Strengthened FinOps governance, improved cost visibility, and reduced cloud spend

About Client

A leading UK-based technology and data services provider supporting the energy sector’s transition to net-zero emissions. The company delivers mission-critical managed services, data platforms, and analytics solutions to energy suppliers, network operators, and utility organizations. Its proprietary data platform provides real-time visibility into gas network performance, carbon reduction initiatives, and energy asset portfolios.

As a rapidly growing SaaS and managed services provider operating in a highly regulated environment, the organization relies heavily on secure, scalable, and cost-efficient cloud infrastructure to support its expanding digital services portfolio.

Key Challenge

Rapid business growth and expansion of SaaS offerings led to increasing cloud expenditures without adequate governance controls. The organization faced several challenges:

• Limited visibility into cloud spend across products and business units.
• Difficulty allocating cloud costs to individual products and customers.
• Growing pressure to improve operating margins and control technology expenses.
• Decentralized cloud provisioning without standardized governance.
• Lack of accountability among product teams for cloud consumption.
• Inconsistent resource tagging across Azure environments.
• Always-on non-production environments resulting in unnecessary costs.
• Limited use of Azure Reserved Instances and commitment-based discounts.
• Excessive log retention and accumulation of unused cloud resources.

These issues made it difficult to accurately understand cloud spending, optimize resource utilization, and maintain profitability while scaling operations.

Solution

Microland implemented a structured FinOps transformation program designed to establish visibility, governance, accountability, and ongoing cost optimization.

Key initiatives included:

Unified Cloud Visibility

• Deployed the intelligeni Govern Cloud Management Platform across Azure.
• Enabled centralized visibility into cloud spend by product, team, environment, and cost center.

Governance and Policy Controls

• Established a standardized resource tagging framework.
• Enforced mandatory tagging using Azure Policies.
• Introduced budget tracking, anomaly detection, and governance controls.

Resource Optimization

• Right-sized underutilized virtual machines to align capacity with usage requirements.
• Removed orphaned resources and unused cloud assets.
• Implemented log retention policies to eliminate storage waste.

Non-Production Environment Scheduling

• Automated shutdown of development and test environments outside business hours.
• Reduced weekly operating hours significantly while maintaining productivity.

Commitment-Based Cost Savings

• Identified stable workloads suitable for Azure Reserved Instances and Savings Plans.

• Increased commitment coverage for eligible workloads and reduced on-demand consumption.

Product-Level Cost Allocation

• Established cost allocation and chargeback frameworks.
• Enabled Finance, Product, and Engineering teams to track and manage cloud spending at the product level.

Managed FinOps Service

• Implemented ongoing governance reviews, rightsizing recommendations, reservation management, and continuous optimization practices.

Business Value Delivered

Within 12 months, the organization achieved significant financial and operational outcomes:

35% Cloud Cost Reduction

Sustained cloud cost savings were achieved and maintained through ongoing FinOps governance and managed optimization services.

$2.4 Million Annual Savings

Optimization initiatives delivered substantial recurring annual cost savings across the Azure estate.

$380,000 Azure Reservation Savings

Implementation of Reserved Instances and commitment-based pricing significantly reduced compute costs.

Improved Cost Visibility and Accountability

Finance, Product, and Engineering teams gained a unified view of cloud spending, enabling data-driven decision making and proactive cost management.

Product-Level Financial Governance

The organization can now accurately allocate cloud costs to individual products, improving margin analysis, pricing decisions, and budget accountability.

Stronger FinOps Operating Model

A scalable governance framework was established to prevent cost drift and support continued business growth while maintaining financial discipline.