Speaking the language of business: A 3-part framework to prove localization’s impact

The localization team: From invisible to indispensable

In many global organizations, localization teams do vital work behind the scenes, but there is still a genuine struggle to be seen. It’s not uncommon to hear things like:

• “No one really knows what we do.”
• “People think we’re just translators.”
• “We don’t know how to explain our impact.”

Despite enabling everything from international product launches to seamless multilingual customer experiences, localization is often misunderstood or underestimated.

This misperception leads to real consequences: budget constraints, late-stage involvement in content cycles, siloed workflows, and ultimately, burnout from constantly trying to play catch-up.

The truth is, localization is about making global growth possible. And when localization leaders can clearly communicate their strategic value, everything changes.

At Phrase, we’ve seen teams go from overlooked to mission-critical by reframing how they talk about their work. It starts with a simple shift in perspective that we call the “Success Statement.”

This framework helps teams align with broader business goals, connect their work to measurable outcomes, and reposition localization from a reactive service to a proactive growth enabler.

The communication gap: why execs don’t ‘get’ localization

One of the biggest challenges localization teams face is being misunderstood by leadership. 

While localization professionals often focus on accuracy, throughput, and translation quality, executives are more concerned with business outcomes like revenue growth, operational efficiency, and customer experience. This mismatch creates a communication gap that can leave localization teams struggling to secure resources or a seat at the strategic table.

The problem isn’t the value of the work, but how that value is framed. It’s all too common for localization teams to default to technical jargon or internal metrics that don’t connect to broader business goals. 

When localization is discussed in terms of “TM leverage” or “fuzzy matches,” it reinforces the perception that it’s a backend function, not a strategic asset. 

To change this perception, teams need to shift the conversation, and start tying their work to faster go-to-market timelines, improved global engagement, and cost efficiencies that matter to leadership. Without that shift, localization remains siloed, underfunded, and brought in too late to make a difference.

Introducing the success statement framework

To bridge the communication gap and reposition localization as a strategic function, teams need a clear, business-aligned narrative. One effective tool for doing this is the Success Statement framework.

A Success Statement helps localization leaders articulate their team’s purpose and impact in terms that resonate across departments. It consists of three key components:

• Vision – Why your team exists. This is the “north star” that connects localization to the company’s broader mission, whether it’s enabling global growth, delivering culturally resonant experiences, or removing barriers to speed up market entry.
  
• Objectives – What your team is actively working toward. These should align with business goals like improving time-to-market, supporting new product launches, or increasing customer satisfaction across regions.
  
• Success metrics – How you measure progress. These might include increased adoption in new markets, reduced localization turnaround times, or improved engagement with localized content.
  

When these three elements are clearly defined and aligned, they create a powerful, executive-ready narrative.

Teams that use this framework are better equipped to communicate cross-functionally, justify their budgets, and influence strategic planning, because they’re suddenly speaking the language of business. And let’s face it, a localization team should be pretty good at translating things into the right language. 

Step 1: Creating a business-aligned vision statement

The first component of a strong Success Statement is a clear, business-aligned vision. This part is all about the purpose of the team. Tools and tactics can wait. At this point, you are trying to convey exactly why the localization team exists. 

Your vision statement should be a single statement that reflects your team’s contribution to the company’s broader mission, framed in plain language that any stakeholder (regardless of department) can immediately understand.

What makes a great vision?

• No jargon: Avoid references to “TM systems,” “string management,” “fuzzy matches”, “segmentation” etc., or acronyms like “MTPE” or “MT”.
  
• No team-specific language: Don’t focus on what the localization team does. Focus on what the business gains.
  
• Aspirational, but grounded: It should feel inspiring, but still tied to real business goals like market expansion, customer growth, or user satisfaction.
  

Examples:

• ✘ “We enable global-ready content through scalable localization workflows.”
  This sounds technical and tool-driven. Likely to be ignored by leadership.
  
• ✔ “We help our company reach and grow loyal customers in every market.”
  This is simple, outcome-oriented, and directly connected to growth.
  

Pro tip:

Start with: “We help the business…”
Then ask yourself: How does our work unlock value for customers, markets, or teams?

By defining your vision in this way, you create a foundation that’s easy to communicate and hard to ignore. This is especially useful when you’re advocating for resources or early involvement in strategic planning.

Step 2: Set clear, measurable objectives

Once your team’s vision is in place, the next step is to define what success looks like in the short-to-medium term. This is where objectives come in: Specific, measurable outcomes your team is working toward this quarter or year.

Good objectives serve two purposes:

1. They give your team clear direction and focus.
   
2. They connect your work to the company’s broader strategic goals.
   

What makes a strong objective?

• Realistic and measurable: Avoid vague phrases like “improve” or “enhance.” Use concrete targets tied to performance.
  
• Business-aligned: Where possible, map objectives to company OKRs or key initiatives like launching in a new market, improving NPS scores, or increasing operational efficiency.
  

Examples:

• ✘ “Improve quality.”
  Too broad. How will you know if you’ve succeeded?
  
• ✔ “Reduce turnaround time by 25% for Tier 1 market launches.”
  Specific, time-bound, and tied to speed-to-market.
  
• ✔ “Increase localized content engagement by 15% in top 3 growth markets.”
  Links localization to customer experience and growth metrics.
  

Pro tip:

Use business language that resonates outside your team. Think in terms of:

• Speed-to-market (e.g., reduced launch timelines)
  
• Customer experience (e.g., better engagement, higher satisfaction)
  
• Cost efficiency (e.g., automation savings, fewer content revisions)
  

When objectives are framed this way, it becomes easier to justify investments, track progress, and demonstrate localization’s contribution to global growth.

Step 3: Define success metrics that matter

The final part of a strong Success Statement is the proof. Success metrics that show how your team is delivering on its objectives. These metrics give stakeholders a reason to trust the value of your work and support it with future investment.

Again, the key is to report progress in a way that speaks the language of the business. That means choosing metrics that are:

• Already tracked by the company: Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use KPIs that already appear in company dashboards or quarterly reports.
  
• Relative, not abstract: Always show improvement over time. Before and after a change, launch, or initiative.
  
• Easily understood outside your team: Avoid technical localization terms. Focus on impact: customer experience, efficiency, speed, or cost.
  

Examples:

• ✔ “New feature NPS rose by 12 points in Japan after local rollout.”
  Links localization directly to customer satisfaction.
  
• ✔ “Reduced vendor costs by 18% after AI workflow integration.”
  Shows how localization contributes to operational efficiency.
  
• ✔ “Cut average translation time for product release content from 10 days to 6.”
  Ties to speed-to-market, a business-critical KPI.
  

When you tie localization work to measurable, recognizable business metrics, it becomes harder to ignore and easier to fund because you are showing how the team provides impact, rather than just deliverables.

How to use your success statement internally

Creating a Success Statement is just the beginning, the real power lies in how you use it. When applied consistently, this simple framework becomes a strategic tool for clarity, alignment, and influence across your organization.

Use your vision to:

• Align your team around a shared purpose that goes beyond tasks and tools.
  
• Start strategic conversations with leadership by framing your work in terms of customer value and business growth.
  

Use your objectives to:

• Prioritize work by filtering requests through your stated goals. What moves the needle, and what doesn’t?
  
• Justify initiatives or headcount by connecting proposed investments to clear business outcomes.
  

Use your success metrics to:

• Report progress in language the business understands. Show improvements in cost, time, and impact.
  
• Influence future investment by showing how localization contributes to measurable success across departments and markets.
  

Done right, this can be a practical tool for steering your work, advocating for your team, and ensuring localization is viewed not as a service line, but as a strategic growth partner.

Common mistakes (and how to avoid them)

Even with the best intentions, teams can fall into a few traps when building their Success Statement. Here’s how to avoid the most common ones:

• Using localization-specific jargon in your Vision
  If your Vision statement includes terms like “TM leverage” or “string management,” it won’t resonate outside your team. Strip out the technical language and focus on what your work enables at a business level: customer engagement, global growth, or market access.
  
• Setting vague or unrealistic Objectives
  “Improve translation quality” sounds nice but doesn’t really say much. Objectives should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound), and ideally tied to broader business OKRs. Unrealistic goals can undermine your credibility, so keep them ambitious but attainable.
  
• Choosing metrics no one else in the business cares about
  If your success metrics require a localization crash course to interpret, they’re not helping your case. Focus on metrics already tracked by the business, like customer satisfaction, time-to-market, or cost savings.
  
• Treating this as a one-time exercise
  Your Success Statement should evolve alongside your business. Revisit it quarterly or as company priorities shift. The more it reflects your current reality, the more powerful it becomes.
  

By avoiding these common missteps, you’ll keep your Success Statement clear, relevant, and impactful. Create something your team can rally around, and that your leadership team will understand.

See how Phrase helps teams operationalize their success statements

A Success Statement is most effective when it moves beyond theory and becomes something your team can act on every day.

The challenge for many organizations is turning those ambitions into consistent, scalable workflows that support faster releases, better customer experiences, and measurable outcomes across markets.

This is where technology can make a meaningful difference.

Phrase gives teams the structure they need to operationalize their vision, from automated translation pipelines that remove bottlenecks to analytics that help you track performance against your objectives and the metrics that matter to the business. It brings together the processes, data, and collaboration that support a more strategic approach to global content.

If you want to see how these ideas work in practice, you can explore Phrase in a guided demo. It’s an opportunity to understand how other organizations use the platform to accelerate market expansion, improve customer engagement, and build the kind of operational clarity that makes a Success Statement more than a one-off exercise.

From unknown entity to strategic growth driver

When localization teams start speaking the language of the business, everything changes. Rather than just being a tactical function that’s a budget necessity, the team becomes a partner in shaping global strategy.

A clear Success Statement helps you tell that story, align your work to business priorities, and advocate for the resources you need to scale.

Don’t wait for budget season or the next reorg to make your case.

Start now. Refine your Vision. Set focused Objectives. Track meaningful Metrics and use them consistently, strategically, and visibly, to show what localization really delivers: global reach, stronger customer experiences, and sustainable growth.