Understanding FinOps: Phases and Maturity Levels Explained

This is because as more businesses transfer their operations online, costs associated with utilization of this platform have become vital to business. The FinOps Framework in simple terms outlines a best practice approach that one can utilize in order to understand and manage the costs of cloud. At the heart of this structure, there is a FinOps Maturity Model that defines the path from basic cloud cost knowing to the appropriate management. In this blog post, the journey through FinOps maturity and most importantly tips and techniques for each of these phases will be discussed. 

What is FinOps? 

FinOps was named as the #7 DevOps trend for 2020 and is defined as a new field that encompasses partnership between the finance and development teams for cost optimization in the cloud. It fosters partnerships and openness which can help organizations drive incremental value from their public cloud investments without allowing them to incur additional cost. As organizations begin their  journey, they will typically progress through three distinct phases: Crawl, Walk, and Run.

The FinOps Maturity Model 

The FinOps Maturity Model can be used to understand an organization’s FinOps state and guide them on what steps to take next. This model focuses on the fact that Enterprise should be built step by step and its corresponding capabilities should be sharpened up as the organization grows complex. 

Fig 1: The FinOps Maturity Model 

Crawl Phase: You’re Just Starting Out 

This is the characteristics of the Crawl Phase that have favored some media owners and acted against the interest of others. 

During Crawl, organizations are still in the initial stage of cloud cost management. They are beginning to get a handle on their spending on the cloud but do not have sound implement business controls, and cloudy expenditures are not terribly transparent. 

• Lack of Visibility: Costs within cloud services could be hard to account for hence the big shockers. 

• Reactive Approach: One could argue that in many organizations, spending is controlled reactively once when shocks arise in the form of high expenditure bills. 

• Manual Processes: Control over costs is the identification of their actual costs including not only cost control procedures, but also cost reports which may be manually generated and thus imprecise. 

Goals for the Crawl Phase 

The primary focus during this stage should be to establish a foundational understanding of cloud costs and implement basic cost management practices: 

• Understand Costs: It is also appropriate to begin by trying to understand which services are being utilized, and their costs. 

• Allocate Spending: Most companies begin charging various departments or teams associated with the cloud services so that you know which team is spending what. 

• Set Up Basic Reporting: Prepare Basic documents to monitor expenditures and analyze where more cost-effective might be achieved. 

• Establish Budgets: Prepare drafts of the initial necessary funds for the purpose of regulating the expenses and not to receive unexpected situations. 

Common Challenges 

Organizations in the Crawl phase often face several challenges: 

• Lack of Clear Policies: Lacking certain set out processes for Cloud usage, the expenditure may at times go out of hand. 

• Surprises in Billing: This aspect may lead to unbudgeted expenses that would in one way or the other affect relations with stakeholders. 

• Limited Resources: Since the adoption of the cloud is in smaller teams, they may not have the resources or the expertise to deal with the costs expertly. 

How Stratusphere™ FinOps Can Help 

Stratusphere™ FinOps is a valuable tool for organizations in the Crawl phase, offering features designed to enhance visibility and provide actionable insights: 

Actionable Insights

The outlined platform gives straightforward actionable advice on cost savings on AWS with their ranking depending on the effort demanded. 

Smart Contextual Guidance

Out of the box solutions are much easier than the paradigm of having to build large data projects to develop insights. 

Visibility Tracking

A complete look at AWS usage and possible cost savings assists businesses comprehend costs. 

Financial Alignment

That Stratusphere™ FinOps resembles financial reports which can help finance teams to synchronize cloud costs with financial forecasts. 

Walk Phase: You’re Getting Better 

A Brief Insight into the Characteristics of the Walk Phase. As organizations progress to the Walk phase, they begin to establish more structured processes and policies for managing cloud costs: 

• Improved Mapping: It is more precise than its ground-based counterpart as it provides a better match of cloud resources on business requirements, thus making it easier to assign accountability. 
• Basic Processes in Place: Companies start adopting policies regarding cost control in cloud computing and create the framework for management reporting. 
• Proactive Monitoring: Expenditure is checked more frequently meaning that there is a way whereby the organization can control expenses in advance. 

Fig 2: Goals for the Walk Phase 

Goals for the Walk Phase 

During this phase, organizations should focus on refining their cost management practices: 

• Enhance Visibility: Extend more elaborate tracking and reporting solutions in an effort to create better understanding of the cloud expenses. 

• Improve Allocation: Synchronize the cloud cost and interconnect the cost with different services to enhance the visibility. 

• Rightsized Resources: Optimize demand and usage of cloud resources with no over subscription of the resources. 

• Implement Policies: Introduce the recommended banning if the organization reduces wasteful spending in the Cloud. 

• Forecasting: Start making a prognosis of future cloud expenditure pattern using certain past records and indicators. 

Common Challenges 

Organizations in the Walk phase may encounter several challenges: 

• Maturing Processes: Improving initial processes, which comprise of activities can be challenging. 

• Stakeholder Engagement: Sometimes it becomes difficult to ensure that all the departments have understood and are implementing the policies relating to cloud cost management. 

• Cultural Shifts: Maintaining the appropriate approach among all organizational members and encouraging them to develop a new company-wide culture on cloud cost efficiency is a continuous process. 

Stratusphere™ FinOps Benefits 

Stratusphere™ FinOps is well-suited for organizations in the Walk phase, offering advanced tools and features to support refined cost management practices: 

• Advanced Mapping: Besides, the platform includes efficient methods for visualizing cloud usage and producing reports. 

• Enhanced Prioritization: Stratusphere™ FinOps defines the additional highly efficient cost-cost savings that need to be personalized. 

• Visibility and Control: Thus, providing greater understanding of the systems and interfaces within various enterprises helps to concentrate on the improvement factors. 

• Collaboration Tools: Enables many teams to have a common understanding and reports, thereby improving collaboration between many teams.

Run Phase: Advanced Management 

As with most walkthroughs, the Run Phase of the framework focuses on the following conceptual characteristics: 

The Run phase is the most developed level of cloud cost management within organisations. FinOps processes are largely automated and deeply integrated into daily operations: 

• Automated Processes: They highlighted the automation of tagging, cost reporting and optimization in a FinOps process. 

• Strategic Integration: FinOps is strategic by design and a significant part of company culture and holistic processes. 

• Continuous Improvement: It is evident that there is a strong emphasis on improvement of processes and of strategies for continuous enhancement. 

Goals for the Run Phase 

Organizations in the Run phase should aim for excellence in cloud cost management by focusing on the following: 

• Advanced Automation: Outsource complex automation activities related to cost management of the cloud. 

• Continuous Optimization: Continuously optimise cloud resources and expenditure in response to Real Time Data in real time and actual trends. 

• Strategic Tagging: Use special tagging approaches for accurate charge assignment and valuable analysis. 

• Goal Setting: Optimise goals for cloud cost management and improve on the use of strategy for the realization of the goals. 

Common Challenges 

Organizations in the Run phase may face unique challenges: 

• Avoiding Over-Complexity: Finding the balance between the two extremes – having detailed splits of the processes and keeping the processes reasonably well defined and balanced can be challenging. 

• Continuous Improvement: It is crucial to stay relevant with current-standard FinOps trends and involve Proptech's to sustain efficiency. 

• Automation Maintenance: One of the biggest areas of difficulty is to ensure that those automation processes that are implemented in each cloud context continue to be effective as the usage of clouds evolves. 

How Stratusphere™ FinOps Can Assist 

For organizations in the Run phase, Stratusphere™ FinOps provides solutions that enhance advanced FinOps practices: 

• Real-Time Insights: It provides information which is updated in real-time and can therefore be used to make adjustments continuously. 

• Goal-Driven Analytics: Used in creating and adjusting FinOps objectives and provides tools for measuring progress and making choices. 

• Continuous Learning: Gives them the tools that will make them abreast with current trends and ways of managing and improving FinOps.  

Check Your FinOps Maturity 

To determine your current maturity level in FinOps, follow these steps: 

• Review Tools and Processes: Discuss the existing methods in cloud cost management. Automated tools and sophisticated and structured versions show higher maturity. 

• Check Stakeholder Engagement: Assess the level of IT, finance, and business unit participation in FinOps processes. Higher engagement equals more mature practice. 

• Assess Optimization Practices: Analyse the organisation’s strategy on cost control. Are you focused on win-win situations or are you fueling an organized process of optimization? 

• Consider Reporting and Forecasting Capabilities: There is always reporting that comes with the mature FinOps practices as well as the forecasts. Evaluate the degree of development of the reporting systems you have in place. 

• Seek External Input: It is also possible to use the help of FinOps consultant or use the cost assessment tools to get the third-party perspective on your FinOps maturity level. 

Fig 3 : Check Your FinOps Maturity 

Moving up the FinOps Maturity Level 

  From Crawl to walk

• Establish Formal Policies: Encourage the adoption of cloud solutions but create a necessary set of norms and rules for their application and expenditures on it. 

• Enhance Visibility: Utilize working capital and analytic instruments helpful in answering questions about usage and cost rates. 

• Engage Stakeholders: Everyone needs to be made aware and involved to help drive cost saving to be a company culture. 

• Introduce Proactive Optimization: From reactive measure to proactive cost-saving activities on the part of the enterprise. 

• Invest in Training: FinOps is about optimizing the management of the cloud cost through education and everyone within the teams should be nurtured in this practice to enhance the FinOps culture within the organisation. 

From Walk to Run: 

• Advanced Automation: Leases automate large and complicated areas of FinOps to improve productivity. 

• Integrate FinOps: Make FinOps work as an integrated process across different business processes. 

• Sophisticated Forecasting: This involves creating structures of prediction that will enable one to predict future cloud expenditure. 

• Optimize Cost Allocation: Tighten procedures to good, proper, fine, or the like to correctly measure, gauge or analyze usage and decision. 

• Engage with the Community: Utilise the help and support of the community, and share experiences, new discoveries and insights. 

Conclusion 

The FinOps Maturity Model also can be used as a guidance for organizations that focus on Cloud Cost Management. Phases of maturity are Crawl, Walk, run that help in evaluating the state of the business and plan the ways of its development. Stratusphere™ FinOps is an effective tool that is necessary when it comes to the at every stage: before, during and after cloud cost management.

Over time they will be able to gain greater control of their spending on the cloud and also fully maximize the benefits of their operations on the cloud in terms of innovation and efficiency. It may look scary to start your FinOps journey, but the journey of achieving clouds financial management excellence is not as big as it looks, you just take small steps and follow the best guidelines and tools. 

• Discover more FinOps for AWS
• Read more FinOps for Data Mesh and Data Fabric