Brian Walker, Senior Vice President and Chief Product Officer at W.W. Grainger, has spent nearly 20 years helping one of the world’s largest industrial distributors figure out how technology can drive competitive advantage.Â
On a recent episode of the Driven by DCKAP podcast, Walker sat down with host Karthik Chidambaram to talk through Grainger’s seven-year investment in:
- Data infrastructure
- How the company approaches the build versus buy decision in custom software
- What it looks like to manage change across a business that has shifted from majority branch-based sales to over 90 percent digital
The conversation offers a practical look at how a company of Grainger’s scale thinks about AI, product data, and continuous improvement as a long-term strategy rather than a trend to chase.
Podcast Highlights
Data Is the Product Grainger Actually Makes
Walker framed why Grainger invested so heavily in building its own software rather than relying on off-the-shelf solutions. As a distributor, the company doesn’t manufacture what it sells, which makes information one of the few things it can own and build upon. That thinking has shaped a seven-year technology strategy with AI built into the foundation from the start.
“Grainger, as a distributor, there’s not a lot of things we make. One of the things that we do make is data. It helps provide insight into the business, to our operations, and our customer experience. We embarked on a journey starting about seven years ago to build custom software that enabled our business in different ways, and within each of those custom software applications, every one of them is underpinned by a data model,” said Walker.
“If we can know more about our products and know more about our customers than our competition, we think we’ll be able to execute pretty well and win.”
Build vs. Buy Comes Down to Information Asymmetry
Rather than following a philosophical rule about when to build custom software, Grainger starts with a practical question: Is there something in the market that closely enough matches what the business needs? When the answer is no, and there’s enough leverage to justify the investment, they build.
That approach has produced a growing portfolio of proprietary systems spanning customer information management, product data, order execution, and their KeepStock inventory management platform. Walker said the aim is always the same regardless of domain.
“Our general aim is always to create a better customer experience, a better team member experience, and have it fit within our greater technology ecosystem with all of our other applications,” Walker said.
He acknowledged that the decision isn’t always clean: “When you think about failure, one of the hazards of that argument is that sometimes when you build, you don’t know beforehand if you’re actually going to create competitive advantage.”
Small, Frequent Releases Are How Change Actually Sticks
Grainger’s customer base includes maintenance and repair technicians who are not early technology adopters by nature. Getting them to shift behavior without disruption requires a deliberate approach to how new features and tools are introduced. Walker described the company’s release philosophy as the key to avoiding adoption problems on both the customer and internal operations side.
“Making small changes constantly is the key to making sure that you don’t leave customers behind within the experiences that you’re driving. We release often, many, many times per day per team. If we can drive small change, then the adoption curve doesn’t get out of whack,” Walker said.
He added that change management inside Grainger can be just as challenging as external adoption: “When we start to think about how an operation might change, how our KeepStock offer might change, we can start to reimagine the way that we execute the work, and that can get interesting.”
More Information
- For more details, visit the Driven Podcast portal or tune in on YouTube or Spotify
- For information about ERP integration, check out the DCKAP Distributor Blog
- Subscribe to the Driven by DCKAP Podcast
About the Driven by DCKAP Podcast
The Driven by DCKAP Podcast is an audio and video show that explores B2B leaders’ stories, digital journeys, and insights on trends in distribution and manufacturing. The podcast is hosted by Karthik Chidambaram, Founder & CEO of DCKAP, who grew the company from a startup to a global team of more than 200 employees. Follow Driven by DCKAP Podcast on YouTube or LinkedIn.
About DCKAP
DCKAP is a leader in digital solutions that help distributors’ systems talk to each other. Its technology simplifies software integrations, e-commerce, and product information management for B2B companies. DCKAP’s flagship product, DCKAP Integrator, helps distributors and manufacturers automate data between ERP, e-commerce, and CRM systems. Founded in 2005, DCKAP is a global and distributed team headquartered in Austin, TX. Visit dckap.com or follow on LinkedIn.
About W.W. Grainger
W.W. Grainger, Inc. is a leading broad line distributor with operations primarily in North America and Japan. At Grainger, We Keep the World Working® by serving more than 4.6 million customers worldwide with maintenance, repair and operating (MRO) products and value-added solutions delivered through innovative technology and deep customer expertise. Known for its commitment to service and purpose-driven culture, the Company reported 2025 revenue of $17.9 billion. For more information, visit www.grainger.com.
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