We caught up with Colin Leow, Country Director, Rakuten Insight Malaysia in his new office recently to discuss what make Rakuten Insight uniquely positioned – geographically and strategically – to support the ever-growing demand of Online Research in Malaysia.

J: Congrats on the opening of the Rakuten Insight Malaysia Office! Care you tell us where you are at, and how many is in the office?

C : Thank you! Our office, with 6 personnel now, is located in Bangsar South City, and I will say it is in a strategic location. This is because we are at the mid-point in Klang Valley between KL centre and PJ area. This will allow us to be situated close to most of our clients.

J: What is the key driver of opening the Malaysia office?

C : As mentioned, one of the key drivers would be the idea of getting closer to our local clients. Secondly, and importantly, is to develop our local talents with depth Market Research knowledge so to service the clients effectively.

J: What will be the focus in terms of the service and product you and your team is delivering to the client in Malaysia?

C : At this juncture, we would like to focus on our online panel capabilities more and continue to grow it. Soon, perhaps somewhere in mid-2019, we definitely like to bring in more capabilities and solutions by collaborating with Rakuten Group’s assets.

J: Colin, your experience had you in the client side of business, notably GfK and Nielsen, perhaps you can tell us how Rakuten Insight differentiate from its competitors.

C : One of the distinct differentiations is that Rakuten Insight belong to Rakuten Group which owned many subsidiaries particularly in the tech industry. With the expanse of technologies, it will allow us to explore outside of the box solutions by the concept of seamless, efficient and digital.
In addition, living up to our corporate spirit and mindset of “kaizen & omotenashi’ which means continue improvement and heartful service, we strive to provide our service with best quality. And of course, ensuring our clients successes by achieving their business objectives.

J: Any good advice for client who is thinking of conducting Online Research in Malaysia or South East Asia?

C : I like to advise client to appreciate the culture and language diversity of South East Asia while conducting research. There are needs to localise questionnaire for the respondents to better understand the questions so that the data quality will be better. Another point is Asians tends to be less expressive and it will be best to avoid having Open Ends question.