. Within two years, that surplus had been replaced by a significant level of debt which was taken on to introduce innovation to the company. This is characteristic of the years since Iverson took over the operating responsibilities for the company, and reflects his style of management. The company seeks to minimize its costs not through contentious relationships with its employees, but through technological innovation and negotiations with suppliers.
To this point, Nucor has operated with very little formal structure, which has been a successful strategy during the years where the mini-mill market itself was growing. There is no formal business plan agenda in place, nor does the company have an overriding business plan that is public knowledge. Information about the company's performance is shared openly with employees, and employees are encouraged to provide solutions to problems they face, but the strategic direction of the company is largely left to Iverson and, more recently, to his assistant, Aycock. While this strategy has served the company well to this point, it poses a possible weakness as the industry and Nucor enter a more competitive stage with competition coming from overseas as well as from integrated mills and other mini-mills.
This informal structure encompasses nearly all of the company, including the marketing function. There is no overall direction to the development of new products, although the company regularly invests in new technology for its existing product line, and, through Iverson, Nucor has been astute enough to capture significant market share when it has entered new markets in the past. However, the steel industry, including the mini-mill segment, is characterized by high levels of innovation and the anticipation of customer needs by other companies, most particularly the foreign competitors and the integrated mills, neither of whom are pleased with the degradation in market share that the m...