Top 20 Attractive Foreign Companies in Japan
On Goo Ranking you can find tons of different ranking lists which are created through surveys sent out to a random panel of around 1,000 Goo users. You can find rankings of everything from “best looking movie star”, “presents girls do not want from their boyfriends”, or “famous movie star that looks suitable to run a cafe” (?)
Anyway, I stumbled upon a ranking that I felt was quite interesting, namely “Top 20 foreign companies I would like to work for” i.e. which are the most attractive foreign employers in Japan (Note: this survey was taken in November 2004).
You can see the list below:
- IBM
- Microsoft
- Apple Computer
- NIKE
- Louis Vuitton
- Intel
- Hermes
- BMW
- Adidas
- P&G
- Coca-Cola
- Nestle
- Christian Dior
- Dell
- American Express
- Vodafone
- Puma
- Oracle
- Citibank
- Pfizer
Some immediate thoughts that came to mind: The company I work for is not on the list….re-do the survey now and we’ll see. 
Anyway, it seems the companies fairly well match what is in the Japanese public’s mind so to speak: computers and luxury brands. I must say I was quite surprised to see Nestle and Pfizer on the list! I guess Pfizer has a reputation of being a good employer here and the pharmaceutical market is quite huge, so that can explain it. But Nestle? Is it because all Japanese love Nescafe? Yep, that must be it. They even have their own Nescafe variant here which is totally disgusting: Nescafe Excella. Darn that is one bland cup of joe! Maybe everything agrees with me and wants to join Nestle’s R&D to change it….?
Anyway, when I was searching for a similar, but more recent, survey I actually found an older one instead. It’s pretty interesting to compare: 1. IBM (stable!), 2. Microsoft (same here), 3. Merrill Lynch (status of finance institutions have decreased?), 4. Citibank (dito), 5. McDonalds (hmmm….no comment), 6. American Family Life Insurance (?), 6. P&G (always had a very strong presence here), 8. Coca-Cola (the Japanese are still lovin’ it), 9. GE (don’t know what happened to them), 10. Apple Computer (big winner!)