Software Strategic Sourcing Advisor, Senior Commercial Analyst

ISG is seeking a dynamic and creative Software Advisory Senior Commercial Analyst to help clients make their digital infrastructure faster and more effective. This role combines financial analysis with enterprise software commercial and market analysis, offering significant autonomy while being supported by a global team of over 1400 teammates.

About the Role

This position requires 3+ years of experience in financial analysis, financial and commercial modeling, forecasting, scenario analysis, benchmarking, pricing analysis, and business case development, preferably within enterprise technology, software, or a consulting environment. The successful candidate will analyze complex software investments, develop financial and commercial models, evaluate alternative scenarios, and translate quantitative findings into clear, actionable recommendations for clients. The role supports engagements involving enterprise software, SaaS, and cloud.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain sophisticated financial, pricing, and commercial models supporting enterprise software investment decisions.
• Create financial baselines, forecasts, multi-year projections, and pro forma financial scenarios using client financial data, contractual commitments, demand assumptions, and market benchmarks.
• Perform variance, trend, scenario, sensitivity, and what-if analyses to identify financial drivers and evaluate alternative business outcomes.
• Analyze actual and forecasted technology expenditures to identify underlying drivers of variances to budgets, forecasts, and financial plans.
• Develop total cost of ownership (TCO), return on investment (ROI), cost-benefit, cash-flow, and business case analyses for software investments and strategic alternatives.
• Perform price, volume, mix, growth, utilization, and unit-cost analyses to identify key drivers of software spending.
• Quantify financial risks and opportunities associated with contract renewals, technology migrations, cloud adoption, licensing changes, vendor consolidation, and alternative investment strategies.
• Work independently with large, complex, incomplete, and potentially unstructured datasets from multiple client and third-party sources.
• Organize, cleanse, normalize, reconcile, and validate financial, pricing, contractual, licensing, utilization, and operational data.
• Identify data inconsistencies, missing information, anomalies, and potential errors, and determine appropriate approaches for resolving them.
• Develop reasonable and defensible assumptions when complete information is unavailable and clearly document those assumptions within the analysis.
• Translate ambiguous or complex business questions into structured analytical frameworks and financial models.
• Identify material trends, relationships, financial risks, opportunities, and cost drivers within large datasets.
• Independently validate calculations, assumptions, inputs, and outputs to maintain a high standard of analytical accuracy.
• Translate quantitative findings into clear, actionable business insights and recommendations.
• Develop financial dashboards, KPIs, management reporting, and executive-level decision-support materials.
• Analyze enterprise software, SaaS, and cloud investments and their associated financial and commercial structures.
• Evaluate software provider proposals to identify financial risks, cost optimization opportunities, pricing differences, and potential savings.
• Analyze perpetual, term, subscription, SaaS, and cloud consumption pricing models.
• Normalize vendor pricing, licensing, usage, and contractual data to enable meaningful comparisons across proposals and scenarios.
• Conduct financial and commercial benchmarking to assess pricing, discount levels, unit economics, contractual structures, and overall market competitiveness.
• Develop scenario models that allow clients to understand the financial implications of different growth assumptions, consumption levels, contract terms, pricing structures, and software strategies.
• Support commercial negotiations through fact-based financial analysis, scenario modeling, pricing benchmarks, and negotiation economics.
• Conduct research on software providers, technology markets, pricing models, licensing structures, and industry trends to support analytical assumptions and recommendations.

Requirements

• 3+ years of relevant professional experience in financial analysis, FP&A, technology finance, commercial analysis, corporate finance, pricing analysis, transaction advisory, management consulting, strategic sourcing analytics, or a related quantitative discipline.
• Experience supporting IT, technology, software, cloud, or other complex commercial environments is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience building financial models and conducting quantitative analyses used to support business, investment, or commercial decisions.
• Strong understanding of budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, scenario analysis, sensitivity analysis, business case development, ROI, and total cost of ownership modeling.
• Working knowledge of financial concepts including OpEx, CapEx, accruals, capitalization, depreciation/amortization, cash flow, and cost allocation.
• Ability to independently translate complex or ambiguous business questions into structured financial analyses.
• Demonstrated ability to work with large, incomplete, or unstructured datasets; identify appropriate assumptions; reconcile discrepancies; develop structured financial models; and translate the resulting analysis into clear business recommendations.
• Strong quantitative, critical-thinking, and problem-solving capabilities with a high level of attention to detail and data accuracy.
• Ability to challenge assumptions, identify inconsistencies, reconcile conflicting information, and independently validate financial and commercial data.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex financial concepts to non-financial and technical stakeholders.
• Experience developing and presenting financial analysis and recommendations to senior management and executive stakeholders.
• Strong interpersonal, organizational, and time-management skills.
• Ability to operate independently while collaborating effectively within project and client teams.
• Ability to manage and prioritize multiple projects and analytical workstreams in a consulting environment.
• Strong client-service orientation and collaborative working style.

Skills

• Intermediate to advanced Microsoft Excel proficiency, including formulas and functions, PivotTables, XLOOKUP/VLOOKUP, SUMIFS, IF statements, data validation, conditional formatting, charts, and manipulation of large datasets.
• Demonstrated ability to independently build, modify, review, and audit financial models in Excel, including forecasting, scenario modeling, sensitivity analysis, variance analysis, and comparative analysis.
• Ability to take raw financial and operational data and independently transform it into a structured analytical model.
• Intermediate proficiency in Microsoft Word and Teams for client deliverables, documentation, communication, and collaboration.
• Experience with Power Query and/or Power BI is preferred.
• Experience analyzing enterprise technology, software, SaaS, or cloud investments is strongly preferred but not required.
• Knowledge of enterprise software commercial models, licensing metrics, subscription economics, cloud consumption models, and enterprise agreements is beneficial.
• Experience supporting or participating in enterprise software license negotiations is a plus.

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science (BS) or Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in Finance, Accounting, Mathematics, or Statistics is required.
• Advanced degrees or professional certifications in finance, accounting, mathematics, statistics, analytics, or a related quantitative discipline are preferred but not required.

Practical Assessment

As part of ISG's interview process, candidates will complete a practical Excel-based financial analysis and modeling exercise to evaluate their ability to analyze and organize financial or commercial datasets, structure analyses, develop assumptions, validate work, and translate quantitative findings.

Schedule & Location

• This is a remote position based in the United States.
• Minimal travel is anticipated; occasional travel may be required based on specific client or business needs.