Mission/Vision Statements: Nucor Corp. and the U.S. Steel Corp.
Instructions:
Purpose of Assignment
The purpose of this assignment is to give learners hands on experience working, mission, and vision statements and to increase learner’s knowledge of an organization’s core competencies.
Assignment Steps
Resources: Management: A Practical Introduction, Chapters 5, & 6, Table 6.1; chosen organization’s mission, vision, and value statements, and strategic plan, BLS Industries at a Glance.
https://www.bls.gov/iag/
Examine the mission and vision statements of your place of employment (NUCOR CORPORATION)
http://nucor.com/story/prologue/ or an organization with which you are familiar. Then, use the internet to locate and examine the mission and vision statement of a comparable organization.
PART 1 – Use the Mission and Vision Comparison Table provided to compare your organization’s mission and vision statement to the one you found on the internet.
PART 2 – Create a 1,200 -1,400 word analysis including the following:
Compare your organization’s mission, vision, and values against the criteria for what makes for robust statements.
Summarize what you concluded when you compared your organization to the organization you found on the internet.
Identify your organization’s core competencies.
Examine your organization’s core competencies based on established definitions. Include a rationale for the selection of these core competencies.
Briefly summarize your organization’s strategic goals.
Evaluate whether your organization’s current behavior and business goals are aligned to its mission, vision, values, and core competencies.
Determine if your organization lives up to its own mission, vision, and values.
Justify your determination.
Append your Mission and Vision Comparison Table to the end of the document after your Reference page. (Learn how to do this in MS Word using the proper tool)
Solution
Mission/Vision Statements: Nucor Corp. and the U.S. Steel Corp.
The mission and vision statements of a company should be articulate enough to state the purpose the organization, what it wishes to achieve, and its long-term objective. Nucor Corporation’s mission and vision statement are succinct and outline the purpose and long-term goal of the company. The goal of the company is to “Take Care of Customers.” The statement further elaborates how it wishes to achieve the mission. The vision states that the company focuses on “being the safest, highest quality, lowest cost, most productive and most profitable steel and steel products company in the world.” These statements integrate customer interests, economic goals, its products and services, concern about its image, location for competing, strengths, and attitude towards employees by referring to them as teammates. It further states that “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” (Nucor Corp., 2017). The statement includes its values and commitment to protecting and valuing cultures, promoting environmental sustainability, and developing the society. Therefore, it meets the criteria for good mission and vision statements.
The U.S. Steel Corporation’s mission is clear as is its vision statement. The Corporation’s mission is presented in the form of a slogan “Making Steel,” and its vision statement states that the company wishes to be “World Competitive. Building Value”. Additionally, the company runs on five values: safety, diversity/inclusion, and attention on cost, protection of the environment, and results and accountability (U.S. Steel Corp., 2017). These statements and values consider the customers, outlines the product and service, location of competition, the values and desired public image, and strengths (David, 1989). However, it fails to cite its state its attitude towards employees.
One of the core competencies of Nucor Corp. is its commitment to cost-reduction in the production process. The company offers competitive prices and commits to the reduction of its costs of production and maintenance of high quality in the process. The process of cost reduction involves effective systems, efficient mills, and management. Nucor Corp. has an efficient supply chain management and its operations remain cost-effective due to the integration of new technologies in production. Additionally, its decentralized management and compensation on the basis of performance influence its production costs significantly. The choice of this competence was made on its influence on the company’s mission, which partly states that Nucor focuses on taking care of it customers by ensuring the lowest cost without compromising quality and safety (Nucor Corp., 2017).
Another competence of the Nucor Corp. is its employees, termed teammates. The corporation’s employees work as a team to ensure the achievement of set goals and objectives. The team works collectively towards the improvement of production efficiency, enhancement of innovation, creation of a safe workplace, and the promotion of positive environment for team and team-management engagement. The teamwork resulting from the interaction ensures constant improvement on production, high-quality production, and efficient service delivery to customers. The company motivates employees and ensures the creation of an effective workplace environment. It offers job security and numerous incentives to employees in monetary and non-monetary rewards to motivate and encourage the team to give their best towards constant improvements in productivity, quality, service delivery, and profitability. The choice of this competence was influenced by the importance of employees in promoting the achievement of organizational goals (Kinicki & Williams, 2016). Additionally, the company was named the 26th best employer in the U.S. causing a need to highlight its strength in terms of employees (Nucor Corp., 2017).
Nucor Corp. focuses on taking care of its customers by being the safest in the steel production. The safety of its production and products starts with the safety of their employees. The company’s strategic goal aligns with the mission statement and its key competencies. Nucor prides itself in promoting workplace safety and the safety of its products. The company understands the importance of employee and customer safety in the achievement of its mission (Nucor Corp., 2017). It states that it does not promote safety from pressures of regulations but because of its importance in promoting employee and customer confidence in its operations and products. Additionally, safety in the workplace enhances production efficiency, profitability, and improves employee health and wellbeing. Continued improvements of the company’s mills, the development and implementation of safety programs, and training of employees on safety ensure constant improvement and guarantee the achievement of strategic goals (Bragdon, 2016).
Other key competencies of Nucor Corp. include a relentless focus on ensuring environmental sustainability and strict corporate social responsibility. These play a fundamental role in promoting the mission and ensuring the achievement of their vision. Focusing on the achievement of environmental sustainability creates a platform for safe production. In addition, sustainability and the consideration of the society ensures safe and quality production. These factors give Nucor a competitive edge. Moreover, focusing on recycling ensures environmental sustainability and cuts down on costs boosting cost-effectiveness and profitability. The behavior aligns with the mission statement. Further, the focus placed on the enhancement of energy efficiency by using technologies with minimal emissions ensures production efficiency and profitability. The company hopes to become the safest, most productive, and most profitable still production in the world. According to Bragdon (2016), Nucor Corp. is the leading steel producer in the U.S. and is renowned for quality and safe products and its input in the society and in promoting environmental sustainability. On these issues then the corporation lives up to its mission statement.
The Nucor Corporation’s behavior and goals are aligned with its mission, vision, and values and core competencies. The company continues to focus on the promotion of workplace safety, environmental safety and sustainability, safe production and operations, team-building, and constant quality improvement (Nucor Corp., 2017). These issues reflect the values of hard-work and commitment to the corporation’s mission and vision. Moreover, focusing on continuous improvement, investing in technologies and innovation, and fair compensation promotes the team, enhances productivity and quality, and ensures cost-effectiveness in the various processes of production. Most importantly, effective management guarantees alignment to the set corporate goals and statements and enhances corporate competencies.
Over the years, the Nucor Corp. has depicted consistency
in living up to its mission, vision, and values. The company remains one of the
safest steel production companies to work for and relentlessly focuses on the
achievement of better workplace conditions. Recently, it was named one of the
best employers in the country (Bragdon, 2016). Additionally, it
lives up to its mission by taking care of its customers by ensuring safe
production, environmental sustainability, quality products at considerably
lower costs, and efficient customer service. The consideration of these factors
shows a company striving to achieve a competitive advantage over other global
players in the industry.
References
Bragdon, J. H. (2016). Companies that mimic life : leaders of the emerging corporate renaissance. Saltaire, UK: Greenleaf Publishing.
David, F. R. (1989). How companies define their mission. Long Range Planning (22) 1, 90-97.
Kinicki, A., & Williams, B. K. (2016). Management : a practical introduction. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Nucor Corp. (2017). Our Mission. Retrieved from Nocur.com: http://www.nucor.com/story/mission/
Nucor Corp. (2017). Our Responsibility. Retrieved from Our Responsibility: http://www.nucor.com/responsibility/
U.S. Steel Corp. (2017). About U. S. Steel – Corporate Profile. Retrieved from united States Steel Corporation: https://www.ussteel.com/uss/portal/home/aboutus/corporateprofile
Part I – Mission and Vision Statements Comparative Analysis
| Mission | Nucor Corp. | U.S. Steel Corp. |
| Customers | -Focus is on taking care of customers. | -Customers are a priority. |
| Product or Service | -Product and service clearly stated. Production of steel. | -Clearly stated. Production of steel. |
| Geographical Area | To Compete globally. | To compete globally. |
| Basic Technology | -Not outlined. | -Not outlined. |
| Economic | -Lowest cost, be most productive, and highly profitable. | -Value addition. |
| Beliefs and Values | -Environmental sustainability. -Community development. -Cultural stewards. -Teammates. | -Diversity and inclusion. -safety -cost effectiveness. -Environmental stewardship. -Results and accountability. |
| Major Strengths | -Teamwork. -cost-effectiveness -Innovation and new technologies. -Quality. -Safety. -Production efficiency. | -Value addition. -Competitiveness. |
| Public responsibility | -Safe. -Environmental and cultural steward. -Quality, low cost, and efficient. | -Quality. -Environmental stewards. |
| Attitude Toward Employees | -Teammates. -Employees are valued. | -Not specified. |
| Vision | ||
| Appropriate | -Appropriate. | -Appropriate. |
| Standards of Excellence | -Competitive producer of steel in the world. | -Competitive global steel maker. |
| Clear Purpose and Direction | -Succinct and clear. | -Precise and clear. |
| Inspire | -Able to motivate the teammates to achieve set goals. | -Inspiring. |
| Easily Understood | -The statements are easily understood. However, it may be unmemorable due to its broadness. | -Easily understood. Short and precise. |
| Reflect Uniqueness | -Highly unique but the mission is vague in asserting to take care of customers since that is what every business aspires to do. | -Lacks uniqueness compared to other organizations in the industry since all aspire to make steel products and be competitive. |
| Ambitious | -Ambitious. The company aspires to be a world leader. | -Ambitious. Aspiration to achieve global competitiveness. |