Now I’m home and finally able to truly reflect on FinOps XE, I think I may have enjoyed it even more than I thought at the time. There is nothing like being in a room (or in this case an entire hotel) with people who understand your world and challenges. Spending 3 days with so many peers, friends, and people I respect greatly was exhilarating. On top of that, I’m a huge fan of the direction things are moving. Hearing J.R Storment talking about the next five years makes me even more excited for not just the future of FinOps, but also for the team at Synyega.

So why am I so excited?

FinOps, when adopted well, has been incredibly successful in supporting organisations in distilling and improving the value they get from the cloud.  This has helped move IT from just being a cost centre to being an important business partner within the organisation, enabling innovation and improvements. For the last few years, I’ve been wondering, “Why does this have to stop with Cloud?” and that’s why I joined Synyega. I saw software and licensing issues more and more frequently as both a cloud architect and a Head of FinOps. Additionally, on a personal note, cloud sustainability, or GreenOps, was becoming increasingly important to me as a person. 

When I learned Synyega had the same beliefs, it was a no brainer for me to join.  For the past year, we’ve been working hard to support organisations in making ITAM, FinOps and GreenOps work better by collaborating wherever possible. This is what drove us to define what we considered Convergence to be: “Where ITAM, FinOps and GreenOps are better together than alone.”

The FinOps Foundation and many of their leading supporting organisations, such as HSBC with the FinOps rockstar Natalie Daly, have been finding the exact same thing, and as such, the Foundation has added “Scopes” to the FinOps Framework. Expanding FinOps beyond the cloud, into private cloud, SaaS, ITAM and sustainability. Bringing the brilliant ethos and processes developed in FinOps, into areas that haven’t been receiving the love and attention (or executive buy-in) to really drive the value that they could to an organisation. You can read Rich Gibbon’s take on FinOps and what it means for ITAM here :  https://www.synyega.com/insights/the-expanding-scope-of-finops-and-what-it-means-for-itam

I’m thrilled to be part of this journey, helping the Foundation expand the community into these disciplines and supporting practitioners to enhance the value their organisations derive from IT, not just in terms of cost, but also in terms of carbon reduction.

Overall, I am so excited about the direction of FinOps and can’t wait for FinOps X in San Diego, if you would like to discuss how your organisation can benefit from FinOps or a Converged approach to FinOps, ITAM and GreenOps, simply click on the link below to arrange a short call to discuss your needs.