Walgreens

Founded in 1901 as a single drugstore, Walgreens today is a provider of trusted care in communities around the U.S. Through constant innovation, Walgreens has a history of breaking new ground to meet its customers’ needs and improve their health, from offering self-service stores beginning in the 1950s to developing a 5-star rated mobile app today. In its pharmacies, Walgreens was the first major drugstore chain to put prescriptions into child-resistant containers in the 1960s (long before it was required by law) and in 2016 was the first to offer safe medication disposal kiosks in its stores.

This drive to innovate led Walgreens to merge with European-based Alliance Boots in 2014 to form Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc., the first global pharmacy-led, health and well-being enterprise. Combining Walgreens with the Boots pharmacy chain and pharmaceutical distributor Alliance Healthcare has created opportunities to bring global beauty brands to Walgreens U.S. customers and offer more value to pharmacy patients through global pharmaceutical supply chains and group purchasing.

The merger also gave Walgreens the opportunity to think in a new way about our business. During the first phase of this transformation, we have made significant progress to bring our pharmacy services to more patients, improve the shopping experience in our stores and manage costs across our company. And most recently, we completed our acquisition of more than 1,900 Rite Aid drugstores in the U.S., making Walgreens quality health care accessible to more customers and patients.

As today’s health care and retail markets continue to evolve, customers are redefining value and convenience as they change the way they shop and adopt new technologies. Anticipating these changes, Walgreens is accelerating its transformation as a customer-led company and creating a new health care and retail experience. The first step was relaunching Walgreens brand in December 2017. “Trusted since 1901” focuses on three characteristics deeply rooted in Walgreens history: trust, care and accessibility.

With its brand as a foundation, Walgreens is building its business in four areas: pharmacy, front end, health care services and consumer services. These areas are being enabled through partnerships, new store layouts and product assortments, new approaches to pricing and promotion to unlock value and by helping team members better serve customers by eliminating unproductive work and putting more decisions in their hands.

Outside its stores, Walgreens and Walgreens Boots Alliance strive to be a force for good in the world by championing accessible health care, supporting the places in which we live and work, treating people with dignity and respect, protecting the environment and carrying quality products.

Walgreens is facing the future with confidence, finding new and exciting ways to stay relevant for the next generation of customers and deliver the full potential of Walgreens in a new and changing world.