Rakuten, a major Japanese e-commerce company, plans to conduct all business operations in English by the end of 2012. To achieve this, Rakuten will provide English language training to employees and transition board meetings and internal documents to English. While using English can help the company expand globally and improve employee skills, some worry communication issues may arise for those with weaker English abilities. Rakuten's goal is to become the top internet company worldwide and transform from a Japanese to a global firm.

1. How Rakuten is planning to run their entire
business in English?
ID: s1200017

2. Outline
● Introduction
● History of Rakuten
● Strategy
● Advantage
● Disadvantage
● Part of global
● Summary
● Reference

3. Introduction
● Rakuten is the major Internet shopping site
● There are the group's 6,000 employees.
● Rakuten sets up a business enterprise as below. - EC,
bank card, banking corporation, portal media, travel,
certificate, sports, connection

4. History of Rakuten
● In 1997, MDM Inc. was founded by Hiroshi Mikitani.
● In 1999, it is renamed as Rakuten Inc.
● It announced the company’s official language will
become English by the end of fiscal 2012.

5. Strategy
● Rakuten supports employees by providing an English
conversation school.
● Rakuten plans to expand reach from current six
countries to 27 major countries or more.
● Rakuten plans to raise the ratio to 70 percent and aims
to increase annual sales of group companies.

6. Advantage
● Rakuten encouraged the use of English. - Employees
can make presentation and the meeting documents in
English.
● Rakuten has bought overseas Internet shopping site
operators.
● By employees can speak English, they can improve
their abilities and broaden their perspectives.

7. Disadvantage
● There is two possibility. (a)The positive aspects of
employees who have subpar English ability may be
overlooked. (b)Inter-company communication may
suffer.
● Some people wonder if a high goal that change the way
Japan does business is possible.

8. Part of Global
● Rakuten will conduct all board meeting in English.
● All internal documents will be written in English.
● Rakuten focus more energy on English. - Other
companies are not comfortable.

9. Summary
● Rakuten's goal is to become the No.1 Internet service
company in the world.
● Rakuten will be to become not Japanese company but
“World company”.

10. References
● http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakuten
● http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201007010404.html
● http://www.japantoday.
com/category/kuchikomi/view/rakutens-decision-on-
english-not-welcomed-by-everyone