Software Asset Manager

WPP is the creative transformation company. We use the power of creativity to build better futures for our people, planet, clients, and communities.

Working at WPP means being part of a global network of more than 109,000 accomplished people in 110 countries. WPP has headquarters in New York, London and Singapore and a corporate presence in major markets worldwide.

We create transformative ideas and outcomes for our clients through an integrated offer of communications, experience, commerce, and technology.

WPP and our award-winning agencies work with most of the world's biggest companies and organisations – from Ford, Unilever and P&G to Google, HSBC, and the UN. Our clients include 61 of the FTSE 100, 317 of the Fortune Global 500, all 30 of the Dow Jones 30 and 62 of the NASDAQ 100. WPP are the leader in the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index and 8th in the FTSE 100 rankings for Women on Boards.

WPP IT provides IT services for WPP, the world’s largest communications services group. As a creative transformation company, WPP is helping its clients transform the future through extraordinary work. WPP IT is an integral part of that journey and we are proud to provide technology for some of the world’s most creative brands.

Why we're hiring:

At WPP, technology is at the heart of everything we do, and it is WPP IT’s mission to enable everyone to collaborate, create and thrive. WPP IT is undergoing a significant transformation to modernise ways of working, shift to cloud and micro-service-based architectures, drive automation, digitise colleague and client experiences and deliver insight from WPP’s petabytes of data.

As we progress on this journey, we need to establish a new and refreshed IT Asset Management backbone to our technology organisation to support our transformation. You will be responsible to operate the Software Asset Management (SAM) practice, so that we are able to optimise our asset base and manage/reduce risk. The ITAM function is responsible for deploying and enforce best practice on the IT E2E asset lifecycle. 

 

What you'll be doing:

•    Define strategy and produce effective license positions, risk and forecast positions for major software vendors. 
•    Lead engagement with technology teams to turn asset trends, asset performance and asset requirements into decision aiding data for contract managers at renewal or true up events
•    Define and implement a centralized knowledge base for managed software vendors
•    Chair cross function, cross company vendor governance meetings. C-level stakeholder management 
•    Define and deploy new SAM processes across a continually shifting estate involving multiple IT teams and platforms
•    Lead a continuous improvement approach to running SAM activity in WPP
•    Lead strategic approach for risk management and licence optimisation
•    Define and own the risk management process: identify and assist business owners with managing software contract risks, report non-compliance. Provide risk mitigation recommendations and drive risks mitigations.  
•    Identify software cost optimisation opportunities and lead the projects to achieve software savings, working closely with stakeholders
•    Drive the compliant use of WPP’s software contracts through educating colleagues, enforcing policies, and monitoring adherence to processes.   
•    Work with procurement, finance and legal on contract renewals and new purchases. 

 

Who you'll be working with:

The Software Asset Manager will report to the Software Asset Management Lead, and liaise with various global teams across IT, procurement, finance and legal.

 

What you'll need:

Qualification Requirements (Desirable)
•    Degree in engineering, computer science, finance or equivalent (i.e. MBA) desirable but not essential
•    Minimum 7-10 years working in an Software Asset Management role or related 
•    Minimum 5-7 years working with ITAM or CMDB tools

Skill Requirements
•    Strong experience and background in Software Asset Management disciplines and ITIL
•    Expertise in end-to-end SAM ownership for vendors such as IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, VMware
•    Demonstrable experience of license modelling in datacentre, virtualised and end user environments
•    High competency in SAM data modelling and a deep bias towards data-driven decision making
•    Knowledge and hands-on experience with IT asset management tools, ServiceNow and CMDB.
•    Expert communicator with a track record of operating, partnering with and influencing business stakeholders and ability to translate technical information to a non-technical audience<