Steel

The bulk of our consulting work over the last 20-plus years has been in the steel industry. If you want help getting something done in the steel industry, you should talk to us. Here is some of what you should know about our steel industry expertise:

  • Our clients are CEO’s and senior managers from all parts of the industry
  • We work primarily with the leading mini-mill and integrated producers, processors, fabricators and distributors
  • We also work with banks, private equity funds, raw material suppliers and governments who want to know how to supply, invest in or support the steel industry successfully
  • We have worked in all product areas, including sheet, plate, long products, carbon, stainless, and specialty. We’ve also worked in some of the primary end-use markets such as pipe and tube, forging, stamping and so on.
  • We help develop corporate and business strategies. We are not engineers or former steel industry managers. We are strategists first and foremost with a deep understanding of how the steel industry works
  • We take on one of two main consulting roles depending on client needs. We work either as a partner to senior management or as an industry expert. Neither role is completely separate from the other
  • As a partner to senior management, we help the CEO and the senior management group with strategy, leadership, organization and implementation. We do this in industries besides steel, but our most varied and comprehensive range of support is in the steel industry.
  • These partner relationships continue over a number of months or years with more or less intense involvement on our part at different times in strategy, organization and implementation
  • When it comes to strategy, we function effectively as our client’s strategy department. We assist in designing a coherent annual strategy process. We help develop the strategic agenda. We supply analyses of particular issues or situations, such as the addition of new products, the impact of e-business or China or trade sanctions on the business. We present to Boards of Directors and we design and facilitate the strategic conversation over a series of meetings or extended sessions.

  • As organization consultants, we help optimize clients’ organizational design to support the strategy they want to pursue. We help define boundaries between business unit and corporate levels of operation and between support functions and the line.
  • As implementation partners, we work with the client through the process of putting in place the ideas developed through the strategy or organization problem solving. We will work as needed by the client to support in any area affected by the changes in strategy or organization. We provide ongoing analytical resources in addition to facilitation support for the senior group charged with making things happen.
  • Our less complex and shorter assignments tend to focus on our role as steel industry experts, in which we use our knowledge of the industry to explain quickly and clearly what is going on and what strategic options are sensible or possible
  • We help clients looking to acquire or invest in new product lines, geographies, end-use sectors or technologies.
  • We supply such analyses as cost structures and industry cost curves, competitor positions and intentions, market size and structure, major customer segments and critical developments such as price histories and trends and so on.
  • In the case of clients trying to make an acquisition, we will provide an assessment of the acquisition target as well as help the client anchor the move in the existing strategy – or, if it won’t fit, to move on.
  • We frequently help private equity investors looking at acquisitions in the industry or financial institutions reviewing loans and other industry financing. In many of these assignments, we provide options for reconfiguration of assets and asset disposal in addition to the kind of strategic analyses noted above.
  • In some cases, our client is two (or more) companies looking to explore either a merger of equals or a joint venture investment. They ask us to assess the prospective combination or project. In this role, the parties trust us to provide objective, non-partisan opinion based on information that often only we see in its entirety
  • In all our assignments, clients value our combination of industry knowledge, strategic creativity, realistic insight and straight talk

Other steel industry information resources

Our commitment to helping clients find the best available information is such that we have partnered with the Steel Manufacturers’ Association to improve the availability of timely, accurate long product supply and demand information to US producers.

In addition, we have developed a blog to help research the steel industry and to get more of a flavor of our work and how we think about strategy in steel. You can find it at Nerds of Steel. Here you get an opportunity to look over our shoulders (periodically & virtually) at what tools we use, the analyses we make and the insights we bring to developing strategy in an industrial market. You can sign up to gain access to some useful data. And the blog output can be directed straight to your feedreader via RSS or to your inbox via email.