1. How Rakuten is planning to run
their entire business in English?
Kenji Yamada
s1170041

2. Outline
• Rakuten is..?
• Why English is needed in Rakuten
• Strategy of Rakuten
• English communication abilities
• Creating environment for employee to
study English
• Why use English in official
• 4 things since established Rakuten
• Reference

3. Rakuten is..?
• Founded: February 7, 1997
• IPO: April 19, 2000(Jasdaq Stock Exchange)
• Chairman &CEO Hiroshi Mikitani
The First Office : Atago in Tokyo, Japan
Employees : 5 (at the establishment)
Business : Rakuten Ichiba (online mall)
New Office : Rakuten Tower Tokyo, Japan
Employees : 4,874 (as of Dec. 2008)
Market Cap: 662 Billin yen or US$6.8 Billion
(JASDAQ, as of Feb 27, 2009)
Business : Rakuten Ichiba, Rakuten Travel,
Rakuten Securities, Rakuten Credit,
Rakuten KC, etc (online mall)

4. Why English is needed in Rakuten
• Rakuten work together not only Japanese company but also
foreign company
• There are many people that foreigner working in Rakuten
• Rakuten has a lot of customer as foreigner

5. Strategy of Rakuten
• Rakuten Inc is announcing it will make English it’s
official language by 2012.
• Internal meetings will be in English whether
foreigners are present or not.
• Members who can’t speak English in 2 years will
be fired.
• Board meetings and weekly all-company meetings
have been in English since March.

6. English communication abilities
• Mikitani think that when Rakuten is aimed at world
company, the group’s 6,000 employee have to use English
after 2 years.
• Rakuten’s employee do not use the Japanese in entire
business after 2 years. So their business is changing now.

7. Creating environment for employee
to study English
• Rakuten employees are under a lot of pressure to learn
English
• 200 employees out of 3,000 working at the headquarters
take lessons from Berlitz Japan Inc.
• Everybody spends their own money for lessons and is
committed to learning English.
• Rakuten is not providing financial support for lessons, but
Berlitz offers a discount

8. Why use English in official
"Rakuten has a culture of uniting under
Mikitani's top-down decisions,“
"For Mikitani, Rakuten is doing something
normal at a normal speed, but the speed is
very fast for other firms.“
-UBS Securities Japan Ltd.
analyst Sumito Takeda said-

9. 4 things since established Rakuten
• The internet becomes more convenient
more easily.
• The internet spreads explosively.
• The Japanese comes to buy the thing on the
internet.
• Circulation changes on the Internet.

10. Reference
– http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20100716f1.html
– http://global.rakuten.com/en/
– http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201007010404