Localization for Lean SaaS: From Afterthought to Growth Engine. Insights from Émilie Némorin, Product Localization Manager at Zoom.

In today's interconnected global business landscape, companies face the challenge of connecting with audiences across diverse languages, cultures, and regions. Localization has become a crucial strategy for businesses aiming to expand internationally. But what does effective localization really involve, and how can organizations successfully implement it across their operations?

To answer this question, we sat down with Émilie Némorin, a seasoned localization expert with a decade of experience in the industry.

Who is Émilie Némorin?

During the course of her career, Émilie has occupied various roles related with localization in several global companies across different industries, from French Localization Specialist at Booking.com, to Senior Localization Project Manager at Adidas, to Localization Program Lead at Tellent. Moving from a translator’s position into more strategic roles allowed her to gain a comprehensive understanding of the challenges and opportunities in this field, which she brings into her current role as a Product Localization Manager at Zoom. Her experience offers valuable insights on managing localization across different departments to maximize international expansion.

What Are the Main Localization Roles in Global Companies?

People that are not familiar with localization processes often mistakenly equate localization with simple translation. However, localization is a much more multifaceted concept than translation.

Doing so requires coordination and teamwork, but, above all, it requires a structure where every team and every professional involved has a clear understanding of their role and responsibility, as well as an overall awareness of what other stakeholders need from them to carry out their job efficiently, thus contributing to the overall success of localization.

Localization roles in global companies span a wide range of responsibilities, from strategic planning and process development to hands-on translation and cultural adaptation. Here’s a list of roles that are frequently found in global companies:

• Localization Program Manager: Oversees the entire localization process, develops strategies, and manages budgets and resources

• Localization Engineer: Handles technical aspects of localization, such as internationalization of code and integration of localization tools

• Localization Project Manager: Coordinates localization projects across different departments, ensuring timely delivery and quality control

• Localization Specialist: Focuses on specific aspects of localization, such as translation, cultural adaptation, or market research

• Localization QA: Ensures the quality and accuracy of localized content through rigorous testing and review processes

All these professionals work together to ensure that products, services, and content are properly adapted for target markets, taking into account language, cultural nuances, and local preferences.

In the digital age, having a website means global accessibility, but a localized approach is key to capturing international markets successfully. Companies that invest in robust localization strategies and dedicated localization roles see significant returns on their investment. As deskbird’s Graziella Moschella pointed out in a previous article in our blog, effective localization requires adapting the messaging and the value proposition to something that resonates with the target audience. When done correctly, localization opens doors to new markets, increases user engagement, and drives international growth. In Émilie’s words, “localization is a revenue enabler rather than a cost center.” This shift in perspective is crucial for companies to allocate appropriate resources to their localization efforts and establish effective localization programs.

How Do Localization Teams Collaborate with Other Departments?

Successful localization requires collaboration not only within the localization team, but across the entire organization, to ensure localization is approached strategically and not just as an afterthought.

This cross-functional collaboration ensures that localization considerations are built into every aspect of the business, from product development to marketing campaigns and customer support. This approach allows for localization “red flags”, such as inappropriate product naming, code that is not localization-friendly or non-adaptive UI, to be raised and addressed earlier in the process rather than just before launch, when there’s very little time to fix them. The importance of early involvement of localization teams has also been advocated by Miguel Sepulveda, Globalization Director at King, in a previous blog post, where he went as far as recommending localization should be involved at the concept stage. This ensures products are designed with global markets in mind from the beginning, reducing the need for costly and time-consuming changes later on.

How Can You Build a Localization Program from Scratch?

For companies just beginning their international expansion, Émilie recommends setting up comprehensive strategies from the ground up:

1. Identify key stakeholders who will be involved in international efforts

2. Establish clear processes for localization requests

3. Develop standardized workflows that incorporate localization at appropriate stages

4. Define localization roles and hire dedicated experts to manage the process

Clearly mapping the scope and objectives of the international expansion effort will give you invaluable insight on what the priorities of your localization program should be and will help you shape it in a way that fits the unique context of your business. If you want a concrete example, check out the article of our blog where Michael Levot shared with us Canva’s extremely successful localization journey.  

What Are the Key Strategies for Effective Localization?

Based on Émilie's experience in various localization roles, the success of localization efforts depends on several factors, but she identifies a few strategies that can help:

1. Be Proactive, Not Reactive

Rather than waiting for other departments to approach the localization team with finished products needing translation, Émilie advocates for a proactive approach:

This might mean joining product planning meetings, reviewing marketing calendars in advance, or establishing regular check-ins with development teams to stay informed about upcoming features that will need localization. 

 2. Speak the Language of Different Stakeholders

Different departments have different priorities and metrics of success. To gain buy-in for localization efforts, Émilie recommends tailoring your communication to illustrate how localization directly benefits each stakeholder:

• For engineering: Discuss technical aspects like automations between tools and the translation management system

• For marketing: Emphasize increased engagement and conversion rates in target markets

• For product: Highlight improved user experience and reduced support tickets

• For executives: Present data on ROI and competitive advantages

A vital part of building a successful localization program is being able to effectively communicate the value of localization in terms that resonate with each stakeholder group. This is particularly relevant for professionals such as Localization Program Managers who have the opportunity to shift the perception the leadership team has of localization efforts, no longer framing it as a cost that needs to be minimized, but as an investment that can drive revenue and growth. 

3. Build Strong Relationships

Perhaps the most important strategy Émilie emphasizes is relationship building:

These relationships create allies who understand the value of localization and can advocate for it within their own departments.

How Do You Communicate the Value of Localization?

As mentioned above, localization professionals must be skilled at communicating the value of their work in terms that resonate with stakeholders across the organization, as one of the biggest challenges localization teams face is skepticism or resistance from other departments that may not fully understand the impact of localization on international growth. Drawing from her professional experience, Émilie recommends several strategies for communicating the value effectively:

• Introduce localization through informational sessions to educate people on what your team does

• Engage stakeholders by presenting tangible data on how localization impacts their specific metrics

• Highlight localization wins in post-mortem meetings, monthly company meetings and internal communications

• Focus on metrics that matter to the business as a whole, like website traffic, user acquisition, or customer feedback, rather than localization-specific metrics such as the number of words translated or LQA scores. 

Communicating the value of localization to other internal stakeholders will make them more responsive and understanding of localization-specific issues, especially if you’re able to show them the positive impact of your team’s early involvement. 

How Do You Overcome Common Challenges?

Localization teams often find themselves faced with challenges that not only make their work less efficient but also prevent localization initiatives from realizing their full potential. Here are the most common of these challenges, and how to address them: 

Lack of Understanding

As discussed, especially in big organizations, members of other departments may not fully understand what localization entails, which can lead to unrealistic expectations or insufficient planning for localization needs.

Solution: Regular stakeholder education through workshops, documentation, and one-on-one conversations can help build understanding across the organization.

Siloed Working Environments

When departments operate in isolation, localization considerations often come as an afterthought, resulting in rushed jobs and quality issues.

Solution: Foster collaboration across departments by establishing cross-functional meetings that include the localization department at key stages of product development, content creation, and marketing campaigns.

Last-Minute Requests

Rushed localization often results in quality issues and higher costs.

Solution: Implement clear timelines and processes for localization requests, and educate teams on the lead time required for quality localization work.

What Are the Best Practices for Improving Localization Processes?

For companies looking to optimize their localization efforts, Émilie suggests these best practices:

• Hire dedicated localization experts to manage the process and establish clear processes and workflows

• Think global from day one and align the localization strategy with the overall corporate strategy

• Leverage automations between tools and the translation management system to streamline workflows

• Prioritize internationalization practices to ensure code is localization-ready

• Implement a system to collect and manage localization requests using dedicated forms, or specialized software such as Jira or Clickup

Implementing these simple strategies will help localization teams keep their processes organized and manage them efficiently, allowing them to stay on top of all the requests coming from different areas of the business (e.g., marketing, product, support, etc.).

What’s The Future of Localization for Lean SaaS?

Looking ahead, Émilie predicts that more and more SaaS companies will leverage global marketplaces, as well as international partnerships, to expand their reach. This shift will undoubtedly impact traditional approaches to international expansion and localization strategies, and will require localization teams to adapt accordingly. As global expansion strategies evolve, so will the responsibilities and skill sets required for localization professionals, who will need to stay agile and adapt to new technologies, platforms, and approaches to international growth.

Conclusion

Effective Localization for Lean SaaS requires more than just translating words from one language to another. It demands a strategic, collaborative approach that integrates localization considerations across all departments and processes within an organization. Localization teams play a crucial part in facilitating this collaboration and driving successful international expansion.

As Émilie's insights demonstrate, the most successful localization strategies are those that are woven into the very fabric of organizational processes rather than being treated as an isolated function. With the right approach and the right processes, localization becomes not just a technical necessity but a significant business advantage in an increasingly global marketplace.

By viewing localization as a revenue enabler, being proactive in engaging with stakeholders, communicating the benefits in terms that resonate with different departments, and building strong relationships across the organization, localization teams can transform localization into a powerful driver of international growth.

At Undertow, we specialize in creating and managing tailored localization programs for B2B SaaS companies that want to expand internationally. If you’re starting on your localization journey and want to make sure to lay a strong foundation for global success, get in touch.