Rakuten is planning to make English its official company language. The company president Hiroshi Mikitani speaks English at conferences and said employees who cannot speak English may be dismissed. While Rakuten has many non-Japanese employees globally, nearly all board members are Japanese. Few other major Japanese companies have made English an official language, though many aim to improve employees' English skills to expand overseas.

1. How Rakuten is planning to run
their entire business in
English?
s1170187 Daichi Kikuta

2. Creator
● Hiroshi Mikitani is president of Rakuten
Inc.
● He speaks in English conference at
headquarters.
● He said that makes dismissal those who
cannot speak English.

3. About Rakuten
● The Rakuten group has 6,000 employees
globally, and there are 400 are non-
Japanese.
● The company doesn't keep track of how
many non-Japanese it has in Japan, while
the 16 board members at its headquarters
in Tokyo are all Japanese.

4. Employee
● Japanese companies looking to expand
their overseas sales don't deny the
merit of having employees proficient in
English.
● Japanese is the best language for
Japanese to communicate with each other,
and of course other companies should
also try to improve their employees'
English skills.

5. Official language
● Rakuten is one of a very small number of
Japanese companies able to push English
as official language.
● Rakuten employees are under a lot of
pressure to learn English.

6. Berlitz Japan Inc
● 200 employees out of 3,000 working at
the headquarters take lessons from
Berlitz Japan Inc.
● But Rakuten is not providing financial
support for lessons, but Berlitz offers
a discount.

7. Fast Retailing Company
● In a similar move, Fast Retailing
Company will make English an official
language starting in March 2012.
● But meetings among Japanese employees
and e-mail exchanges with Japanese won't
have to be in English.

8. Other major company
● Other major firms have long focused on
improving the English proficiency of
their employees as they look to expand
overseas amid the declining labor pool
at home.
● However, few have made it a rule to
adopt English as their official
language.

9. Conclusion
● the degree to which English is necessary
at Rakuten is far lower than other
companies.
● Rakuten employees don't need to speak
English.
● It is difficult to speak English as
official language in company.

10. References
● http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20
● http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakuten
● http://global.rakuten.com/corp/company/