As the LISA association explains, globalisation "can best be thought of as a cycle rather than a single process". To "globalise" is to plan in advance the way the product or the website should be designed and developed in order to avoid costs from going up and quality problems from emerging, to save time, and eventually to smooth the localising effort for each region/country. Localisation is one phase, but an integral part, of the overall process called globalisation. 

In this view, there are two primary technical processes that comprise globalisation, internationalisation and localisation, which make up a double-phase process. See the right-hand diagram insipired in a chart found in the LISA association website.

The first phase, "internationalisation", «encompasses the planning and preparation stages for a product in which it is built by design to support global markets. This process means that all cultural assumptions are removed and any country or language-specific content is stored externally to the product so that it can be easily adapted». If this is not done during this phase, they must be fixed during localisation, though, adding time and expense to the project. It is important to acknowledge that in extreme cases, products that were not internationalised may not even be localisable.

The second phase, "localisation", «refers to the actual adaptation of the product for a specific market». The localisation phase involves, among other things (see below and Internationalisation and localisation), the four issues LISA association describes as linguistic, physical, business and cultural, and technical issues.

At the end of each phase, a testing and a quality assurance (QA) test are done to ensure that product works properly and to deliver it according to the client's quality expectations.

The overall process: internationalisation, globalisation and localisation
Translation "versus" localisation
Language tags and codes
Globalisation "versus" localisation