2014 #GraingerShow Under Way
The three-day event for Grainger's customers has grown large enough for the exhibits to occupy two halls in the Orange County Convention Center's West Building.
Grainger Show 2014 is taking place at Orlando's Orange County Convention Center, bringing thousands of the company's best customers in for seminars, networking, a Universal Studios customer celebration event, and an impressively large trade show with hundreds of supplier companies exhibiting. Safety and security exhibitors fill a large portion of the trade show's layout in Halls D and E of the center's West Building; there also are lighting & electrical exhibitors, material handling, office supplies, laboratory supplies and test equipment, jan/san, pumps and plumbing supplies, and tool companies.
The event began Feb. 9 with a welcome event and continues Feb. 10-11. Seminars and networking sessions on managing inventory, e-procurement and OSHA compliance for health care, developing an effective safety management program, emergency preparedness, fleet and vehicle maintenance, and many more topics are on the show's educational agenda.
Those not attending the event, which is not open to the public, can check out https://twitter.com/grainger and #GraingerShow for more information about it.
On Jan. 24, Grainger Chairman, President, and CEO Jim Ryan announced the company posted record results in 2013: Sales of $9.4 billion were up 5 percent from $9.0 billion in 2012, and net earnings of $797 milloin in 2013 were up 16 percent from $690 million a year earlier. Online sales surpassed $3 billion in 2013, representing 33 percent of total company sales. "Despite a sluggish economic environment and aggressive investments in growth and infrastructure, this was another record year for Grainger," Ryan said. "We made significant investments aimed directly at increasing our scale and accelerating share gains in the large and highly fragmented MRO market. Going forward, we will continue to invest in areas such as eCommerce, sales force expansion, inventory management solutions, and distribution centers in order to drive market share growth and deliver solid returns."