Innovation

 

Customer inspired innovation, technology driven solutions

Our Customer Centric Approach

At Sherwin-Williams, innovation is tightly knit into the fabric of our culture. We are driven by the desire to help our customers grow their business and achieve greater success. As part of our heritage, our customers are at the center of our innovation process. We prioritize staying on top of trends, engaging our customers to gain valuable insight into their challenges and keeping a keen eye on emerging technology across the globe. 

 

Our relentless commitment to the customer differentiates us from our competition, driving shareholder value today and for the foreseeable future.


Research & Development (R&D) at a glance

2,000+

R&D employees worldwide

22,000+

years of combined SHW R&D experience

2,100+

active patents

10 years

average R&D employee tenure

Over 150-Year Legacy of Innovation

Innovation is at the core of who we are and what we do. Our approach leverages all our assets to gain deep insights into customer challenges. Our more than 3,500 field sales reps in Paint Stores Group regularly visit job sites to gain a comprehensive understanding of customer pain points and to partner with them to grow their business. We gain additional insight from customer interactions in our 4,700 stores every day.

 

In our Industrial businesses, we have technical reps embedded at our customers’ manufacturing facilities seeking to understand the entirety of their processes, drive throughput, increase efficiency and reduce waste. We continuously bring these customer insights to chemists and engineers across our global R&D facilities. This combination of customer intimacy and technical expertise is unique and provides innovative solutions to our customers biggest challenges. 

Intellectual Property

Sherwin-Williams relies on the patent, trademark, trade secret and copyright laws of the United States and other countries to protect our intellectual property rights. We own patents in the following categories: automotive, consumer brands, diversified brands, product finishes, protective & marine, stores and wood care.