Advisory Service
FinOps & Cloud Opex Optimisation
Reduce cloud waste and align spend to business value with tagging, governance, and continuous optimisation—before cloud costs become an uncontrolled liability.
The Problem: What Goes Wrong Without Cloud Cost Governance
Cost Visibility Gaps
Cloud bills arrive with thousands of line items but no business context. Finance sees costs; IT cannot explain them. No one knows which workloads drive spend or whether that spend delivers value.
Resource Sprawl and Waste
Development environments run 24/7. Test instances persist after projects end. Orphaned resources accumulate across Azure, AWS, and GCP—each consuming budget without delivering value.
Over-Provisioned Workloads
Virtual machines and databases are sized for peak loads that never occur. Teams request large instances "just in case." Rightsizing is discussed but never implemented because no one owns the decision.
Multi-Cloud Complexity
Workloads spread across Azure, AWS, and GCP without coordinated governance. Each cloud has different pricing models, discount mechanisms, and cost tools—creating fragmented optimisation.
Failure Patterns We See
- Cloud spend grows 40% year-over-year while the CFO asks "what are we getting for this?" and IT cannot answer.
- A cost allocation project reveals 23% of cloud resources have no tags—making chargeback impossible.
- Reserved instance coverage sits at 12% because no one is accountable for commitment purchases.
- Development and test environments consume 35% of cloud spend but run unused 70% of the time.
- A post-migration review shows workloads lifted to cloud are 3x more expensive than on-premises—with no performance benefit.
What Changes in 30–90 Days
Cost Visibility Established
Unified dashboard showing cloud spend by business unit, application, and environment with trend analysis.
Tagging Standards Deployed
Mandatory tagging policies enforced across all cloud providers with remediation for existing resources.
Waste Identified
Orphaned resources, oversized instances, and underutilised services mapped with decommissioning recommendations.
Quick Wins Implemented
Immediate savings from dev/test scheduling, storage tiering, and obvious rightsizing—typically 15–25% reduction.
Commitment Strategy Defined
Reserved instance and savings plan recommendations aligned to stable workloads with purchase roadmap.
FinOps Operating Model
Governance structure, accountability model, and continuous optimisation cadence with executive reporting.
How We Work
Phase 1
Analysis
- Multi-cloud cost data collection
- Resource inventory and utilisation
- Tagging coverage assessment
- Waste and inefficiency identification
Phase 2
Business Value Mapping
- Application to cost mapping
- Business unit allocation
- Unit economics analysis
- Value stream identification
Phase 3
Tagging & Governance
- Tagging taxonomy design
- Policy enforcement configuration
- Legacy resource remediation
- Automation for new resources
Phase 4
Optimisation Implementation
- Rightsizing execution
- Dev/test scheduling
- Storage tiering
- Orphan resource cleanup
Phase 5
Commitment Optimisation
- Reserved instance analysis
- Savings plan recommendations
- Purchase execution support
- Utilisation monitoring
Phase 6
Continuous Optimisation
- FinOps operating model
- Executive dashboards
- Monthly review cadence
- Anomaly detection setup
Deliverables
- Cloud Cost Analysis Report
- Waste and Inefficiency Inventory
- Tagging Taxonomy and Standards
- Resource Rightsizing Recommendations
- Commitment Purchase Roadmap
- Cost Allocation Model
- Business Unit Chargeback Framework
- FinOps Operating Model
- Executive Cost Dashboard
- Anomaly Detection Configuration
- Monthly Review Templates
- Savings Tracking and Reporting
Timeline & Stakeholders
Typical Timeline
10–14 weeks for comprehensive FinOps program. Quick-win optimisation engagements available in 4–6 weeks.
Stakeholder Engagement
- Executive Sponsor: CFO, CIO, or VP Infrastructure
- Finance: FP&A, IT finance, procurement
- Cloud Teams: Azure, AWS, GCP administrators
- Application Owners: Product managers, development leads
- Business Units: Department heads for chargeback
Proof: Industry Examples
Media & Entertainment
Digital Media Company
A streaming media company faced cloud costs growing faster than revenue. Our analysis revealed 31% of compute was oversized, dev environments ran 24/7, and reserved instance coverage was 8%. Within 90 days: $2.1M annualised savings, 67% RI coverage, and automated dev/test scheduling—reducing monthly cloud spend by 28%.
Commercial Real Estate
Property Management Group
A multi-property real estate company could not allocate cloud costs to properties or business units. We implemented tagging standards, deployed cost allocation, and created property-level dashboards. For the first time, leadership could see which properties drove cloud spend—and which investments delivered returns.
What We Will Not Do
- Recommend without implementation: We do not deliver optimisation reports that sit on shelves. Every recommendation comes with implementation support.
- Optimise without governance: We do not reduce costs through one-time cleanups that regress within months. Every engagement establishes ongoing governance.
- Ignore business context: We do not chase cost reduction at the expense of performance or availability. Every optimisation considers business requirements.
- Commit without analysis: We do not recommend reserved instance purchases without thorough workload stability analysis.
Control Your Cloud Costs
Request an assessment to understand your cloud cost posture and create a roadmap to sustainable optimisation.