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Anaf Durrani, vice president, technology product engineering, W.W. Grainger Inc.
W.W. Grainger Inc. has named Anaf Durrani, a veteran of digital product engineering, to fill a new executive position charged with developing digital applications designed to make it easier for them to find and purchase the products they need, Grainger announced this week.
Durrani, who most recently was vice president of technology product engineering at online tickets company Ticketmaster, fills the newly created position of vice president of Grainger’s technology product engineering organization. He reports to chief technology officer Jonny LeRoy.
“Our goal is to provide customers with modern and easy digital solutions to solve their problems, and core to that is having the right talent to build these solutions,” LeRoy says. “Anaf will help us continue to develop a leading engineering organization that brings the right solutions to market faster for our customers.”
Going beyond ‘Search by Image’
Durrani will build on recent Grainger technology developments, such as its “Search by Image” feature that lets customers upload images to a Grainger mobile app to find and purchase products. Grainger declines to comment on other new online features it expects to introduce, though CEO D.G. Macpherson said earlier this year that Grainger is taking several steps to continue to improve how it serves customers with digital technology and strategies. “We continue to invest in digital technology for our website,” he said during a second-quarter earnings call with investment analysts.
“We spend a lot of time with digital,” he said in a keynote address during this year’s B2B Next virtual conference. “We’re really trying to create curated solutions based on our product and customer knowledge.”
Durrani, with more than 20 years of experience in digital product development, has also worked at insurance company Cigna, online travel services firm Orbitz Worldwide, and Motorola Mobility.
New approaches to being customer-centric
At Grainger, he says, “my focus will be on empowering our engineering teams to drive meaningful change for customers by recruiting and developing talent, setting technical direction and introducing new approaches to customer-centric thinking.”
Jonny LeRoy, chief technology officer, W.W. Grainger
LeRoy, Durrani’s new boss, joined Grainger earlier this year to head its Technology Group as part of the company’s drive to further develop its digital technology systems and applications. LeRoy joined Grainger after working at technology consulting firm Thoughtworks, where he advised such digital pioneers as Google, Gap Inc. and America Online (AOL).
Grainger, which does about 70% of sales through ecommerce, reported a 2.4% year-over-year increase in total net sales to $3.02 billion for its most recent financial quarter ended Sept. 30.
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The post Grainger hires an ex-Ticketmaster executive for product engineering appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.
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