Case Study

Software licensing at ZS was a part-time responsibility spread across staff with other primary duties. Contracts were disorganized and inconsistently shared with Legal. Renewals were tracked in a spreadsheet — most falling at year-end, where paperwork was routinely misplaced. Clients were being locked out of production systems due to payment delays. The function had no dedicated owner, no defined process, and no supporting infrastructure.

Company & Position

ZS Associates, Associate Partner (2011-2017)

Actions

• Consolidated all licensing activities into a dedicated team; extended the Service Cloud implementation with DocuSign integration for licensing workflows.
• Identified root causes; restructured renewal timelines to eliminate year-end clustering and reduce missed payments.
• Built a centralized onshore team; added follow-the-sun support in India as volume grew.

Outcome & Impact

• In the first quarter, identified $1M in license revenue that would otherwise have gone uncollected.
• System downtime and associated client escalations significantly reduced.
• Clear accountability established for routine renewals and escalations.