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The benefits of being in the cloud are well known, but today, it’s no longer enough to simply have a cloud that works; it’s imperative to have a cloud that works optimally.
01 April 2026
The benefits of being in the cloud are well known, but today, it’s no longer enough to simply have a cloud that works; it’s imperative to have a cloud that works optimally.
While leveraging the cloud can save a company money, there are many instances where it ultimately costs businesses far more than they were paying before.
Moving to cloud only saves money when you actively design and govern the move with a view to obtaining the value you require, says Richard Vester, Chief Executive and Cloud at iOCO. “If an organisation chooses to simply ‘lift and shift’ its workloads into the cloud, it often fails to recognise that such workloads are not optimally designed for running natively in the cloud. This causes complications that make it difficult to obtain the full benefit of the cloud. This is why it is crucial to ensure that architecturally, you match the platform to the workload,” he says.
“Moreover, cloud spend reflects business activity, so every employee leveraging the cloud must also be willing to own their individual cloud usage and cost visibility, to stop runaway cloud costs and wasted resources.”
A FinOps practice, he continues, not only assists here, but also ensures cloud optimisation by creating efficiencies with a holistic approach that delivers savings across the entire cloud environment. This is because FinOps ensures that every cloud decision is ultimately tied to a business value.
“It is also necessary to understand that each persona – from engineering to the CEO – brings different efficiencies to the business. Where FinOps comes in is that it assists these different personas to create efficiencies within their specific roles within the organisation. FinOps is about more than driving cost savings; it enables efficiencies across the entire operation.
“Of course, there remain challenges regarding optimisation, such as a lack of visibility, and a lack of control, which creates fragmentation across your workloads. Also, the dynamics of scaling can be tricky, so rightsizing may be needed.”
Data sovereignty
To this end, notes Vester, optimisation and rightsizing challenges can best be solved with automation, implemented by an experienced cloud service provider, like iOCO. It is important to work with an entity that has a deep understanding of the infrastructure and how any right-sizing might impact other applications used by the business.
“For me, it’s also good practice to combine the financial, business and technical metrics. Here, FinOps can help you understand budgets and spend variations, delivering the kind of forecasting that helps to ensure accuracy.
“On the technical side of optimisation, companies need to look at issues like latency and performance. Lastly, there is governance and security; it’s also vital to ensure compliance regarding data sovereignty and to implement effective cybersecurity measures, in order to minimise potential exposures and vulnerabilities.”
In the end, says Vester, if you want to unlock true cloud value, you should look to undertake a full FinOps assessment, which will provide you with a clear understanding of where you stand, and then develop a modernisation strategy. You can then work with a FinOps managed service provider that will offer regular assessments and support to ensure optimisation, visibility and control happen on a continuous basis.
“iOCO, has vast experience in modernising data and applications for the cloud – but we also have experience at building these from the ground up. Additionally, we are able to bring DevOps services into their world and provide them with support in modernising their data pipelines.
Lastly, our depth of understanding when it comes to the cloud is key iOCO has been architecting in the cloud space for close to two decades, so we have much experience and deep understanding of the technology and the underlying platforms. We are thus able to comprehensively support customers in their strategies, ensuring they remain relevant in the markets in which they operate,” he concludes.
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