Optimize

Start with visibility. Most organizations can't attribute 30-50% of their spend to specific teams or products. You can't fix what you can't see. Our Cost Visibility engagement typically identifies 15-25% optimization opportunities within the first few weeks just through transparent attribution—before any technical optimization work begins.

Native tools show you what you spend but rarely help you understand why or what to do about it. They lack cross-cloud visibility, organizational context, and implementation guidance. We bring expertise in optimization patterns, organizational change management, and implementation capacity to turn insights into sustained savings—not just one-time reports.

Visibility and ownership drive behavior change. When engineers can see the cost impact of their decisions—and that cost is attributed to their team—they naturally start making more efficient choices. We implement feedback loops (cost in CI/CD, team dashboards) and create positive incentives (celebrate wins) rather than punitive controls that breed resentment.

This is the core challenge. We don't advocate for draconian controls that slow teams down. Instead, we implement guardrails with flexibility—budget alerts vs. hard stops, right-sizing recommendations vs. mandates, golden paths that are efficient by default. We always measure developer friction alongside cost, and we stop if optimization is hurting productivity more than it's saving money.

It depends on your workload patterns and flexibility needs. Reserved instances offer deeper discounts but less flexibility. Savings plans provide more flexibility but may have lower savings. The right answer involves analyzing your actual usage patterns, growth projections, and organizational tolerance for commitment risk. Our Commitment Strategy Review provides data-driven recommendations.

Organizations with minimal prior optimization typically see 20-35% savings potential. Those with some optimization maturity may find 10-20% additional opportunity. The key is distinguishing between one-time cleanups (unused resources, right-sizing) and sustainable practices (continuous optimization, commitment management). We focus on both.

Optimization without governance is temporary. Costs drift back up as teams provision new resources, utilization changes, and attention moves elsewhere. Sustainable optimization requires ongoing visibility, accountability (tagging enforcement), anomaly detection, and regular review cadence. Our FinOps Operating Model service establishes these practices.

Not necessarily, especially for smaller organizations. What you need is clear ownership, defined processes, and appropriate tooling. A dedicated FinOps team makes sense at scale (typically $5M+ cloud spend), but the practices can be distributed across engineering and finance with the right operating model. We help you design for your organization's size and maturity.

Native cloud tools (AWS Cost Explorer, Azure Cost Management, GCP Billing) are sufficient for basic visibility. Third-party tools add value for multi-cloud environments, advanced anomaly detection, commitment management, and container cost allocation. We help you evaluate based on your specific needs—sometimes native tools are enough, sometimes third-party investment has clear ROI.