...9 -5 0 7 -0 3 3 REV: AUGUST 16, 2007 JOHN DEIGHTON VINCENT DESSAIN LEYLA N D PI TT D A N I E L A B E Y E R SD O RF E R ANDERS SJÖMAN Marketing Château Margaux Were a wine to be drunk in paradise, it would be Château Margaux. — William Styron, Sophie’s Choice Brad watched as wine poured from a precarious height into his glass, generating turbulence but no splash. “I must try that,” he thought. A young management consultant, Brad was no stranger to expensive meals, but here he felt separated from the proceedings by more than income. He was the junior member of a consulting team invited to join Corinne Mentzelopoulos and Paul Pontallier for lunch at Château Margaux, in the room where such luminaries as the president of China, Hu Jintao, had been hosted when he came to visit the source of one of the world’s great wines. The château’s white wine had accompanied Brad’s first course, next its Pavillon red, and now, with a selection of cheeses, came Château Margaux 1982, a wine that might have cost him $1,200 back in New York if he could have found a bottle. He raised it to his lips with trepidation. He rather hoped that what he was about to encounter would not be so transcendent that he would never again enjoy his neighborhood trattoria’s house red. His concern was unfounded. The sip was pleasant, smooth, and the finish was far longer than anything he had noticed before, but frankly, he thought, there was none of the explosion of flavors that he associated...
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...For exclusive use Macquarie University, 2015 9-412-002 REV: APRIL 3, 2013 TSEDAL NEELEY Language and Globalization: "Englishnization" at Rakuten (A) Our goal is not becoming No. 1 in Japan but becoming the No. 1 Internet services company in the world. By 2050, Japanese GDP as a portion of global GDP will shrink from 12% in 2006 to 3%. As we consider the future potential growth of the Japanese market and our company, global implementation is not a nice-to-have but a must-do. — Hiroshi Mikitani, Chairman and CEO, Rakuten Group With less than a year to go before his self-imposed deadline of migrating to the exclusive use of English at Rakuten, Japan’s largest online retailer, CEO Hiroshi Mikitani (HBS ‘93) found himself seated outside Paris at the May 2011 e-G8 summit1. Seated alongside Internet, political, and business luminaries, Mikitani was among those shaping technology’s future agenda. But his future, his company’s future, was closing in on him. In a matter of days he would announce his acquisition of Ikeda in Brazil, marking another step in his company’s global ascent. And in a matter of months, he would evaluate its most critical stride toward becoming the world’s No. 1 Internet services company: the transition of his 7,100 Tokyo employees from their native Japanese to English, the global language of business. The future of his company lay in the success of his boldest step yet. Mikitani’s vision rested with his Japanese employees, who had fifteen...
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