Optimising cloud usage is becoming a top priority for organisations that are operating in the Public Cloud. Financial Operations (FinOps) creates a cross-functional and transparent cloud organisation that aids your company in aligning business objectives to your cloud infrastructure. It provides an opportunity to highlight the importance of savvy cloud investment. Successfully managing cloud costs requires a role and culture combining finance and operations.
Our client, a global insurance company, had already deployed some FinOps best practices and were in the early stages of creating a FinOps organisation. They had ambitious targets to reduce cloud expenditure and ensure they were aligned to industry best practice in relation to organisation, reporting and optimisation.
What did our client want to achieve?
Our client has existing processes for Cloud capacity management, optimisation, and reporting covering both in-house private cloud and Azure public cloud, costing €275K and €8 million respectively. They required a complete robust BAU process to ensure they kept optimising cloud usage, with opportunities for automation, reduced spend, and improved flexibility based on demand and asked Wavestone because we have a proven track record, and strong expertise in delivering Cloud Optimisation projects. We also have a long-standing relationship, spanning all areas of IT and Technology advisory.
Our project involved discovering and documenting, for our client, what already existed for Cloud Capacity Management, FinOps and Optimisation, and making recommendations on how to migrate to industry best practice wherever possible.
Our Approach
We delivered a 4-stage approach that helped our client understand the existing FinOps landscape, and strategic decisions that were needed to further optimise costs:
- As-is, Future Strategy & Framework: As-is organisation and processes definition of future FinOps Strategy Gap analysis
- Target Operating Model: To-be FinOps processes, KPIs, FinOps organisation, roles, roadmap and prioritised remediation plan.
- Quick Wins & Remediation Plan: Assessing currently deployments and costs to identify quick cost reductions
- MVP Dashboard & ‘FinOps Board’: Recommendations of improvements to be made to existing MI dashboards and the facilitation and running of a ‘FinOps Board’ that will set targets and monitor optimisation
The result: A Target Operating Model, High-Level Strategic Roadmap, FinOps Board Implementation and Quick-Win Identification
Outcomes of the project:
- Proposed a new organisational framework, with defined roles and responsibilities
- Creation of a ‘FinOps Board’ with associated terms of reference, processes and reporting
- Provided Quick-Win recommendations that would provide cost savings of ~€150K
The organisational framework allowed our client to better facilitate and manage optimisation opportunities, creating ownership and accountability. The findings drew attention to the requirement to have optimisation processes, and the necessary MI to identify opportunities and report on progress in line with KPIs.
