6. Recommendations

Before actually making the recommendations, it is useful to mention that these will be presented in a bulleted format in order to increase the readability and clarity of the ideas, as well as to offer the ability to follow through the issues which have been identified throughout the previous sections. In this order of ideas, the following lines present some of the recommended courses for action for Nucor:

The company should become more involved in the well-being of the American steel industry and should form coalitions with other American steel manufacturers in order to influence the government to reduce the threat of cheap imports; the action should be based on political rights and should emphasize the social and economic impacts of cheaper imports, such as the demise of the American steel industry, the loss of thousands of jobs, the decreased living standards of the population, the increased unemployment rate and so on the managerial team at Nucor should invest more in their human resource. The modern day employee is perceived as the most valuable organizational asset for the simple reason that he has the ability to transform commodities into products; he represents the company's liaison with the customers and as such generates customer satisfaction and sustainable future orders and revenues. Addressing this matter could be handled through the implementation of more incentives, including training programs as a means of professional formation, financial rewards, flexible working schedules and so on. It is nevertheless true that such actions would increase operational costs, but they would also bring about increases in productivity, and ultimately, in profits.

The third recommendation sees that the company invests more in research and development as a means of supporting not only its own development, but the advancement of the overall steel industry. The future is expected to bring about massive technological innovations and, unless Nucor is prepared to embrace these changes, its chances of survival are drastically reduced.

7. Conclusions

The Nucor Corporation is a leading manufacturer of steel-based products within the American...

Despite its national success, the company has limited its efforts of penetrating the global context. Most of the company's efforts revolve around actions to reduce costs, in order to place itself as an industry leader, in terms of retail prices. This strategy has been successfully implemented and continues to drive demand for the Nucor products.
The industry in which Nucor operates is generally dynamic, influenced tremendously by the abundance of cheap imports. The matter is however being addressed at a political level. Notwithstanding this threat, but focusing on the internal capabilities of Nucor, the advice to an investor would be that of including the steel company's stock within his portfolio.

Despite the past and current success of the cost leading strategy, it may not suffice the future desires of the company. This basically means that the organization should turn its attention towards other corporate elements, such as the role of the staff members, the role of technological advancements or the well-being of the American steel industry.