They say, “Just being able to speak English is meaningless,” but.

I often hear a phrase from business owners: "Just being able to speak English is meaningless." To conclude, it would be better to correct that to, "Just being able to speak English has considerable value." It's just that employers are misusing people who can speak English. Just being able to speak English can be quite valuable depending on the environment.

Japan's environment is changing. Many people must feel that products and brands previously praised domestically are losing their power and are increasingly being replaced by foreign brands. Especially in IT equipment and internet services, there are almost no Japanese-born brands, and only brands born overseas are heard of. Japan is out of the loop.

Repeated innovations, evolving products. It can also be said that Japan's speed is not keeping up with the pace of these. Even with world-class technology and knowledge, there seems to be no sense of speed to adapt to the latest trends. Furthermore, the originality that once led the cutting edge is nowhere to be seen, and in most cases, it's just about circulating existing profits.

The fundamental problem is not being able to experience global changes 'live'.

There is also a problem in not being able to perceive this gap between the world and Japan. In the future, Japan should confront foreign companies. The era of only looking at domestic rivals is already coming to an end. If Japan only looks domestically, its market will be dominated in an instant by companies with vast amounts of money from around the world.

Amidst this, I met some young people in Cebu Island, Philippines, which is still developing.

It was on a weekend when I went to a club. There's a very stylish club called LIV SUPER CLUB in Cebu Island. My friend, who had gone in earlier, said he'd made some friends, so I hurried to the club. There were three people dressed casually, enjoying themselves. Their attire was more proper than I expected, so I felt they might be people in relatively good positions.

That night, I didn't really think about who they were, and just had a generally good time. I did ask about their jobs, but only heard that they were a marketer and a system engineer. I just thought they were people doing advanced work.

What surprised me was when I checked on Facebook who they were after returning home. In particular, the person who introduced themselves as a marketer was working as a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).

Japan is said to be weak in marketing. Perhaps because it's only recently that companies have started adopting solid marketing concepts and methods, there are still few people who can fully utilize them. On the other hand, in the US, marketing is highly valued, and its presence is always with companies. Within that context, the person who directs all marketing within a company is the CMO.

The scope of a CMO's work is diverse, but fundamentally, they have the role of overseeing all marketing strategies. While it's still a less common concept in Japan, in the US, it's already recognized as a position as significant as a CEO.

Such a cutting-edge position, which is still new in Japan, was already thriving within a Philippine company. Was it just a coincidence that this company adopted the CMO concept, or is it already a standard position in the Philippines, similar to the US? If it were the latter, it's possible that their marketing organization has a more robust structure than typical Japanese SMEs. However, I couldn't delve deeper into it then, so I'll try to ask sometime.

The information available in English is far greater than in the Japanese-speaking world.

Encountering such a situation and feeling the potential of companies within the Philippines was, of course, because I could speak English. If the CMO concept is indeed firmly established there, then Japanese SMEs must feel a greater sense of urgency. This is due to the difference in awareness towards marketing.

They can speak English. They can speak it like natives. As long as they can use English and the internet, they can gather as much up-to-date information as they want. They can immediately obtain an overwhelmingly large amount of real information, much more than the information that comes in a step later in Japanese.

If that's the case, it's easy to get information in the latest marketing, business, IT, technology, services, and all other fields. If they are motivated, it would even be possible to evolve ahead of Japanese organizations.

If Japanese people could speak English, the anxieties mentioned above would have disappeared. With overwhelming technical skill, knowledge, and diligence, and if they could share information and sensibilities with the English-speaking world. English conveys more than just information. It conveys the atmosphere and culture from all over the world.

For example, if Japanese were understood in most parts of the world. If we could feel the knowledge and culture from all over the world. I think we could have immediately adopted marketing concepts. What makes that possible is 'English'. The Philippines has the power to do that, but Japan does not. There is no doubt that 'English' is a major factor in that difference.

If you can read and speak English, the market where you can work expands overwhelmingly.

Conversely, if you can freely manipulate English, you can gather cutting-edge methodologies, ideas, and techniques at a global level. No matter how excellent Japan is, gathering information immediately from all over the world versus only gathering knowledge translated into Japanese, it would undoubtedly be more efficient to gather information from all over the world. There is far more knowledge available worldwide than can be obtained in Japanese. There's no point in resting on our laurels, thinking 'Japan is amazing'.

Later, I met another person from the Philippines via the internet. Initially, we simply interacted as friends, but at one point, the topic of work came up. As we talked about various things, he mentioned that he was registered with O-DESK and working as a freelancer. O-DESK is the world's largest crowdsourcing service, and by 2012, its revenue had swelled to a massive $360 million. Of course, the language used on this huge platform is also English. If you can't speak English, you're out of the loop.

That freelance Filipino said, 'I worked with people from Australia. I worked with people from America. This happened. That happened.' From the Philippines, he was working with people all over the world through the internet.

Furthermore, the field he specialized in was primarily social marketing. Centered around marketing using SNS, he provided information and analysis worldwide, helping numerous people.

The content was excellent, and the wages were incredibly low. If someone with this much experience, who has worked with America, Australia, and other countries, were in Japan, many companies would be eager to hire them. The reason why small and medium-sized enterprises cannot easily hire someone with his potential and ability is also because Japanese people cannot speak English.

This is no time to make light of English.

Despite being a developed country, Japan considers creating work connections with the world a high hurdle. On the other hand, despite being a developing country, Filipinos can work with the whole world with just the internet. Not everyone is like that, but where does this difference come from? Of course, it's English.

We can't keep saying, 'Japan still has opportunities' or 'Japan alone is enough.' Rather, if Japan remains disconnected from the world like this, can its future truly be bright? English is underestimated because few people recognize the importance of the global market. English's value is underestimated because people 'don't realize' its importance.

If things continue as they are, for example, to put it simply, if Japan were to accept many immigrants, much of its labor force and goods would be replaced by other countries. Of course, even without that, those who are aware will notice. People who can speak English or have means of communication are already able to efficiently advance their businesses by utilizing labor and resources from around the world where they are most suitable.

Especially when I heard about crowdsourcing, many stories came up, but not a single one mentioned working with Japanese people. Isn't that, more than anything, proof that Japan is not fully utilizing the world?

Just by being able to speak English, you can make the world your ally. You can choose the most efficient life for yourself from many options. The choices expand enormously. The reason you can't use that means is because you can't speak English. There are many job opportunities in the world. However, because you can't speak English, you have to compete for jobs in Japan. The reason you can't take advantage of such opportunities is also because of the English barrier.

As IT continues to evolve, the boundaries between Japan and other countries will become thinner. They have already become thinner, but they will become even thinner. In such a situation, what will happen if Japan remains a country with few English speakers? It's easy to imagine. I hope that more people will be able to speak English in the future, and that Japan will be able to master the world.