Executive Summary:

Nucor Corporation was the most profitable steel producer in North America in both 2005 and 2006. It is regarded as a low-cost steel producer in the United States, and one of the most efficient and technologically innovative steel producers in the world. Nucor is known for its aggressive pursuit of innovation and technical excellence, rigorous quality systems, strong emphasis on employee relations and workforce productivity, cost conscious corporate culture, and ability to achieve low costs per ton produced (C-194). Offering a streamlined organizational structure, Nucor uses its ability to achieve incentive-based compensation systems that rewards goal-orientated individuals for their performance. Over the years Nucor has expanded progressively into the manufacturer of a wider and wider range of steel products, which has gotten it to be able to offer steel users one of the broadest product lineups in the industry. In this industry steel products are considered commodities, and most steel plants turn out products with comparable quality to other companies. This makes one producer’s reinforcing bar essentially the same as another producer’s reinforcing bar, which in turn makes a particular grade of sheet steel made at one plant almost identical to the same grade of sheet steel made from another plant (C-195). Because of this, steel producers are forced to be price-competitive with the market price of each individual steel product being driven by demand-supply conditions for that product. After considering all of these aspects of Nucor, and the steel industry I will be discussing the strength of the competitive forces, the key success factors for this industry, and the pros and cons of Nucor’s competitive strategy. A SWOT analysis will further help me analyze the situation so then I can look at how attractive Nucor’s value chain is