Rakuten enters B2B space in India, launches SaaS product SixthSense

Pune: Japanese web agency Rakuten is coming into the business-to-business (B2B) area in India with the launch of a software-as-a-service product, SixthSense. The code to buyer observability platform has been created by the corporate’s improvement centre in India and was being utilized by Rakuten throughout its world places over the previous couple of years.

“India is the primary market the place we’re launching this, given the hypergrowth we see right here,” Sunil Gopinath, CEO, Rakuten India, advised ET.

Over time, the corporate might take a look at taking this to different markets within the Asia Pacific area. Whereas that is the primary such product that the corporate is launching externally, Gopinath mentioned that there have been a couple of different merchandise that have been being incubated that could be launched at a later date.

The platform, which shall be obtainable on a subscription mannequin, will assist present end-to-end visibility of all the IT surroundings, from improvement to enterprise operations. There may be loads of digitisation of merchandise and enterprise commerce that’s occurring in India and there’s a important want for merchandise like this within the Indian market, mentioned Gopinath.

“The product has matured and now we have seen vital advantages to our prospects. Our product launch is seeking to clear up for Indian IT leaders which can make it stand out and validate its high quality for a world rollout,” he added.

The Indian market presents alternatives throughout tech startups and mid to massive dimension enterprises for the product, making it a viable launch market. Along with reactively determining challenges that come up whereas creating a product, the platform also can proactively discover points earlier than they occur, he mentioned.

With a major improve in knowledge generated from throughout the enterprise, there may be an pressing want, particularly within the midst of a constantly reworking digital surroundings, to glean insights from knowledge at a quicker price and with a better ROI for companies to remain aggressive. “With our sturdy capabilities in knowledge sciences and AI, Rakuten Sixth Sense will ship on superior capabilities that can differentiate it. I anticipate Rakuten SixthSense to develop into a major income contributor inside Rakuten’s world know-how hubs,” mentioned Yasufumi Hirai, group government vice chairman, CIO, and CISO (chief info safety officer) of Rakuten.

Rakuten runs two supply centres in India with a robust give attention to artificial intelligence, knowledge science, e-commerce and fintech. India is the biggest of the corporate’s 9 know-how hubs outdoors Japan, with over 1,600 workers.