Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, Inc. is migrating its official working language to English in a bid to become one of the best Internet services companies globally.

"Our vision was to become a number one global Internet company. But as we moved on I felt we were missing something. We had to use translators to talk to employees for our foreign subsidiaries. And then I thought that everyone should be able to speak English," Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO of Rakuten, said Friday at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan.

The company has launched an 'Englishnization' program and June 30 marks the final day of the initial phase of Rakuten's efforts to change its working language to English, according to a company statement.

The initial Englishnization guidelines include: all board meetings conducted in English; all senior management meetings held in English; weekly companywide meetings operated in English and Internal documents all written in English.

The company meanwhile evaluates its employees by their English levels, requiring them to take TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication).

"Lack of English communication skills really prevented us ( Japan) from being a global leader, so we really need to wake up and open up our eyes," Mikitani said.

Founded in 1997, Rakuten now is operating Rakuten Ichiba (e- commerce), Rakuten Travel, Rakuten Securities and Rakuten Bank etc. It has a market cap of 1,144 billion yen (13.9 billion U.S.dollars) and over 10,000 employees.