FinOps Evolved: Key Insights from Day One of FinOps X Europe 2024

The FinOps Foundation’s flagship conference has kicked off in Europe, and it’s set to be a remarkable event. Attendees familiar with the San Diego event will feel right at home, just with the Mediterranean as the backdrop instead of the Pacific. But even those new to the FinOps scene will quickly find themselves among friends, both familiar and new.

The inaugural FinOps X Europe conference has brought the vibrant energy of San Diego to Barcelona’s stunning beachfront, marking a significant milestone in the global expansion of the FinOps movement. As the cloud financial management landscape continues to evolve, several transformative trends have emerged that are reshaping how organizations approach cloud spending and optimization. Here is what you need to know from the first day.

The Expanding Scope of FinOps

A major revelation from the conference was that FinOps practices are no longer confined to public cloud spend. J.R. Storment, Executive Director of the FinOps Foundation, shared early data from the State of FinOps survey that made clear that many FinOps teams are already being asked to play strategic roles in SaaS, Licensing, and Datacenter management.

Beyond Public Cloud

• 72% of organizations are now applying FinOps to SaaS management
• 35% are leveraging FinOps practices for data center operations
• 53% are incorporating software licensing into their FinOps focus

“Instead of cloud teams being siloed off, they’re doing FinOps over here in the corner. They become part of the larger integration and help the business move faster,” Storment explained. As cloud spend becomes a larger share of IT budgets, FinOps teams are increasingly collaborating with IT finance, procurement, and software asset management functions to provide a unified view of technology spend.

FOCUS 1.1. is Here

A major highlight will be the deep dive into FOCUS™ 1.1, the latest FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification version. Released just days before the conference FOCUS 1.1 introduces enhancements that allow FinOps practitioners to perform more granular multi-cloud analysis. Key updates include new columns for tracking capacity reservations, commitment discounts, service subcategories, and SKU data. Sessions will explore how these updates improve the precision of cloud cost management and enable more effective decision-making. With incremental releases planned every six months to expand support for SaaS datasets and other IT costs, adopting FOCUS is a key topic for vendors and practitioners.

AI Integration and Cost Management

Another key theme was applying FinOps principles to managing the cost and value of artificial intelligence and machine learning initiatives. As Storment pointed out, the question is not just what AI can do for FinOps, but “how you apply the FinOps practice to your AI so that you can ensure the business value.”

AI Implementation Patterns

• Cloud-based generative AI services lead adoption
• SaaS-based AI solutions show strong uptake
• GPU infrastructure investments are growing, both in cloud and on-premises

With the rapid adoption of cloud-based AI services, FinOps teams need to help business leaders evaluate trade-offs between cost, performance, and business impact of different AI implementation options, from SaaS AI services to specialized hardware like GPUs. Optimizing usage and workload placement will be critical FinOps activities.

Shift (all the way) Left

FinOps is “shifting left” to the earliest stages of product development to enable data-driven build vs. buy decisions. Rather than being parachuted in post-deployment to optimize costs, FinOps teams are partnering with product owners to model TCO of different architectural choices and challenge assumptions early.

Earlier Integration

• FinOps teams are now involved in the initial stages of product development
• Cost and sustainability considerations are being incorporated into architectural decisions
• Focus has shifted from optimization to value-driven decision making

“At the phase of figuring out what business problem we’re solving, what challenge we’re solving, what value we need to bring, the FinOps team is coming in to help model the potential cost across those different types of technology,” explained Storment. This underscores the increasingly strategic nature of the FinOps role.

Ready for the Challenge

CloudBolt, having attended FinOps conferences for the past two years, wouldn’t miss this inaugural European event. As a Gold Sponsor, CloudBolt will be at the heart of the action, ready to tackle the expanding scope of FinOps head-on.

With recent announcements like the partnership with CloudEagle for SaaS management and the launch of CloudBolt Agent for private cloud and data center visibility, CloudBolt is proving its commitment to providing a comprehensive FinOps solution. Add to that their early bets on being 100% FOCUS-ready, and it’s clear that CloudBolt is at the forefront of the FinOps evolution.

In fact, CloudBolt’s Chief Product Officer, Kyle Campos, will be leading an interactive chalk talk on AI in FinOps. This collaborative deep dive will cover AI/ML applications, strategies for maximizing ROI, and how FOCUS accelerates AI adoption. It’s a session not to be missed. For those ready to see CloudBolt in action, their product experts will be on hand to provide personalized demos showcasing their upcoming features, including conversational AI for cost management, AI-driven optimization insights, and advanced automation to close the “insight to action” gap.

Looking Forward

FinOps X painted an exciting portrait of the future of cloud financial management. As FinOps practices mature and expand, they will play an increasingly central role in shaping enterprise technology strategy and optimizing cloud investments. Practitioners will need to embrace new skills and stakeholder relationships to manage this broadening scope.

Ultimately, FinOps remains a people-centric, collaborative discipline focused on maximizing the business value of cloud. “The decisions can’t be made in a vacuum,” stressed Storment. “The business value comes out of the people, the collaboration of the processes, the time they get into the decision making happens.”

One thing is clear: FinOps is becoming an indispensable capability for any organization seeking to maximize the value of cloud. Finance, engineering, and business leaders should look to strengthen their FinOps muscles to enable more real-time, data-driven decision making and collaboration in the cloud era.

Additionally, the new Use Case Query Sandbox is now live at focus.finops.org/sandbox. This sandbox allows users to execute Use-Case SQL queries against sample data from cloud providers and view the results.

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