Esker OCR Functional Expert

Esker OCR & Order Management Lead - Pharma

Location: Remote, Spain
Employment type: Five-month contract, with potential extension
Experience: 8-10+ years overall, including 5+ years working with Esker
Function: Digital Transformation/IT Applications
Seniority: Manager level
Reports to: Product Lead - Customer Care and Logistics

About the Role

We are seeking an experienced Esker OCR and Order Management Lead to drive the design, delivery and global rollout of Esker-based order-to-cash automation within a regulated pharmaceutical environment.
This is a hands-on leadership role combining Esker functional expertise, platform governance, pharmaceutical compliance, SAP integration and global delivery. You will own solution design standards, manage releases and deployments, maintain audit readiness, and lead a hybrid team of internal resources and implementation partners.

Key Responsibilities

Esker Platform Ownership

• Lead the design and global rollout of Esker OCR and Order Management solutions.
• Own the platform roadmap, product backlog and release priorities.
• Establish design standards for OCR templates, workflows, business rules and exception management.
• Manage application environments, releases, cutovers and project approvals.
• Ensure global solutions remain scalable while accommodating justified local requirements.

Compliance and Audit Readiness

• Lead the Computerized System Validation life cycle, including URS, FRS, IQ, OQ and PQ activities.
• Manage validation documentation, traceability, deviations and change controls.
• Ensure compliance with GxP, SOX, data-integrity and audit-trail requirements.
• Support internal and regulatory audits.
• Ensure the Esker platform remains in a validated state throughout its life cycle.

Solution Design and Integration

• Own OCR template design, workflow logic, validation rules and exception queues.
• Oversee integrations between Esker and SAP S/4HANA, SAP BTP, SAP SD/MM and master-data systems.
• Collaborate with technical teams on REST APIs, security, authentication and interface monitoring.
• Review and approve functional and integration designs.
• Ensure reliable error handling, reprocessing and end-to-end traceability.

Global Delivery and Vendor Management

• Lead Esker rollouts across multiple countries and pharmaceutical business entities.
• Coordinate business, IT, quality, security and implementation-partner teams.
• Manage statements of work, SLAs, delivery milestones and vendor performance.
• Define QA gates, UAT strategy, deployment readiness and cutover plans.
• Identify delivery risks and drive timely resolution.

Operations and Continuous Improvement

• Lead L2/L3 support during hypercare and post-production stabilization.
• Oversee incident management, problem management and root-cause analysis.
• Improve Straight-Through Order Processing, recognition accuracy, exception rates and processing cycle times.
• Establish operational metrics and identify opportunities for automation and process improvement.

Leadership and Stakeholder Management

• Lead a functional team and external partner ecosystem.
• Provide design authority and functional direction across the program.
• Communicate effectively with business leaders, IT teams, quality teams and vendors.
• Manage competing priorities and drive decisions across global stakeholders.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in information technology, engineering, business systems or a related field.
• 8-10+ years of experience in enterprise applications, digital transformation or business-process automation.
• At least 5 years of hands-on experience with Esker OCR and/or Esker Order Management.
• Demonstrated experience designing Esker templates, workflows, business rules and exception-management processes.
• Strong experience in the pharmaceutical or life-sciences industry.
• Practical knowledge of CSV, GxP, SOX, validation traceability and audit readiness.
• Experience integrating Esker with SAP S/4HANA, SAP SD, SAP MM or SAP BTP.
• Understanding of REST APIs, master-data integration, security and interface error handling.
• Proven experience leading global or multi-country implementations.
• Experience managing implementation partners, vendors, SOWs, SLAs, UAT and production cutovers.
• Experience with hypercare, L2/L3 support, incident management and root-cause analysis.
• Strong stakeholder-management, leadership and communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Esker certification.
• Experience with Jira, Confluence and Xray.
• Experience supporting large global pharmaceutical organizations.
• Familiarity with regulated application life cycle and testing tools.
• Experience improving STP rates, OCR recognition accuracy and order-processing cycle times.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate is a senior Esker functional expert who can combine hands-on solution knowledge with manager-level delivery leadership. You should be comfortable challenging solution designs, coordinating technical and compliance teams, managing vendors, and taking ownership of a regulated global platform from design through deployment and operational support.