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Mark Willis
Principal Negotiation Advisor
30 years in enterprise software negotiation · ex-IBM, ex-SAP, ex-Gartner · Buyer-side only

About Mark Willis

Mark Willis is Principal Negotiation Advisor at SoftwareContractNegotiation and the named author behind the firm's vendor research, playbooks and case studies. He has spent 30 years on the buy side of enterprise software, helping IT, procurement and finance leaders restructure and renegotiate their largest vendor agreements.

Before moving to independent buyer-side advisory, Mark held roles at IBM, SAP and Gartner — experience that gives him direct, first-hand insight into how enterprise vendors price, package, audit and renew. He has led buyer-side negotiations across Salesforce, SAP, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, ServiceNow, Workday and the wider cloud and security ecosystem.

30 yrs
Software negotiation
15
Vendor practices
$2.4B+
Negotiated (firm)
500+
Engagements (firm)

Areas of expertise

  • Enterprise software contract negotiation and renewal strategy
  • License optimization and shelfware reduction
  • Software audit defence (Oracle LMS, IBM ILMT, SAP, Microsoft SAM)
  • Cloud committed-use and consumption agreements (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud)
  • AI and SaaS vendor contracting, pricing and risk terms

How Mark works

Mark and the firm represent buyers exclusively. They take no commissions, referral fees or kickbacks from any software vendor or reseller, so the advice on this site is not influenced by vendor relationships. Read more in our Independence & Disclosure statement and our Editorial Standards.

Published work

Mark is the author of the firm's white papers and playbooks, case studies and vendor negotiation guides.

Contact

To discuss an engagement with Mark and the team, use the contact form or email hello@softwarecontractnegotiation.com. Buyer-side only · Strictly confidential · No obligation.