Business Management - Yakuza: Like a Dragon Guide - IGN (2024)

Welcome to IGN’s Yakuza: Like a Dragon walkthrough. This section covers the Business Management simulation, one of the more complex minigames available. We’ll guide you through getting started, growing your business, and highlighting some of the rewards you can obtain if you stick with it.

Scroll down to see the entire list or click below to jump to a specific section:

• How To Start Business Management
• Recruiting Employees
• Keeping Employees Happy
• Buying Properties
• Shareholder Meetings
• How To Get Eri To Join Your Party
• How To Move To Another Buildings
• Additional Tips

How To Start Business Management

Business Management begins automatically as part of Substory 15: Ijincho’s Safety Net during Chapter 5. You'll only have to complete the tutorial for the substory, but can return to the south end of the Bar District at any time to continue with the simulation.

This minigame may seem complex at first, but as you learn how to navigate the menus and streamline your business it’s surprisingly straightforward.

The basic loop of the Business Management minigame is:

Acquire business > hire employees > assign employees > open business > shareholder meetings

As long as you maximize your cash flow at every step, you’ll easily meet Nick Ogata’s initial request of becoming one of the Top 100 businesses, and be able to continue further (if you’d like). This is one of the more lucrative offerings in Yakuza: Like a Dragon, so successful management is a great way to easily make money.

Recruiting Employees

You can recruit more employees by selecting Recruit under the Employees menu. This will take you to a pool of employees that can be selected from. Each will have different stats and salary contracts, so make sure to select one that will work with the type of business you have open. To begin, you'll have a limited pool of people that you can hire. However, they are more than sufficient to reach Rank 100.

Beyond that, you'll need to work smarter by recruiting higher-rank characters and finding people around the city (indicated by the cash icon above their head). Talk to them and when your personality stats are high enough - or you complete a favor for them - they'll join your business. You can also pick up several high-quality hires by completing other substories. Just make sure to hire employees not only with good stats, but with good stats in the category you need. Also, don't ever hire more than the exact amount of employees you need, as you’ll have excess salaries that have to be paid.

Keeping Employees Happy

In the Employees menu, you'll see an option to offer them a bonus. This is the only way to increase their happiness, which is denoted by the little face icon on their information card.

The color of the face indicates their current level of happiness. In order from happiest to least happy it goes: green, orange, grey, red, purple.

Try to keep your employees happy (green face) as this raises their determination and makes them more productive when your business is open (psst...that means more money).

While you can select between increasingly expensive options that provide bigger boosts to their happiness levels, you can also select Auto Care from within the Employee menu to automatically make everyone happy (at a cost, of course). This may not always pick the least-expensive options, so if you don’t mind individually offering bonuses, it may save you some money in the long run.

Buying Properties

Every time you go up a rank, you'll get some money from Nick. This money should be used as an investment in a new property. In the Properties menu, you'll see a slot marked 'Empty', and clicking on it will allow you to buy a property up. You should aim for a property with high sales volume, as that means more profit. You should also be prepared to move employees around to where their skills are needed. Lastly, you can upgrade each property which boosts its value and overall profit.

As you go through Ranks, you should focus on buying new properties while also selling underperforming properties. Your initial property can't be sold, but if you have your second shop making 5 million yen and your sixth shop making 45 million yen, it's time to sell the second shop and buy a better, more profitable store instead.

Shareholder meetings happen after every fourth day of business (although time in the main story doesn't move). You can see which day of business you’re currently on in the top left corner. These meetings can provide a big boost to your Share Price Ranking, or can tank your stock if you don’t meet expectations.

Preparing For Battle

You'll want to select your lineup of up to four employees based on their Charisma, Tenacity, and Command Cost. These numbers act as their stats during shareholder meetings. Charisma is how much damage they deal, Tenacity is how much “health” they have during battle, and Command Cost is how much it costs to use them each time. Try to build a team that balances these three stats effectively.

Another key component of shareholder meetings are the colored icons on the top left corner of everyone’s information cards. This includes a blue building, green stack of money, and red person icon. Don’t focus too much on the actual icon itself, but more so the color of it. This minigame uses a simple rock, paper, scissors-style system to indicate weaknesses. Think of it like Pokemon, if you will—water (blue) beats fire (red) which beats grass (green). There’s a handy chart in the bottom left corner of the shareholder meeting screen above your support level to help remind you.

Pleasing the Shareholders

In the meetings, you’ll see the shareholders sitting in chairs in front of you. They will each fire off questions at you, which you’ll need to respond to by “attacking” them with the appropriate employee. You should pick the most persuasive shareholder with high Charisma first, as you begin with full energy. Use the lower Command Cost board members to break their shield, then the higher ones to do damage.

One a shareholder's health bar has been depleted, they will become satisfied and your Support will grow. You don't need to convince every shareholder to reach 100% Support, but you do need to either stay above 50% until the time limit is up, or until all shareholders are satisfied - whichever comes first.

If things are getting dire, Kasuga can also issue an apology to temporarily stun the shareholders and deal some damage. This gives you time to recharge a bit and utilize your higher Command Cost employees once more. As the meeting goes on, your apology meter will continue charging in the bottom right corner. There are three levels of apologies that Kasuga can issue: Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. The second apology seems to be the sweet spot, as the first apology has limited effectiveness and you likely won't need an apology until the second level is almost charged. The Level 3 apology—while extremely effective—takes a long time to charge.

If you’re successful in your shareholder meetings, you’ll see a big boost to your overall business Share Price Ranking. This is essential to moving up, and Kasuga will also get larger compensation bonuses based on your ranking.

How To Get Eri To Join Your Party

Eri will join your party once you clear the first stage of the Business Management minigame by becoming one of the Top 100 companies. Her Bond will not rise like other characters, but instead will leap up a whole level at a time each time you reach a milestone for Ichiban Confections (later Ichiban’s Holdings). These milestones are Rank 100, 50, 20, 10, and 1.

How To Move To Another Building

This is needed for one of the Achievements and Trophies in the game, but comes automatically when you hit Rank 50. The new building is opposite the Park, and you'll need to go here to continue Business Management in future.

Additional Tips

Now that you’ve got the fundamentals of Business Management down, here are some additional tips that will help you maximize your cash flow:

• When starting out, try assigning two employees to each property as it can be more cost effective. As long as the three bars are blue, you’re good.
• Listen to Eri’s comments as she will often provide insight into whether hiring a specific employee or taking on an investment is a good idea or not.
• Always buy commercials when they are offered as they can provide a hefty boost to your revenue stream for all of your business and you’ll likely always make back your initial investment.
• Take advantage of employee training seminars and discounted hiring rates as these are efficient ways to level up and expand your workforce.
• Continually upgrade your properties with your extra capital. Upgrading properties is essential to bringing in more money, and allows you to fill in gaps in Product, Service, and Notability without requiring a specific employee.
• Reinvest your earnings into Ichiban’s Confections. Your starting business can become an effective cash cow in the early and mid-game—so don’t neglect it!
• Make sure to heal your employees happiness before each workday, as happier employees make more money! It’s also cheaper to maintain their happiness day-to-day than it is to correct it when they are very discouraged.
• Offer employees promotions to raise their level cap. It’s important to allow your employees to grow further as this boosts their overall stats and effectiveness during Shareholder Meetings.
• Always be building towards the next Shareholder Meeting. These checkpoints can offer a huge boon for your business, so you should always be optimizing your properties and employees in the interim.