quality goods and services at the lowest possible prices. The company’s mission, values and strategies suggest Costco uses a broad enterprise strategy which fits in the societal framework. To ensure employee motivation, Costco offers them a unique banquet of benefits. This include; paying health benefits for them, 50% higher wage, employee retention of over 90 percent, and maintaining employees even during recession periods (Costco, 2010). The Company’s strength is its primary value chains which split into two distinct functions: Demand fulfilment and Demand generation. Demand fulfilment includes input logistics, operations, and output logistics. Demand generation involves sales, marketing, and service department which breaks down into sub-tiers. Costco’s support activities include HRM, technology development, firm infrastructure and procurement. Costco’s weaknesses are difficult to pinpoint; one weakness is persistent low operating profit margins. Bigger profits can occur by not paying employee benefits and with demanding higher returns from their suppliers. The problem would be at what cost?  Costco receives cost advantages from value adding major (brand items) activities. However, it continues to experience a challenge

The main objective of a low-cost provider is to achieve a lower overall cost than its main competitors and rivals by means of underpricing (Gamble, 93). This is also known as price advantage in order to attract customers. Companies that use this strategy will achieve high sales volumes while striving for low cost margins. For example, Wal-Mart is known to have considerable low prices that attract a broad spectrum of customers. People who shop at Wal-Mart are familiar with their “Rollback Prices” which focus on the idea of everyday low prices that are sold at a far cheaper rate than its main competitors. They are able to sustain these prices because of a successful supply chain market. Many of the products they sell are from foreign and domestic markets that focus on a lower price demand. This allows Wal-Mart to sell their products at lower prices at a high volume. Basically, they buy a huge quantity in volume in order to achieve a lower price to gain a higher profit.