How a Global Software Leader Transformed Content Operations at Scale
Behind every slowdown in a global enterprise lies a combination of unseen pressures. For one multinational software company, those pressures were building fast: rising operational overhead, fragmented systems, and growing security concerns.
Even its long-established localization function, once a model of operational maturity, was beginning to feel the strain.
With a global presence, the company delivers digital solutions across a wide range of industries and countries. It manages an always-on content pipeline and has invested in a sophisticated internal infrastructure, including a custom-built middleware layer that keeps content flowing across more than a dozen systems.
At the heart of this ecosystem was a self-hosted translation management system. Once state of the art, it was no longer keeping pace. It lacked automation. It couldn’t connect with modern systems. And most concerning of all, it lacked the security features now critical to protecting global operations.
Challenge
The security mandate that sparked change
The turning point came when the company’s information security team issued a non-negotiable directive. The legacy localization platform, no longer supported or upgradable, had become a risk to the business.
This was not simply an IT concern. The static nature of the old platform was also limiting the company’s ability to adopt new technologies, scale into emerging markets, and support evolving content types.
The team, known for its strong technical capabilities and history of building its own tools, did not take the decision lightly. Its machine translation systems had been developed in-house. Its workflows were finely tuned. Any new solution would have to integrate seamlessly, scale with increasing demands, and support the level of customization the team was used to.
The legacy platform had become a risk to the business. Security, scale, and innovation were no longer optional.
Solution
A phased approach to modernization
The company needed a modern solution that could strengthen operations without disrupting the systems already in place. It chose Phrase.
Phrase checked every box. Its API-first architecture made it easy to integrate with the company’s existing infrastructure, allowing for a smooth rollout with minimal disruption. As part of the transition, the team also re-engineered its custom middleware to meet modern security standards and prepare for future scale.
Crucially, Phrase delivered a secure, cloud-native platform with continuous innovation at its core.
The implementation was deliberate and phased. Each stage was tied to specific operational goals, ensuring adoption was aligned with business priorities and delivered measurable impact.
Step 1: Replacing legacy systems
The first step was replacing the legacy system with the Phrase Platform, which became the centralized hub for all localization operations. A newly integrated middleware layer routed content into Phrase. This included anything from product UI and support articles to learning materials, and marketing assets.
Next came Phrase Language AI. The company maintained its internal machine translation infrastructure but used Phrase to streamline MT management across multiple engines. Phrase enhanced, rather than replaced, the existing setup. This gave the team flexibility without forcing them to compromise on past investments.
Step 2: Unlocking automation
With the foundation in place, the company explored advanced automation with Phrase QPS (Phrase Quality Performance Score) and Phrase Orchestrator.
With Phrase QPS, the company could score machine-translated content to determine its fitness for publication. This opened the door to “hyperautomation”, a scenario in which only content below a certain quality threshold would be routed for human review. Early tests were promising. By aligning Phrase QPS scores with independent human evaluations, Phrase demonstrated that the model could consistently match or outperform human reviewers in identifying problematic content.
This capability was implemented in a controlled pilot via Phrase Orchestrator, which routed content dynamically based on Phrase QPS. Within two months, the results were clear: 50% of content could bypass human review entirely, resulting in both significant time savings and reduced reliance on manual QA.
Phrase QPS and Orchestrator cut manual review in half.
Step 3: Exploring Auto Adapt for market nuance
With Phrase QPS and Phrase Orchestrator already delivering measurable efficiencies, Phrase is now helping the company build on that foundation with Auto Adapt, a generative AI-powered capability designed to intelligently refine translations for specific markets and use cases.
Auto Adapt reduced the manual review needs, particularly for content that already passes Phrase QPS thresholds but still requires stylistic or market-specific adjustments, including customization for a specific target audience. It also opens the door to more confident market expansion, giving the company a cost-effective way to reach new geographies or demographics without inflating localization budgets.
This powerful capability allows the team to go beyond traditional localization by fine-tuning tone, terminology, and regional variants at scale. Whether adapting English (U.S.) content for UK markets or tailoring Spanish for different Latin American audiences, Auto Adapt makes it possible to localize with far more nuance. It does so without the need to route everything through human post-editing.
While this is currently in test Phase, Auto Adapt represents a natural next step in the company’s automation journey. It builds directly on the efficiencies already gained with the Phrase Platform and promises to uplevel those gains by making refined, audience-aware content production faster, more scalable, and more affordable.
Auto Adapt brings nuance to automation by refining tone, terminology, and region-specific variants without manual post-editing.
Measureable Success
RESULTS
Efficiency, savings, and strategic value
The transformation delivered both operational and strategic benefits.
- Significant Operational Gains. Efficiency improvements driven by automation, reduced reliance on manual review, streamlined workflows, and optimized use of internal resources. While some gains came from leaner resourcing, the majority stemmed from enhanced end-to-end processes, allowing the team to maintain output while reducing operational overhead.
- Half a Billion Words Processed Annually. Through automation the company now localizes at scale, and is integrated with 16 upstream systems, enabling localization for every content type from documentation to UI.
- 50% Reduction in Human Review. The combined power of Phrase QPS and Phrase Orchestrator halved the volume of content needing human review for select content types. This freed up linguists to focus on higher-value work, such as terminology strategy and linguistic QA for premium content.
- Talent Redeployed to Strategic Roles: Streamlined operations enabled by the Phrase Platform allowed key team members, including the former localization manager, to shift into broader business roles, This highlights how automation supports both operational efficiency and employee growth.
Scaling innovation
Historically, the company preferred to build its own systems. But the pace of AI innovation and the increasing complexity of maintaining infrastructure have prompted a shift.
The team is now rethinking what it needs to build versus what it can access through external partnerships. Phrase has shown that the right platform can deliver faster innovation, more stability, and lower long-term costs than in-house solutions.
Generative AI in particular is changing the calculus. What once required a dedicated team to manage and retrain neural MT models can now be achieved with more adaptable, intelligent tooling that delivers quality without added overhead.
With generative AI, content refinement is faster and more cost-effective without sacrificing quality.
A future shaped by precision and innovation
This is a company that moves carefully. It does not adopt technology for its own sake. Every decision is based on rigorous evaluation, and every investment must prove its worth.
Phrase has not only passed that test, it has helped shape the company’s future direction. By enabling secure modernization, powering scalable automation, and allowing the team to focus on strategy over infrastructure, Phrase has become a trusted partner.
As the company continues to evolve its approach to global content, it does so with a modern, AI-driven platform at its side and a clear focus on efficiency, quality, and growth.
For global enterprises seeking to modernize complex operations without sacrificing control, this story shows what becomes possible when innovation meets precision.
The team moved from building everything in-house to partnering with Phrase for faster innovation and lower long-term cost.