Japan's Rakuten forays into India's B2B tech segment, launches new product

This is the first time that Rakuten will be bringing its products and services into the Indian market

Rakuten India, the Bengaluru-based technology hub for Japan’s Rakuten Group, is foraying for the first time in India with its products in B2B technology, and has launched its new ‘Code to Customer’ Observability platform - Rakuten SixthSense.

Developed in India, Rakuten SixthSense, will provide businesses end-to-end visibility of the entire IT environment, from development to business operations.

Sunil Gopinath, CEO of Rakuten India said that the launch of SixthSense is the culmination of the experience and feedback it has received based on working with over 70 group companies.

“Our product launch is looking to solve for Indian IT leaders which will make it stand out and validate its quality for a global rollout. We have selected India as the first launch market as the region has always been a hub of exceptional engineering talent and a mature market that offers exciting opportunities for growth as Indian enterprises drive significant changes in their existing IT environments to support their growing customer needs. Also, we have a large R&D center in Bengaluru, which allows us to innovate and support our local customers more efficiently,” added Gopinath.

Rakuten India, is the largest among Rakuten’s 9 technology hubs outside Japan, has been an important tech hub for developing solutions for Rakuten’s global ecosystem of more than 70 diverse businesses since 2014. Gopinath also said that this could well see Rakuten launching some of its other services in the country.

The launch of Rakuten SixthSense into the B2B tech product market is the culmination of that experience, intelligence and learning. Rakuten SixthSense is launching in India and will gradually be rolled out to other global regions.

With a significant increase in data generated from across businesses, there is an urgent need, especially in the midst of a continuously transforming digital environment, to glean insights from data at a faster rate and with a higher ROI for businesses to stay competitive.

Rakuten SixthSense enables organisations to have a complete view of its data across the IT systems, applications, and business impact and allows for continual improvements based on the operational findings. As a SaaS platform, it delivers speed to customers while its pay-as-you-grow model offers customers a balance of value and investment.

Rakuten SixthSense is a strategic initiative and has a dedicated set of engineers working to develop and support internal as well as external customers. The team is expected to see significant growth in the number of engineers and product developers, shortly.

Yasufumi Hirai, group executive VP, CIO, and chief information security officer of Rakuten, said, “We are thrilled with the launch of Rakuten SixthSense, developed by our team at Rakuten India in Bengaluru who have been driving innovative solutions for Rakuten. With Rakuten Sixth Sense, we are looking to offer alternatives to solutions that are either expensive or opaque in their commercial models. With our strong capabilities in data sciences and AI, Rakuten Sixth Sense will deliver on advanced capabilities that will differentiate it. I expect Rakuten SixthSense to become a significant revenue

contributor within Rakuten’s global technology hubs.”

Rakuten India has 1,500 employees and plans to add additional 2,000-3,000 employees in the next two years.