Leading High Performing Remote Teams
How can leaders ensure that performance remains high in remote or hybrid-work environments?
Content Marketing
In this course, you’ll learn how compelling blogs, videos, podcasts, and other media can reach customers and drive sales. You’ll also learn steps for creating an effective content marketing plan, and some important ways to measure its impact and success.
Content marketing is a essential digital marketing strategy for companies looking to provide relevant and useful information to support your community and attract new customers.
Get started on your content marketing journey today.
Sustainable Innovation in Times of Disruption: Choices for a Better Society
There are opportunities for progress all around us. The key is to innovate on these opportunities sustainably.
To help identify most effective path forward, you'll need to gain a global perspective to these challenges in an open discussion. How can Japan and the world take action to create a more sustainable, innovative world? Where do you fit in?
It's time to find out.
Social Media & Digital Communications: Impact on Global Public Opinion
Social and digital media have dominated the communications industry for decades. But it's no secret that social media has the power to sway public opinion, and the way in which many companies use these platforms could be seen as manipulative.
What do companies need to be aware of when utilizing social and digital media? How can these mediums be used to better communicate strategically with the world?
Discover what top media and communications experts have to say.
CAGE Distance Framework
Want to expand overseas? The CAGE distance framework can help ensure you're constructing a solid global strategy in four areas: cultural, administrative, economic, and geographic. Learn how to leverage useful differences between countries, identify potential obstacles, and achieve global business success.
Servant Leadership
There's more to leadership than driving a team to profit. In fact, there's a word for looking beyond self-interest to prioritize individual growth: servant leadership. Try this course for a quick breakdown of what that is, how it works, and how it can lead to organizational success.
Strategy: Creating Value Inside Your Company
Have you ever wondered why certain companies are more successful than others? The answer is strategy: internal processes that control costs, allocate resources, and create value. This course from GLOBIS Unlimited can give you the tools you need for that strategic edge.
Strategy: Understanding the External Environment
To plan strategy on any level, you need to understand your company's external environment. In fact, your level of understanding can impact hiring, budgeting, marketing, or nearly any other part of the business world. Want to learn how to do all that? This course from GLOBIS Unlimited is the perfect first step!
Using Japanese Values to Thrive in Global Business
Japanese companies have unique cultural, communication, and operational challenges. But they also have values that have led to remarkable longevity. Check out this seminar to hear how these values help earn trust from overseas head offices and develop employees.
Marketing: Reaching Your Target
Every company works hard to get its products into the hands of customers. Are you doing everything you can to compete? In this course, you’ll find a winning formula to turn a product idea into real sales. Follow along through the fundamentals of the marketing mix and see how companies successfully bring products to market.
Basic Accounting: Financial Analysis
Want to compare your performance vs. a competitor? Or evaluate a potential vendor? Then you'll need to conduct a financial analysis. This course will teach you how to use three financial statements and evaluate financial performance in terms of profitability, efficiency, soundness, growth, and overall strength.
Career Anchors
What drives you to be good at your job?
Career anchors are based on your values, desires, motivations, and abilities. They are the immovable parts of your professional self-image that guide you throughout your career journey.
Try this short GLOBIS Unlimited course to identify which of the eight career anchors is yours!
Leadership with Passion through Kokorozashi
The key ingredient to success? Passion.
Finding your kokorozashi will unify your passions and skills to create positive change in society. This GLOBIS Unlimited course will help you develop the values and lifelong goals you need to become a strong, passion-driven leader.
New hubs of entrepreneurship are popping up across the world, driven by advancements in technology and innovation. Daisuke Kudo is a Ph.D. candidate at Romania’s Babes Bolyai University, a sister university of GLOBIS. Mr. Kudo shared his observations on the rising tech savvy society in Transylvania—inspiration for more than Bram Stoker’s imagination!
CV: How do businesses in Transylvania innovate?
DK: Ah, the golden question. Let me put it this way. Innovation doesn’t just come when you press a button. You don’t just become innovative overnight. You need to consciously invite inspiration from all sides—meeting people, reading, traveling… For me, it’s a combination of these, as well as the environment in which I work. Here in Transylvania, I feel inspired by everything—all the opportunities I have had the honor to be part of.
CV: You sound busy.
DK: Yes, busy and constantly inspired. There is so much conversation about innovation, about technology, about just making things happen around here. It is really contagious! Downtown Cluj is full of digital cafés, ateliers, and innovation projects. I attribute most this to the get-up-and-go mentality Transylvanians seem to have.
CV: Tell me a little about your experience in Romania.
DK: This is a country where all politics and commercial opportunities were heavily centralized until 1989—only 29 years ago. Then all of a sudden, right after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Romanian Revolution of 1989, the local people woke up and realized they had to start making a living with whatever was left after the communist regime.
My first visit to Romania was in 1999, ten years after the revolution, but I was still impressed by the creativity and survival skills of the people I met here. Back then, even the global business scene was unfamiliar with the terms “innovation” and “transformation.” Now, Transylvania is becoming a strong tech hub for the region with an ecosystem of innovation. It’s just packed with creativity studios, acceleration programs, R&D centers, design laboratories, and such.
CV: How does the country approach diversity?
DK: I travel a lot for my work, and I must confess that I have not encountered a more inclusive mindset than I have here in Transylvania. Everyone is so genuinely humble and eager to learn from diversity.
There are three local languages spoken in Transylvania: Romanian, German, and Hungarian. English only comes in on top of that. Nowadays, students come to study at local universities or work at local technology startups from practically all over the world. Although everyone is different, everyone is welcome.
CV: How does this experience compare to Japan?
DK: Coming from a generally homogeneous society in Japan, I have been inspired by the way Transylvania has managed to turn diversity into opportunity. I personally have learned here that diversity is a key competency for innovation, transformation, and meaningful growth. Many foreigners have come here, settled down, and made Transylvania their home. There were three main factors that helped me decide to do so:
The first and the most obvious one is related to geopolitics. Located right next to the Hungarian border, Transylvania is the gateway to the central and western European markets. This geopolitical advantage drives investments and international businesses to the region, especially in the manufacturing sector.
Second, the people played a tremendously important role. There are some prestigious national universities located in this region, and these universities are constantly sending digitally savvy and highly competitive fresh talent into the medical sector and, more recently, the technology sector. Cluj-Napoca is Romania’s leading smart city and is nearing the completion of a seven-year development strategy. The economic momentum and impact created by the medical, technical, and service sectors here have been enormous. In fact, Cluj-Napoca has the same GDP level per capita as the capital city Bucharest, although it is nearly three times smaller, which is a clear indication of the amount of development going on here.
The third factor is timing. People who have succeeded here tend to tell us that they were in the right place at the right time, and they all like to keep their recipe for success a well-kept secret. As for me, I’m still working on many different recipes, so I don’t mind sharing my perspective. Being one of the few Japanese people living in the area, daily life isn’t always convenient. Sometimes, it can be very challenging. However, this turned out to be a good thing, as it has been easier for me to connect with the local representatives of the Japanese government and businesses, as well as key players in the local business scene, local authorities, students and public employees. Sometimes it helps to be different from everyone else, to be coming from a country that everyone wants to know more about.
CV: What advice do you have for finding business opportunities in Transylvania?
DK: There are hundreds of different ways, if not thousands. Sometimes you just need to connect some dots. For me, as an independent Japanese businessperson with international experience, some are obvious. I am now working with local startups and venture companies in Transylvania to create new collaboration opportunities with Japanese organizations, such as internships for students from Japan who are interested in experiencing a truly multicultural work environment.
CV: What differences have you noticed in the approach to the digital age between Japan and Eastern Europe?
DK: I myself am not a digital professional. Perhaps because of that, it is fascinating to witness the rise of East European digital tech hubs. While Japan is still admired worldwide as a technologically advanced nation, modern technological innovations are currently taking place faster in other countries. Many Japanese businesses, unfortunately, are still stuck in the manufacturing age and face problems such as employees lacking in basic digital skills. Without an immediate and strong commitment to revamp education and develop globally minded and technologically savvy generations of modern talent, new businesses in Japan will suffer. To my mind, what is absolutely necessary for a business to grow is a healthy growth mind set, not the perfectionist mindset that is still the default for many businesses in Japan.
What I find constantly mind-boggling here in Romania is seeing elderly individuals proficient with smartphones. They’re active on Facebook, Skype, WeChat, and even LinkedIn. You can have a basic tech conversation with almost anyone, from the postman to a grad student at Babes Bolyai University about to join a global tech giant.
CV: How do you see the future of Japanese-European relations?
DK: The Japanese-European business corridor seems to focus mostly on geopolitical impact and macroeconomics. Japan and the European Union have recently signed the EPA and SPA agreements—the kind of move that will definitely make a positive impact in the near future. These are examples of innovation conducted by government authorities.
Now, micro figures are more relevant and interesting, if you ask me. If you have ever run a business or acted as a manager, you’ve probably realized that business is all about people. For example, it was people in Japan who decided that American products were “different” and “cool,” then later turned around and attached those labels to Italian, French, and Scandinavian creators. Meanwhile, the perception of Japanese culture in Europe have recently come to be associated with terms such as “premium” and “unique.” With this in mind, despite our geographical distance, European and Japanese people will be nurturing closer and closer relationships, including more intimate business collaborations.
CV: So what message do you have for GLOBIS students in Japan?
DK: Don’t follow digital trends—start them! Learning is only valuable if it is connected with a social reality and serves a practical purpose. Go out and explore! Try new things, and don’t be scared of failure. I am interested to hear how GLOBIS students see the world. I believe that learning can happen every single moment, at any occasion, and depends only on our curiosity and personal interests. Just get up and go!