The competitive landscape has shifted thanks to growing consolidation, Grainger President and COO Jim Ryan said recently.

Small regional and local distributors still command the overwhelming share of this market,” he said. “But they’re under attack from larger regional and national players. The billion-dollar plus players are growing at a disproportionate rate to the market and to their smaller competitors.

“…There is going to be a need for specialist distributors, and there is absolutely a place for large-scale distributors. The ones who will find it more difficult are the generalists in the middle.”

Ryan was addressing analysts attending the annual meeting of the Electrical Products Group of New York. Grainger is a $5.9 billion broad-line supplier of …