The FinOps Journey

When Do Companies Typically Start their FinOps Journey?

Companies often begin to focus on cloud cost management only when problems become unmanageable. Common triggers for addressing cloud costs include:

• Scaling or rolling out solutions that lead to unexpected cost increases.
• Rapid growth of the cloud landscape resulting in complexity.
• Incidents demanding greater transparency.

In most cases, the FinOps journey begins with an assessment and a cloud cost optimization project. Sometimes, these projects lead to the implementation of a FinOps governance organization. However, many companies revert to old habits and encounter the same issues later.

The Challenge of Ignoring Cloud Cost Issues

Organizations are often aware of cloud spending and issues on a high level but fail to act. Why is this? Sometimes cloud spend is not significant enough relative to overall IT or operations spending. Often, other transformation challenges take priority. Only when there is a significant deviation or unexpected spike do organizations address cloud costs. This leads to a reactive rather than proactive approach, known as the prevention paradox: investing in cloud cost optimization or a FinOps team can save more money than it costs, yet this decision is often consciously avoided.

Small Investments in Prevention

To implement FinOps sustainably, you need to engage the right people. Identifying drivers within your organization is crucial. Tools, reports, and role definitions are ineffective without the right people, preferably from within the organization. Building a FinOps practice can start small, involving employees from management, engineering, purchasing, and finance. Cloud engineers, in particular, are often interested in optimization, making cloud cost optimization a potentially enjoyable task.

More than Tools: A Practice to Enable Self-Help

FinOps is a cross-discipline effort that can begin as an interest group learning and analyzing the existing cloud landscape. It aims to enable organizations to help themselves. To get started, communicate effectively, provide the right framework, and train your teams.

First Five Concrete Steps to Build and Enable a FinOps Team

1. Identify and engage key stakeholders to form an initial team of enthusiastic participants who understand the importance of FinOps.
2. Conduct a preliminary cloud cost assessment to gain insights into the biggest costs and potential areas for optimization.
3. Set clear objectives and goals to provide direction and focus for the team’s efforts, establishing a roadmap with short-term and long-term goals.
4. Provide training and resources about FinOps principles, cloud cost management, and optimization techniques to equip the team with the necessary knowledge and skills.
5. Implement initial quick wins, such as rightsizing instances, eliminating unused resources, or using basic cost monitoring tools to demonstrate the value of the FinOps initiative early and build momentum.

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