Addressing the SaaS Data Gap in FinOps FOCUS 2.1

ITAM News & Analysis

Addressing the SaaS Data Gap in FinOps FOCUS 2.1

I recently reported on the FinOps Foundation’s inclusion of SaaS and Datacenter in its expanded Cloud+ scope. At that time, I highlighted concerns about getting the myriad SaaS companies to supply FOCUS-compliant billing data. A couple of months on, the FinOps Foundation’s FOCUS reporting scope has updated to version 1.2. It now includes more cloud and SaaS providers. It also includes a mechanism of virtual currencies to collate and normalise billing data across regions.

A coming ITAM challenge – managing AI credits in real-time

At this week’s FinOps X event in San Diego, an early adopter of FOCUS for SaaS – Delivery Hero – shared its motivations and methods for incorporating SaaS spend into overall FinOps reporting. The business needs it sought to address were real-time consumption analysis and cost allocation to business units.

The first need highlights just how FinOps entering traditional ITAM spaces may change things through fresh thinking. My initial thought, conditioned from years of managing three-year enterprise agreements, was: “why would I possibly need real time data for software consumption?”. For a FinOps function, it’s an expectation and a requirement. Cloud compute and storage consumption change second by second. You need to know if someone has made an error, which could cost your organisation a few million dollars.

Delivery Hero found that even monthly billing for a SaaS service was too out-of-date to enable business unit (or financial) decision making. I think they’re well ahead of the curve on this compared to many. I also feel they’re well placed to deal with a coming ITAM challenge – managing AI credits in real-time. That is undoubtedly important with many enterprise SaaS providers including AI credits in monthly plans. Without real-time billing, how will you measure usage and particularly over-usage of these expensive capabilities?

Real-time FOCUS compliant billing data

The question remains however – how do you get SaaS providers to provide real-time FOCUS compliant billing data? When you look at Adobe’s unwillingness to provide any usage data for its subscribers, it’s clearly a big challenge. Delivery Hero approached this challenge by making it a factor in vendor selection and stipulating FOCUS-compliant billing in contracts, including renewals. I see this as a powerful “bottom up” strategy that could benefit the community as a whole. Clearly not every customer will have the leverage with a SaaS provider that Delivery Hero has, but that doesn’t matter. Once a vendor makes its billing data compliant with FOCUS – and that compliance is publicised by the FinOps Foundation – that billing approach will be available to all customers.

It’s fair to say the ITAM community – and I include myself in this – has achieved very little within the past decade to improve SaaS discovery. Among SMP providers, Torii lead the way with its App Marketplace, an open platform for community-created connectors, but these solve a problem created by SaaS vendors. And, the Torji solution is only available to Torii customers. It will be interesting to see which SMP providers adopt the FOCUS standard within their tools. Many are standalone tools outside the integrated ITAM/SAM platforms provided by vendors such as Flexera.

I’m excited to see if the custom-led and leveraged approach adopted by Delivery Hero will indeed “raise all boats”. Many of us are struggling to manage SaaS spend in the age of AI.

 

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7 November 2025; Newbury, U.K.

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