Former Amazon Exec To Lead Wal-Mart Technology Centre

Gunaranjan Pemmaraju has been absorbed by Wal-Mart Labs India to lead its technology centre. The announcement made on the official Wal-Mart Blog, states that Pemmaraju will be responsible to "hire, develop and deliver innovative technologies that will accelerate the new generation of e-commerce for millions of Walmart customers around the world." Pemmaraju was the former director of engineering at Amazon.com, the world's largest e-commerce company.

Prior to Amazon.com, Pemmaraju was vice president of product development at i2 Technologies, and he brings with him an 11-year experience in various leadership roles.  He started his career as a management associate at Citibank in 1997. He holds a bachelor's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and a MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.

Wal-Mart Lab, which was launched a few months back in Bangalore, will focus on combining various media including social, mobile and retail to strengthen Wal-Mart sales. Last year, Wal-Mart had acquired Anand Rajaraman's Social Media Firm Kosmix in a bid to expand its social commerce play.

Not losing a foot to Wal-Mart, Amazon.com also commenced its e-commerce operations in India by launching Junglee.com. Junglee.com is an online shopping service that enables customers to find and discover products from online and offline retailers in India as also from the parent site Amazon.com. Currently, the site is in Beta and will continue to be so for coming several months.