Interview, Fireside Chat
Hiroshi Mikitani at Startup School 2012
- The company intends to accelerate globalization in Europe, Canada, and Asia, specifically aiming to make the Kobo acquisition "extremely well" integrated, while testing shop-centric approaches in other countries where they already function effectively.
- Strategic growth involves continuing to acquire companies that align with the corporate culture, mission, and practices, with a plan to "convert their business model to lock-in model" for acquisitions such as buy.com, play.com, and Kobo, though partnerships that fail or lack cultural fit may result in business shutdowns and withdrawals.
- The company will prioritize "improving service and customer satisfaction" over direct competitor comparison, focusing on facilitating transactions for small to medium-sized merchants, helping them build consumer "fans" rather than platform fans, and expecting most major department stores, fashion brands, and electronics companies to join the platform.
- Recruitment strategies involve initially hiring "younger people" to instill the original culture, followed by hiring experienced "gray hair people" post-IPO for professional expertise, with a goal to have "70% of new engineers" and "30% of new employees" be non-Japanese to support global operations.
- To facilitate global operations, the official business language will convert from Japanese to English, enabling the horizontal transfer of expertise, with a reported expectation that employee TOEIC scores will improve by "almost 200 points" over the "last two years."
- The company plans to leverage a consumer database of "about 80 million" members and the Rakuten Super Points system to cross-sell various services and facilitate the growth of acquired businesses like Kobo, creating an integrated ecosystem.
- Mobile commerce is projected to become dominant, with smartphone transactions growing "300% to 400% year on year," leading to an expectation that mobile transactions will account for "more than 50%" of all business "within a couple of years."
- Logistics operations will evolve to become increasingly critical, with a focus on efficiency improvements through the use of "robots and automation" to support the scaling of business and enhance the customer experience.
- Management will adopt a "quantitative, analytically quantitative" framework while maintaining an "open culture" that discloses "almost all information" to employees, and the company aims to "benchmark international players" rather than domestic ones.
- Future trends such as "social shopping" are anticipated, though the company acknowledges no strong answer currently exists for the sector, and the company expects to continue scaling its business and improving services over the next "three years" with a "very patient" approach to recreating the "kernel of our business model."