Rakuten opens the Rakuten Institute of Technology in Paris
Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten has opened the Rakuten Institute of Technology, a dedicated research and development organisation in Paris.
Rakuten said the organisation is the first of its kind in Europe and will commission projects that will help revolutionise data analytics, fraud detection, recommendation systems, image processing, user interfaces and ‘online to offline’ transition in e-commerce.
Laurent Ach, a specialist in CGI and user interfaces, has been appointed as director of the institute and will head up the team of engineers.
He said: “Rakuten’s business covers a wide variety of fields including logistics, digital media payments and of course e-commerce. Innovation is fundamental when it comes to improving these services, and we want to be the company anticipating future uses for these types of technology. The RIT prides itself on bringing together the best creative thinkers to revolutionise internet retailing and digital business.”
Ach said the Paris team will be focusing on the links between bricks-and-mortar stores and online services in particular, as well as exploring new forms of digital interaction. He added: “Setting up our department alongside the Rakuten PriceMinister team should also present some opportunities for collaboration and we are looking forward to learning from them.”
RIT has 40 employees in Tokyo and a further 10 in New York. RIT’s Paris office will start with an additional five employees and, combined with Rakuten’s Big Data Group in Paris, will add a total of 20 new employees during 2014.
Rakuten chief executive Hiroshi Mikitani said: “Our aim globally is to empower retailers and merchants to sell online, and to do this we must keep up with consumers’ browsing and buying habits – online, on mobile, via social and any other channels that they may want to use in their purchase journey. That’s why we’ve increased the size of our global research team, so they can work on bringing the next big thing in e-commerce to market, with our support.”
