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What can enhance both Japanese language skills and business skills?

January 19, 2018

Do you have the opportunity to read Japanese business books?

Reading books written in Japanese will help you improve your Japanese reading comprehension.

If it is a business book, it is useful also for business skills UP, so it is two birds with one stone.

 

But,

• It is difficult to read Japanese books because it takes long time…
• It is hard to choose a useful book for me…

For these reasons you may not be able to read?

 

Therefore, this time I will introduce services that will solve these troubles.

That is “book summary service”.

You may know getAbstract etc.

 

There are several similar services in Japan so I chose the following two from the point of view,

“Business books are handled a lot”

“Abstract quality is high”

“Site UI is good”

 

(1) Flier : https://www.flierinc.com/

Features:

• From topical books and masterpieces, celebrities such as managers and university professors, experts, etc. have chosen “books that business people should read now”.
• Management consultants and experts in each field prepare a summary.
• It corresponds to PC smartphone tablet.
• It is summarized so that it can be read in about 10 minutes.

(* For non-Japanese, it may take longer)

• Because you can choose from categories, it is easy to find a book that suits you.

There are categories such as “Skill-up career” “Self-development / mind” “Productivity / time management” “Leadership management” “Management strategy” “Entrepreneurial innovation” “Personnel” “Marketing” “Finance” “Technology IT” “Science” “trend”.

 

Plan:

• Free plan (free)

Viewable number: 20 (2 changes per month)

Number of additional contents: none

• Silver Plan (500 yen / month)

Viewable number: Free plan + up to 5 from charged contents every month.

Number of additional contents: About 30 books every month

• Gold plan (2,000 yen / month)

Viewable number:: Unlimited

Number of additional contents: About 30 books every month

 

 

(2) BOOK-SMART : https://book-smart.jp

Features:

• A professional staff with abundant business experience is preparing a summary at about 3,500 characters.
• You can read over 400 good books on the website anytime.
• 2 or 3 books are newly added each week.
• You can read it by email, too.
• Distributing essential readers of business people such as new topics and long sellers.

 

Plan:

• Subscription (6 month contract) (1,500 yen / month)
• Subscription (1 year contract) (1,350 yen / month)
• Subscription (2 year contract) (1,275 yen / month)

 

* All amounts stated are without tax.

* The amounts of BOOK-SMART is the amount when converted in the monthly amount. Actually, users need to pay the amount according to the contract period.

 

Both sites introduced a new book “Job Theory” by Clayton M. Christensen (original title: Competing Against Luck), so I will link each of them for you. I think both are compactly summarized.

https://www.flierinc.com/summary/1164

https://book-smart.jp/16750/

 

It will be a good story in a conversation with a Japanese business person, so please try it.

 

 

Japanese IT company that might be the world’s top company

January 5, 2018

In this article, we will introduce a company called Mercari, Inc., that might be the world’s top Japanese IT company for the following three reasons:

 

Reason 1: A strong management team

Mercari has so far raised 12.6 billion yen in funding. As its business in Japan has matured and grown with an increase in the operating profit, in the future it will probably invest human resources and capital proactively to expand overseas markets.

 

Mr. Yamada (President of Mercari. Inc.) is a key person who sold the network company Unoh to Zynga. He is known as a serial entrepreneur in startup industry in Japan.

 

Mr. Ishizuka (Director of Mercari, Inc.) who grew up in America, has a career in establishing the online social media networking, RockYou Inc, in Silicon Valley.

 

Mr. Koizumi was responsible for IPOs of leading Japanese companies such as Mixi and DeNA when working for a securities company. Then, he had provided consultation and other assistance to several startup companies, and joined Mercari in 2013.

 

Mr. Nagasawa (CFO of Mercari. Inc.) graduated from the Graduate School of?Business at the University of Chicago and then joined Goldman Sachs. He joined Mercari in 2015 after taking charge of IT-related M&A and IPOs in Tokyo and San Francisco.

 

In addition, Mercari’s management team brings together a wealth of elite entrepreneurial and sales experience, excellent members are gathered under the leadership of Mr. Yamada to further develop the business.

 

Reason 2: A great user interface

Compared to other flea-market app, Mercari has a very good ease of use. The company’s customer support team provides comprehensive support at the back, it can respond to a large number of user inquiries at a great speed to improve service quality.

 

Reason 3: Innovative corporate human resources

Mr. Ishiguro (Human Resources Department) was chosen as “Wantedly Award 2016” by Wantedly, Inc., a company provides social recruiting tool. Mr. Ishiguro is so famous in the Japanese IT industry that I doubt there would be a single person who doesn’t know him. He is engaged in various events regardless of online or offline, and many excellent talents decide to join one after another.

 

 

 

However, one point I have concerned is that there is no foreign executive in the company. As I mentioned before, “companies who do not hire foreigners in executive or HR are more difficult to globalize” (please refer to this article for details).

Mercari is now actively hiring bilingual talents, I believe that foreign executives?and HR staffs will come out soon.

 

 

https://www.mercari.com/

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mercari-shopping-marketplace/id896130944?mt=8

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mercariapp.mercari&hl=ja