After Nissan, Mitsubishi, and Honda, more Japanese manufacturers switching to English as official language

Depending on what it’s trying to achieve, Japan’s strength is also its weakness. The country is relatively insular, with a very male-centric, monoculture that takes great pride in doing things its own way. We have already discussed about Japan’s Galapagos syndrome in an earlier editorial.

But today's Japanese manufacturers know that they operate in a very volatile, globalized era, where cross-border partnerships are essential for survival, which also implies the need for multi-cultural awareness.

The once-in-a 100 years pivot towards electrification also means that car manufacturers (and its associated suppliers) have to expand into areas they are not familiar with – software and chemistry – which also means that they need to hire talent from outside the automotive industry, and work with companies from other countries.

Honda, the last of Japan’s independent car manufacturers, is now working with America’s GM. The other remaining car makers in Japan have either been absorbed into Toyota’s universe (Isuzu, Mazda and Suzuki), or are tied up to a foreign manufactuer, like Mitsubishi and Nissan with Renault, Honda with GM.

Japan’s ageing population, coupled with its poor job outlook for whatever little young population Japan has left, means that many bright graduates are leaving Japan to take more lucrative jobs in Taiwan, mainland China, and USA.

In fact, hiring the right talent is one of the biggest challenges for Japanese manufacturers. Some manufacturers have come to conclusion that to solve its talent shortage problem, Japan needs to drop its pride and adopt English as their official working language so it can attract more foreign talent.

Nissan, when it was under Carlos Ghosn, came to that conclusion more than a decade ago, so did Honda.

Sharp, a major supplier in automotive electronics, especially for digital instrument display panels, touch screens, air-conditioning, and cameras for advance driving assistance systems, is the latest company to join the list of Japanese manufacturers adopting English.

This was confirmed by CEO CEO Wu Po-hsuan yesterday, saying that adopting English as Sharp’s official language is essential in ensuring that Sharp can attract a globally competitive talent pool.

Ironically, Sharp’s push to adopt English is made a Chinese national. However, Wu also stressed that he will be picking up Japanese, presumably to soften resistance from conservative groups within Sharp.

Sharp was on the verge of bankruptcy until it was rescued by China’s (Taiwan) consumer electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn in 2016. Current CEO Wu Po-hsuan, who also goes by the name Robert, is a Foxconn executive who was previosly looking after Sharp's global branding and overseas business in the Americas, Asia and Oceania, so he understood the importance of English.

Nissan was the first to adopt English in the early 2000s. Then CEO Carlos Ghosn, a French Lebanese who is not a native English speaker, said in his first book Shift: Inside Nissan's Historic Revival, “I’ve got no cultural predisposition to favour English. All my education was in French and French is still the language I speak best. But we chose English because we had to be objective and acknowledge that when a Chinese person gets together with a German, a Frenchman, an American, and a Japanese, there’s not much chance that they’re going to speak French, or Chinese, or anything other than English. Learning English isn’t a cultural notion. It’s like buying a software package to manage your e-mail. You download it into your computer because you can’t communicate without it. We’ve made English an everyday language. It was a management decision – we gave ourselves a tool to help us communicate with people who work for the same company but come from different cultures.”

Honda followed Nissan's move to adopt English in 2013 and since 2020, Honda executives cannot be promoted until he / she passes an English competency test.

In 2016, Mitsubishi Motors also adopted English, partly because it had become part of the expanded Renault Nissan Mitsubishi Motors Alliance.

Similarly, tyre manufacturer Bridgestone also adopted English in 2013, the same year as Honda.

Several big name Japanese companies outside the manufacturing sector have also adopted English as their main working language, including stock trading platform Rakuten, as well fashion retailer Uniqlo.