Essay on Nucor Corporation Analysis

Growth in troubled steel industry. How to sustain Nucor’s earnings growth in the industry, which has many marginal competitors and production overcapacity.

The prospects for future profitability of the U.S. steel makers are very unattractive. Unless America can successfully combat China’s enormously, inexpensive, production ability, I do not see any American steel company surviving. China just has too big of a production ability and has the workforce to do it cheaply. Nucor will have to expand in this industry in the United States to survive. If the WTO

3. Please apply Porter’s Five Forces model to the steel industry. While doing so, clearly identify who is behind each force – for instance Suppliers, Buyers, Substitutes, Competitors, etc. And what is the impact of each force on the profitability of the industry – in terms of the following levels - High/Medium/Low. At the end, also provide a summary of all the five forces and propose whether you think the steel industry is attractive industry or not an attractive industry.

We believe that they should expand. Nucor is self-reliant and has a good strategy which made the company the second largest producer in the US. They should expand to global market to be able to increase their market share. They can go to markets such as Russia, China or Brazil, since they are dumping into the US market. However they should evaluate the Porter five forces before making any decisions since these markets are really competitive.

This was a move motivated by Kennedy’s need to stop other industries from gratuitously spiking their prices. Kennedy further goes to shame the steel industries by bringing their “disregard of their public responsibilities” (82-82) to American citizens’ attention. Highlighting what the steel industries are doing to citizens generates more shame to the companies through the American people. While at first glance, citizens might not see how this affects them, Kennedy enlightens them on the increase of the cost of everyday essentials for Americans such as homes, autos, and appliances this negligent move will make. Accordingly, this creates a bigger group of people to show disgust in the companies, in addition to pulling the people together, which further benefits Kennedy. Informing the American people

Unsurprisingly the US Steel industry was influential in Bush’s decision to erect trade barriers on steel imports, with their uncompetitive and politically sensitive nature proving to be a constraint on the Bush’s government’s free trade ambitions. Following a surge in foreign imports, the industry had been filing various anti-dumping cases – over one hundred in between 1999 and 2002 (Ho, 2003, pp12-13). Such pressures were solidified when the International Trade Commission ruled that imports has caused ‘serious injury’ to US steel producers (USITC, 2001). Adding further

„« Competition - as stated earlier, competition is fierce and foreign competitors are dumping steel.

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.

Until 2009, Nucor operated in an industry which experienced significant output declines during recent decades. The U.S. steel industry was operating at capacity levels of less than 50 percent and had lost more than 50,000 jobs since 2000. Growth of the Chinese steel industry posed a serious threat for domestic steel producers (Scott, 2009). Since that time, however, the U.S. steel industry has picked up momentum in response to soaring demand by the automobile and construction industries. Steel is the preferred material by the construction industry because of its performance, strength, reliability and versatility. In addition to construction, the automobile, energy and container industries have all been responsible for increasing steel consumption (Market Research.com, 2011).

The Voluntary Restraint Agreement caused the price of steel to increase dramatically during the late 1980’s, resulting in a twenty percent increase between January 1988 and March 1989 (Seebald, 1991). With a binding price floor on foreign imports, domestic steel manufacturers took advantage of the market by increasing the price of steel.

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.

J. Nucor competed in the markets for a wide variety of finished steel products and unfinished steel products, plus the markets for scrap steel and scrap substitutes. In detail, competition for

“In the 20 years to 2000, the world’s 40 largest steel companies made cumulative losses before tax of US$10 billion, in spite of investing around US$75 billion in new capital equipment. In the following five years, profitability increased but the return on capital was still low (…)”.

New entrants in the industry that are battling to have a share of the market

Later, many Third World countries such as Brazil built their own steel industries and large U.S. steelmakers faced increased competition from smaller, nonunion mills. The U.S. produced about half of the world's steel in 1945; by 1991 it was the third largest producer, with only 11% of the world market, behind the former Soviet Union and Japan. Since the 1970s, growing competition and the increasing availability of alternative materials, such as plastic, slowed steel industry growth; employment in the United States steel industry dropped from 2.5 million in 1974 to 1.6 million in 1991. Global production stood at 736 million tons in1991, down from 786million tons in 1988 (The Columbia Encyclopedia, 1993).