Rakuten

The e-Commerce giant Rakuten chose Pentalog to ramp up its team

Client location Bavière, Germany

Business area Marketplace

Product e-Commerce

Delivery center Iasi, Romania

Project type Development

About the client

The Japanese firm Rakuten operates internationally and is one of the world’s largest e-commerce companies. Their services range from online retail, to banking and payment services, to travel websites, online entertainment, and more. Rakuten is the number one online marketplace in Japan.Although their headquarters are in Japan, Rakuten has subsidiaries all over the world. Pentalog has had the pleasure of working with the Rakuten subsidiary in Bamberg Germany, which specifically focuses on providing online shopping services. In Germany, Rakuten is the third largest online market and is a serious competitor of Amazon.

PHP
MySQL
JAVA
Spring

The challenge

What can a high-tech e-Commerce company do when they need to quickly recruit more developers but are located in a city with limited IT resources? Rakuten’s subsidiary in Germany was stuck in this exact situation.

After Rakuten visited Pentalog’s delivery center in Iasi, Romania, it only took one week for the two companies to begin working together. Pentalog was able to set up a team, create a contract, and begin working with Rakuten in just 7 days.

Rakuten’s German subsidiary was faced with a recruitment challenge. They are located in Bamberg in northern Bavaria.

With a large amount of activity, the subsidiary needed a larger IT team. However, Bamberg’s limited resource of IT experts was running thin and the company needed to look elsewhere to find the talent they needed. There was not one specific problem that needed solving; rather the Rakuten team needed more talent to progress with all of their projects and activities.

In addition to needing talent, Rakuten also wanted to change their development style. They were looking for some assistance in order to make the transition to a product oriented approach to their operations.

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The solution

Rakuten’s decided to turn to Pentalog for an IT recruitment and outsourcing solution. Managers from Rakuten came to visit Pentalog’s delivery center in Iasi Romania at the end of July, 2016 and within just one week of their visit, Pentalog set up a seven person team, signed a contract, and began working on the project.

Pentalog’s Iasi team began with 1 scrum master/team leader, 3 developers, and 3 QAs. In May, Rakuten wanted to continue ramping up their team and Pentalog obliged this request by adding three more Java developers to the team within two weeks. Further ramp ups are expected in the future as this collaboration continues.

Pentalog’s team leader was integral to Rakuten’s transition to a product oriented development style. Through frequent on site visits in Bamberg and close collaboration, the Pentalog team leader helped Rakuten successfully transition into this new method of operation.

The results

Pentalog’s IT experts were not hired to work as a separate team to complete a specific project but as an extension to the Rakuten team. The two groups are mixed together and form one well-functioning unit and together they work on all issues related to marketplace technology and back office tools. The company’s internal language is English so there are no problems with communication and integration was simple.

What was most surprising to the Rakuten management was how quickly this collaboration was able to begin; it only took one week to get everything started. Rakuten had three things to say about Pentalog’s IT team, that they are quick, flexible, and easy to work with. As this project continues, Pentalog is likely to help Rakuten ramp up their team even more.

Cristian Neghina
Customer Success Manager

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