日公司聚焦海外市場 要求員工說英語
In a bid to plug dwindling domestic consumption by tapping into overseas markets, some of Japan's big-name retailers are telling their employees to start speaking English -- or find another job.
As Japan's population shrinks, the country's retailers are increasingly looking to boost sales by expanding abroad and some firms are waking up to the necessity of being able to speak the global language of business in order to succeed overseas.
Rakuten, Japan's biggest online retailer, plans to make English the firm's official language, while Fast Retailing, operator of the Uniqlo apparel chain, wants to make English more common in its offices by 2012 and plans to test its employees for proficiency.
"It's about stopping being a Japanese company. We will become a world company," Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani said last week at a news conference in Tokyo -- conducted almost entirely in English.
Employees at Rakuten, which hopes overseas sales will eventually account for 70 percent of all transactions made through its websites, will need to master English by 2012 to avoid facing the sack.
"No English, no job," Mikitani told the Asahi newspaper.
Other high-profile Japanese companies, including automakers Toyota Motor and Nissan Motor, have announced moves to make the use of English more common in the workplace.
Some experts say the switch to English is healthy but just one of the changes companies need to make to go global.
"What's interesting is that these companies really stand out as pioneers," Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University's Japan campus.
"They have a relatively new outlook. They realize that Japan is going to need to strike into foreign markets given the dormant state of its economy," he said.
爲開拓海外市場，彌補日益減少的國內消費，日本一些知名零售企業要求員工開始說英語——否則就會飯碗不保。
隨着日本人口的減少，該國越來越多的零售企業開始向海外拓展市場以促進產品銷售，一些公司開始意識到要成功拓展海外市場，必須會說英語這一國際商務語言。
日本最大的網上零售公司樂天國際打算將英語定爲公司的官方語言，而優衣庫服裝連鎖公司隸屬的迅銷集團則希望在2012年前在全公司普及英語，並計劃對員工的英語水平進行測試。
樂天國際首席執行官三木谷浩史在上週在東京召開的一次新聞發佈會上說：“我們不再只是一家日本公司，我們將成爲一家世界級的公司。”新聞發佈會全程基本用英語進行。
這意味着樂天國際的員工在2012年之前必須熟練掌握英語，否則將被解僱。樂天希望其海外銷售額最終能佔到其所有網上交易額的70%。
三木谷告訴《朝日新聞》說：“不會說英語，就沒工作。”
豐田汽車和日產汽車等日本其它一些知名公司也已宣佈了在工作場所普及英語的措施。
一些專家稱，將英語定爲工作語言有益於企業的長遠發展，但這只是企業走向國際化所需做出的改變之一。
天普大學日本校區亞洲研究部主任傑夫•金士頓說：“有意思的是，這些公司率先做出改變，的確引人注目。”
他說：“這些企業的發展觀相對較新。他們意識到在如今這種低迷的經濟狀態下日本需要進軍外國市場。”
Vocabulary:
plug: to fill a hole with a substance or piece of material that fits tightly into it 堵塞；封堵
dwindle: to become gradually less or smaller （逐漸）減少，變小，縮小
tap into: 打入（市場），開拓生意
wake up to: become aware of 意識到；認識到
apparel: clothing, when it is being sold in shops/stores （商店出售的）衣服，服裝
proficiency: skillfulness in the command of fundamentals deriving from practice and familiarity 精通；熟練
get the sack: 被解僱；被開除
dormant: not active or growing now but able to become active or to grow in the future 休眠的；蟄伏的；暫停活動的
