We're FinOps. We're Coming for You.

ITAM News & Analysis

We're FinOps. We're Coming for You.

The FinOps Foundation’s recent release of the 2025 FinOps Framework expands its focus beyond public cloud services to encompass a broader spectrum of technology expenditures, including Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications and on-premises data centres.  This strategic shift, referred to as the “Cloud+” approach, aims to provide organisations with a unified methodology for managing diverse technology costs. Undoubtedly, it also means FinOps is moving into areas more normally managed by ITAM teams. I recently discussed the update to the FinOps FOCUS standard for SaaS Management, but what does this expansion of Scopes from just Cloud to also including Datacenter & SaaS mean? And why isn’t on-premises software part of the Framework?

Challenges in Extending FinOps Principles

While the ambition to create a holistic financial management framework is commendable, applying FinOps principles to SaaS and on-premises environments presents distinct challenges:

Varied Consumption Models

Public cloud services typically operate on pay-as-you-go models, facilitating real-time tracking and optimisation. In contrast, SaaS offerings often involve diverse pricing structures—such as per-user, tiered, or flat rates—complicating the direct application of traditional FinOps strategies. Similarly, on-premises data centres require substantial upfront investments, lacking the elasticity inherent in cloud resources. Datacenter servers live for years. Cloud instances may only live for days or weeks.

Data Visibility and Integration

Achieving comprehensive visibility across different platforms is challenging. Integrating usage data from SaaS providers and on-premises systems necessitates robust data aggregation and analysis tools, which may not be readily available or standardised. For more on this, read my analysis of the FOCUS SaaS standard.

Cultural and Process Adaptation

FinOps thrives on collaboration among finance, operations, and engineering teams. Extending this collaboration to include SaaS management and datacenter operations requires cultural shifts and process realignments, which can encounter resistance or demand significant change management efforts. SaaS buying and usage decisions are often decentralised or worse, still not managed at all. FinOps teams may already be working with some non-IT technology consumers, but SaaS greatly increase the number of stakeholders. Regarding datacenters, I believe the application of FinOps principles will be easier as the technology is like the Cloud resources under management, and there is likely to be overlap in stakeholders, particularly for organisations leveraging hybrid cloud for their technology estate.

The Rising Tide Effect: Unified Financial Accountability

Despite these challenges, the expansion of FinOps offers notable benefits:

Enhanced Decision-Making

A holistic view of technology spending enables more informed decisions regarding resource allocation, procurement strategies, and investment prioritisation, leading to optimised operational efficiency. Importantly, FinOps’ focus on business value rather than cost is an important switch in ways of thinking about technology management, and this can benefit ITAM teams.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Extending FinOps encourages collaboration among diverse teams—finance, IT, procurement, and operations—breaking down silos and promoting a unified approach to technology management. FinOps may also have better access to strategic stakeholders such as the CFO and CTO meaning ITAM processes and deliverables receive more attention.

Summary

Expanding FinOps beyond its original cloud-centric focus presents challenges, but it also offers an opportunity to create a cohesive framework for managing all technology expenditures. For it to succeed, it will be important for practitioners – be they FinOps or ITAM focused – to adopt FinOps’ Crawl-Walk-Run approach to implementation. FinOps as a discipline thrives on agility, and it may take time for new stakeholders to start thinking and collaborating with that mindset. It may be that FinOps teams will also need to adapt, recognising that cadence and the pace of change is very different for the new Scopes.

We’ll be dedicating a quarter to all thing FinOps later in 2025 so you’l hear more from us on this subject. Clearly, FinOps is expanding into ITAM’s traditional ‘territory’, but I very much see them as an ally rather than a threat. It’s a good time to get up to speed with these new concepts – our LISA training platform offers a FinOps Essentials course, which is a good starting point.

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