Understanding the Basics of FinOps - what is it, why should I care?

This is the first blog of a series of write-ups that I intend to write in the coming months. Over the years, I’ve seen firsthand how infrastructure costs can quickly spiral out of control without the proper process and culture. That’s where FinOps comes in—it's a powerful approach that helps you manage infrastructure spending while still enabling innovation. If you’re new to FinOps, let me explain the basics and show you how to take your first steps into this important practice.

First off, FinOps stands for Financial Operations, and it’s all about bringing financial accountability into the cloud. Traditionally, finance and IT teams operated separately, but with cloud services, we need to work together more closely. FinOps helps bridge that gap by ensuring engineers, finance teams, and leadership collaborate to make intelligent, cost-efficient decisions.

Here’s how I approach it:

1. Create Visibility: The first thing I always do is ensure we have complete visibility into our cloud usage and spending. Without that, it's impossible to know where our money is going. We can use tools that provide real-time cost insights broken down by team, project, or service. Making informed decisions is much easier once everyone can see the numbers in real-time.

2. Set Budgets and KPIs: After getting visibility, the next step is to set transparent budgets and performance goals. I’m not just trying to cut costs for the sake of it—I want to align our spending with our actual business objectives. By setting the right key performance indicators (KPIs), we can measure whether we get the most value from our cloud investments while staying within budget.

3. Build a Collaborative Organisation and team culture: FinOps is about collaboration. It’s not just a set of tools or rules; it’s a mindset. When working with clients, I ensure that our engineers, finance teams, and leadership work together consistently to optimize cloud usage without sacrificing performance.

By following these steps, I’ve seen real improvements in managing cloud costs, and I believe any team can benefit from it. FinOps is not just about saving money—it's about making sure every dollar we spend on the cloud is working as hard as we are.

Hopefully, this was a nice, easy introduction; the next in this series will explore “Why FinOps is Essential for Cloud Efficiency.”