A cloud financial management or FinOps practice can maximize the value of the cloud. It is a collaborative discipline where all stakeholders take ownership of their cloud usage with support from a central best practices group.
A strong FinOps practice incorporates the 5 Cs of FinOps.
Let's talk about the 5th C of FinOps: collaboration
Lastly, collaboration ties directly to how just 55% of team members align around the cloud. The utopia version of collaboration may result from some of the previous goals we have discussed. Once you have executive sponsors who communicate the importance of FinOps and a centralized team to facilitate and evangelize the practice, different roles or divisions will be much more likely to collaborate.
Of course, this is easier said than done.
Business units often manage their own cloud environments using different cost optimization tools. But you can't rely on tools and siloed teams to optimize your organization's cloud spend.
A successful FinOps practice requires you to bring finance, procurement, IT, development, engineering, and other leadership teams together. Collaborating will help you take advantage of economies of scale and optimize costs. You may also learn strategies from other groups to drive significant value in your cloud environment.
However, this type of collaboration has proven elusive. Teams have different KPIs and little incentive to communicate with other groups. Their KPIs encourage them to make decisions independently, which leads to inefficiencies.
You will achieve better results when teams communicate with each other and establish a unified view of how they spend money in the cloud.
The first step is to bring everyone together in a workshop to benchmark where they are today and align on shared FinOps goals. Making it easy for teams to work together will create a strong starting point for your program's direction.
A FinOps practice can optimize your usage and costs as you move workloads to the cloud. To win with FinOps, you need more than just tools. A successful FinOps practice combines systems, best practices, and culture to increase all stakeholders' understanding of your organization's cloud costs.
It would be best if you incorporated all 5 Cs – a culture of accountability, communication, a centralized team, continuous improvement, and collaboration – to drive the most value from every dollar you spend in the cloud.
Developing a cloud financial management or FinOps practice can help you better manage cloud spend:
Developing a cloud financial management or FinOps practice can help you better manage cloud spend:
