Independent assessment of cloud cost control status and FinOps operation, providing actionable facts and high level advisory

Scenario 1 – CxO, and in particular the CFO, has concerns about ever increasing levels of hyper-cloud spend (AWS, Azure, Google) and the level of control in place. The conversation between CFO, CIO and CTO is not constructive and is lacking a factual foundation to collaboratively progress.

Scenario 2 – CxOs have recognised cloud cost is not well understood nor controlled and are looking for facts to support their observation. Ideally pointers as to how to address those facts are provided in the form of a high level advisory.

Scenario 3 – The Cloud Centre of Excellence has concerns about a or a number or specific projects and are looking for independent validation of cost management status as a platform for further actioning.

The audit will be executed against our Desired State definition across the 3 core FinOps capabilities Inform – Optimise – Operate. Over 80 Desired State Checkpoints are identified. The entry point will always be Optimise, understanding what actions have been taken and what concerns exist. From there, we will drive deeper into Inform and Operate.

We gain an understanding of the cloud scope in the organisation: which hyper scaler, estimated monthly cost, size or the organisation (departments, people), number of teams and projects, centralised or decentralised etc..

We execute interviews with Business Executives to identify concerns as well as relevant objectives and strategies.

Following from there, we engage with the Cloud Centre of Excellence or similar strategic and operational owners. We will review status against Desired State through detailed Q&As. We will be looking for factual evidence in support of confirmed statuses. Lastly, we will engage with a number of key roles around current cloud operations: technical architects, engineers, project managers, service delivery managers or similar and drill further into observations made.

We play back our observations and recommendations with supported facts gathered during the exercise. We provide an advisory or management letter identifying status, risk and potential ways forward.

1. Pre-engagement interview with the sponsor to define rational, scope and expectations

2. Putting an NDA in place to facilitate sharing of information

3. Approval of Statement of Work

4. Setting Up FinAnts as Supplier

4. Support in scheduling interviews across the target population

5. Support in following up from interviews for data gathering

6. Support in running detailed analyse reports on cloud invoices, cost

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* Provide support throughout service delivery using our World Class Professionals and Subject Matter Experts.
* Provide high quality deliverables in a timely manner and in line with agreements upon engagement with the client. (Any changes to this will be mutually agreed in writing, in advance, between all involved parties).
* Provide deep insights and genuine value-add in all possible areas throughout the engagement.
* Provide progress updates and feedback at regular intervals, agreed in advance or at the engagement ‘kick off session’.
* Respect all personal and professional development of client team members throughout the engagement.

1. Audit Report across 3 components of Desired State with Rating and Factual Observations against each Checkpoint
2. Identification of Risks and Mitigations supported by Factual Observations
3. Recommendations as to Next Steps

Project based engagements operate on the basis of agreeing work and any outcomes or milestones for delivery in advance of commencement of any engagement in a ‘Statement of Work’. Prices are fixed for the agreed deliverables and should changes be required, these may incur changes to delivery costs. Payment for Project Based Engagements are agreed on a case-by-case basis, giving consideration to risk, contract value, client payment history, relationship longevity and duration.

• cloud
• finance

• Process Effectiveness & Automation
• Organisational Agility & Effectiveness
• Accelerated Solution Delivery