Software Asset Management Optimization Lead

Job Description

Position Description:

Software Asset Management (SAM) Optimization Lead

This position operates as a business partner proposing ideas and innovative solutions that enable new organizational capabilities through the efficient management of software products. We collaborate internationally to deliver the services and solutions that enables the commercialization of our medicines, vaccines, and Animal Health products.

The SAM Optimization Lead will be part of the center led Software Asset Management Service to ensure compliant, cost effective and efficient utilization of software in partnerships with Software Owners across our company. The position will manage overall supplier relations, compliance with contractual licensing models and provide inputs to find optimization opportunities.  The position will also lead a team of analysts focused on one of the following asset types:

• End User Software

• Server Software

• Saas Products

The position acts as the key liaison with internal stakeholders to ensure the alignment and maturity development of overall SAM capabilities within the enterprise.  Further, this role provides an initial point of escalation point for any issues that arise from day-to-day management of the SAM service, including, but limited to, prioritizing the analyst team’s activities.

Our Company is driving a multi-year IT transformation that requires an operationally and technically focused SAM Service to support the effective utilization of third-party software as underpinning technologies in support of our broader overall IT initiatives of moving to the cloud, data and analytics and an agile product team centric operating mode as key elements of the IT change.

In addition, this role is expected to work in an advisory capacity on cross-functional teams with stakeholders to advocate and expand the utilization of SAM services and data as a foundational element within IT to deliver breakthrough results, driving overall innovation and automation.

Responsibilities

• Ensures that the software asset inventory is maintained at optimal levels against contract terms and conditions

• Accountable for understanding and communicating information about software license models and license related terms

• Identifies software upgrade opportunities and forecasts future software usage and support needs

• Standardizes software contracts for volume, service level, and maintenance

• Reviews existing contract terms and conditions for improvement areas, as well as, changes in vendor licensing or other market factors

• Provides advisory services to various business units on how software licensing impacts projects and operations

• Identifies opportunities for volume license purchasing to reduce costs and maximize software spend

• Understands and can articulate how various software products fit into our company’s IT environment and whether alternative products exist or should be explored

• Perform preliminary risk-based review of vendor on-boarding requests to determine if agreement requires legal review

• Updates and maintains ITAM policies and procedures

• Ability to drive conversations with IT stakeholder to establish and understanding of the software product, it’s usage, availability of deployment information, or additional resources that will need to be leveraged in order to appropriately capture deployment information

• Support the coordination of IT and Business stakeholders to confirm the completeness and accuracy of entitlement information for a given vendor

• Review and analyze software contract and purchase data to support the delivery of “Effective License Position(s)” and onboarding into a ITAM tool

• Manage the development and distribution of software vendor and product specific data requests to ensure license positions are complete and accurate

• Drive the collection and analysis of additional software deployment and usage information to support ELP creation

• Leverage industry, vendor, and general IT knowledge to identify cost savings and avoidance opportunities for selected vendors based on available information

• Monitor for and supports the response to internal and external software license compliance or other assessments (e.g., audits)

Position Qualifications:

Education Minimum Requirement:

• Bachelor's degree in related technical field such as IT, Finance, Business, Engineering or similar.

Required Experience and Skills:

• 5-7 Years of Technology Asset Management (TAM)