Company Profile
Grainger
Company Overview
Grainger helps customers save time and money by providing them the right products to keep their facilities up and running.
Grainger's customers are 1.8 million businesses and institutions across North America and China. While each customer has a unique facility to operate and a different problem to solve, our customers all share the same requirement: when they need one of Grainger's products, they often need it right away.
With more than 17,000 knowledgeable employees, the Grainger team works closely with customers to better understand their challenges and provide cost-saving solutions. Grainger's employees serve customers more than 115,000 times every day through multiple channels.
With 2006 sales of $5.9 billion, Grainger is a Fortune 500 company and a perennial member of Fortune magazine's Most Admired Companies list.
Grainger works with more than 1,300 suppliers to provide customers with access to more than 800,000 products from categories including:
Company History
William W. (Bill) Grainger founded a wholesale electric motor sales and distribution business in Chicago in 1927. He established the company to provide an efficient solution for customers to access a consistent supply of electric motors. The business was incorporated as W. W. Grainger, Inc. in 1928. Sales in the early days were generated primarily through mail order via post cards and a catalog. The MotorBook, as the catalog was originally called, was the basis for today's Grainger catalog.
Over the last 80 years, Grainger's product line has expanded to more than 800,000 products and repair parts. The Grainger branch network has grown steadily over the years, and today there are more than 425 Grainger branches in the U.S. and nearly 600 in North America and China.
The 4000+-page Grainger catalog is published annually and is available on CD-ROM and online at Grainger.com, the company's award-winning Web site.
Notable Products / Brands
Dayton, Westward
Notable Accomplishments / Recognition
Grainger has contributed $1 million to the American Red Cross to build a unique disaster volunteer program. This $1 million serves as seed money for 16 Red Cross chapters across the country to create Ready When the Time Comes (RWTC) corporate volunteer programs. Eight chapters will participate in the program in 2006-2007 and eight more in 2007-2008.
Grainger is the National Founding Sponsor of this program. Through the RWTC program, the American Red Cross chapters will partner with local businesses to train employees, retirees and their family members to support disaster relief efforts.
Benefits
Grainger employees experience a unique working environment—the stability of an established industry leader combined with interesting opportunities to learn, grow, and make a difference for our customers.
Work/Life Benefits — To help balance work and life outside of work, Grainger provides employees with a variety of benefits in addition to vacation and holidays. These benefits include an employee assistance program, an adoption benefit, an educational assistance program, a dependent care assistance plan, access to auto and homeowners insurance, long term care, legal coverage and a 3-for-1 matching charitable gifts program. Our corporate facility offers employees a fitness center and convenience store.