Commerce Capability Center
Own Your Commerce Operations Instead of Renting Them
A Commerce Capability Center is your own team, in India, running the work that moves your catalog through every channel — product content, PIM/DAM, digital shelf, marketplace and seller operations. We help you build it, because we already run it.
The Work You Buy Is the Work You Should Own
Most retail and consumer brands rent their commerce operations. Product content, catalog, PIM/DAM and marketplace work sits with agencies — because for years the work needed hundreds of people and owning it made no sense. AI changed that arithmetic. A function that once needed two hundred people now needs sixty. Small enough to own. Too close to your product experience to keep renting.
What a Commerce Capability Center Is Made Of
What Belongs Inside
Product content, catalog operations, PIM/DAM, digital shelf, marketplace and seller operations — the functions no capability-centre playbook has ever named.
The Capability Ledger
One record per capability, with your named owner, your value metric and its transfer state. It lives on your systems, not ours. No ledger, no transfer.
Transfer That Finishes
Every capability moves against an exit test you write and sign before the wave starts. We are paid on completion, not by the month.
Built to Compound
Annual re-scoring, automation targets and the next mandate — so year three is growth rather than a plateau.
What a Commerce Capability Center Changes
With your commerce operations held rather than rented, you can:
- Change catalog priorities by decision, not by change order.
- See into quality before your customer does, not after.
- Keep five years of category knowledge on your own payroll.
- Set the standard for your product data instead of inheriting it.
- Compound capability every year rather than renewing a contract.
Ownership is the difference between buying capacity and building capability.
Book a Capability AssessmentPlatforms We Operate Across
Your capability centre runs on the stack you already have. These are the commerce, product-data and cloud platforms our teams work in every day.
What You Can Buy
Capability Assessment
Five to six weeks, fixed scope and fixed price. Your Capability Ledger, a score across 47 issues, and the own-rent-automate line drawn.
Commerce Capability Ledger
The record the whole programme runs on. Every capability, with an owner, a value metric, a review date and a transfer state.
Business Case & Board Pack
A five-year model with the break-even month named, the safe-harbour position modelled, and the kill criteria written down.
Entity, Tax & Site Setup
Incorporation, transfer-pricing election, labour-code-ready pay design, location scorecard and site — delivered end to end by our own team.
Leadership & Org Design
The site leader hired before the build, a pyramid designed from the work, and a published decision-rights table.
Work Transfer & Rebadge
Wave by wave. Vendor exit navigated, knowledge transfer gated on readiness, and an exit test signed before each wave begins.
Access, Tooling & Security
Toolchain parity from day one, an access model built for employees rather than contractors, and controls mapped before the first hire.
Governance & Compounding
A client-chaired forum, a day-two accountability model, annual re-scoring and an automation target on every capability.
Why Iksula
We Already Run the Work
Every other firm builds the container. We have been operating the contents — product content, catalog and marketplace operations — for named enterprise clients.
We Seed It, Not Just Staff It
You inherit a working operation on day one instead of an empty floor and a hiring plan.
We Are Paid to Finish
Our transfer fee lands on completion. We waive our own non-solicit at signature so you can hire the people who already do your work.
You Own the Instrument
The Capability Ledger sits on your infrastructure. If we walk away, you keep the record, the history and the decisions.
Who This Is For
Retailers
Home improvement, furnishing, apparel and specialty retail — where catalog depth and digital shelf presence decide the quarter.
Consumer Brands
Brands selling through retailers, marketplaces and direct — running one product story across channels they do not control.
B2B Distribution
Industrial and trade distributors with deep, technical catalogs and buyers who need specification-level accuracy.
Marketplaces & Platforms
Operators managing seller onboarding, feed quality and catalog governance at volume.
Which two capabilities should you move first?
A two-hour working session on your ten largest commerce capabilities. We will tell you which two we would move first, and why.
Book the SessionHow We Do This
This is a new offer, so there are no client outcomes to show yet. Here is exactly what happens instead.
The engagement, step by step
Inventory
We list every commerce capability you run or buy, with its provider, cost, headcount, systems and data classification. This becomes your Capability Ledger.
Diagnostic
We score 47 issues across ten domains and apply the dependency rule, which caps each domain by the layers beneath it. That is how a technology problem turns out to be a mandate problem.
The Line
Own, rent or automate — decided and dated for every capability, with a five-year business case and a recommendation. Including ‘do not build’, if that is the answer.
The operating rhythm
What happens when something goes wrong
When the incumbent vendor stops cooperating
Sessions slip. The people who know the process become unavailable. Nothing is refused outright. Because the knowledge-transfer obligation and its dates were agreed in writing before the wave began, this is a contract matter rather than a relationship one. We escalate on day three, not week three, and the wave continues at reduced pace on the documentation already captured.
When a wave fails its exit test
Accountability does not transfer. The Ledger record stays at ‘transferring’. Our completion fee is not payable. Root cause is published within five working days — usually knowledge transfer running ahead of hiring, a wrong access model, or a process that was never documented. The wave re-runs against the same test.
When the people do not come across
The wave pauses before cutover, not after. The gap is filled from the backfill pool built during hiring rather than by pushing the date. If acceptance is low because of terms, that is a compensation design problem and it gets fixed at source.
The Team Behind Your Capability Centre
Operators, not advisors
The people who design your capability centre are the people who run commerce operations for enterprise clients every day. That is the difference between a firm that can describe product content operations and a firm that performs them.
Engagement Principal
Owns the relationship, the commercial terms and every gate decision.
Capability Analyst
Builds the Ledger and keeps it true for the life of the programme.
Transition Lead
Owns waves, cutovers and exit tests. The person who makes the transfer finish.
Commerce Operations Lead
Functional depth in content, catalog, PIM/DAM, marketplace and digital shelf.
We already run the work you are trying to own.
Every other firm in this market builds the container. We have been operating the contents — product content, catalog operations, PIM/DAM, marketplace and seller operations — for enterprise retail and distribution clients.
We run product content and catalog operations for Home Depot, SiteOne and Wayfair. Named, with their consent.
And here is how we removed our own incentive to stall
- We are paid on completion, not by the month.
- We waive our own non-solicit on your team at signature, so you can hire the people who already do your work.
- You write and sign the exit test before each wave. We do not define ‘done’.
- The Capability Ledger lives on your infrastructure. If we walk away, you keep it.
- Our contract continues after handover as governance, not headcount.
82% of transfer programmes start. 12% finish.
We only sell the finish.
Source: Deloitte India Outsourcing Compass, February 2025.
Talk to our experts
DJ Basumatari
Chief Executive Officer
Abhishek Jain
Director, Solutions & Innovation
Trending resources
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Commerce Capability Center?
It is your own team, usually in India, running your commerce operations — product content, catalog, PIM/DAM, digital shelf, marketplace and seller operations. It differs from a general capability centre in scope: it is defined by the commerce work it holds, not by its size or its industry.
How is this different from outsourcing?
Outsourcing rents capacity. A capability centre holds capability. The people are yours, the standards are yours, and the knowledge accumulates on your side rather than your vendor’s.
We already have an India team. Does this still apply?
Usually more so. Most existing centres never took on the commerce operations layer, because it sat with agencies. The assessment tells you which capabilities to move into the centre you already have.
How small can a capability centre be?
Smaller than most people assume. In India, the majority of retail capability centres run at roughly 200 to 250 people, and a single commerce function can start well below that. The right question is which capabilities, not how many seats.
You run some of this work today. Why would you help us take it in-house?
Because you will do it anyway, and we would rather run the transfer than lose the relationship. We are paid on completion rather than by the month, we waive our own non-solicit at signature so you can hire the people already doing your work, and our contract continues afterwards as governance. Finishing pays us better than stalling.
What does the assessment actually produce?
Your Capability Ledger, a score across 47 issues with the dependency chain explained, an own-rent-automate decision dated against every capability, and a five-year business case with the break-even month named. The recommendation may be that you should not build.